But I take your point(s). Hindsight is a great thing, and history is written by the winners, as they say.

And you're right to suggest there is some kind of conceit here. There always is. The older generations are now in a position to take advantage of their success/longevity to allow us to reappraise their previous work, indeed their continued presence forces us to do so (if only to avoid being bored to death by the existing definitions).

This has got me thinking about the CPU artist Zu Jing, who's work I once tried to reduce to "young Chinese artist obsessing on her legs – therefore unable or unwilling to deal with larger issues – wow, it's like her whole generation". That says a lot about my ignorance of Chinese society and inability to see beyond the surface of her work or place it in a context – reductive nonsense. I did her a disservice with that line. I wonder if there is any way to think of narcissism as somehow socially engaged?

Likewise, I noticed in a recent essay on Li Shurui that Bao Dong wrote something to the effect of "Chinese artists have never been interested in minimalism, pop art, or op art because of their lack of social significance.“ Obviously this completely ignores the ideological formations that produce minimal and retinal art, but more so it also implies that Chinese artists are somehow uniquely and heroically interested in making "socially engaged" work, and that just seems absurd. Same kind of conceit at work here?