Arts of China Consortium(formerly Chinese and Japanese Art History WWW Virtual Library) TO ATTEND: Conferences, Symposia, Seminars, Lectures |
|
Listings below are organized chronologically.
Institute of Fine Arts
New York University
[courtesy of China Project Workshop, 8/26/11, 10/4/11]
It gives us great pleasure to announce a new regular event in NYC in the Chinese art field. The China Project Workshop, open to anyone interested in pre-modern Chinese art or archaeology, will take place monthly at the Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78 St., starting Friday, September 9. The Workshop will meet eight times each year, from September to December and February to May. Meetings will generally be held on a Friday from 6pm to 8pm.
A Forum for Informed Discussion
As we all know, New York has an extraordinary concentration of expertise in pre-modern Chinese art and archaeology, in the form of the many specialist Chinese curators, dealers, auction house specialists, collectors, archaeologists, art historians, and historians who live and work here. New York is also an important destination for expert colleagues living elsewhere. Yet, we have long lacked an ongoing forum where everyone with a serious interest can meet regularly to keep up with new developments in the field and engage in informed discussion.
Lectures on Chinese art and archaeology are by no means uncommon in New York City, and we do not intend to add to their number. Important as lectures are, the experience of giving a lecture rarely changes very much the publication that the lecturer eventually authors. Correspondingly, for most audience members the experience of hearing a lecture tends to be rather passive. The China Project Workshop will operate instead on a discussion principle. The format is as follows:
From time to time, we expect to break with this format in order to organize a discussion of some thorny issue of dating or attribution or interpretation. On those occasions we will replace the usual single presenter with a group of two or three presenters who will discuss the problem among themselves before ceding the floor to a general moderated discussion.
The Presenters
Projects are presented at the Workshop by invitation. The first year's presenters include four art historians, one archaeologist, one historian, one museum curator, and one leading dealer. This is a much higher percentage of academics than we plan to have in the future, but it seemed more important to get the show off the ground than to fuss over the initial range of participants. Presenters will gradually come to reflect more accurately the full spectrum of expertise on Chinese art and archaeology. Most of the first year's presenters are based in New York City, but in subsequent years we expect to include a higher proportion of presenters from elsewhere in North America and overseas.
What We Hope to Achieve
Our hope is that the Workshop will become known as a place where someone working on a particular project can receive informed, constructive feedback at a point where it can really make a difference. We also hope that the Workshop will develop a reputation as a place where different kinds of expertise are exchanged on an even playing field. If we succeed, then New York City will finally have the forum it needs for the scholarly and intellectual interests that go along with our shared passion for Chinese art and archaeology.
If this announcement has been forwarded to you and you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here.
Provisional Schedule
9 September
Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), in "Early Ming Beijing: What Did It Look Like?,"
will discuss the center of Beijing and its imperial monuments ca. 1450: How did the urban and palace landscape differ from what we can still see today?
14 October
Jeehee Hong (Syracuse University), "Commonalities between tombs and Buddhist sutra repositories during the 10th-14th centuries"
11 November
Bruce Rusk (Cornell University), "Reignmakers: Ming Imperial Production and Its Imitators"
9 December
Colin Mackenzie (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), "Rethinking the Display of Chinese Art in a Museum Setting: The Nelson-Atkins Museum as an (ongoing) Case Study"
10 February
Hsueh-man Shen (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), "Between One and Many: Interpreting Large Numbers in the Buddhist Art of China"
RSVP required. For reservations click here, or e-mail ifa.events@nyu.edu with "China 2/10" in the subject line.
Spring 2012 (dates still to be determined)
- James Lally (J. J. Lally and Co.) will discuss a topic as yet to be decided.
- Alain Thote (École pratique des Hautes Etudes), just back from a year in China, will discuss current directions in Chinese archaeology.
- Lihong Liu (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU) will discuss paintings by Wen Zhengming in relation to 16th century understandings of place.
Huntington Library
San Marino, CA
12 November 2011 - 14 May 2012
[from Huntington, 2/4/12]
15 November
Suzanne Cahill (University of California, San Diego), "Charts of the Cosmos: Chinese Bronze Mirrors and Textiles of the Warring States through the Tang Periods"
Suzanne Cahill will speak on two types of early Chinese material culture, bronze mirrors and silk textiles, drawing examples from the Cotsen collections. Cahill will read the designs on mirrors and textiles as templates that tell us what early Chinese elites believed was true and important, what they desired, and what they feared, and suggest that, over a long period of time, artisans producing works in two such apparently different media influenced each other's designs.
7 February
Lothar von Falkenhausen (University of California, Los Angeles), "The Introduction of Mirrors into China, and their Subsequent Transformation"
Lothar von Falkenhausen, scholar of art history and the archaeology of China at University of California, Los Angeles, will speak on the origin and geographic spread of Chinese bronze mirrors. During the first millennium of China's great Bronze Age, mirrors were not frequently seen; but after about 400 BC, bronze mirrors quite suddenly became a tremendously important part of Chinese material culture, which they remained for many centuries. What changed? This lecture will explore the cultural transformations China underwent during the late first millennium BC and explain why mirrors rose to prominence.
19 April
David Scott (University of California, Los Angeles), "Chinese Bronze Mirrors: The Virtual and the Real"
David Scott, professor in the Department of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles, and chair of the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation, will explore authenticity issues surrounding ancient Chinese bronze mirrors. Using the Cotsen collection of mirrors as a point of departure, Scott will consider how these wonderful originals were cast, and how some of the later copies betray differences in patina, composition or technological details.
Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst (Museum of East Asian Art)
Köln, Germany
19 October 2011 - 5 March 2012
[from MOK, 1/4/12]
5 January
Adele Schlombs (Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst), "Die Entdeckung Japans: Adolf Fischer (1856-1914) und der Aufbau der Sammlung japanischer Malerei des Museums für Ostasiatische Kunst in Köln [The discovery of Japan: Adolf Fischer (1856-1914) and the structure of the painting collection of the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne]"
2 February
Doris Ledderose Croissant (Universität Heidelberg), "Riskante Perspektiven: Blicktabu und Schaulust in den Bildmedien Japans vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit [Dangerous perspectives: taboo and curiosity in the Japanese visual media from the Middle Ages to modern times]"
Ashmolean Museum
Oxford, UK
[from Ashmolean, 12/31/11]
In association with Yakusha-e Kabuki Prints–A Continuing Tradition (29 November 2011 - 4 March 2012)
7 January
Ellis Tinios (University of Leeds), "Mirror of the Stage: Kabuki Actor Prints from Japan, 1700–1900"
Colour woodblock prints were acclaimed by contemporaries as one of the "famous products" of Edo (present-day Tokyo). They provide us with a vivid picture of Japanese popular culture between 1700–1900. The kabuki theatre lay at the heart of that popular culture and prints depicting kabuki actors dominated print output. This lecture will look at the evolution of actor prints and the depiction of particular leading actors. The lecture will be followed by a session viewing actor prints and illustrated books in the Jameel Study Centre, and a guided tour of the Yakusha-e special display.
9 February
Monika Bincsik (Ritsumeikan University), "Lacquer in the World of Kabuki"
This lecture will look at how kabuki actors, so vividly portrayed in Japanese woodblock prints of the nineteenth century, were also represented on lacquer objects. Lacquer designs inspired by woodblock prints of beauties and landscapes will also be discussed.
Kyoto National Museum
Kyoto, Japan
7 January - 26 February 2012
7 January
Nishigami Minoru (Kyoto National Museum), "[The modernization of Chinese painting and the influence of Japan]"
21 January
Wu Hongliang (Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy/Qi Baishi Memorial Museum), "[The wonder of Eastern art: Research and exhibition of the Qi Baishi Collection at the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy]"
4 February
Lu Weirong (Waseda University), "[Exchanges between China and Japan regarding 'foreign painting', primarily in modern Shanghai]"
11 February
Kyoto National Museum International Symposium 2012
Section I. Keynote speakers
- Lee Mingwei (Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts), "[Japanese style resembling the Lingnan School of painting]"
- Li Chao (Shanghai University), "Chinese modern 'foreign painting' and Japan"
- Michaela Pejcochova (National Gallery in Prague), "[Encounter of two Worlds: The activities in Beijing of 'foreign painting' teacher and collector Vojtech Chytil in the 1920s-1930s]"Section II. Panel discussion
Lee Mingwei, Li Chao, Michaela Pejcochova, Wu Mengjin (Kyoto National Museum), Nishigami MinoruTo apply, send a self-addressed return postcard with your name, address, age, occupation, and phone number to the address below. Applications will be processed after December 1, 2011 on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Kyoto National Museum
527 Chaya-cho
Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto 605-0931
Attn: International Symposium Committee
25 February
Shan Guolin (Shanghai Museum), "[The Shanghai School and the influence of Japanese and Western painting]"
Greenville, SC
13-15 January 2012
[from SEC/AAS, 12/9/11; panels/papers relating to Chinese/Japanese visual/material culture listed below]
Panel 10: The Social Function of Imagery in Architecture, Painting, Literature, and Illustration of Traditional China
Chair: Li-ling Hsiao (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
- Wei-Cheng Lin, (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "Screening the Chinese Interior: Concealing, Layering, and Illusion"
- Andrew Shih-Ming Pai (National Taiwan Normal University), "The Hidden Pictorial Intention: Imagery and the "Sociality" of Hermiticism in Song and Yuan Painting"
- Meng-Yun Chen (National Tsinghua University, Taiwan), "A Leisure Grass Transformed into A Jade Camellia: The Meaning of the Names for Tang Xianzu's Poetry Anthologies"
- Li-ling Hsiao, "Kinesis Embedded in Static: Butterflies and Leaves as Pictorial Metaphors of Love and Communication"
Panel 20: Masters in Chinese Art History
Chair: Jim Yoxall (Mary Baldwin College)
- Sara Yeung (University of Virginia), "Art and Social Networks: Hu Zhengyan (1584-1674) and the Contributors to the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Painting and Calligraphy"
- Mina Kim (Ohio State University), "Bada Shanren: Lotus and Birds of 1690 as his Transitional Work"
- Seojeong Shin (Northern Virginia Community College), "The Influence of Chinese Printed Albums on the Late Joeson Dynasty Landscape Paintings"
Panel 29: Chinese Art History
Chair: Wei-cheng Lin
- Chun-Yi (Joyce) Tsai (Columbia University), "Drunkards and Country Bumpkins on Parade: The Changing Representations of the Demonic in 13th Century Zhong Kui Procession Paintings"
- Youmi Kim Efurd (University of Kansas), "Case Study of Ten Kings of Hell Paintings in Baiyun guan: Iconography, Date, and Function"
- Yu Jiang (Southern University at New Orleans), "Informative and Entertaining: Presenting Chinese Ritual Bronzes in Museums"
Panel 31: Adaptation in Japanese Visual Culture
Chair: Hongbing Zhang (Fayetteville State University)
- Alanna Mori (Duke University), "Imagining Childhood: Seirei no Moribito, From Novel to Anime"
- Dongming Zhang (Furman University), "Michio Takeyama's Harp of Burma and Japan's After-War Rhetoric"
- David Ross (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill_, "Defoe and his Discontents: Teshigahara's Women in the Dunes, Koreeda's Nobody Knows, and Lee Hey-jun's Castaway on the Moon"
- Elizabeth A. Marks (Rice University), "Little Plastic Castles: Precarity and Hesitancy in the Japanese TV Industry"
TANIGUCHI Kôsei (Nara National Museum)
Nara National Museum
Nara, Japan
15 January 2012
[from NNM, 1/7/12]
Richard Townsend (Art Institute of Chicago)
Art Institute of Chicago
19 January 2012
[from AIC, 8/6/11]
Richard Townsend, curator, traces original motifs and evolving decorations as 16th-century Mexican earthenware came to reflect influences of Chinese porcelains as well as qualities absorbed earlier from the Iberian Peninsula.
Ishikawa Kyuyoh (Kyoto Seika University)
International House of Japan
Tokyo, Japan
19 January 2012
[from H-ASIA, 12/27/11]
Calligraphy has evolved over the centuries as the prime conduit of culture in the kanji civilizations of East Asia. It has fulfilled a cultural role in the Orient, argues Ishikawa Kyuyoh, comparable to that of classical music in the West. Ishikawa is a leading artist in the vanguard of contemporary calligraphy. He is also an award-winning author of iconoclastic books about calligraphic theory and history. In his I-House Academy presentation, he will discuss about the evolution of East Asian calligraphy.
Ishikawa Kyuyoh took an interest in calligraphy's aesthetic possibilities as a child in Fukui Prefecture, where he was born in 1945. He has exhibited widely and earned recognition for his boldly original work. His thought-provoking commentary on calligraphy became available in English with the 2011 publication of Taction: The Drama of the Stylus in Oriental Calligraphy (I-House Press). It has recently received the Japan Society of Translators Special Translation Award for 2011.
Contact & Reservations:
Program Department, International House of Japan
5-11-16, Roppongi, Minato-ku
Tokyo 106-0032
Japan
tel +81 03-3470-3211
fax +81 03-3470-3170
e-mail <program@i-house.or.jp>
Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures)
Norwich Cathedral
Norwich, UK
19 January 2012
[from SISJAC, 1/22/12]
UC Berkeley graduate student conference in East Asian studies
University of California, Berkeley
20-21 January 2012
[from IEAS, 1/21/12; papers relating to visual/material culture listed below]
- Kevin Carrico (Cornell University), "Han Trouble and the Ethnic Cure: An Ethnographic Study of China's Han Clothing Movement"
- Lik Hang Tsui (University of Oxford), "Complaining about Lived Spaces: Personal Responses to Urban Problems in Northern Song (960-1127) Kaifeng"
- Christopher Foster (Harvard University), "Cultural Diversity and the Origins of Writing in East Asia: A Case Study of the Dinggong Pottery Sherd Inscription"
- Matthew Haley (University of Texas at Austin), "Nationalist Orthography; The Aesthetic Dimension of Hangul in Pre-Colonial Korea"
- Claire Yang (University of California, Berkeley), "The Mortuary Culture of Medieval China and Transformation of Tang Elites"
Peter Lee (art and heritage consultant)
Peranakan Museum
Singapore
21 January 2012
[from Peranakan, 12/31/11]
The Chinese have lived in Java for centuries. By the early 17th century--the dawn of the colonial era--they had formed a distinct urban community. Chinese merchants were involved in the textile trade and by the second half of the 18th century, Chinese craftsmen were producing batiks. This talk will examine stylistic trends in Chinese batiks and introduce important entrepreneurs of the 20th century who produced luxury cloths from centres such as Lasem, Pekalongan, Cirebon, Kedungwuni, Kudus, and Demak, on the north coast of Java.
Peter Lee is an independent art and heritage consultant, and honorary curator of Baba House, a historical house museum managed by the National University of Singapore. He is the co-author of The Straits Chinese House, published in 2006. He is the curator of Sarong Kebaya: Peranakan Fashion and Its International Sources (1-8 April 2012).
Nezu Museum
Tokyo, Japan
[from Nezu, 1/8/12]
[The exhibition runs from 7 January to 12 February 2012].
