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Chen Qikuan, 1921-2007, China, Monkeys, probably 1989, Hanging scroll; Ink on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li. |
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Hong Xian, born 1933, China, Mountains, Streams, Sun, Moon, 1972, Hanging scroll; Ink and color on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li. |
Spencer Museum of Art A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950-2000 features more than 60 works, drawn entirely from the collection of Chu-tsing Li — the finest and most comprehensive collection of its kind in the West — is the first to survey Chinese ink paintings produced during the second half of the 20th century. In examining this five-decade period, the exhibition demonstrates the dramatic evolution of Chinese ink painting in recent times and lays a foundation for understanding the international-style work that is being created in China today. In addition, the exhibition illustrates parallel lines of development in different geographical areas by artists active in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and abroad, thereby bringing to light differences in style and technique from one area to another. The exhibition commemorates decades of growing awareness in this country of modern and contemporary Chinese painting. A Tradition Redefined is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Harvard University Art Museums. The Spencer Museum of Art venue is generously supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. All three of the exhibition’s curators did their graduate work in Chinese painting at the University of Kansas, studying with Chu-tsing Li. Many of these paintings have not previously been exhibited in the West. Robert D. Mowry, Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art, Harvard University Art Museums, co-curated the exhibition with Janet Baker, Curator of Asian Art, Phoenix Art Museum; and Claudia Brown, Professor of Art History, Herberger College of the Arts, Arizona State University, and Research Curator for Asian Art, Phoenix Art Museum. A Tradition Redefined features works by artists who have reconsidered numerous aspects of classical Chinese painting and who have in various ways synthesized elements of Western modernism with Chinese abstraction. In the early 20th century China experienced a drive to modernize; as part of that phenomenon, young Chinese painters, tired of the sanctioned styles and codified brushwork of their predecessors, eagerly began to explore Western styles. These experiments of China’s first generation of modern artists were cut short by evolving historical circumstances including Japanese invasions from the 1930s through World War II, the Chinese Civil War (1927-50), and the rise of competing governments in Beijing and Taipei. Mainland China’s postwar focus on reshaping its economy, government, and society in the Communist model meant that artists were actively discouraged from exploring foreign artistic styles. Artists working in Taiwan and Hong Kong, by contrast, were free to experiment with foreign idioms, so that painting styles followed different lines of development from one geographical area to another. Contemporary Chinese artists continue to struggle with a balance of traditional and international styles, all the while maintaining a reflection of their own inner personality and continuing the powerful legacy of their Chinese ancestry. The exhibition is grouped into five categories: Tradition Uprooted includes works by established artists who were displaced following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Tradition Abstracted features artists active in Taiwan after 1949 who sought to combine Western modernist elements with traditional Chinese abstraction. Tradition Embraced refers to artists working outside mainland China who actively sought to perpetuate and expand traditional Chinese ink painting styles. Tradition Reasserted groups the work of those artists from the PRC who adapted their styles and subject matter to values of the Communist republic but reasserted aspects of traditional painting. Tradition Transcended presents paintings by artists whose idiosyncratic works are beyond categorization — individualist rather than either strictly modernist or traditionalist. Professor Chu-tsing Li is one of the pioneers in the study of modern and contemporary Chinese ink paintings. His interest in art began while he was studying for his BA in English literature at Nanjing University in the early and mid-1940s. He befriended Michael Sullivan, a young architect from Cambridge University who taught English at Nanjing University but who also offered an introductory course in Western art history. Sullivan and Li shared many of the same interests, and the two attended exhibitions and visited with artists, becoming friends; through this association, Chu-tsing Li became interested in art history and, almost by coincidence began his first contacts with modern and contemporary art. Li came to the United States in 1947; after completing his MA in English literature at the University of Iowa in two years, he switched to their art department to study northern Baroque painting. In 1955 Li completed his PhD at Iowa, where he then taught classes in Baroque painting and was urged to teach modern and Asian art as well. Preparation for these new courses awakened a deep interest in both fields, and he subsequently immersed himself in the history of Chinese painting. Best known for his studies of classical Chinese paintings, particularly paintings of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), he was also developing a second specialty in modern and contemporary Chinese painting by visiting artists and studying their work first-hand. At this time, Li began to acquire contemporary works and to form lifelong friendships with artists. After 10 years of teaching at Iowa, Li in 1966 moved to the University of Kansas, Lawrence, where he established a doctoral program in Chinese art. He was Judith Harris Murphy Distinguished Professor of Art History until his retirement in 1990. In 