Requirements

1. Conference Attendance and Participation

All students are expected to do the weekly readings, participate regularly and rigorously in the conference discussion, and lead conference discussion on an article or essay (along with Lisa) two times during the semester. If you miss a conference, you will be responsible to turn in summaries of texts that were discussed on the day of your absence (these summaries will not be returned to you). More than three unexcused absences will result in no credit for the course. Acceptable excuses are illness and serious emergencies.

For TIPS ON LEADING DISCUSSION click here

Late assignment policy: Late assignments will be accepted for up to one week after they are due, but will be reduced one full grade and will not receive any comments.
Note: If you are not in conference the day papers are returned, you will be able to pick them up in the mailbox outside Lisa's office (Lib 321).

 

2. CHINA URBAN

Our conference is going to produce the labels and catalog copy for the CHINA URBAN show that will open in the Cooley Gallery on March 30. We also will work design the gallery space and publicity for the exhibition. This work will be conducted in small groups. Each one of you, however, will write one label or one short catalog entry on a particular work of art in consultation with me, Stephanie Snyder, and members of this conference, for inclusion in the China Urban exhibition catalog. You will be published authors!

I will ask you to chose an artist or image to write about in the second week of the semester. Thus far, the artists include: Chen Qiulin, Yin Xiuzhen, Yun Feiji, Chen Xiaoxiong, Li Yan, Yang Fudong, and Song Dong. We're working on bringing Cao Fei to campus and asking her to participate in the show as well. I will update you as artists commit to the show.

We will meet on February 12 with Stephanie Snyder to discuss exhibition labels.

Drafts of your labels for the show will be due on Wednesday, February 25, by 5 pm. Please upload them to the course blogspot (http://www.art395.blogspot.com) You will discuss the labels in small groups the next day (Stephanie Snyder and I will be at CAA this week, so it will be up to you to give each other insightful and incisive critiques of your labels). After that meeting, you will revise your labels and turn them in (hard copies) the following Tuesday, March 3.

Stephanie and I will review your labels. Remember that this is a collabrative project, and so you may be asked to edit or revise the labels (it's part of the process). The labels will aid you in your next project for the course, which is the research paper proposal, due on Sunday, March 1.

3.   Research Project: Chinese Art Exhibition

For the final project, each of you will conceive a thematically based exhibition catalog of three works produced from the beginning of the Maoist era in 1949 to today. This will involve selecting a coherent group of objects by three different artists and writing a catalog essay introducing the artists and and placing their work within the chosen thematic framework.   ONE OF THESE WORKS WILL BE THE ONE YOU WRITE ABOUT FOR THE CHINA URBAN SHOW OR ANOTHER OF YOUR CHOICE BY THE ARTIST WHOSE WORK YOU ARE CURRENTLY RESEARCHING.

The goal of this assignment is two-fold. First, it endeavors to make real the stakes for artists in China now.   Your task is to identify a problematic issue facing artists, a crisis of identityâ perhaps (this could be social, cultural, historical or art-historical).   Exploring this issue through your exhibit ought to provide you with a new or different lens through which to view contemporary China. Second, the assignment seeks to help you refine the process of integrating individual interpretations of works of art into larger, thematic essays that link specific works to one another and to larger issues in Chinese history.

Preliminary Catalog Bibliographyâ due Sunday, March 1

Five sources, annotated.   For information on annotating a bibliography (how to do it, format, and so on) see the Cornell University website "How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography"

Exhibition Proposal, due Sunday, March 1

Your proposal should include: the title of the exhibition, pictures of the three objects selected, and a 1- to 2-page statement describing the point of the show and its significance.

All works featured in the show must have been made between 1949 and 2009.   Any number of images from before or after this period may be used in your cataog essay to illustrate a point, but should not be included as the focal images in the exhibition itself.

Ideally, your theme should emerge out of your investigations into your artwork. Let the art works suggest the theme, rather than having the theme suggest the works. This will require that you make yourself broadly familiar with the span of art by browsing through books, periodicals, and exhibition catalogues (many on reserve). You will find that themes suggest themselves fairly quickly. Perhaps you will notice a group of artists that use a particular practice or material in their work. Perhaps a certain style of representation or iconographical motif keeps showing up. Perhaps you will notice work that is concerned with a specific social or theoretical problem.

Blog the proposal (including images!) so that the entire class can read it by Sunday, March 1. The URL for the course blog is http://www.art395.blogspot.com.

Each member of the class will read each proposal and draft a response that includes positive comments and suggestions for improvement. From Tuesday March 3 to Thursday March 12 we will discuss each proposal in turn.  

Catalogue Essay, Due MAY 11

Your essay should include a historically informed account of your general topic, as well as analysis of each work in the show and meditations on each artist's contribution to your thematic framework.

Catalogue essays do not have a particular format, nor is there a template to follow. Like all forms of academic writing, they endeavor to assert a thesis and argue for its validity and significance. They do, however, seek to contextualize the objects presented and indicate their relation to the exhibition's subject and theme. So, think of the essay as you would any other piece of scholarly writing, paying particularly close attention to the three artworks and their cultural relevance.

And here are some critical resources to help you develop your projects...

Digital Image Databases RCESearchable image databases

ARTStor
500,000 images, mainly European and North American. For a limited number of Chinese images, go to "Collections" and select the Huntington Archive of Asian Art

Craig Clunas, Art in China
See the textbook on main reserve for additional information about the images within this database.

Richard Vinograd and Robert Thorp, Chinese Art & Culture
See the texbook on main reserve for additional information about the images within this database.

Ellen Johnston Laing, The Winking Owl
Includes revolutionary woodcut prints from the 1930s and arts from the Maoist era (1949-1976). In order to use this database successfully, please consult the figure list from Laing's book (click here).
username: art201
password: chubbybunny

Other Electronic Resources

Web sources on Imperial Chinese Arts and Visual Cultures

Web sources on Contemporary Chinese Arts and Visual Cultures

Remember that materials on the web must be evaluated as critically as any other texts we consider in this course.

Museums

Language

Chinese romanization converter There are two primary romanization systems: Pinyin (used in the PRC) and Wade-Giles (until recently used in Taiwan, the ROC). They are very different. For example, the artist Xu Bing's name (pinyin) in Wade Giles reads Hsü Ping. To use this converter, type a word such as QI in Pinyin into the top frame and select Pinyin from drop-down menu for that frame; in the bottom frame, select Wade Giles, and then convert. The romanized word in the lower frame will read CH'I. (And by the way, Chinese names run family name or surname first and personal name second, so Xu Bing would be Mr. Xu. For more on Chinese names, see link below).

Chinese pronunciation guide (Harvard)

Citations

Art historians use the MLA, Chicago, or APA citation styles. Whichever you choose, be consistent.
click here for overview of Chicago citation style

Creating Image Lists

Chinese names

See useful explanation of style names, given and family names, tabooed names, names for women and for emperors