21 January
NOGUCHI Tsuyoshi (Nezu Museum), "[One Hundred Camellias and Kan'ei culture]"
28 January
YASUMURA Toshinobu (Itabashi Art Museum), "[The impact of pictures of grasses and flowers: Aspects of the early Edo period and later developments]"
Donald Jenkins (Emeritus, Portland Art Museum)
Annual Mildred Schnitzer Lecture in Asian Art
Portland Art Museum
22 January 2012
[from PAM, 1/13/12]
Japan's industrialization in the 20th century brought about radical social and economic change. This lecture explores how Japanese printmakers asserted their modernity while sustaining an art form with resonances deep in their cultural heritage. [In conjunction with the exhibition The Artist's Touch The Craftsman's Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum (1 October 2011 – 22 January 2012)]
Kunigo Hideaki (Tokyo National Museum)
Tokyo National Museum
24 January 2012
[from TNM, 1/19/12]
[In conjunction with the exhibition Autumn and Winter Landscapes in the National Treasure Gallery (2 January - 5 February 2012)]
Sarah Thompson (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Art Institute of Chicago
26 January 2012
[from AIC, 8/6/11]
Sarah Thompson, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, studies Japanese prints that contain images of other prints in deference to earlier masters, as a marketing tool, or as parody.
Timon Screech (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
musée du quai Branly
Paris France
26 January 2012
[from mqB, 1/3/12]
Chester Beatty Library
Dublin, Ireland
17 November - 26 February 2012
[from CBL, 1/3/12]
26 January
Nick Pearce (University of Glasgow), "John Thomson's Illustrations of China and Its People"
16 February
Yuping Chung (Burrell Collection), "Travelling, Discovering and Shooting: a Victorian Photographer's Sport"
Denver Art Museum
Denver, CO
27 January 2012
[from DAM, 1/27/12]
This symposium examines one of China's most influential and celebrated artists. Speakers will include Julia F. Andrews, Chen Hao, Huajing Xiu Maske, Kevin McLoughlin, Julie Segraves, Fangfang Xu, and Xu Qingping.
Free with ticket to Xu Beihong: Pioneer of Modern Chinese Painting [through 29 January 2012], but reservations are required. Call (720) 913-0130.
VisAsia Hingyiu Mok Mandarin Language Lecture 2012
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
28 January 2012
[from AGNSW, 12/11/11]
From the cross on the lotus of Tang Nestorianism to the palace architecture of the Christian university campus in modern China, religious art from the West has undergone tremendous transformation since its introduction to China via the Silk Road. Join professor Gu Weimin from the Shanghai Normal University and adjunct professor Milton Wan from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in a visual art journey, spanning over a thousand years, from Rome to Beijing, and discover the inter-faith merging of Christian, Buddhist and Muslim arts along the way.
NOTE: This lecture is delivered in Mandarin only.
This event is part of the 2012 City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival, celebrating the Year of the Dragon.
Tsukamoto Maromitsu (Tokyo National Museum)
Tokyo National Museum
28 January 2012
[from TNM, 1/19/12]
[In conjunction with the exhibition Two Hundred Selected Masterpieces from the Palace Museum, Beijing (2 January - 19 February 2012)]
Clare Pollard (Ashmolean Museum)
Annual Oriental Ceramic Society Lecture hosted by Bonhams
Bonhams
London, UK
31 January 2012
[from OCS Autumn Programme 2011]
Clare Pollard will introduce a rare lacquered Imari garniture from Althorp, recently saved for the nation and now in the Ashmolean Museum. The talk will discuss the garniture within the context of the Japanese export porcelain trade and the development of the Imari decorative style. Clare is Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean Museum. She previously worked at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Her research has focused on Miyagawa Kozan and Meiji ceramics.
Stanley Abe (Duke University)
Institute of Fine Arts
New York University
31 January 2012
[from IFA, 1/25/12]
Open to the public, RSVP required. For reservations click here, or e-mail ifa.events@nyu.edu with "Silberberg 1/31" in the subject line.
Mandy Jui-man Wu (Harvard University)
Harvard University
2 February 2012
[from Fairbank Center, 2/2/12]
Some Sogdian merchants, craft workers, translators, and priests coming from Central Asia via the Silk Road, started to establish Sogdian communities in China around the third century CE. The newly excavated Sogdian tombs near Xi'an dating to the Northern Zhou period (557-581 CE) have led to a flurry of academic research. Dr. Wu will use the tomb of Kang Ye, a Zoroastrian priest, to show what Sogdian tombs can tell us about the society in which they lived. By examining the Chinese pictorial images decorating Kan Ye's funerary furniture, which actually represent Zoroastrian death rituals, Dr. Wu will explore the political negotiation of cultural identity as a result of processes of transculturation in sixth-century China.
Mandy Jui-Man Wu is currently an An Wang postdoctoral fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. She received her PhD in art history from University of Pittsburgh in 2010. Her current research rethinks the issues of power, constructed identities, and transculturation through examining mortuary art in sixth-century tombs in Northern China. She has published several articles, discussing issues such as gender roles in late Neolithic mortuary practices, the centrality of exotica to visual displays in Sui tombs, and remaining Sogdians in Eastern Asia in the sixth century. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled "Art, Power, and Identities: Hybridity in Mortuary Art in Sixth-Century Northern China."
Shimatani Hiroyuki (Tokyo National Museum)
Tokyo National Museum
4 February 2012
[from TNM, 1/19/12]
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY
[from MMA, 8/10/11]
In conjunction with the exhibition Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) [21 January - 15 April 2012].
5 February
Discover how Fu Baoshi—perhaps the greatest landscape and figure painter of China's modern period—integrated Western and traditional Asian artistic influences to create a new style that was both unmistakably Chinese and undeniably modern.
- Maxwell K. Hearn (Metropolitan Museum of Art), "Introduction and Overview of Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) and Its Themes"
- Aida Yuen Wong (Brandeis University), "Expanding Tradition and Sino-Japanese Confluences in the Art of Fu Baoshi"
28 March
- Maxwell K. Hearn, "Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904-1965)"
James J. Lally (J. J. Lally & Co.)
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, MA
9 February 2012
[from MFA, 8/10/11]
J. P. Morgan and Charles Lang Freer were contemporaries who enjoyed successful business careers and acquired great wealth in America's "Gilded Age" during the late 19th century. Both men withdrew from business around 1900 and concentrated on art collecting for the remaining years of their lives. Although their motivations and ambitions as early American collectors of Chinese art were similar, their aesthetic preferences and methods of collecting Chinese ceramics produced quite different results. In this lecture, James J. Lally, president of J. J. Lally & Co. Oriental Art, reviews their careers as collectors to reveal information about the early days of Chinese ceramic collecting in America, and to provide a framework for discussing the collecting of Chinese ceramics today.
Michael Knight (Asian Art Museum)
Asian Art Museum
San Francisco, CA
9 February 2012
[from AAM, 1/30/12]
This talk will provide an overview of the role of art during the reign Zhu Di, who ruled during the Yongle reign of the Ming dynasty. Certainly among the most dynamic of the emperors of the Ming, Zhu Di was also among the most active in the arts. During his reign art played key roles within China and in diplomatic relations with other nations. Among Zhu Di's many great domestic accomplishments were the completion of many buildings in imperial capitals in Nanjing and Beijing, transfer of the primary capital to Beijing, and the rebuilding of the Grand Canal. Massive amounts of art were required for decorating the interiors of the great new buildings and for the ceremonies and rituals performed within them. A complex system was developed to commission these objects from their often distant points of manufacture and to deliver them works to the imperial capitals. Art also played a role in maintaining relations with the Ming Empire's allies and courting favor with its enemies. As the Son of Heaven with a divine right to rule, Zhu Di did not stoop to buying and selling art, instead he received tribute and presented gifts.
Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania)
China Institute
New York, NY
9 February 2012
[from China Institute, 1/30/12]
Renowned scholar and leading architectural historian, Dr. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt is Professor of East Asian Art in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator of Chinese Art at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She is author of Chinese Traditional Architecture (1984), Chinese Imperial City Planning (1990), and Liao Architecture (1997), editor and adaptor of A History of Chinese Architecture (2002), co-editor of Hawaii Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture (2005), and has written more than 60 scholarly articles and more than 30 book reviews. She has given more than 120 public lectures and conference talks. Dr. Steinhardt has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts, Social Science Research Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.
Wendy Adamek (University of Sydney)
East Asian Art and Archaeology Research Seminar
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
9 February 2012
[courtesy of L. Nickel, 2/8/12]
C. J. W.-L. Wee (Nanyang Technological University)
University of Toronto
9 February 2012
[from ASARCA-L, 2/4/12]
This presentation is an essay on the ideals or imaginaries of "Asia" (and perhaps even different forms of subjectivity) that now exist in contemporary East Asia, as manifested primarily in the form of mass culture from Japan and South Korea that, despite the complexities of language boundaries that need to be crossed, seems to have reached translocal status in East and Southeast Asia, and think through the differences from the earlier imaginaries of a modern Asia that, in many respects, Okakura shared with Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). What is notable, though, is that the exact commercial and industrial machinery that both Okakura and Tagore were critical of–in formats and form that could not have imagined in their lifetime–comes to be that which, in some respects, is in complex counterpoint to the East Asian region's tensions. What then, the presentation will ask, is the "contemporary" (or is that "postcolonial"?) region, as opposed to the modernities that both Okakura and Tagore either partially accepted or rejected as normative in the colonial era?
C. J. W.-L. Wee is an Associate Professor of English at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was previously a fellow in the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. Wee is the author of Culture, Empire, and the Question of Being Modern (2003) and The Asian Modern: Culture, Capitalist Development, Singapore (2007), and the editor of Local Cultures and the "New Asia": The State, Culture, and Capitalism in Southeast Asia (2002). Most recently, he co-edited Contesting Performance: Global Sites of Research (2010).
History of Art & Architecture Lecture Series
Brown University
Providence, RI
[courtesy of M. Lane, 1/10/12]
9 February
Jan Stuart (British Museum), "Timely Images: Chinese Art and Festival Display"
[in conjunction with the List Art Center exhibition Shape of Good Fortune: A Chinese New Year's Exhibition (23 January - 16 February)]
9 April
Hao Sheng (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), "Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition"
18 April
Craig Clunas (University of Oxford), "Looking at Looking at Chinese Painting"
Heritage & Architecture Public Forum
Asia Society
Hong Kong
10 February 2012
[from Asia Society, 12/29/11]
Discussion on architecture and heritage with:
Tod Williams & Billie Tsien (architects, designers of the new Asia Society Hong Kong Center)
David Neuman (Consultant to the Site Architect Selection Competition & Architect for the University of Virginia)
Moderator: David Lung (Dean, Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong)
A shared culture and heritage are considered essential in connecting a society as disparate as Hong Kong. There is growing recognition of the need to protect and conserve built heritage in the city. One such example is the new home of the Asia Society Hong Kong Center at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Former Explosives Magazine in Admiralty. This discussion will explore how the project came into being, the vision of the architects, and the architectural conservation lessons that Hong Kong and the region can learn from the project.
Tod Williams is principal of his own firm, and in 1986 formed the partnership, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The firm's work was honored by the American Institute of Architects in 2002 for the American Folk Art Museum, the first new museum built in New York City in over three decades. Award-winning designs by the firm include Skirkanich Hall at University of Pennsylvania which received a National Honor Award from the AIA in 2010; the Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center which was awarded an AIA New York Honor Award for interior architecture; and the C.V. Starr East Asian Library which won an AIA NY Honor Award for Architecture. Mr. Williams has held visiting professorships at the University of Texas in Austin, University of Michigan, and University of Virginia. In 1992 he was made a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects. In 2007 he was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Billie Tsien has worked with Tod Williams since 1977. Her current work includes the Asia Society Hong Kong Center complex, a new museum for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, a performing and visual arts center at the University of Chicago, and an information technology campus in Mumbai, India. Ms. Tsien maintains an interest in work that bridges the realms of art and architecture. She serves on the advisory council for the Yale School of Architecture, and is a Director of the Public Art Fund, the Architectural League of New York, and the American Academy is Rome, where she was in residence during 1999. Ms. Tsien has taught extensively in architectural programs throughout the US including the Parsons School of Design, Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
David Neuman is the Architect for the University of Virginia, where he guides sustainability and land use planning, facilities planning, and the design of capital projects at university-owned lands and facilities. A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he previously served as University Architect at Stanford University and Campus Architect and Associate Vice Chancellor for Planning at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Neuman has won over 80 national, state and regional professional awards for his campus plans, historic preservation projects, and individual building and landscape designs. His publications include Critical Architecture and Contemporary Culture; A Guidebook to the Stanford Campus and Building Type Basics for Campus Planning and Campus Facilities.
David Lung is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Heritage Resources Management. He was also Founding Director of the Architectural Conservation Programme at the Univeristy of Hong Kong's Department of Architecture. Prior to entering academia, he was an Associate Partner at Taoho Design Architects. His recent publications include Built Heritage in Transition: A Critique on Hong Kong's Conservation Movement and the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance and Heritage City - Preserving the Authenticity of Culture and Heritage.
Arts & Culture Public Forum
Asia Society
Hong Kong
10 February 2012
[from Asia Society, 12/29/11]
Discussion on Buddhism and art with:
Vishakha N. Desai (President, Asia Society)
Artists Zhang Huan, Mariko Mori & Michael Joo
Moderator: Melissa Chiu (Museum Director & Vice President Global Art Programs, Asia Society)
Originating in India, both the practice of Buddhism and the related art have been altered by local traditions and popular culture as it spread throughout Asia. The Asia Society Hong Kong Center's inaugural exhibition, Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art, presents sublimely beautiful and deeply spiritual works of art, encompassing traditional and contemporary masterpieces from different Asian cultures, and provides an opportunity to see examples of cultural adaptations and collective responses to Buddhism in pre-modern times, as well as individualized responses to Buddhism in contemporary artistic practice. Three of the artists will discuss how the representation of Buddhist subject matter has evolved over time and space.
A prolific and versatile Chinese artist based in Shanghai and New York, Zhang Huan's (born 1965) body of work includes performance art, photography, and sculpture. His performance art pieces are often disturbing and powerful, such as in 12 Square Meters, where his body was covered by excretion and insects, creating a nauseating effect. While he considers himself a Buddhist, it was only after his trip to Tibet in 2005 that his works showed a strong reference to the religion. In 2011, Zhang's Buddhist sculpture Three Heads Six Arms was installed and exhibited outside 1881 Heritage in Hong Kong. The creativity and awesomeness of this sculpture lay in its scale–it was eight meters in height. Among other places, Zhang's works have been exhibited in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and Rituals at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, and Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His solo exhibitions include the Ash Banquet at ProjectB Gallery in Milan; Neither Coming Nor Going at PaceWildenstein in New York; and Zhang Huan at Bochum Museum in Bochum and at Cotthem Gallery in Barcelona. His works are also in the public collection of Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
One the most visible Japanese artists in the international art world, Mariko Mori (born 1967) is a video and photographic artist. Her works often juxtapose Eastern mythology with Western culture; pop culture with traditional Japanese identity. Through computer-generated photographs and large-scale multi-media installations, she has produced renowned art pieces such as Birth of a Star in 1995; Nirvana in 1997; and Empty Dream in 1999. Kumano, one of the exhibits in Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art, is a single channel video with sound, exploring iconography and belief of different religious systems. Mori's works have been exhibited at various shows, including Art Tells the Times: Works by Women Artists at Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo; The Scream at Arken Museum of Modern Art in Ishøj Denmark; In the Shadows of Storms: Art of Postwar Era from the MCA Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; Mariko Mori: Kumano at Asia Society in New York; and Oneness at Groninger Museum in Groningen, Holland. Her works are also collected by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, French National Collection of Contemporary Art, The Prada Foundation in Milan, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
A science graduate turned artist, the American born Korean Michael Joo (born 1966) comes from a multi-cultural background with an interdisciplinary academic history. His works hit a turning point in the early 21st century as he reacted to the visual and textual bombardment of the information age. To reconcile his art with this new environment, he employs a range of language and structure which is rich and complex and often hard to comprehend. His Bodhi Obfuscatus (Space Baby), which won the first prize at Korea's Gwangju biennial, plays with the idea of the simultaneity of cosmic and earth; past and present; collective and individual. Joo has exhibited at shows such as the NeoHooDoo: Art of a Forgotten Faith at the Miami Art Museum in Miami; and Faces & Facts: Korean Contemporary Art in New York at the Queens Museum of Art in New York. His solo exhibitions include Glasstress at the Venice Biennale, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti; Bodhi Obfuscatus (Allegiance) at Chelsea Art Museum in New York; and Michael Joo at Rodin Gallery (Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art) in Seoul. His works are part of numerous public and private collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Samsung Centre for Art and Culture, Seoul.