1975 he offered the first course in modern Chinese art taught in the West — perhaps the first course in this subject taught anywhere; he wrote most of his best-known works on classical Chinese paintings and on modern and contemporary Chinese art while at Kansas. As an art historian well-trained in Eastern and Western art, a specialist in Chinese painting, and an acclaimed author of scholarly works on modern Chinese painting, Li has been in a perfect position to assemble a collection of modern and contemporary Chinese ink paintings. His collection ranks among the finest and most comprehensive in the West; though wide ranging, it is particularly strong in works created during the second half of the 20th century. The majority of the works in the Chu-tsing Li collection were acquired directly from the artists who created them, and many of the paintings include personalized dedications to Professor Li and his wife Yao-wen Li. Liu Guosong, a pioneering artist who founded the Fifth Moon Group, the first modern painters’ society in Taiwan, features prominently in A Tradition Redefined with five works, including the abstract ink scroll Wintry Mountains Covered with Snow (1964), which was exhibited this past spring in a retrospective show of Liu’s paintings at the Palace Museum, Beijing, and the dramatic painting with collage High Noon (1969). Zhao Shaoang, a renowned painter, poet, and calligrapher, is represented by an ink and color horizontal scroll entitled Baoguo Temple on Mount Emei (1959), which depicts a Buddhist pilgrimage destination on one of China’s sacred mountains. Other important works include self-taught Yu Chengyao’s hanging scrolls of complex landscapes Deep Ravine, Rushing Torrent (early 1960s) and Zephyr at Huangshi (1988); Lu Yanshao’s political work Electric Power Station in a Mountain Village (1976); the ink and color scrolls Clearing after Snow (1983) and Rugged Hills of North America (1989) by Wan Qingli, a painter, connoisseur, teacher, and respected scholar of Chinese painting; and Chen Qikuan’s playful Monkeys (probably 1989). A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes essays by the exhibition’s three co-curators: Robert D. Mowry, Janet Baker, and Claudia Brown, as well as by artist and independent scholar Arnold Chang. Chun-yi Lee, ink-painter and graduate student in the history of Chinese art at Arizona State University, Tempe; and Melissa Moy, assistant curator of Chinese art, Harvard University Art Museums, also made important contributions to the catalogue. In addition to a color illustration of each work in the exhibition, photographic details of signatures and impressed seals are reproduced at actual size along with transcriptions of the seals and English translations of inscriptions. A brief biography of each artist represented in the exhibition is also included. The catalogue is published by the Harvard University Art Museums and distributed by Yale University Press. |
Liu Guosong, born 1932, China, High Noon, 1969, Ink, color, and collage on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li.
Liu Guosong, born 1932, China, Wintry Mountains Covered with Snow, 1964, Hanging scroll; Ink on fibrous paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li.
Wan Qingli, born 1945, China, Rugged Hills of North America, 1989, Hanging scroll; Ink and color on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li.
Yu Chengyao, 1898-1993, China, Zephyr at Huangshi, 1988, Hanging scroll; Ink and color on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li. |
Liu Guosong, born 1932, China, High Noon, 1969, Ink, color, and collage on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li. |
Li Jingwen, born 1941, China, Moon View, undated, Vertical wall scroll; Ink and color on paper, Collection of Chu-tsing Li. |
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Terry Evans (b. 1944, Kansas City, Missouri, active United States), One of the paths that lead from the coastal Greenland landmass to the Jakobshavn Icefjord (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). The icefjord leads to the mouth of the Jakobshavn Glacier. June 26, 2008, morning, 2008, archival digital print, 36 x 36", Courtesy of the Artist. |
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Spencer Museum of Art What’s it like for an artist who has revealed ecological issues in her photographs of the American landscape to turn her attention to one of Greenland’s Glaciers? What can her work bring to that of University of Kansas scientists who are studying the same glacier? "Before I went to Greenland,” Evans says, “I imagined that my work would be about describing the Jakobshavn Glacier for an audience back home, much like photographer William Henry Jackson did in 1871, when he accompanied Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, geologist to Yellowstone, bringing back gorgeous photographs of that uncharted territory. “My reality was different. I did aerially photograph, from a helicopter, the ice fjord leading to the calving front of the Jakobshavn Glacier and I did photograph the glacier front and its surface, but what I saw was confusing and frustrating. I could not understand what I was seeing because there were no human markers below me on the ice. I had no sense of scale. Was that chunk of ice twenty stories high or knee high? “Looking at my pictures at home gave me no clarity. I later learned that the front of the glacier is about 70 meters high, about like a twenty story building. Finally I remembered that the heart of the work that CReSIS is doing is measuring the depth of the glacier and the rate at which it’s melting and thereby being able to predict the rate of climate change and that understanding climate change is a challenging task. My own frustration in trying to understand the scale of the glacier pointed out to me that understanding the scale of climate change is equally difficult."
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Terry Evans (b. 1944, Kansas City, Missouri, active United States), Ice fjord leading to mouth of Jakobshavn Glacier, 2008, archival digital print, 30x30", Courtesy of the Artist.
