The Art of Useless

Tze-lan D. Sang, author of Documenting Taiwan on Film: Issues and Methods in New Documentaries:
By closely examining a broad selection of documentaries, feature films, and other artistic works and cultural products, Hui illuminates not only the works themselves but also the sociocultural environments that have nurtured these works and in turn been shaped by them. A useful and enlightening perspective on Chinese middle-class consumer culture.

Ban Wang, author of Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China:
A cutting-edge work of cultural studies, this book shines a penetrating light on the rise of a middle class in China. Examining the powers of mass media, film, and fashion industry, Calvin Hui offers us fascinating scenarios and critical insights into how consumerist fantasies raise the pretensions of a status-seeking “bourgeoisie” while opening up dream spaces for alienated labor.

Michael Berry, author of Speaking in Images and A History of Pain:
From Never Forget, a 1964 socialist film intent on educating a factory worker who longs for a fancy suit, to the forty dazzling costume changes in 1980’s Romance on Lu Mountain, to the white-collar fashion presentations in 2010’s Go! Lala Go!, the politics of how one dresses has been a crucial coordinate for navigating cultural identity in contemporary China. In The Art of Useless, Calvin Hui takes us on a fascinating cultural tour that remaps our understanding of the relationship among fashion, politics, and visual culture during an era of unprecedented social transformation.