Dr. Vishakha Desai has been the President and CEO of Asia Society since 2004. Prior to assuming her current position as President, Dr. Desai held several positions at Asia Society, including Museum Director and Senior Vice President. She was previously curator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the head of Public Programs and Academic Affairs. She has also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston University, Columbia University and Williams College. For her work on Asian American issues, she has received awards from the University of Massachusetts, City University of New York, and Asian Americans for Equality. Dr. Desai serves on various boards including The Brookings Institution, Bertelsmann Foundation (USA), and Asian University for Women. She has also been appointed to the international Advisory Committee for the House of World Cultures, Berlin, and the Fondazione Intercultura, Italy.
Dr. Melissa Chiu is Asia Society's Vice President, Global Art Programs and Museum Director. She is also Lead Curator of the Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art inaugural exhibition at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. She was a Getty Research Fellow (2003-2004) and is a member of the Academic Advisory Board, Asia Art Archives, Hong Kong; Advisory Board, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Vancouver, among other organizations. She is a founding member of the Asian Contemporary Art Consortium in New York, a group serving the interests of Asian art and culture at the world's leading museums and galleries. She has served as an Editor for Asian contemporary art, The Grove Dictionary of Art and is the author and editor of many books, monographs, and anthologies. Her most recent book, Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China (Charta, 2007), focuses on the international Chinese artistic diaspora. Prior to joining Asia Society, Chiu was Founding Director of the Asia-Australia Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia (1996–2001).
Agnieszka Helman-Wazny (University of Hamburg) and
Renate Nöller (BAM-Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing)
East Asian Art and Archaeology Research Seminar
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
10 February 2012
[courtesy of L. Nickel, 2/8/12]
This talk outlines some of the crucial aspects of research on the earliest surviving archive of paper and ink preserved in the manuscripts from Dunhuang and Turfan. Our research using paper fiber and ink composition analysis combined with codicological and textual information explores the possibilities for dating this material and recovering the histories of regional production and usage of writing materials in scriptoria, which are determined by the cultural background of manuscripts. Specific ink types leave a specific sign on paper depending on its type and composition. The interaction of the materials creates a unique aesthetic effect, defining the artistic properties of the manuscript sometimes to a greater degree than the scribe or artist. Paper and ink together offer a story of the manuscript that critically supplements its content, revealing the untold details of its making.
Screening and director's talk by Kaori Ishii
Japan Foundation
Toronto, ON
Canada
10 February 2012
[from ASARCA-L, 1/31/12]
This movie examines the hands of an artisan who uses cherry blossom wood stamps to transform a solid piece of fabric into a kimono. By following the process from start to finish, we experience the life of an artisan. Yoshikazu Fujimoto once saw a small piece of fabric when he was an apprentice of Edo komon paper pattern dyeing, a popular dyeing technique in Japan. This piece of fabric used the oldest dyeing technique in history, called Mokuhanzome (wood print dyeing). Although this technique had once almost become extinct, in the artisan's eyes, it appeared as something entirely new.
That was where his exploration of the technique began. He secretly pursued the study of the technique behind his master's back, and after he became independent as a professional artisan, he continued studying for six years. The road to mastering mokuhanzome, an art which had almost disappeared in Japan, was long, lonesome, and tough. Still, the artisan took this road, step by step, slowly but surely. And still to this date, he continues his journey.
It is not an exaggeration to say that there are only two ways to learn about the wood stamp dyeing technique: either go to a studio in Japan and spend a few days with an artisan, or watch this film. This film is a must-see for anyone who studies dyeing, fashion, art, culture or craftsmanship.
About the Artisan, Yoshikazu Fujimoto: Born in 1936. After graduating from high school, Mr. Fujimoto studied Edo-komon fabric printing for five years as an unpaid, live-in apprentice to the Japanese traditional crafts artisan Magobei Ishii. Although there are currently only two or three official wood print dyeing masters left in Japan, Mr. Fujimoto continues to pass on and protect its tradition. He has won numerous awards hosted by the Japan Textile Finishers Association, including a record of two grand prizes.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
10-11 February 2012
[from Michigan, 12/29/11]
This conference seeks to explore meta-disciplinary perspectives around such topics as academies, print, landscape, gardens, fashion, canons, and the language of art itself.
Following decades of multicultural scholarship, History of Art seems poised to move beyond nation-centered narratives. For this purpose the rich record of artistic practice in China offers fertile ground for speculation. If we know, for instance, that landscape painting, art collecting, and critical writing emerged independently at two ends of the Eurasian Continent, will it now be possible to develop meta-theories of "landscape" or "pictorial realism"? Or is the language of art inextricably linked to culturally distinct cognitive and visual practices? This conference seeks to explore meta-disciplinary perspectives around such topics as academies, print, landscape, gardens, fashion, canons, and the language of art itself.
FRIDAY, 10 FEBRUARY
Derek Collins (University of Michigan), Welcome
Matt Biro (University of Michigan), Opening Remarks
Martin Powers (University of Michigan), Opening AddressPanel One: Production
Chair: David Doris (University of Michigan)
- Patricia Ebrey (University of Washington), "Art Academies"
- Cary Liu (Princeton University), "Architectural Space"
- J. P. Park (University of Colorado, Boulder), "Printing"
- Martin Powers, "Art Production and Social Agency"
Respondents: David Doris, John Onians (University of East Anglia), Erik Meuggler (University of Michigan)Panel Two: Reality
Chair: Alex Potts (University of Michigan)
- Dora Ching (Princeton University), "Portraiture"
- Shane McCausland (SOAS), "Figure Painting"
- Katherine Tsiang (University of Chicago), "Religious Art"
- Peter Sturman (University of California, Santa Barbara), "Landscape"
Respondents: Alex Potts, David Summers (University of Virginia), Kevin Carr (University of Michigan)Panel Three: Persons
Chair: David Porter (University of Michigan)
- Jessica Rawson (Oxford University), "Ornament"
- Wu Hung (University of Chicago), "Ritual Objects"
- Xin Wu (College of William and Mary), "Gardens"
- Tani Barlow (Rice University), "Fashion"
Respondents: David Porter, James Elkins (Art Institute of Chicago), Diane Owen Hughs (University of Michigan)
SATURDAY, 11 FEBRUARY
Panel Four: Reflexivity
Chair: Celeste Brusati (University of Michigan)
- Eugene Wang (Harvard University), "Space"
- Alfreda Murck (National Palace Museum) "Word and Image"
- Chen Jianhua (Hong Kong Universtiy of Science and Technology), "Visuality"
- Jerome Silbergeld (Princeton University), "Literati Painting"
Respondents: Celeste Brusati, Nicholas Mirzoeff (New York University), Christian Depee (University of Michigan)Panel Five: Language
Chair: Xiaobing Tang (University of Michigan)
- Ronald Egan (University of California, Santa Barbara), "The Language of Quality"
- Susan Bush (Harvard University), "Imitation and Expression"
- Ginger Hsu (Yang Ming University, Taiwan), "Imitation and Originality"
- Richard Vinograd (Stanford University), "Classification"
- Cao Yiqiang (China Academy of Arts), "English Terms and Chinese Art"
Respondents: Xiaobing Tang, W. J. T. Mitchell (University of Chicago), Basil Dufallo (University of Michigan)Haun Saussy (University of Chicago), Closing Remarks
For all conference inquiries, please contact Stephanie Harrell.
Columbia University in the City of New York
10-11 February 2012
[from Columbia, 2/11/12; panels/papers relating to Chinese and Japanese art listed below]
Art and Material Culture of Early China
Discussant: (Minna Wu) Columbia University
Glenda Chao (Columbia University), "An Uninscribed bo Bell in the Collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Comparative Approach to Stylistic Dating"
The present study seeks to accomplish two objectives, the first is to identify with as much accuracy as possible, the potential date and location of origin of an uninscribed early Chinese bronze bo bell that is currently in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. This bell, standing at 61.9 cm (24 3/8 in.) in height, measuring 44 cm (17 5/16 in.) wide by 34 cm (13 3/8 in.) deep and weighing several hundred pounds, has been in the museum's collection since the early 1900s, but due to the lack of provenance information, has never been put on display. The second objective is to reexamine the traditional paradigm under which bronze artifacts like this bell have been studied in the past; a paradigm that draws an overly simplistic stylistic division between north China, centered on the Yellow River valley, and south China, centered on the Huai River region. According to notes accumulated by museum curators, the Museum of Fine Arts' bell has been identified as belonging to the Huai style of bell manufacture. My study will call into question this designation, as it seeks an alternate paradigm of stylistic dating that will take into account the complexities of the social and political context under which this bell was ultimately created.Yitzchak Jaffe (Harvard University), "Materializing Identity: A Statistical Analysis of the Western Zhou Liulihe Cemetery"
Questions of identity are of paramount Importance in research of the Western Zhou period both in the central plain and among its vassal states. Yet most research done to date has focused on the Zhou bureaucratic order and government. These analyses have been very successful in delineating political culture, administration and kinship ties, and have provided important information on elite taste and customs. They have however, paid less attention to uncovering other social groupings and relations, and did not systematically address the ways in which local identities were exercised or displayed. This paper presents a multivariate statistical analysis of the Liulihe cemetery of the Western Zhou state of Yan. Through this analysis new elements are uncovered comprising the complex social makeup and identity of the Liulihe occupants. These findings provide a richer understanding of the Yan society compared with the traditional approach that centered on the delineation of Zhou political elements and ethnic characteristics. A more intricate society emerges, one not solely defined by the amount of Zhou style it exhibited.Lei Yang (University of Pennsylvania), "Jade Suits and Souls: Han People's Immortal Conception"
The paper investigates the functions of jade suits in funerary practice and how the Han aristocracy perceives the way to immortality. Through reexamining the famous painting from Mawangdui Tomb number 1 and the texts of Chuci, I interpret that the top part of the painting depicts the residency of Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu) rather than the scene of heaven. From the Mawangdui painting to the jade suits, the tradition of protecting bodies was passed down to ensure rebirth. By setting up the relationship between these two burial practices, I propose that the achievement of rebirth was based on two premises at least: the immortality of body and mobility of souls. The jade suits offer a way of transforming the deceased into jade body and therefore assist the souls of the occupant to enter the Kunlun immortal residency. Moreover, based on the tradition dating back to the inner coffin of Marquis Yi of Zeng and Yangshao culture, the souls could depart from the body, instead of being confined to the cemetery. The hole in the top of jade head and the jade figures discovered inside the coffins further reveal that Mt. Kunlun is their final destination. The jade suits were to prevent decay and signify the rebirth in the Mt. Kunlun, which is known for its jade.
Cartographies of Early Modern Japan and China
Discussant: Prof. Robert Goree (Columbia University)
Joshua Batts (Columbia University), "The Commercialization of Tokaido Cartography: Consumers, Players, and Spectators"
The project of mapping--its methods, objects, and audience- grew more varied and complex in Japan during the Tokugawa period. Recent scholarship by Elizabeth Berry, among others, has touched on the transition from official cartographic endeavors to commercial ventures, and the resultant influence of popular texts in defining the spaces and places surrounding residents of the archipelago. I explore the commercialization of space as it relates to the Tôkaidô, Edo Japan's most well-traveled and well-known highway. Tôkaidô maps themselves became consumer objects, as commissioned screens and scrolls were overshadowed by woodblock prints. Additionally, the highway was coded as a popular commercial space defined by cultural and economic consumption. Meisho ("famous places") and meibutsu ("famous things") featured prominently in Tôkaidô maps, encouraging the viewer to identify the road with the consumption of locales through travel and the purchase of specialized local goods. Certain maps doubled as game boards, inviting the owner to travel the road figuratively through play. Others integrated famous verses, scenes from travel literature, and even actors, reinforcing a shared spatial and cultural corpus. Furthermore, through the inclusion of government checkpoints, daimyo and shogunal retinues, and even the emperor, representations of the Tôkaidô incorporated symbols of political authority, pageantry, and spectacle within a broader commercial framework. These commercial images took as their goal not the accurate surveying of Japan's topography and highway, but the mapping of potential connections between a growing audience and the host of people, places, and products one could encounter on the road.
Representations of Disaster in Modern Japanese Art
Discussant: Gloria Yang (Columbia University)
Franz D. Hofer (Cornell University), "Strings of Time: Ishiuchi Miyako's Photographic Mediations of Iconographic Remembrance"
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have generated a body of iconic images that has etched itself in the collective memory of each successive generation born after 1945. Many are familiar with Yamahata Yôsuke's photograph of the mother who stares vacantly beyond the camera while her child clutches a riceball. The same holds for Tsuchida Hiromi's stark black and white photographs of personal effects belonging to atom bomb victims--watches, clothing, twisted spectacles--collected by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Ishiuchi Miyako's artistic re-interpretation of both the event itself and its subsequent circulation as photography seeks to engender a different kind of affective resonance in its viewers, a reflexivity that takes us beyond the shock of "documentary-witness" photography and the detachedness of "documentary-archival" photography. In a poignant re-capitulation of Roland Barthes' simultaneously problematic and arresting portrayal of the photographic referent - "that-has-been" --her hauntingly back-lit photographs displayed at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art as part of her Strings of Time exhibition (2008) quietly insist that these personal effects had been worn by somebody who was there on 6 August or 9 August 1945. In this paper, I reflect on the difficulties inherent in the aestheticization of violence and death while considering the following questions: how does Ishiuchi's photography problematize--and is in turn problematized by--"documentary-witness" and "documentary-archival" photography? In turn, how do the differential temporalities of experience captured by these various modes of photographic representation help us rethink the ethics of producing or viewing photographs?Kay Kurashige (Columbia University), "Art and Apocalypse: Okamoto Taro and the Myth of Tomorrow"
On November 17, 2008, a gigantic mural depicting the devastation of nuclear warfare was revealed in Tokyo's Shibuya train station. Measuring at 16.5 by 90 feet, the piece features as its centerpiece the graphic image of a deformed skeleton with sentient eyes, engulfed in flames. This work of art is the creation of one of Japan's most celebrated artists Okamoto Taro (1911-1996). Titled Asu no Shinwa (Myth of Tomorrow), the painting had been lost in Mexico for decades and was found and relocated to Japan through the considerable efforts of the Okamoto Taro Memorial Foundation. In the wake of the March 11th Tohoku disaster, the mural was brought into the spotlight again after an artist collective installed an addition to the mural (without permission) depicting the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown in the style of Okamoto. 40 years after its creation, "Asu no Shinwa" serves as an important reminder of the horrors of nuclear warfare as well as a catalyst and inspiration for a new generation of artists. This paper explores the rich history of Okamoto Taro's masterpiece and relives its journey to one of Japan's busiest transit stations. It will examine how the painting came to be situated in the heart of Tokyo and the sources of inspiration for the piece.Nozomi Naoi (Harvard University), "Dealing with Post-Earthquake Tokyo: Takehisa Yumeji and his Disaster Sketches from the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923"
The Tokyo Shinsai Gashin (Tokyo Earthquake Sketches) was a series of 21 sketches with short essays published daily in the Miyako newspaper. The modern Japanese artist Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934) had made these observations while walking along the ruins of Tokyo immediately after the devastating earthquake of September 1st, 1923. His visual and literary observations display a mixture of shock, sympathy, and disappointment in the ways of society under the Japanese government. While such sentiment shows a strong resonance with our situation today in post-311 Japan, Yumeji's political inclinations requires us to reevaluate his positioning within the current art historical framework and strengthens our understanding of Yumeji's involvement among avant-garde artists in elevating the status of prints by transforming the reproducible media into a creative form of production. While Yumeji is mainly known for his images of women, even referred to as the Yumeji-style beauties, he also inspired rising avant-garde artists such as Onchi Kôshirô and others involved in the sosaku-hanga (creative print) movement. His appeal to both spheres of young female consumers and avant-garde artists may seem contradictory but Yumeji had started his artistic career through illustrations in socialist newspapers and magazines, creating images with anti-war and leftist sentiment along with his images of beautiful women. The Tokyo Earthquake Sketches presents a side of Yumeji that deserves further analysis as his role beyond a popular graphic artist, and as an artist whose visual and literary response to the earthquake dealt with the national struggle and pain through its recovery process.
