David James Clarke

David James Clarke (born 1954) is honorary professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of Hong Kong where he taught from 1986 to 2017. He was born in Somerset, England, earned his PhD in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, in 1983. As an art historian he specialises in the art of Europe, North America and China from the eighteenth century to the present day. He is also active as a visual artist, particularly as a photographer.

Selected publications

Journal articles Clarke’s scholarly articles have been published in journals such as Art History, Art Journal, Journal of American Studies, Oriental Art, Public Culture, The American Journal of Semiotics, Art Criticism, Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Visual Culture, Early Music, Semiotica, Asian Art News, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, Localities, and Third Text.

Books Modern Art: A Graphic Guide, Camden Press, 1987. The Influence of Oriental Thought on Postwar American Painting and Sculpture, Garland Publishing, 1988. Art and Place: Essays on Art from a Hong Kong Perspective, Hong Kong University Press, 1996. Modern Chinese Art, Oxford University Press, 2000. Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization, Reaktion Books, 2001. Reclaimed Land: Hong Kong in Transition, Hong Kong University Press, 2002. Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City, Hong Kong University Press, 2007. Water and Art, Reaktion Books, 2010. Chinese Art and its Encounter with the World, Hong Kong University Press, 2011. Interruptions (co-author with Xu Xi), University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2016. China-Art-Modernity: A Critical Introduction to Chinese Visual Expression from the Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the Present Day, Hong Kong University Press, 2019.

Online projects

"Hong Kong in Transition"

Selected solo exhibitions Source:

Hong Kong Nocturne, Goethe-Gallery, Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes, Hong Kong, 2002 1968 / 2002, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003 Reclaimed Land: Hong Kong in Transition, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2005 A Year in the Life of a City: Recent Photographs by David Clarke, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2007 Hong Kong Experience: An Exhibition of Photographs by David Clarke, Brewhouse Gallery, Royal William Yard, Plymouth, England, 2007 From Photography to Music: a creative dialogue between David Clarke and Chan Hing-yan, University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong, 2013 Interruptions, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, 2016

Selected group exhibitions Source: A poem was set to music in Hong Kong Odyssey, presented in the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Festival. ‘A jellyfish explains life’, a short fictional text, was presented on the website of the literary magazine Cha in 2022.