Fengyi Guo

Thesis

Publishing Transnational Dada: Transmission, Mediation, and the Making of a Movement, 1916–1989

Supervisor: Michael White

Research interests

My doctoral research investigates how Dada was constructed, transmitted, and reinterpreted across Europe, the United States, and China between 1916 and 1989.

Adopting a genealogical approach, the project examines the role of publications in shaping Dada’s historical identities and subsequent reception. It focuses on little magazines, manifestos, exhibition catalogues, anthologies, translations, and reprints, exploring how processes of selection, classification, reproduction, and circulation produced different versions of Dada across time and geographical contexts.

The research traces Dada’s development through early publications in Zurich, Berlin, Paris, and New York, its postwar reconstruction through exhibitions and anthologies, and its reception in China during the 1930s and 1980s, particularly through the Juelan Society and Xiamen Dada.

By examining publications alongside the artists, editors, translators, and institutions responsible for their circulation, the thesis considers how Dada was repeatedly reconstructed and how these processes contributed to the formation of modern art history.

My thesis is funded by a 2025–2029 Joint PhD Scholarship, China Scholarship Council and University of York

Papers & Publications

Conference Papers

• Guo, Fengyi. “Fluxus Multiples as Portable Archives: Circulation, Classification, and Institutional Reabsorption.” Association for Art History Annual Conference, Cambridge, UK, April 2026.
• Guo, Fengyi. “Sending Elsewhere: Fluxus Mail Art, Delay, and Epistemic Disobedience.” 38th German Congress for Art History, Munich, Germany, February 2026.
• Guo, Fengyi. “Grievable Spaces: Site, Mourning, and the Political Body in Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece.” LCAHM Conference 2025: Challenging Times, Birmingham, UK, May 2025.
• Guo, Fengyi. “Feminine Space and Expanding the Openness of Thirdspace in Chinese Apartment Art in the Early 1990s.” Association for Art History Annual Conference, York, UK, April 2025.