Space and Place in Chinese Literature
Discussant: Chelsea Wang (Columbia University)
Di Luo (University of Southern California), "Han Rhapsodies and Dynastic Ethos: Reconstructing the Literary Mind on Chinese Architecture"
In Wenxuan--the first anthology of Chinese literature compiled in the 6th century, rhapsodies (fu) on imperial palaces, gardens, and metropolises written from the Han Dynasty onward are celebrated as a genre of foremost literary values. These rhapsodies, written by high officials and eminent scholars, not only described meticulously the appearance, vigor, and intricate structure of grandiose palaces and halls, but also conveyed a full range of technical terms and building methodologies, by which experts were able to trace the development of architecture in early China. Examining the literary texts, one starts to reconstruct how architecture was viewed and evaluated by the Chinese literary mind: first, architecture is an integral part of the material culture born into the great syncretic era of the Han dynasty, when building practices become manifestations of a confluence of all knowledge and philosophical thoughts; second, architecture is an indispensable component of the ritual system that promotes and sustains the carefully balanced social order, and is wielded as an important vehicle of the legitimation of emperorship and imperial control; third, the various forms of art in the interior help evoke a fully charged, fantastic microcosm in which the ruler cautions his own behaviors and fulfills the communicative duty of connecting Heaven and human. In summary, the creation of exquisite buildings is in tandem with the increasingly sophisticated and refined cultural milieu--the dynastic ethos of Han China.
Tibet: Cosmopolitanism and Modernity
Discussant: Becky Best (Columbia University)
Sarah Richardson (University of Toronto), "Narrating the Past with the Present: Pan-Asian Cosmopolitanism in Paintings of the Former Lives of the Buddha from 14th century Tibet"
The set of mural paintings of the former lives of the Buddha (Jataka) at the Monastery of Shalu in Tibet open a rare window into the visual world of 14th century Tibet. These painted and inscribed narratives showing the Bodhisattva's former lives as numerous kings, merchants and animals creates a rich space for displaying the known and idealized world. Throughout the paintings "otherness" is purposefully and usefully represented through costumes, architecture and painting styles that reveal real knowledge and experience of peoples and places across central, south and east Asia. But what did it mean to display this visual panoply of difference in the paintings? Does this merely reflect the knowledge and origins of the artists working at Shalu or can we also see this as part of an active strategy of display? Arguing that these paintings of an ancient past were made actively "present" through visual and material terms, I will discuss ways that visual tropes of "otherness" enabled the conspicuous display of a pan-Asian cosmopolitanism in style and content. These elements, I will argue, were being not only displayed but re-combined, linking the authority of the temple to a sense of current cosmopolitan elite culture. This display strengthened the authority and authenticity of the rulers of Shalu, who used the space opened up by narrative art depicting the imagined past to celebrate and advertise their close ties with and direct patronage from the Mongol Yuan rulers of China.
Picture, Press, and Protest: Considerations on Meiji's Empires
Discussant: Hansun Hsiung (Harvard University)
Kelly McCormick (Columbia University), "Imaging Hokkaido Through Photographs and Maps"
In 1873, the Japanese government sent Tamoto Kenzo's photographs of the settlement of Hokkaido lead by the Kaitakushi, or Hokkaido Colonization Commission, to the Vienna World Exposition. These documents, exhibited alongside U.S. photographer Timothy O'Sullivan's images of the Southwest frontier and English photographer Eadweard Muybridge's images of Yosemite, speak to the international fascination with photography's ability to record the development of the new territories of the empire. In addition to new photographic technology, advances in the techniques of map making and geology made describing the frontier possible from new visual perspectives. From 1873 to 1876, the Kaitakushi commissioned American geologist Henry Smith Lyman to create the first geological survey map of Hokkaido's mineral resources. This map represents the beginnings of the use of geological imaging to lay claim to and gain support for extension of government infrastructure in new territories. In this paper, I explore how these experts used new technologies of photography and geologic measurement to produce images that emphasized Hokkaido's developing civilization process. Tamoto Kenzo's photographs and Henry Smith Lyman's land survey map provide specific examples of how the Kaitakushi sought to visually describe the Japanese frontier and further the diplomatic goals of the Meiji government. By making what was once a distant land visually accessible, Tamoto's photographs and Lyman's geological surveys both shrank the physical space of the Japanese empire and expanded the realm of visual possibility.
Reading Religion: Buddhism and Daoism in Medieval and Late Imperial China
Discussant: Helen Qiu (Columbia University)
Joseph P. Elacqua (Mohawk Valley Community College), "The Master of the Womb Realm"
The monk Subhakarasimha (637-735) is credited as the first known esoteric Buddhist patriarch to arrive in China. While in China, he translated several Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and helped formulate a lasting lineage of esoteric Buddhist practice throughout East Asia. His teachings, and those of his successors, are often grouped into what is referred to as the "Womb Realm" lineage. Subhakarasimha is often associated with two other early esoteric Buddhist patriarchs, Vajrabodhi (671-741) and Amoghavajra (704-774), though their teachings differed. The lineage established by Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra is referred to as the "Vajra Realm" lineage. Despite the crucial role that Subhakarasimha played in Chinese religious history, little is known for certain about his life. He is credited with the translation of several Buddhist texts into Chinese, and also for illustrating a series of esoteric Buddhist iconographical images, known today as the Taizo Zuzo. Many of these works led to the creation of the Womb Realm Mandala, one of the most iconic mandalas in all of Asia. Though Subhakarasimha likely only translated a small body of texts, these texts contain scattered clues that help to illustrate the nature of his "Womb Realm" Buddhism. These clues not only establish some of Subhakarasimha's own beliefs, but also provide insight on religious teachings prevalent in India during his life. Furthermore, they provide additional illumination on the creation of the mysterious Womb Realm Mandala.
Contemporary Chinese Art: Institutions and the Everyday
Discussant: Nicole Kwoh (Columbia University)
Yao Wu (Stanford University), "Two Roads Diverged in a Wood: The 'Two Xu Debate' at the 1929 First Chinese National Fine Arts Exhibition"
Mei Zhan of 1929 in Shanghai was the first fine arts exhibition held at a national level in Chinese history. The exchange of opinions on this occasion, documented in a concurrent publication, has become arguably the most influential legacy of Mei Zhan. Because the two figures involved--artist Xu Beihong championing realism, and poet Xu Zhimo defending Cézanne and Matisse--are both surnamed Xu, this event has come to be known as the "Two Xu Debate." In existing scholarship, the debate is typically discussed only in artistic terms, and the two Xus' shared references to European art tend to suggest that Mei Zhan signified Chinese artists' embrace of Western culture. My project expands the discursive boundaries of the debate, which have been conventionally set around issues of the Chinese reception of Western artistic modernism. I offer a close look at Xu Beihong's approved and disapproved artists--European and Chinese--and read the debate as having been concerned with a legitimate painting style in ink as well as in oil. I further situate this exchange in the context of China's avid learning from the West. By relating the debate to the Chinese local efforts to make art more accessible to the public, based on European models, I explore the socio-historical values of Mei Zhan. I finally argue that although the realist style that Xu Beihong advocated would eventually gain the upper hand, Xu Zhimo's historically grounded writing contributed greatly to the development of modern art criticism in China.
Women and the Family in Late Qing
Discussant: Tristan Brown (Columbia University)
Laura Warne (Columbia University), "Placing the Picture: Photographs of Families in Nineteenth-Century China"
Photography has long been preoccupied with documenting the "other," be it person, culture, or place. This preoccupation accompanied the emergence of photographic technology on the world stage, just as colonial expansion was bringing unfamiliar people and cultures together with unprecedented intensity. Western photographers were quick to recognize the importance of family in Chinese society and took photos of families for personal, ethnographic, and commercial purposes. A different side to the story of nineteenth-century family portraiture in China comes from the families who embraced photography and played an active role in their own depiction. Since photography was considered synonymous with Westernization and modernization, by participating in the photographic process, Chinese subjects were making a statement, not only about their own perspectives on modern life, but also about their families as active participants in the transition to modernity. In this way, images of "authentic" Chinese families were also constructions capable of communicating much more than mere likenesses. This paper will consider how nineteenth-century Chinese families were depicted in photography, the role of photography in nineteenth-century visual culture, and what these photographs might have communicated to both the Chinese and Westerners who saw them.
Authorship and Legitimacy in Ming Material Production
Discussant: Elizabeth Lawrence (Columbia University)
Kyoungjin Bae (Columbia University), "Imperial Reign Marks in the Semantics of Ming Material Culture"
My paper investigates the changing artisanal signatures on lacquerware from the late Yuan to early Ming dynasty in order to understand the changing nature of craft and authorship. Unlike the conventional argument that artisan's self-consciousness did not appear until the late Ming, many lacquer artisans in Jiangnan area consciously signed their objects in the fourteenth century. The word used in these signatures was zao, meaning to be "made" or "invented" by. By using zao, artisans claimed complete and immediate authorship of the entire process of craft. This holistic (self-)perception of craftsmanship changed in the beginning of the Ming dynasty with the establishment of imperial workshops, which segmented the production process and necessitated a higher authority of inspection. Objects manufactured in the imperial workshops bore reign marks that consisted of six highly formalized characters. In these marks, the conventional zao was replaced by zhi, often translated as "manufactured." However, the word zhi epitomizes the transforming nature of production and the diverse contexts of consumption, and therefore it is not reducible to the single meaning of manufacture. Hence, I argue that we should think of different translations in different contexts of the object. Specifically, it means to be "supervised" in the context of hierarchical structure of imperial production, and "(re-)authorized" in the context of re-use and gift-giving. Embedded in the word, therefore, is a nuanced sociocultural interplay of object and its environment.Yijun Wang (Columbia University), "The Absence of the Artisan's Signature"
In the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), gold, silver, and pewter were used to make vessels for everyday use. Those vessels were produced in both imperial and local workshops. In this paper discusses the absence of artisan's signature in local pewter, silver and gold vessel production. The artisan's signature in this paper is either an artisan's name or a workshop name - any mark that can refer to the vessel's producer. The artisan's signatures are commonly found in Song and Yuan dynasty silver and gold vessels, but in the Ming dynasty, they only persisted in the silver and gold vessels in imperial or princely workshops. In local production, most of the vessels have no inscription, and on the few that have inscriptions, the artisan's signature is missing. By making comparisons on artisan's signatures between the pre-Ming vessels and imperial produced vessels to analyze the functions of signature, this paper shows the transition of function of artisan's signature from advertisement to quality control and taking responsibility. And by making comparison on the content of inscriptions between imperial workshops and local workshops, this paper shows the different needs for different customers. By embedding the inscriptions in the a socioeconomic context, the paper shows the absence of the artisan's signature was related to the production technique and consumption mechanism, the nature of silver and gold as money, and the circulation of vessels.
Anthony Barbieri-Low (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Bowers Museum
Santa Ana, CA
11 February 2012
[from Bowers, 1/27/12]
The tomb complex of the First Emperor of China is arguably the most important archaeological site in the world. Since the tomb will not be excavated in our lifetime, if ever, imagination will always play a major role in trying to understand what is in the tomb. Ever since the Emperor was first interred, authors, artists, and archaeologists have tried to reconstruct and imagine what lies in his tomb. Such reconstructions allow the imaginer to project his fears, hopes, and expectations on the site, and can tell us even more about the imaginers than it does about the world they imagine. This talk will explore how historians, poets, artists, archaeologists, movie directors, and video-game designers have imagined the First Emperor's underground realm.
Jan Stuart (British Museum)
Freer/Sackler
Washington, DC
11 February 2012
[from Freer/Sackler, 2/4/11]
Seasonal festivals in China were important occasions for the creation, display, and presentation of gifts of art featuring specific, timely images. For example, paintings depicting a bouquet of pomegranate flowers, calamus leaves, and a branch of moxa were appropriate only for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, also known as the Dragon Boat Festival. Representations of roosters, considered lucky, were associated with the Chinese New Year, while images of a peony and butterfly signaled the Birthday of the Flowers. This lecture by Jan Stuart, keeper of Asia at the British Museum, examines the close bond between a wide range of pictorial arts and their temporal conventions. She explores the role of art in marking the passage of the yearly cycle and how it was folded into China's abiding rhythms of nature and human culture.
Stephen Little (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
12 February 2012
[from LACMA, 2/4/12]
How does one determine a real from a fake Chinese painting? What determines the difference between a copy and a forgery? These questions have confounded collectors and connoisseurs for centuries. This lecture by Stephen Little, curator and head of the Chinese and Korean Art Department, examines some of the key issues and techniques involved in the connoisseurship of Chinese painting.
Satsuki Kawano (University of Guelph)
commentary by John Traphagan (University of Texas)
Japan Foundation
Toronto, ON
Canada
13 February 2012
[from ASARCA-L, 1/31/12]
"I plan to have my cremated remains scattered on a mountain," a seventy-four-year-old man living in Tokyo told Dr. Kawano during her field research. He described the site of ash scattering almost cheerfully; it would preferably have a view of Mt. Fuji and perhaps some delicate bellflowers. Yet, what would his son, relatives, or neighbors think?
For metropolitan residents in Japan, establishing a family grave to have their remains interred signals middle-class success and pride in family ties and continuity. What does it mean to forgo a family grave, a place that is highly valued and regularly visited across Japan to venerate the deceased loved ones? In this lecture, Dr. Kawano will explore ash scattering ceremonies conducted by the Grave-Free Promotion Society of Japan (Sôsô No Jiyû O Susumeru Kai) established in 1991. Contrary to the common assumptions that childless people usually elect ash scattering, a number of the Society's members have adult children. By "returning to nature" and joining a benevolent force larger than their small family, such older urbanites seek self-sufficiency in their postmortem world. They choose ash scattering in part to lighten the survivors' burden as a grave obligates their descendants to maintain it. Ash scattering reveals people's attempts to remake their ties with their family, and serves as a window onto new patterns of generational relations in urban Japan.
