Xu Demin
Xu Demin was born in 1953 in Shanghai, China. He graduated from Fudan University in 1982 with a B.A. in Economics. In 1987, Xu started to work as an officer in the Publicity Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee. After the Tienanmen Square protests in 1989, Xu resigned his position and started a new career in art. Xu Demin is one of the first Chinese art theorists to dedicate himself to the study of abstract art and its origins. Although commonly believed to be an invention of the West, Xu's theory finds that abstraction was in fact an invention of the East. Through the intensive academic study of art history, and his own painting, Xu has established a theoretical system of abstract aesthetics that has come to be accepted as Chinese Abstract Art. Xu is the founder and chief editor of Chinese Abstract Art Magazine as well as the founder and professor of the popular course, Creation and Aesthetics of Abstract Art at Fudan University in Shanghai.