Terry Evans (b. 1944, Kansas City, Missouri, active United States), Ice fjord leading to mouth of Jakobshavn Glacier, June 27, 2008, #4, 2008, archival digital print, 36 x 36", Courtesy of the Artist. |
Terry Evans (b. 1944, Kansas City, Missouri, active United States), Ice fjord leading to mouth of Jakobshavn Glacier, 2008, archival digital print, 36x36", Courtesy of the Artist. |
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David Braaten, Ice Tracks, Snowmobile tracks leading back to Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide camp (Antarctica). The camp is barely visible near the horizon. |
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Spencer Museum of Art Change is coming. From the perspective of an art museum, the prospect of climate change raises some elemental questions. For example, what impact will changing conditions have on current culture, thought, behavior, and artistic expression? Can art itself be an agent of change? What will climate change do to our sense of place? In the Polar regions, where the earth appears to be warming more quickly than it is elsewhere, we are seeing examples of accelerated climate change — a matter of great scientific discussion and political debate. By reflecting on human responses to life in these harsh, changing environments, we seek to offer new perspectives from which to comprehend existence at the Poles — and by extension, wherever one lives. With this exhibition the Spencer intends to underscore the importance of cooperation between scientists, art historians, artists, sociologists, and others in understanding historic and present-day changes to the Poles. By integrating art, photographs, objects of material culture, maps, and quantitative data, we will attempt to delve into the cultural responses to and relationships with these unforgiving environments. During the International Polar Year (IPY), we will examine Polar materials, disciplines, and ways of seeing and being, ranging from the first IPY (1882-1883) to the current one (2007-2009). Outreach plans include lectures, a film and book series, children’s art classes and other University, community, and regional efforts. The International Polar Year (or IPY) is a collaborative, international effort researching the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor, but died before it first occurred in 1882-1883. Fifty years later (1932-1933) a second IPY occurred. The International Geophysical Year was inspired by the IPY and occurred 75 years after the first IPY (1957-58). |
The third International Polar Year is currently in progress, having begun in 2007, and continuing until 2009. It is being sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU) the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The chair of the International Planning Group established within the ICSU for this event is chaired by Professor Chris Rapley and Dr. Robin Bell. The Director of the IPY International Programme Office is Dr David Carlson. The polar areas have many unique phenomena. Circulatory systems for air and water reach the surface, as do the majority of the Earth's magnetic field lines. Thick glaciers have trapped air and water from ancient times, phenonema most readilyy observed near the poles. Unfortunately, the poles are expensive places to visit, because they are distant, cold and deserted; infrastructure is sparse and the terrain is rough in polar regions (often consisting of ice blocks with crevasses between them). International cooperative programs share the costs and maximize the number of coordinated scientific observations. The IPY is the most famous example of such a cooperative program. Climate Change at the Poles is organized by Kate Meyer, curatorial assistant, prints & drawings; Jennifer Talbott, assistant to the director; and Angela Watts, assistant collections manager, with contributions from advisors Steve Goddard, senior curator, Jonathan Chester, Extreme Images, and Dan Wildcat, Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU). The project consists of an alliance with the National Science Foundation’s KU-headquartered Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), cooperation with departments across campus, and collaboration with HINU. In addition, the Spencer has commissioned photographer Terry Evans to travel to Greenland to photograph the coasts and ice sheets — her work will be on view in the Museum’s Process Gallery, adjacent to the 20/21 Gallery. |
David Braaten, CReSIS, University of Kansas, University of Washington radar sled at Western Antarctic Ice |
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Jokansai, active Japan, 1811-1879, inro, netsuke, ojime, 1800s, Edo period (1600-1868), lacquer, ivory, William Bridges Thayer Memorial, 1928.0027.a,b,c. |
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Seated Guanyin (Avalokitesvara), 1800s, China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911), wood, lacquer, gilding, William Bridges Thayer Memorial, 1928.3130. |
Spencer Museum of Art This thematic presentation of the Spencer’s permanent holdings in the arts of China, Korea, and Japan explores the idea of “antiquity” as a resonating force in the creative reframing of art and visual culture in East Asia from the Neolithic period to the contemporary. In China, the notion of fu gu or “returning to antiquity” was a process of constant renewal in which ideas, theories, and styles of art from the past were used to rethink and rejuvenate a wide range of media including painting, prints, bronzes, ceramics, religious art, and architecture. Antiquarianism has been an important element and moving force in the continuity, renewal, and reshaping of the art and cultural identity of East Asia from ancient times to the modern age. This fourth annual symposium of the Center for the Art of East Asia reexamines the phenomenon of antiquarianism by broadening the focus of study to all types of antiquarian knowledge, activities, and influences in East Asia and their impact on art and visual culture. This installation not only examines how the phenomena of antiquarianism informed artistic production within East Asia but also considers the development of international trade and modern national identity as relevant factors in this process. As part of this ongoing installation, a selection of paintings, prints, screens, and select objects from the collection on the theme of antiquarianism will rotate routinely to refresh and stimulate ongoing dialogues about this rich topic. |
Yan Yihe, active Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, China, gui-shaped vessel with recumbent deer, 1800s, China, late Qing dynasty (1644-1911), pewter, coral, jade, 1928.1130.a,b,c. |
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