Satsuki Kawano is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Guelph. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh (U.S.), she held positions at Harvard University (Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of World Religions) and the University of Notre Dame (Assistant Professor) before joining the University of Guelph in 2004. Her research interests include ritual, death and dying, demographic shifts, aging, family, and kinship. As a Japan Foundation Fellow, Kawano conducted fieldwork for her project on Japan's low fertility in 2009. She is the author of Ritual Practice in Modern Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 2005) and Nature's Embrace: Japan's Aging Urbanites and New Death Rites (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010).
International House of Japan and National Diet Library of Japan
Tokyo, Japan
14-22 February 2012
[from H-ASIA, 7/27/11]
The International House of Japan and the National Diet Library of Japan are jointly launching the "Japan Specialist Workshop: Access to the Culture and Society of Contemporary Japan 2012," to support the improvement of the knowledge and skills for accessing information of overseas Japanese study specialists and Japanese study information specialists, including librarians and curators.
The theme of this Workshop is the field of the humanities (history, literature, art, philosophy, and religion). And the objective is acquisition of the necessary knowledge and skills for accessing the latest information in Japanese studies, as well as contributing to the construction of a close human network among Japan specialists in various countries.
As a residential workshop, all participants will stay at the International House of Japan, and will attend the same program.
Intended for: Those who live outside Japan, and are in a position to obtain, offer, and disseminate Japanese information (including young Japanese studies researchers, librarians and curators who have working experience in obtaining and introducing Japanese information).
Costs: The cost for round-trip plane tickets (up to a maximum amount) and lodging at the International House of Japan (ten nights with breakfast) will be provided by the organizers.
Language: Japanese
Application Deadline: Documents for applications should be submitted by Thursday, September 29, 2011 by postal mail.
For more details and applications forms go to:
http://www.ndl.go.jp/en/publication/ndl_newsletter/173/739-1.html
http://www.i-house.or.jp/en/library/activities.htm
Ronald Otsuka (Denver Art Museum)
Denver Art Museum
Denver, CO
15 February 2011
[from DAM, 1/27/12]
Dr. Joseph De Heers Curator of Asian Art Ronald Otsuka will speak on Texture and Tradition: Japanese Woven Bamboo, the exhibition currently on display in the Lutz Bamboo Gallery [through 29 July 2012]. Woven bamboo is structurally firm but texturally rich and infinitely fascinating in even the most utilitarian applications. Come explore this beautiful art form.
Akiko Takizawa (artist)
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
London, UK
16 February 2011
[from Daiwa, 12/29/11]
Akiko Takizawa is a Japanese artist based in London. The exhibition, Over the Parched Field [18 January - 10 March 2012], showcases a selection of Takizawa's photographs since 2006, including new works made especially for the exhibition. This is Takizawa's first solo show in London.
The talk will be by Dr Simon Baker, Curator of Photography and International Art at the Tate Gallery, and the artist of Over the Parched Field, Akiko Takizawa.
Akiko Takizawa was born in Fukuoka in 1971 and completed her MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 2006. Her interdisciplinary practices involve not only photography but filming and performing art. Her work was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2006 and the exhibition toured from Liverpool to London. Her work was shortlisted for the Hitotsubo Award, one of the most prestigious photographic competitions in Japan. She was also awarded the University of Abertay Visual Arts Prize (2002), the Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio Residency Prize (2002), the London Print Studio Award (2002) and the Printmaking Today Award (2000).
Dr Simon Baker is Curator of Photography and International Art at Tate. He has researched, written and curated exhibitions on surrealism, photography, and contemporary art, including the recent Tate Modern exhibitions Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera (2010), and Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters (2011). He is currently working on a major exhibition of the works of William Klein and Daido Moriyama for Tate Modern in October 2012.
Song Dong (artist) with Barbara London (critic)
Barbican Centre
London, UK
16 February 2012
[from Barbican, 1/14/12]
[In conjunction with the exhibition Song Dong: Waste Not (15 February - 12 June 2012)]
Simon Kaner (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures)
Norwich Cathedral
Norwich, UK
16 February 2012
[from SISJAC, 1/22/12]
University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
2 February - 10 March 2012
[from UWCP, 1/15/12]
The College of Fine Arts & Communication (COFAC) at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is pleased to present a month-long exhibition and program of events on contemporary Chinese art and culture to be held from February 2 through March 10, 2012. The highlight of "COFAC Creates: Xu Bing--The Art of Rewriting China" will be a special exhibition in the Edna Carlsten Gallery of the Noel Fine Arts Center (NFAC) on the UWSP campus featuring the work of groundbreaking contemporary Chinese artist Xu Bing. To encourage and facilitate dialogue on contemporary Chinese art and culture, this interdisciplinary program will include a series of lectures, workshops, films and performances.
16 February: Melissa Chiu (Asia Society)
23 February: Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota)
1 March: Eugene Wang (Harvard University)
8 March: Gao Minglu (University of Pittsburgh)
TATEHATA Akira (Kyoto City University of Arts; Museum of Modern Art, Saitama)
National Museum of Art, Osaka
18 February 2012
[from NMAO, 1/8/12]
Saikoh Shinji (Asuka Village Board of Education)
Tokyo National Museum
18 February 2012
[from TNM, 1/19/12]
[In conjunction with the exhibition Kofun Tumuli in the Asuka Period: Kofun Period V (13 December 2011 - 3 June 2012)]
Colin Mackenzie (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)
Harn Museum of Art
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
20 February 2012
[from Harn, 2/4/12]
Colin Mackenzie's interests range from ancient to contemporary Chinese art. He has many years of curatorial experience at major museums and has contributed to a number of influential exhibitions. Mackenzie has published widely on Chinese art, including Chinese bronzes, textiles, lacquers and woodcarving, and the importance of games in Chinese culture.
Clarissa von Spee (British Museum)
Oriental Ceramic Society
London, UK
21 February 2012
[from OCS, 1/22/12]
Twentieth-century China witnessed the collapse of its old imperial system and the rise of a modern nation state. It was a century of war and revolution, as well as a period of reorientation, international encounters and cultural exchange. In their search for a modern Chinese identity, artists travelled and studied abroad. They gained a new perception of the past and the world. At the same time European museums started to exhibit and collect Chinese contemporary art.
This lecture will explore the intercultural exchanges of the period as well as the connections of Chinese artists with Britain. Select paintings from the British Museum collection will be highlighted and, in particular, the circumstances that brought these paintings into the museum's permanent collection. The featured paintings will be shown in the upcoming exhibition Modern Chinese Ink Painting: A Century of New Directions.
Dr. Clarissa von Spee is curator of the Chinese calligraphy, paintings, prints and the Central Asian collections at the British Museum. She received her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University. Von Spee is author of Wu Hufan. A Twentieth Century Connoisseur in Shanghai (2008), A Perfect Brush. Chinese Paintings 1300-1900 (2010) and editor of the exhibition catalogue The Printed Image in China from the 8th to the 21st Centuries (2010). She is currently preparing the exhibition Modern Chinese Ink Painting: A Century of New Directions (3 May – 2 September 2012) at the British Museum.
Los Angeles, CA
22-25 February 2012
[from CAA, 10/8/11; panels/papers relating to China and Japan listed below]
Happenings: Transnational, Transdisciplinary
- Reiko Tomii (independent scholar), "Another Dimension of Happenings in 1960s Japan: The Play's Voyages into Landscape"
Historians of Islamic Art Association
The Interconnected Tenth Century
- Hsueh-man Shen (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), "China among Equals: Recontextualizing the China-Abbasid Trade Connection in the Long Tenth Century"
Urbanization and Contemporary Art in Asia
Chair: Meiqin Wang (California State University, Northridge)
- Elizabeth Parke (University of Toronto), "City of Inscription: Phone Numbers and Contemporary Art as Tactics of Inscription"
- Margaret Richardson (Virginia Commonwealth University), "Intersections of the Public and the Private: Contemporary Art in Mumbai"
- Meiqin Wang, "To Demolish: Thinking about Urbanization in Rural China through a Collaborative Art Project"
- Peggy Wang (Denison University), "Black and White and Red all Over: Spaces of Urban Intervention in Beijing Youth Daily's 1994 Art Interior Design Series"
- Karin Zitzewitz (Michigan State University), "Materiality in the City: Vivan Sundaram's Work with Trash"
Discussants: Alice Ming Wai Jim (Concordia University) and Poyin Auyeung (Manhattan College)
CAA International Committee
Internationalizing the Field: A Discussion of Global Networks for Art Historians
Chair: Gwen Farrelly (The Graduate Center, City University of New York and the Museum of Modern Art)
Kathryn Brown (Tilburg University)
Asia Art Archive
Clare Davies (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), "Townhouse Gallery 'Archive Map' Project"
Activating History, Activating Asia: East Asian Art Practice
Chair: Yong Soon Min (University of California, Irvine)
- Meiling Cheng (University of Southern California), "Dappled China: Making Untamed Histories around the China Brand"
- Steven Lam (Cooper Union), "June 4 to July 1: Counter-Hegemonic Practices in Hong Kong"
- Young Min Moon (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), "Debates on 'The Political': A Case Study in South Korea"
- Thomas O'Leary (University of California), "The Gendered Politics of Representation: The Rise and Fall of Young Women's Photography in Nineties Japan"
- Soyang Park (Ontario College of Art and Design), "The Activism, Dialogical Art, and Minjung Legacy in South Korea after the 1980s: A Case Study of the Daechuri Artists and Deulsaramdeul in 2003-2007"
Pop and Politics, Part I
- Hiroko Ikegami Kobe University), "Tokyo as a Cold War Site: Jasper Johns's Visit in 1964"
The Engagement of Art and Architecture in Ritual Performance
- Jeehee Hong (Syracuse University), "Exorcism by Brush: Ritualizing Tomb Space in Middle-Period China"
Momentum: Women/Art/Technolog
- Aileen June Wang (Penn State Erie, The Behrend College), "Cao-Fei: Empowering in Virtual Reality"
ARTspace
Out of Rubble
- Claude Baillargeon (Oakland University), "Representing the Unrepresentable: The Photography of Nuclear Affliction in Postwar Japan"
Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture
Pictures in Place: Depicting Location and the Siting of Representation in the Eighteenth Century
- Dawn Odell (Lewis and Clark College), "Place as a Thing: Chinese Screens in Dutch Colonial Contexts"
Tourism (and) Culture, Part II
- Dan Wang (Columbia College Chicago) and Stephanie Rothenberg (University at Buffalo, State University of New York), "The Journey West: Seeing and Selling America in Beijing"
Chewing on Words: Reconsidering Text in Its Materiality
- Chao-Hui Jenny Liu (New York University), "Hidden Texts and the Self: Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) Epitaph Stones as Literary Identity for the Deceased"
Gendering the Posthuman
- Kate Mondloch (University of Oregon), "Beautiful Vision for the Twenty-First Century: Mariko Mori's Capsule Aesthetic"
Tracing the Index in Art History and Media Theory, Part I
- Birgit Hopfener (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg), "Negotiating Indexicality in Chinese Moving Image Installations"
The 1930s
- Amy Lyford (Occidental College), "Isamu Noguchi, Social Activism, and the Reinvention of Sculptural Practice"
Japan Art History Forum
Commensurable Distinctions: Japanese Art History and Its Others
Chair: Bert Winther-Tamaki (University of California, Irvine)
- Karen Fraser (Santa Clara University), "Pictorial Photography and the Japanese Aesthetic'"
- Chinghsin Wu (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), "Collage Modernity: Women, Machines, and Surrealism in the Paintings of Koga Harue"
- Yasuko Tsuchikane (Parsons The New School for Design), "Picasso as the Other: First 'Global' Polemics of a Postwar Ceramic/Painting Dichotomy"
- Adrian Favell (Sciences Po), "The Struggle for a Page in Art History: The Global and National Ambitions of Japanese Contemporary Artists from the 1990s"
Discussant: Miya Mizuta Lippit (University of Southern California)
Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art
Civilization and Its Others in Nineteenth-Century Art, Part II
Chair: David Joseph O'Brien (University of Illinois)
- Greg M. Thomas (University of Hong Kong), "Chinese Civilization and Imperial Ambivalence in Britain"
- Emily Brink (Stanford University), "Portable Culture: The Japanese Album as a Model for Civilization in 1860s France"
- Ting Chang (independent scholar ), "Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metals and World Civilizations in Nineteenth-Century France"
- Gyewon Kim (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture), "Envisioning a Civilized Nation: The Claims of Photography in Late Nineteenth-Century Japanese Geo-Encyclopedias"
- Matt Johnston (Lewis and Clark College), "The 'Crisis of History': Precolumbian Civilization as Cultural Patrimony in US and Mexican Anthropological Exhibits at World's Fairs"
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
24 February 2012
[courtesy of J. Kee, 1/20/12]
Hosted in conjunction with the exhibition Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha curated by Mika Yoshitake at Blum & Poe, February 25 - April 14, 2012, and in association with PoNJA-GenKon, Post-1945 Japanese Art Discussion Group/Gendai Bijutsu Kondankai.
Conference Convenor: Miya Elise Mizuta (USC)
Participating Artists:
Haraguchi Noriyuki
Koshimizu Susumu
Lee Ufan
Sekine Nobuo
Suga Kishio
Art Historians:
Mika Yoshitake, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Reiko Tomii, Independent Scholar and Co-Founder of PoNJA-GenKon
Joan Kee, University of Michigan
Hollis Goodall, Curator of Japanese Art, LACMA
RSVP to MailPonja@gmail.com, thank you!
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY
26 February 2012
[from MMA, 8/10/11]
Be captivated by the romance, intrigue, and glamour of the world of traditional Japanese tales and histories. This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Storytelling in Japanese Art [19 November 2011 - 6 May 2012].
- John Carpenter (Metropolitan Museum of Art), "A Happy Ending to a Sad Story: Rediscovered Illustrations for A Long Tale for an Autumn Night"
- Sarah Thompson (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), "The War of the Twelve Animals: Anthropomorphosis and Allegory in Medieval Japan"
- Melanie Trede (Heidelberg University), "Dragons, Jewels, and Powerful Women: Taishokan Paintings in Seventeenth-Century Japan"
Sarah Richardson (University of Toronto)
University of Toronto
28 February 2012
[from ASARCA-L, 1/31/12]
The 14th century mural paintings at Zhalu monastery in central Tibet are famed for their beauty and renowned for their fine state of preservation. These important mural paintings include a set of the largest and earliest surviving Tibetan depictions of the previous incarnations of the Buddha (Jataka) painted around the temple's circumambulatory passage. These paintings of 100 previous lives represent the earlier incarnations of the bodhisattva as kings, merchants, monkeys and elephants, over the many aeons that he accumulated the ample merit necessary to become Shakyamuni. But why paint these up high in a narrow passage? What did these paintings do for the temple and its users? What texts informed these paintings? What styles and artistic awareness did they reflect? This talk will examine my current research and offer some reflections on what we can learn about 14th century Tibet from these paintings, arguing that these mural paintings can help to explain the significant relationships between religious practice, textual canon formation, patronage and art in 14th century Tibet.
Sarah Richardson is a PhD candidate in the Art History department. Her dissertation on Zhalu concerns the interface of visuality and textuality in 14th century Tibetan mural painting.
