Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2024

The Space of Aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Space—The Journey and Purpose of Henri Lefebvre’s Aesthetic Thought in China

(Abstract)

Xu Dongliang

Lefebvre’s aesthetic thought in China at different times presents implicit and explicit historical form along with thematic changes, and spatial characteristics such as cross-domain propagation and misplacement. In the 1950s and 1960s, his aesthetic theories entered China through the Soviet Union, experiencing a drastic change from “progress” to “revisionism,” and failing to gain room for theoretical growth. Since 1978, in the context of modern/post-modern and globalization/urbanization, Lefebvre’s theories of alienation and everyday life have been placed in the peripheral vision of Western Marxism and aesthetic criticism in China and then been misplaced. His idea of space, in the context of the “spatial turn,” intervenes in the study of literature and culture and then undergoes aesthetic transitions, and has been simplified, misinterpreted and obscured to varying degrees.