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Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?

March 30, 2011

By independent filmmaker Alison Klayman

Featured on PBS Frontline March 29, 2011

Global Art?: Workshop at University of Warwick

February 25, 2011

Global Art?  China and Europe in Early Modern Material & Visual Culture

IAS Seminar Room, Millburn House
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7HS
25 February 2011
All welcome (no rsvp required)
Website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/research/globalporcelain/workshop/
Workshop Convenor:  Dr Stephen McDowall

In this half-day workshop, part of the Global History & Culture Centre Workshop Series for 2011, we will hear from scholars who have engaged with the images and objects of Sino-European interaction in fascinating and thought-provoking ways, followed by a more general discussion of methodological issues and their application to global history.

13:15    Dr Stephen McDowall:  Welcome
13:20   Prof. David Porter:  Gendered Utopias in Transcultural Context: Chinese Porcelains and English Women’s Writings, c. 1650-1750 (abstract (PDF Document))
14:00    Prof. Carolyn Steedman responds to David Porter
14:15    Questions & discussion (chair: Dr Rosa Salzberg)
14:35    Break
14:55   Dr Kristina Kleutghen:  Performing a ‘Journey to the West’: The Problem of Theatres and Gardens in Sino-European Exchange (abstract (PDF Document))
15:35    Stephen McDowall responds to Kristina Kleutghen
15:50    Questions & discussion (chair: Prof. Maxine Berg)
16:10    Break
16:30   Dr Daniel Rycroft responds:  Art History as Global History
16:45    General discussion (chair: Dr Anne Gerritsen)
17:30    Drinks
18:15    Close

David Porter is Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan.  He is the author of Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe (2001) and The Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century England (2010).

Kristina Kleutghen is an independent Chinese art historian specialising in cross-cultural interactions during the Qing dynasty.  She is currently revising a manuscript on monumental illusionistic painting at the eighteenth-century court, and is executive editor of the journal Modern Art Asia.

Daniel Rycroft is Lecturer in the Arts and Cultures of South Asia at the University of East Anglia.  He is the author of Representing Rebellion:  Visual Aspects of Counter-insurgency in Colonial India (2006), co-editor of The Politics of Belonging in India: Becoming Adivasi (2011) and joint editor of the journal World Art.

Happy New Year of the Rabbit!

February 2, 2011

Leng Mei (c. 1677-c.1742), Pair of Rabbits Under a Pauwlonia Tree (undated). Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, 175.9 x 95cm. Palace Museum Beijing

Spring 2011 Dartmouth College courses

January 31, 2011

ARTH 60: Arts of China: Classical and Contemporary

This course introduces the major themes, works, and issues in Chinese art history, together with modern and contemporary works to show the origins and continuations of the classical tradition. Each class teaches recent works together with the traditional for a clear understanding of how contemporary Chinese art continues to be influenced by the ongoing five-thousand-year trajectory of Chinese art history. Works covered include prehistoric ceramics, ancient ritual and funerary arts, medieval Buddhist arts, major painters and painting genres, traditional and contemporary architecture, gardens, modern art, Mao-era propaganda, and contemporary art through 2010.

 

ARTH 16.2 The Forbidden City

Since 1420, the Forbidden City has existed as a cultural and political monument at the heart of China. This seminar examines the City as both a site and archetype in late imperial and modern China, and seeks to determine how its “Forbidden” power continues to evolve in the twenty-first century. The first half of the course will explore the art historical identity of the site as ultimate manifestation of imperial Chinese power from 1420 through 1924, as epitomized in its architecture, art, material culture, and the cultural influences of its most important inhabitants. The second half of the course will interpret the broader theoretical role of the Forbidden City in modern times as an evolving political symbol, a major public international museum, the linchpin of Beijing’s urban design strategy, and a continuing trope in contemporary art, design, and visual culture. Virtual site visits through interactive three-dimensional software will allow us to explore the Forbidden City in person. No previous knowledge of Chinese art history or culture is necessary.

For syllabi, please contact me.

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