To register, go to http://www.munk.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?Eventid=11285.
NEH Summer Institute
Asian/Pacific/American Institute
New York University
New York, NY
9-28 July 2012
[from a/p/a, 1/14/12]
The Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University is convening an NEH Summer Institute from July 9-28, 2012, entitled "Re-envisioning American Art History: Asian American Art, Research, and Teaching." The Summer Institute for twenty-five college and university teachers will deepen participants' understanding of pivotal developments and critical issues in Asian American art history and visual culture studies, while providing access to specialized archives and collections that will enhance their research and teaching in the humanities.
Summer Institute faculty will include nationally prominent experts in the fields of art history, history, Asian American Studies, art education, curatorial and museum work, and library and information science. The Institute will cover key periods in Asian American art history beginning in the last century and continuing through the present, focusing upon important artists and art historical moments as well as the intersection of Asian American visual cultures, diaspora, and transnationalism.
Participating core faculty and lecturers will lead seminars and special talks at A/P/A Institute, at NYU's Fales Library & Special Collections, and at selected archives, museums, and artists' studios throughout New York City. Selected materials generated by this Institute will be disseminated to educators through East Coast Asian American Art Project (ECAAAP), a scholarly initiative sponsored by the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute, co-organized by Summer Institute Co-directors Margo Machida and Alexandra Chang. ECAAAP incorporates research, archival, exhibition, publication, and programming components dedicated to furthering scholarly, critical, curatorial, and educational work on Asian American art, art history, and visual culture studies.
Course Content
Week 1. Early 20th Century through Post-war Asian American Art
Monday
- Mark Johnson (San Francisco State University), "Asian American Art: A History"
Response: Vishakha N. Desai (Asia Society)Tuesday
- Karin Higa (Japanese American National Museum), "At the Margins of American Modernism: Los Angeles, Little Tokyo, and Japanese American Artists, 1919-1945, A Case Study"
- Tom Wolf (Bard College), "Part 1. Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) and Isamu Noguchi (1905-1988)"Wednesday
field research, reading, and consulting with Institute directorsThursday
- Tom Wolf, "Part 2. Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) and Isamu Noguchi (1905-1988)"Friday
- Karin Higa, "The Long and Curious Life of Isamu Noguchi: Monographic Approaches in Asian American Art History" (at the Noguchi Museum)
- tour of the Noguchi MuseumSaturday
- John Kuo Wei Tchen (New York University), tour of the Museum of Chinese in America and discuss "Opening Up Dialogues and Interpretations of the Visual Arts"
Week 2. Frameworks for Scholarship, Teaching, & Curatorial Practice
Monday
- Jeffrey Wechsler (Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University), "American-type Painting" and/or "Asian American-type Painting: An East/West Synthesis"
- Midori Yoshimoto (New Jersey City University), "Fluxus Nexus/Tokyo-New York"Tuesday
- visit to the Museum of Modern Art
- panel discussion led by Jeffrey Wechsler,featuring Asian American artists Chinyee, Chuang Che, and Ralph Iwamoto (at the Sylvia Wald and Po Kim Art Gallery)Wednesday
field research, reading, and consulting with Institute directorsThursday
- Margo Machida (University of Connecticut), "Orality, Art Histories, and Interpretation in Asian American Art"
- Dipti Desai (New York University), "Teaching, Archives, and Asian American Art"Friday
- Marvin Taylor (New York University), "Collections Building: Artist papers and Archives at Fales Library & Special Collections"
- Tomie Arai (artist) lecture
- Jaishri Abichandani (artist) lectureSaturday
- visit to the home of choreographer Muna Tseng and the estate of her brother, artist Tseng Kwong Chi; discussion led by Dipti Desai
Week 3. Transcultural Flow
Monday
- Alexandra Chang (New York University), "The Art of Cosmopolitanism: Contemporary Asian American Art"
- Zhang Hongtu studio visitTuesday
- Melissa Chiu (Asia Society), tour of the Asia Society Gallery and Museum
- Sergio Bessa (Bronx Museum of the Arts), tour and discussion of the Bronx Museum of the ArtsWednesday
field research, reading, and consulting with Institute directorsThursday
full-day colloquia on participants' research
These [NEH] projects are designed primarily for teachers of American undergraduate students. Qualified independent scholars and those employed by museums, libraries, historical societies, and other organizations may be eligible to compete provided they can effectively advance the teaching and research goals of the institute. Applicants must be United States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to apply.
Please note: Three institute spaces are reserved for current full-time graduate students in the humanities.
Applicants must complete the NEH application cover sheet and provide all the information requested below to be considered eligible. An applicant need not have an advanced degree in order to qualify. Adjunct and part-time lecturers are eligible to apply. Individuals may not apply to study with a director of an NEH Summer Institute who is a current colleague or a family member. Institute selection committees are advised that only under the most compelling and exceptional circumstances may an individual participate in an institute with a director or a lead faculty member who has guided that individual's research or in whose previous institute or seminar he or she has participated.
Please note: An individual may apply to up to two projects in any one year (NEH Summer Seminars, Institutes or Landmarks Workshops for Community College Faculty), but may participate in only one.
A selection committee reads and evaluates all properly completed applications in order to select the most promising applicants and to identify a number of alternates. (Institute selection committees typically consist of three to five members, usually drawn from the institute faculty and staff members.) While recent participants are eligible to apply, selection committees are charged to give first consideration to applicants who have not participated in an NEH-supported Seminar, Institute or Landmarks Workshop in the last three years (2009, 2010, 2011). The most important consideration in the selection of participants is the likelihood that an applicant will benefit professionally. This is determined by committee members from the conjunction of several factors, each of which should be addressed in the application essay. These factors include:
1. quality and commitment as a teacher, scholar, and interpreter of the humanities;
2. intellectual interests, in general and as they relate to the work of the institute;
3. special perspectives, skills, or experiences that would contribute to the institute;
4. commitment to participate fully in the formal and informal collegial life of the institute;
5. the likelihood that the experience will enhance the applicant's teaching and scholarship.
When choices must be made among equally qualified candidates, several additional factors are considered. Preference is given to applicants who have not previously participated in an NEH Summer Seminar, Institute, or Landmarks Workshop, or who significantly contribute to the diversity of the seminar or institute.
Individuals selected to participate in three-week projects will receive $2,700. Stipends are intended to help cover travel expenses to and from the project location, books and other research expenses, and living expenses for the duration of the period spent in residence. Stipends are taxable. Applicants to all projects, should note that supplements will not be given in cases where the stipend is insufficient to cover all expenses. Institute participants are required to attend all meetings and to engage fully as professionals in the work of the project. During the project's tenure, they may not undertake teaching assignments or any other professional activities unrelated to their participation in the project. Participants who, for any reason, do not complete the full tenure of the project must refund a pro-rata portion of the stipend. At the end of the project's residential period, participants will be asked to submit online evaluations in which they review their work during the summer and assess its value to their personal and professional development. These evaluations will become part of the project's grant file and may become part of an application to repeat the institute.
Completed applications should be submitted to the project director and should be postmarked no later than March 1, 2012. Successful applicants will be notified of their selection on Monday, April 2, 2012, and they will have until Friday, April 6 to accept or decline the offer. Once you have accepted an offer to attend any NEH Summer Program (NEH Summer Seminar, Institute or Landmarks Workshop), you may not accept an additional offer or withdraw in order to accept a different offer.
May Ketpongsuda (California State University, Long Beach)
in the conference "Drawing the Line(s): Censorship and Cultural Practices"
47th Annual Comparative Literature Conference
California State University
Long Beach, CA
2-3 March 2012
[from CSULB, 1/21/12]
P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
3 March 2012
[courtesy of Tang Center, 2/8/12]
Organized by the P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art
Co-sponsored by the Princeton University Art Museum
Myths and orthodoxies have given rise to compelling beliefs and canonical lineages in the arts and art histories of East Asia. The narratives of myths and orthodoxies uphold certain “truths” at the expense of others to serve the needs of those who perpetuate them. But only certain histories become “orthodox,” and only particular stories take on the title of “myth.” The “myths” and “orthodoxies” of historiography exert a further force that shapes the history of art. How do these stories sustain their power, and when do they lose power? Who decides? Do visual materials create, communicate, and maintain myths and orthodoxies in certain ways that texts can never accomplish?
This program brings together graduate students in East Asian art history from across the U.S. and Europe to discuss such questions. The keynote speaker, Professor Donald F. McCallum of UCLA, sets the stage for a diverse program of topics that cover all areas of East Asia geographically and span a broad range of topics: from textual orthodoxies of calligraphic replication to conflicting orthodoxies of vision and rhetoric in Chinese painting, orthodoxies of iconographic Buddhist transmissions, mythologizing effects of secret Buddhist images, myths of the distant other, and political uses of the mythological past.
All are welcome to attend. Although registration is not required, we request that you register through the symposium webpage. Please direct inquiries to Lucy Weise or call (609) 258-1741.
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Morning Session
- Miriam Chusid (Princeton University), Welcome
- Keynote Lecture: Donald McCallum (University of California, Los Angeles), "Asuka Myths and Orthodoxies: Ikarugadera—Umayado no ôji—Hôryûji"
- Anne Feng (University of Chicago), "Charming Maiden or Churlish Demon: Representations of the Mountain Spirit in the Nine Songs"
- Ingrid Yeung (Yale University), "How One Scroll of Paper Altered Ten Stone Drums: Xianyu Shu’s (1246–1302) Song of the Stone
Drums (1301)"
- Michael Hatch (Princeton University), "The Myth of the Orthodox and Individualist Schools in Qing Dynasty Landscape Painting"
Discussant: Donald McCallum
Moderator: Miriam Chusid
Afternoon Session
- Sun-ah Choi (University of Chicago), "From Myth to Orthodox Icon? The Medieval Chinese Reception of the Buddha Statue at the
Mahâbodhi Temple of Bodhgayâ, India"
- Holly N. Rubalcava (University of Wisconsin), "The Power of Concealment: The Hidden Icon of Gohôzenshin at Miidera"
- Radu Leca (School of Oriental and Asian Studies), "The Backward Glance: Beautiful Women and Liminal Spaces in Seventeenth-Century Japan"
- Yao Wu (Stanford University), "Nativist Root Sought in the Hinterlands: Chen Danqing’s Tibetan Series (1980)"
- Peter Sukonek (Yale University), "To Fly When Others Run: Art, Politics, and the Myth of the Thousand-Mile-Horse in the North Korean
Chollima Movement of 1957"
Discussant: Donald McCallum
Moderator: Michael Hatch
Nezu Museum
Tokyo, Japan
[from Nezu, 1/8/12]
[The exhibition runs from 25 February to 8 April 2012].
3 March
NAKAYAMA Keiko (Toraya Archive), "[One Hundred Camellias and Kan'ei culture]"
17 March
YASUMURA Toshinobu (Itabashi Art Museum), "[The impact of pictures of grasses and flowers: Aspects of the early Edo period and later developments]"
Rem Koolhaas (architect)
Japan Society
New York, NY
5 March 2012
[from Japan Society, 2/4/12]
Metabolism, the first Asian avant-garde architectural movement, was founded in 1959 by young Japanese architects, theorists and designers like Kisho Kurokawa and Kenzo Tange against a background of rapid postwar economic growth in Japan. Internationally acclaimed architect Rem Koolhaas, who co-authored Project Japan: Metabolism Talks (Taschen 2011) with Hans Ulrich Obrist, speaks about the movement, its importance and its enormous impact on contemporary architecture.
Ito Yoshiaki (Tokyo National Museum)
Tokyo National Museum
Japan
10 March 2012
[from TNM, 1/21/12]
Craig Clunas (University of Oxford)
Sixty-First A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC
[courtesy of C. Clunas, 9/29/11]
In March-April 2012 Craig Clunas, Professor of the History of Art and a member of the China Centre, will deliver the Sixty-First A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington DC. The lecture series will be entitled "Chinese Painting and Its Audiences," and will provide a new account of the ways in which the category of "Chinese painting" has been constructed by different types of viewers, both inside and outside China, from the middle of the sixteenth century to the late twentieth century. The dates and titles of the individual lectures, which are open to the public and generally attract a large audience, are:
11 March: Beginning and Ending in Chinese Painting
18 March: The Gentleman
25 March: The Emperor
1 April: The Merchant
15 April: The Nation
22 April: The People
The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were established in 1949 "to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the fine arts"; previous Mellon lecturers with Oxford connections include Sir Kenneth Clark, Sir Isaiah Berlin, Lord David Cecil and Sir John Boardman. This will be only the second time the Mellon Lectures will deal with a Chinese topic; in 1998 Lothar Ledderose lectured on "Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art." The lectures are published in the Bollingen Series of Princeton University Press, and podcasts of recent series are available at http://www.nga.gov/podcasts/mellon/.
Craig Clunas has been professor of the history of art, University of Oxford, since 2007. He received his BA and MA degrees in Chinese studies from the University of Cambridge and his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He served for fifteen years on the staff of the Far Eastern department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Subsequently, he taught art history at the University of Sussex, where he was appointed professor of history of art in 1997. In 2003 he returned to the University of London as Percival David Professor of Chinese and East Asian Art.
Clunas has written numerous books on the art history and culture of China. Much of his work concentrates on the Ming period (1368-1644), with additional teaching and research interests in the art of twentieth-century and contemporary China. His books include Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Zhengming, 1470-1559 (2004), Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (1997), Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China (1996), and Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (1991). His most recent book, based on his 2004 Slade Lectures, is Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368-1644 (2007). He is completing a book on the cultural role of the Ming regional aristocracy and is co-curator of an exhibition on the early Ming period, Ming China 1400-1450: Courts & Contacts, scheduled to open at the British Museum in 2014.
Clunas received a DLitt (honoris causa) from the University of Warwick in 2010. He was the Slade Professor of Fine Arts, University of Oxford, in 2003-2004 and Edward H. Benenson Lecturer, Duke University, in 2003. In 1999 he was awarded the R. C. Hills Gold Medal of the Oriental Ceramic Society for outstanding contribution to the study of Oriental art.
Petra Polláková
National Gallery in Prague
Czech Republic
13 March 2012
[from NG Prague, 1/8/11]
Nam-lin Hur (University of British Columbia)
University of Michigan
14 March 2012
[from CJS, 12/11/11]
For more than two centuries from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, one particular item dominated the fashion of wabicha, a form of tea ceremony, in Japan. This item were tea bowls imported from Korea, commonly called Korai chawan, or Korean tea bowls. Korean tea bowls held the key to the evolving aesthetic of wabicha which was much fostered by Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) and inherited by other eminent tea masters in Tokugawa Japan. Despite their prominence in the world of wabicha, Korean tea bowls have not often been studied. In this talk, Hur explores the cultural trajectory of Korean tea bowls in the world of Japanese wabicha within the framework of trade and piracy, border-crossing cultural flow, war and diplomacy, diaspora, acculturation, and ethnocentrism in premodern East Asia. Co-sponsored by the Nam Center for Korean Studies and the Center for Japanese Studies.
