China on Display: Past and Present Practices of Selecting, Exhibiting and Viewing Chinese Visual and Material Culture
06/12/2007 - 09:15
6 - 8 December 2007
An International Symposium
Venue:
Leiden University School of Management Gravensteen, Pieterskerkhof 6, Room 111
As displays in museums and galleries become increasingly globalized, it is essential to turn critical attention towards the historical and cultural variations that exist in display practice. This symposium focuses on China as a case study to examine how the visual production of non-European cultures has been represented in exhibitions and museum displays, both historically and in the contemporary period. The period covered spans from late Imperial China to the contemporary, and the papers focus on the presentation of Chinese material culture to both a Chinese and a non-Chinese public. The symposium will bring together an interdisciplinary group of art historians, anthropologists and practitioners (critics, artists and curators) who both study and create the dynamics for displaying Chinese art and material culture. The goal of the symposium is to develop new theoretical frameworks for research and identify patterns of intervention that could modify how contemporary representations and interpretations of ‘China' are conceptualized through exhibition and display.
PROGRAM
Thursday, December 6
9:15- 9:30: Introduction of the Symposium by Francesca Dal Lago (CNWS, Leiden University)
Day 1: Imperial Objects for Display in China and Europe: china as ‘China'
9:30-10:30: Keynote Address by Stanley Abe (Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University, Durham): Figuring China: Sculpture, Authenticity, and the Native
10:30-11:10: John Finlay (Independent Scholar, Paris): Displaying Art at the Qing Court: The Qianlong Emperor on Display
11:10-11:40: Coffee Break
11:40 -12:20: Ting Chang (College of Fine Arts and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh): Fantasies, Images and Objects: Two Nineteenth-Century European Displays of ‘China'
12:20-14:00: Lunch Break
14:00-14:40: Maris Gillette (Department of Anthropology, Haverford College): China on display and china not on display: the politics of copying in Jingdezhen
14:40-15:20: Ni Haifeng (Artist, Amsterdam): The Void between the Departure and the Arrival - Translations and Misunderstandings in Cross-Cultural Presentation
15:20-15:50: Coffee Break
15:50-16:30: Oliver Moore (Department of Chinese Studies, Leiden University): Art staged for the Camera in Qing and Republican China
16:30-17:15: Discussion introduced by Menno Fitski (Department of Fine and Decorative Arts, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Friday, December 7
Day 2
Morning: New Categories for Display in the Republican Period
9:30-10:10: Anik Fournier (Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis / Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art): Representing Self and Nation Through the Other: the 1933 Exposition de la Peinture Chinoise at the Jeu de Paume Paris
10:10-10:50: Guo Hui (Center of Non-Western Studies, Leiden University): New Objects, New History: the Preliminary Exhibition of Chinese Art, Shanghai, 1935
10:50-11:20: Coffee Break
11:20 -12:00: Felicity Lufkin (Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University): Bringing Folk in: The Folk Picture Exhibition, Hangzhou, 1937
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
Day 2
Afternoon: Aesthetics of Disappearance in Selection and Display Practices
13:30-14:10: Rubie Watson (Department of Anthropology and Peabody Museum, Harvard University): Old Hamlets and Old Houses: Memory, Ritual, and Heritage in Hong Kong's Walled Villages
14:10-14:50: Ren Hai (Departments of East Asian Studies and Anthropology, University of Arizona): Memories of the Future: Politics of Disappearance and Historical Representations in Hong Kong's ‘Return' to China
14:50-15:30: Coffee Break
15:30-16:20: Wang Nanming (Sichuan Art Academy, Chongqing): Art and Local Politics: Practices of Display and Criticism
16:20-17:00: Discussion introduced by Wilfried van Damme (Art History Department, Leiden University)
Saturday, December 8
Day 3: Agents and Objects in Contemporary Display
9:30-10:10: Morgan Perkins (Departments of Anthropology and Art, State University of New York, Potsdam): ‘What They Do Doesn't Interest Me.' Perceptions, Tastes and Social Practices of Displaying Contemporary Chinese Art
10:10-10:50: Davide Quadrio (Biz-Art Shanghai): No Cleaning and No Money Required: The Contradictions of Showing Undecoded Art in Shanghai in the 1990s
10:50-11:20: Coffee Break
11:20 -12:00: Sasha Su-Ling Welland (Departments of Anthropology and Women's Studies, University of Washington): Showcase Beijing: Art, Real Estate, and Urban Planning in the Capital
12:00-13:30: Lunch Break
13:30-14:10: Franziska Koch (Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste, Stuttgart): Chinese Pictures on Display for Western Audiences: Three Early Group Shows of Chinese Contemporary Art in Berlin, Hong Kong and Venice, 1993
14:10-14:50: Francesca Dal Lago (Center of Non-Western Studies, Leiden University): Papercuts, Colorful Pictures and Mountains of Shit: 'China' at the Venice Biennale , 1980-2007
14:50-15:30: Coffee Break
15:30-16:10: Zhang Peili (Department of New Media, China Arts Academy, Hangzhou): Chinese Artists in a Chinese Spectacle
16:10-16:30: Discussion introduced by Kitty Zijlmans (Art History Department, Leiden University)
16:30-16:45: Break
16:45-17:30: Final Participants Discussion and Conclusion
Information:
Francesca Dal Lago
Center for Non-Western Studies, Leiden University,
Nonnensteeg 1-3, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden,
The Netherlands
t + 31 (0) 71 527 4110
f + 31 (0) 71 527 2939
f.dal.lago@let.leidenuniv.nl
This event has been made possible by:
- The Hulsewé-Wazniewski Foundation (Hulsewé-Wazniewski Stichting, HWS) for the advancement of teaching and research in the archaeology, art and material culture of China at Leiden University
- Center for Non-Western Studies, Leiden University;
- International Institute for Asian Studies;
- Leiden Universiteit Funds;
- The Netherlands-China Arts Foundation;
- The Netherlands Culture Fund
- Art-Hub, Hong Kong;
- Biz-Art Shanghai;
- Weaver Museum of Anthropology, SUNY Potsdam