Toronto, ON
Canada
15-18 March 2012
[from Asian Studies Newsletter, Fall 2011; panels relating to Chinese and Japanese visual/material culture listed below]
7. Writings on Modern Design Histories for the Global World: Issues and Perspectives from Modern Design Histories in East Asia (Yuko Kikuchi, University of the Arts London)
13. individual Papers: Cultural Images & National Symbols
18. Visual/Textual Appropriation and Trans-Creation in Early Modern Kusazoshi (Laura Moretti, Newcastle University)
27. So How Bad Was It? Comparative Decadence of the Jiajing and Wanli Eras (Katharine Burnett, University of California, Davis)
45. Political Power and the Relationship between Gods and Buddhas in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Japan (Christopher D. Mayo, Princeton University)
55. Seeing through Chinese Costume and Textiles (Jennifer G. Purtle, University of Toronto)
63. Translation, Transmedia and Transcultural Migration of Anime and Manga from Japan: Intersections between Culture and Cultural Commodities across Borders and Media (June M. Madeley, University of New Brunswick)
74. Culture and Time: The Art of Historical Imagination in the 17th-Century Kyoto Renaissance (Morgan Pitelka, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
79. Seeing is (Dis)believing: Visuality, Truth Claims, and Representation in Modern China (Shengqing Wu, Wesleyan University)
82. Place, Memory, and Visuality in Chinese Painting (Juliane Noth, Free University, Berlin)
87. The Visual Politics of Asia: Lens-Based Images in the Modern World (Thomas F. O'Leary, Saddleback College)
101. Old Capital, New City: Art and Design in Twentieth-Century Kyoto (Yasuko Tsuchikane, Parsons School of Design), sponsored by the Japan Art History Forum
105. Dong nan xi bei: Chinese Cultural Production and Its Transnational Contexts (Nicolai Volland, National University of Singapore)
115. Handmade Futures: Design, Labor and Identity in Asian Craftwork (Clare Wilkinson-Weber, Washington State University)
123. Enacted Space: New Meanings from Built Environments in Transforming Cities (Sandria B. Freitag, North Carolina State University)
136. The Many Lives of a New Canon: Performance Genres, Print Culture, and Social Reproduction in Qing China (Patricia A. Sieber, Ohio State University)
138. Edges of the Mongol-Yuan World: Situating the Yuan Dynasty in New Spatial and Temporal Contexts (Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick)
149. (Re)framing "Asia": Literary and Visual Images of "Asia" Produced in Modern East Asia and the West (Jooyeon Rhee, York University, Canada)
163. Memory, Narrative, Community: Reinventing the Past in Tibetan Art and Text (Carl S. Yamamoto, Towson University)
165. To and from Beijing: Mobile Painting in 18th-Century China (Kristina R. Kleutghen, Washington University, St. Louis)
166. Contested Space: New Research on the Tombs of China's Ruling Elite (Aurelia A. Campbell, Lake Forest College)
171. Representations of Avalokiteshvara across Asia and Genres (Punam Madhok, East Carolina University)
182. No Ideas but in Things: Material Culture as Common Ground in Contemporary Japanese Cultural Studies (Eve Zimmerman, Wellesley College)
201. The Arts of Death in Asia (Melia Belli, University of Texas, Arlington)
218. Representing Intercultural Transposition in Buddhist Mongolia (Matthew W. King, University of Toronto)
222. Rhetorics of Eroticism in Chinese Art and Literature, Song to Ming (Tamara H. Bentley, Colorado College)
250. Art and Agency of the Qianlong Court (Wen-shing Chou, City University of New York, Hunter College)
254. The Han Empire at the Periphery and Beyond: Perspectives from Archaeology and History (Nam C. Kim, University of Wisconsin, Madison)
281. Refiguring the Buddha in Tibet (Andrew H. Quintman, Yale University)
288. Creative Industries and Cultural Action in Japan (Marc Steinberg, Concordia University)
295. Flesh for Fantasy: Performing the Chinese Past in the Age of Digital Photography (Yuhang Li, Yale University)
298. Seeing Double? Paired Imagery in Buddhist Art in China (Michelle C. Wang, Georgetown University)
328. Cultural Consumption and commodification in Asian Contexts (Amy E. Singer, Knox College)
344. "Post-Bubble" Contemporary Art in Japan: Toward an Art History of the 1990s and After (Adrian Favell, Sciences Po)
370. Readers and Visuality: Literary and Artistic Modes in 19th- and 20th-Century Japan (Ann Sherif, Oberlin College)
371. The Politics of Japanese national Symbols (Fabian Bauwens, Johns Hopkins University)
375. Transnational Flow & Hybridity: Contemporary Art, Design, and Home in Hong Kong (Wendy S. Wong, York University)
MIYAZAKI Mikiko (Nara National Museum)
Nara, Japan
18 March 2012
[from NNM, 1/8/12]
Ronald Knapp (State University of New York, New Paltz)
China Institute
New York, NY
20 March 2012
[from China Institute, 1/30/12]
A source of fascination to the West, China's renowned art objects and traditional manufactured products have long been sought by collectors. Things Chinese presents sixty distinctive items that are typical of Chinese culture and together present a window onto the people, the history, and the society of the world's largest nation. Featuring descriptions and full-color photographs, the history, cultural significance, and customs surrounding these objects and their importance becomes clear. Items covered include bamboo furniture, ivory carving, snuff bottles, mooncake molds, musical instruments, mahjong sets, and fengshui compasses.
Ronald G. Knapp is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and author or contributing editor of more than a dozen books, including the award-winning Chinese Houses: The Architectural Heritage of a Nation.
Tokyo National Museum
Japan
[from TNM, 1/21/12]
[Lectures in conjunction with the exhibition Japanese Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (20 March - 10 June 2012)]
20 March
Anne Nishimura Morse (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), "Japanese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Continuing History"
21 April
Nobuo Tsuji (Miho Museum), "The Eccentric Talent of Soga Shohaku"
12 May
Tazawa Hiroyoshi (Tokyo National Museum), "Japanese Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston"
Society for Photographic Education (SPE) 2012 Conference
San Francisco, CA
22-25 March 2012
[from SPE, 1/15/12; sessions relating to Japan listed below]
Claude Baillargeon (Oakland University), "Classified Casualties and Exposed Trauma: The Photographic Portrayal of Hibakusha"
The unprecedented afflictions induced by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are laid bare in scores of troubling photographs. This lecture investigates the unsettling wavering between the private and public realms characterizing representations of hibakusha. Survivors were often further victimized through the objectification they endured at the hands of the Allied forces intent upon mapping the taxonomy of nuclear casualties. In contrast, the considered memorialization of the hibakusha experience by post-Occupation photographers reflects emotional states of mind struggling to reconcile feelings of helplessness, guilt, indignation, and sorrow. Seen together, these images trigger an uneasy dialectic between fascination and repulsion.
Panel: "Home Invasions: Artist/Anthropologist Collaborations in Sweden and Japan"
Speakers: Inge Daniels (University of Oxford), Johan Lindquist (Stockholm University), John D Freyer (artist), Susan Andrews (London Metropolitan University)
This panel explores collaborations between artists and anthropologists investigating contemporary domestic spaces in Japan & Sweden. In "Unpacking the Flat Pack: Art, Ethnography & the BILLY Bookcase," John Freyer & Dr. Johan Lindquist present their findings from their field work in Swedish homes & observations made in in the flagship IKEA store at Kungens Kurva. In part two Dr. Inge Daniels & Susan Andrews discuss their co-curated exhibition, At Home in Japan - Beyond the Minimal House, at the Geffrye Museum in London. The 2011 exhibition included the installation of a full size Japanese home, complete with hundreds of objects from their ethnographic research, and photographs of the intimate domestic spaces of their research subjects.
Craig Clunas (University of Oxford)
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
New York University
New York, NY
27 March 2012
[from ACClist, 1/5/12]
Discussants & moderators:
Anne Dunlop (Tulane University)
Jonathan Hay (New York University)
Maxwell Hearn (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Dorothy Ko (Barnard College)
Karen Lang (University of Warwick)
Susan Naquin (Princeton University)
Lillian Tseng (New York University)
Joanna Waley-Cohen (New York University)
Seating is limited; RSVP required: isaw@nyu.edu.
Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris
France
31 March 2012
[from MCJP, 1/3/12]
Le grand séisme de l'Est du Japon du 11 mars 2011 a causé des dégâts considérables dans toute la région de la côte Pacifique du Tôhoku. Depuis, la reconstruction se poursuit dans les zones sinistrées: emménagement dans des logements provisoires, reprise de l'activité de certains ports de pêche…. Un an après la catastrophe, le Japon est entré dans une phase où il doit prendre de véritables mesures pour reconstruire l'environnement de vie détruit par le séisme.
Ce colloque est coorganisé par l'Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture Paris-Malaquais (ENSAPM), l'Association franco-japonaise de l'Architecture et du Design (AfjAD) et la MCJP. Son but est de faire le point sur la situation actuelle dans les zones sinistrées et sur l'avancée de la reconstruction. Des architectes et un planificateur d'architecture japonais présenteront les projets qu'ils mènent actuelement puis discuteront avec des spécialistes français.
Deux journées auront lieu à l'ENSAPM, les 29 et 30 mars. Celle de la MCJP visera une synthèse de ces évènements et aura pour thème "De l'urgence à la post-urgence–Vers la création du local de demain."
Plus d'informations sur les manifestations de l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais.
Intervenants: Kazuhiro Sejima, Kazuyo Sejima, Kengo Kuma, Yasuaki Onoda, Riken Yamamoto
Louise Cort (Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery)
Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit, MI
1 April 2012
[from DIA, 1/30/12]
The Freer Gallery of Art recently recreated James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room as it was installed in Charles Lang Freer's Detroit home on Ferry Street. Designed to display blue-and-white porcelain, the room was used to house Freer's extraordinarily diverse ceramics collection. Louise Cort discusses how the installation reveals Freer's approach to collecting, as well as his startling eye for color harmonies.
Alicia Volk (University of Maryland)
Morikami Museum and Gardens
Delray Beach, FL
5 April 2012
[from Morikami, 2/5/12]
Discover the fascinating story of what happens to an art form as historical circumstances and sources of patronage undergo dramatic change, as occurred in the case of prints in modern Japan. Learn about the various kinds of printmaking practiced in Japan in the 20th century, their relation to the historical legacy of Japanese prints, and how they weathered the vicissitudes of war, occupation, and participation in the international art world to become one of the most energetic and ambitious of modern art forms.
Alicia Volk is Associate Professor of Japanese Art History at the University of Maryland. She has published books and articles on a range of mediums and issues in modern and contemporary Japanese art. Her award-winning In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugoro and Japanese Modern Art places Japanese modern art in the framework of global modernism. She is the author of Made in Japan: The Postwar Creative Print Movement and the curator of the exhibition of the same name, which traveled to the Morikami Museum in 2005. Dr. Volk is now writing a book titled Democratizing Japanese Art 1945-1960 about the rebuilding of the Japanese art world following World War II.
James Lin (Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge)
Oriental Ceramic Society
London, UK
10 April 2012
[from OCS, 1/22/12]
The Han period (206 BC-AD220) is noted for the lavishness of its burials. However, Chinese texts hardly mention how the imperial household prepared for the funeral of the emperor or imperial family members. Judging from the large scale of the tomb structures and the rich funeral objects in a diverse range of materials, the preparation for a king's funeral must have been well organized. Like the Egyptian pyramids, the construction of Han imperial tombs and the preparation of burial items were under strict and complicated supervision. The emperors' tombs in Xi'an cannot be opened for conservation reasons, so we do not know what they look like. However, judging from the imperial members' tombs that have been excavated in eastern China, and the 82 tomb passages that have been discovered in Yangling, Xi'an, which belonged to emperor Jingdi (r.188-141 BC), we can assume that an emperor's tomb would have been similar to those of the kings in eastern China, but larger in scale. This talk aims to reconstruct the Han imperial funeral process by putting all of the pieces of the jigsaw together from the surviving texts and the archaeological evidence.
James C. S. Lin is the Senior Assistant Keeper of Applied Art at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with responsibility for the Asian art collection. James obtained a Masters degree and Ph.D. in Chinese Art History at the University of Oxford. He worked as a Research Assistant at the Ashmolean Museum between 2000-2002. He was employed as a Special Assistant at the British Museum, helping to set up the Selwyn and Ellie Alleyne Gallery of Chinese Jade between June-November 2002. Afterwards he returned to Oxford as the first Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting, at the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Chinese painting gallery at the Ashmolean Museum. In September 2004 he was appointed as the Assistant Keeper of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Shozo Sato (artist)
Denver Art Museum
Denver, CO
11 April 2012
[from Tang Center, 10/2/11]
Shozo Sato, a recipient of the Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan, has spent his lifetime both in teaching and creating Japanese Traditional Arts. This lecture will encompass the various aspects of traditional black ink painting down through the ages and the new directions being taking in contemporary Sumi-e.
Courtauld Institute of Art
London, UK
11-14 April 2012
[from Courtauld, 2/12/12]
This Forum will be a major event of an exceptional kind, seeking to address the philosophical issues concerning Buddhism and art in a profound and holistic way. Drawing contributors from widely varied backgrounds from Asia and the rest of the world, the Forum will have four overarching themes dealing with Buddhist art: definition; creation and function; conservation; and its role in the contemporary world.
It will be the first time that a representative group of those with a stake in Buddhist art–monks, artists, art historians, archaeologists, conservators, curators, and officials–are gathered to consider such issues, and a unique opportunity for synergistic discussion. Prompted by The Courtauld's engagement with the complex challenges of preserving Buddhist art in China, India and Bhutan and The Ho Family Foundation's aim to promote understanding of Buddhism, it is hoped that the Forum will make a genuine contribution to the awareness and understanding of issues and developments beyond regional and specialist boundaries.
About forty contributors will engage with an audience of scholars, students and the general public who will participate in discussion throughout the event. The Forum will include evening receptions jointly hosted with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, and another in The Courtauld Gallery. This event is sponsored by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.
Booking is for all four days of the Forum. To book a place: £100 (£75 Courtauld staff/students and concessions). BOOK ONLINE: http://courtauld-institute.digitalmuseum.co.uk. For payment by cheque, or for further information, e-mail ResearchForumEvents@courtauld.ac.uk. Since places are limited, The Courtauld regrets that it cannot guarantee that all booking requests will be accepted.
DAY 1: Defining Buddhist Art
Session 1 Chair: Deborah Swallow (Courtauld Institute of Art)
- Jigmé Khyentsé Rinpoche (Songsten, France), "Buddhist Art as Support for Mind Training"
- Juhyung Rhi (Seoul National University), "Becoming a Buddha: Enlightenment Versus the Buddha's First Sermon in Indian Buddhist Art"Session 2 Chair: Christian Luczanits (Rubin Museum of Art)
- Peter Skilling (École française d'Extrême-Orient, Bangkok), "Rhetoric of Reward, Ideologies of Inducement: Why Produce Buddhist 'Art'?"
- Robert Sharf (University of California, Berkeley), "Ritual Function of the Art of Major Central Asian Cave Sites"Session 3 Chair David Park (Courtauld Institute of Art)
- Melissa R. Kerin (Washington and Lee University), "Not What It Seems: Understanding Collection and Display Practices in a Western Himalayan Buddhist Shrine"
- Jigmed W. Namgyal (Namgyal Institute for Research on Ladakhi Art and Culture), "NIRLAC's Conservation Efforts in Ladakh"Session 4 Chair: Jan Stuart (British Museum)
- Kate Crosby and Pyi Phyo Kyaw (School of Oriental and African Studies), "The Mahamuni Image of Mandalay and His Brothers: Understanding Buddha Worship in Southeast Asian Context"
- Patricia Berger (University of California, Berkeley), "The Problem of Authenticity: A Historical Geography of Buddhist Art in Eighteenth-Century China"
DAY 2: Creation and Function of Buddhist Art
Session 1 Chair: Roderick Whitfield (School of Oriental and African Studies)
- Matthew Kapstein (École pratique des hautes études), "The Oracle and Temple of La mo Icog: Aspects of History and Iconography"
- Tadeusz Skorupski (School of Oriental and African Studies), "Buddha's Stupa and Image: In search of the Ultimate Icon"Session 2 Chair: Beth McKillop (Victoria and Albert Museum)
- Youngsook Pak (School of Oriental and African Studies), "Blazing Light. Calamity-Solving Images in Medieval Korea"
- Claudine Bautze-Picron (CNRS, Paris; Free University of Brussels), "Painted and Architectural Ornamentation of the Temples of Pagan: More than Mere Iconography and Decoration"Session 3 Chair: Sharon Cather (Courtauld Institute of Art)
- Dorjee Tshering (Department of Culture, Thimphu), "Relationship of Conservation to the Function of Monuments with Particular Reference to Buddhism in Bhutan"
- John Clarke and Diana Heath (Victoria and Albert Museum), "A New Image of the Mahasiddha Virupa, a Major Addition to the Corpus of Yongle Bronzes: Conservation and Art Historical Investigations"Session 4 Chair: Deborah Swallow
- Alice Kandell (New York), "Why Collect Tibetan Art?"
- Francesca Herndon-Consagra (Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St Louis), "Opening the Eyes: Experiencing Buddhist Art in a Building by Tadao Ando"
DAY 3: Conservation of Buddhist Art
Session 1 Chair: Sharon Cather (Courtauld Institute of Art)
- Christian Luczanits, "Conservation and Research in Buddhist Art: Questions of Ethics, Documentation and Reconstruction from a Practical Research Perspective"
- Lisa Shekede and Stephen Rickerby (Courtauld Institute of Art), "Buddhist Wall Paintings of Bhutan: Material Traditions and Conservation Realities"Session 2 Chair: David Park
- Charlotte Martin de Fonjaudran (Courtauld Institute of Art), Sreekumar Menon and Maninder Singh Gill (Art Conservation Solutions, Delhi), "Sumda Chun and Other Early Buddhist Wall Painting Sites in Ladakh: Practical and Ethical Conservation Issues from Obscuring Surface Layers to Failing Structures"
- Alexander von Rospatt (University of California, Berkeley), "Buddhist Strategies of Keeping its Sacred Shrines Alive: the Example of the Svayambhû -caitya of KathmanduSession 3 Chair: Roderick Whitfield
- Wang Xudong (Dunhuang Academy), "The Issues Facing the Dunhuang Caves and Preventative Conservation"
- Lorinda Wong (Getty Conservation Institute), "Applying the China Principles: the Getty Conservation Institute's Work at Dunhuang and Chengde in China"Session 4 Chair: Sharon Cather
- Susan Whitfield (British Library), "The International Dunhuang Project and the Conservation and Digitisation of Buddhist Art
- Yoko Taniguchi (University of Tsukuba), "Conserving Bamiyan's Wall Paintings: Dilemmas and Practical Issues"
DAY 4: Role of Buddhist Art in the Contemporary World
Session 1 Chair: Kuenga Wangmo (Courtauld Institute of Art)
- Matthieu Ricard (Shechen Monastery), "The Use of Sacred Buddhist Art in the Tibetan Tradition as a Support for Spiritual Transformation: Inner Meaning and Symbolism"
- Richard Blurton (British Museum), "Contemporary Buddhist Pilgrimage and Devotional Practice in the Eastern Himalayas"Session 2 Chair: Kate Crosby (School of Oriental and African Studies)
- Caroline Humphrey (University of Cambridge), "The Difficulties of Being a Painter Monk in Contemporary Inner Mongolia (China)
- Francesca Tarocco (New York University), "The Wailing Arhats: Buddhism, Photography and Resistance in China"Session 3 Chair: Deborah Swallow
- Antony Gormley (artist, London), "Body Space and Body Time: Living in Sculpture"
- Alexandra Munroe (Guggenheim Museum, New York), "The Third Mind: Buddhist Imaginary in American Art from Fenollosa to Cage"Session 4 Chair: David Park
- Tenzing Rigdol (New York), "Tibetan-ness, an Aesthetic Quest"
- Marsha Haufler (University of Kansas), "Gifts for Mt. Myohyang: Pohyon Temple and the International Friendship Exhibition"
- Boreth J. Ly (University of California, Santa Cruz), "Politics of Visions: Manifestations of Maitreya in Mainland Southeast Asia Art"
Claudia Brown (University of Arizona)
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
11-14 April 2012
[from Courtauld, 10/2/11]
16 April
Lecture 1. "Proceeding Down the Grand Canal: The Qing Emperors' Maps and Topographical Paintings"
Traditional Chinese panoramic maps remained a standard administrative tool to the end of Imperial rule. However, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) recognized the strategic utility of Western cartography and employed Europeans to survey and map the empire. His successors, Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), carried on the practice. During the same period, court artists studied and re-created masterworks in the topographical genre from the Song dynasty (960-1279). The legacy of these traditional paintings could be both useful and poetic, and it informed the well known series of Southern Inspection Tour scrolls commissioned first by Kangxi and later by Qianlong. In panoramas that foreshadow Google Street View, Qing painters recorded a wealth of information while maintaining a link to the classical aesthetic.
17 April
Lecture 2. "The Emperor Commissions an Inventory: The State of the Field of Qing Painting Studies"
In 1744 court officials began the evaluation and cataloguing of the vast palace collection of scrolls and albums, old and new. Their work set the starting point for the study of painting of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Meanwhile, an eager audience in Europe and North America, already keen on Chinoiserie, developed interest in "export pictures" which combined elements of the traditions of China and the West. Although modern art historians were slow to take up the study of Qing painting, the formation of the Palace Museum and the first publications of its collections in the 1930s spurred a general interest that has resurfaced in the last two decades. The challenge remains to sort out the relationship of court painting to private commissions and of scholar-amateur work to that associated with a modern, commercial art market.
[19 April]
Lecture 3. "Scholar Zhang Peeks at Yingying: How Printed Books Inspired Painters of the Qing Dynasty"
Publishing flourished in the late Ming period and then again shortly after the Qing conquest in 1644, despite the destruction of important publishing houses in several cities during the turmoil of the fall of Ming. The sophisticated simplicity of traditional Chinese printing techniques – with no presses needed – made small-scale publishing workable and trade in books expanded. Books were exported to Japan on ships with other cargoes. Old books were collected with enthusiasm. The Qianlong emperor's great literary compilation, the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), now a scholarly resource available and searchable online, was made possible by the cooperation of private book collectors. Books were also available on a popular level and were sold from floating vessels on the Southern waterways. The popularity of printed books continued to the end of the Qing dynasty, despite the destruction of many printing houses during the Taiping Rebellion. A rapid transition to lithography began in the late 1870s. Throughout the period, painting manuals and illustrated literary works circulated widely, inspiring new trends in painting.
Stephen Whiteman (Middlebury College)
in the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Landscape History Chapter 2nd Symposium "Landscapes in Time"
Detroit, MI
18 April 2012
[from H-ARTHIST, 1/7/12]
Emmanuel Lincot (Institut Catholique de Paris)
musée du quai Branly
19-20 April 2012
[from mqB, 1/3/12]
Tehching Hsieh (artist)
Art Institute of Chicago
24 April 2012
[from SAIC, 1/23/12]
Born in Taiwan in 1950, Tehching Hsieh began work on his iconic series of One Year Performances starting in the late 1970s. Using long durations, making art and life simultaneous, Hsieh spent one year locked in a cage, one year punching a time clock every hour, one year completely outdoors, and one year tied to another person. For his final performance piece, Thirteen Year Plan, Hsieh intentionally retreated from the art world between 1986–99, setting a tone of sustained invisibility. Since 2000, having been released from the restriction of not showing his work during the 13-year period, Hsieh has exhibited and lectured in North and South America, Asia, and Europe, including major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2010 Hsieh was included in the Liverpool Biennial in the United Kingdom and the Gwangju Biennial in South Korea.
Jerome Silbergeld (Princeton University)
Art Institute of Chicago
26 April 2012
[from AIC, 8/6/11]
Jerome Silbergeld, Princeton University, probes the discipline of architectural details in Chinese painting, seeking relationships between the strict two-dimensional images and their real world counterparts to ferret out possible political and social references.
Mika Mori
Östasiatiska museet
Stockholm, Sweden
8 May 2012
[from Om, 1/6/12]
Mika Mori berättar om dockornas historia i Japan och presenterar sin mor dockkonstnären Hatsuko Ohno vars samling nu visas i ett unikt inlån från Japan. Dockorna uppvisar utsökt konsthantverk i kombination med humor och värme. På japanska/engelska.
Patrick Conner (Martyn Gregory Gallery)
Oriental Ceramic Society
London, UK
8 May 2012
[from OCS, 1/22/12]
For nearly a century Canton (Guangzhou) was the only port in China at which Westerners were allowed to trade. In the decoration of export art the city itself--with its "hongs" or "factories," its forts, its towers and temples--was a favourite theme, not only in export painting but also on porcelain, lacquer and ivory. In this lecture the relationship between these media is explored, through examples ranging from Chinese wallpaper and maps to reverse-glass painting and the spectacular "hong bowls" of the late 18th century.
From 1975 to 1986 Patrick Conner was Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton; since 1986, he has been Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London, specialists in historical paintings related to the China Trade. Dr. Conner's published books include Oriental Architecture in the West (1978), George Chinnery, Artist of India and the China Coast (1993), and The Hongs of Canton: Western Merchants in South China 1700-1900 (2009). He has curated a number of loan exhibitions exploring the relationships between "Eastern" and "Western" cultures, notably William Alexander, an English Artist in Imperial China (1981); The China Trade 1600-1860 (1986); and The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery (Asia House, 2011-12).
Anne Wilkes Tucker (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
10 May 2012
[from MFA, 8/10/11]
Anne Wilkes Tucker, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has been one of the authoritative voices in the United States for Japanese photography. In 2003, she organized the highly celebrated exhibition A History of Japanese Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and co-authored its award-winning catalogue. She has also contributed to a volume of photographs by Shibata Toshio, known for his images of civil-engineering projects imposed upon the natural landscape. In her lecture, Tucker provides a brief overview of Japanese photography and shares her insights about the works of photographers Shibata, Tomatsu Shomei, Moriyama Daido, Sugimoto Hiroshi, and Hatakeyama Naoya.
Regina Krahl
Art Institute of Chicago
17 May 2012
[from AIC, 1/23/12]
Regina Krahl, independent scholar, reviews 600 years of stunning wares from imperial workshops in China's "porcelain city," Jingdezhen, where innovation was inspired by the past.
Freer/Sackler
Washington, DC
24 May 2012
[from F/S, 2/4/12]
"Exhibiting Asia in the 21st Century" is an occasional lecture series inaugurated in 2012 to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
Today, globally engaged exhibiting of Asian art involves challenges never imagined when our museums and disciplines were established. Why does the aura of objects remain important in an era of virtual learning? What is the impact of 24/7 exhibition cycles on curators? Why is it urgent to reexamine the historical roots of current collections and intellectual frameworks? How do museums present objects as simultaneously "icons" and "artworks"? Who interprets Asian art? Answers to these and other pressing questions will be explored in talks delivered by leading experts in the field.
24 May
"Religion in the Gallery": Two talks followed by a conversation
- Gregory Levine (University of California, Berkeley), "On the Look and Logos of Zen Art Modernism"
- Katherine Anne Paul (Newark Museum), "Settings or Shrines? Displaying Tibetan Art"
Andreas Marks (Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture)
Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit, MI
3 June 2012
[from DIA, 1/30/12]
Legend maintains that Utagawa Hiroshige based his woodblock-print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi no uchi) on his travels along the Tokaido, the arterial road that connected Edo (presentday Tokyo) with Kyoto. This lecture will demonstrate that the majority of Hiroshige's designs are, in fact, based on illustrations from travel guides.
33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art (CIHA)
Germanisches National Museum
Nuremberg, Germany
15-20 July 2012
[from CIHA, 12/30/11; sessions/papers relating to China and Japan listed below]
Section 1: Questioning the Object of Art History [Die Frage des Objekts in der Kunstgeschichte]
- ZHANG Jian (China), "A Receptive Problem of a Concept of Art History. 'Kunstwissenschaft' in China"
Section 3: On Religions and their Objectivations as Seen from Intercultural Perspectives
[Die Religionen und ihre Objektivierungen in der Kunst aus interkultureller Perspektive]
- GUO Liang (China), "Elegant Strategy: Jesuits' Atlas and their Confucian Connoisseur in late Ming Dynasty"
- NAGAOKA Ryusaku (Japan), "Buddhist Soteriology and the Function of Figurative Art"
Section 4: The Object as Subject [Das Objekt als Subjekt]
- Khadija Carroll La (UK), "Object to Project: Classifying Museum Collections from the British Colonies Based on Indigenous Taxonomies"
- LING Min (China), "Public Art and its Relationship with a Contemporary Chinese Public"
Section 7: Spoils: Viewing Others–The View of Others [Beutekunst: Die Sicht auf die Anderen–Die Sicht der Anderen]
- Greg M. Thomas (China), "Regrouping: Displays of Loot from Yuanmingyuan"
Section 13: The Multiple Art Work [Das multiple Kunstwerk]
- Craig Clunas (UK), "Looking at Paintings within Paintings in Chinese Art"
- FUJIOKA Yutaka (Japan), "The Mass-Production of Buddhist Sculptures in the Late Heian Period and a Buddhist Sculptor Jôchô"
Section 15: Charged Sites [Ereignisorte]
- GENG Yan (Germany), "Tiananmen: From Imperial Gate to Communist Icon"
- SHAO Yiyang (China), "Charged Site–Contemporary Chinese Site-Specific Art"
Section 16: The Gendered Object [Das geschlechtsbezogene Objekt]
- TENG Yuning (China), "Disperse the Political Shadow—A Study on Chinese Women's Self-Consciousness Gaining Process through Image Research"
Section 18: The Absence of the Object and the Void [Die Abwesenheit des Objekts und die Leere]
- Regina Höfer (Germany), "'Form is Emptiness; Emptiness is Form'–Contemporary Tibetan Abstraction and Cultural Tradition"
- KANAME Mariko (Japan), "Remarks on 'Emptiness' or 'Intervals' in Painting: Modernism and Orientalism"
Section 20: Architecture as Object [Architektur als Objekt]
- Régine Bonnefoit (Switzerland), "The Paper Tube Structures by Shigeru Ban–Architecture as Object in Its Literal Sense"
Section 21: CIHA as the Object of Art History [Die Rolle des CIHA in der Kunstgeschichte]
- Hans Belting (Germany), "World Art versus Global Art. A new Challenge to Art History"
- John Clark (Australia), "Art History and Its Futures: The Asian Case of Non-Euramerica"
- WATANABE Toshio (UK), "Art Historical Canon and the Transnational"
| Last modified 13 Feb 2012. Copyright ©1996-2012 by Nixi Cura. This web page may be linked to any other web pages. Contents may not be altered. Unauthorized use or electronic dissemination is prohibited by applicable laws. URL: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/html/chinese/call.html |
ACC INFO + INDEX |
| ATTEND | |
| CALLS | |
| GRADUATE PROGRAMS/STUDENTS | |
| GRANTS | |
| LINKS | |
| POSITIONS |
