Department of Art History, The University of Chicago
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek now presents 20 manuscripts from its voluminous Oriental collection in the form of an application for iPads and iPhones. The “Oriental books” are available free of charge in the Apple App Store.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek also presents the application “Famous books – Treasures of the Bavarian State Library” for iPads and iPhones, which features 52 highlights of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek’s collections.
This week PBS aired a new episode of their television program Secrets of the Dead in which producer Steve Talley explores the life-sized terracotta warriors of China:
This clay army of 8,000 including infantry, archers, generals and cavalry was discovered by archaeologists in 1974 after farmers digging a well near the Chinese city of Xian unearthed pieces of clay sculpted in human form.
An amazing archaeological find, the terracotta warriors date back more than two thousand years. But what was the purpose of this army of clay soldiers? Who ordered its construction? How were they created? Secrets of the Dead investigates the story behind China’s Terracotta Warriors and documents their return to former glory for the first time.
The episode is now available online.
Directly influenced by Asian shadow and puppet theater, utsushi-e was a uniquely Japanese magic lantern show using multiple, hand-held lanterns. Bearing some surprising similarities to the European phantasmagoria show, ustushi-e was a screen practice based on back-projection. Tokyo-based performance troupe Minwa-za has revived this 200-year-old multi-media spectacle, which they present in an evening encompassing history, techniques and a special performance of projections, live narration and traditional shamisen accompaniment.
Update: Tickets are now sold out. Event will take place at the Film Studies Center.
Chinese artist Ai WeiWei is still missing after having been detained while trying to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong in early April.
A question posted on Facebook about what we, as an arts community, can do to support the safe release of Ai Weiwei sparked great ideas, including one by curator Steven Holmes to reenact Ai Weiwei’s project Fairytale: 1,001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs—an installation which was comprised of 1,001 late Ming and Qing Dynasty wooden chairs at Documenta 12 in 2007 in Kassel, Germany—in front of Chinese embassies and consulates around the world. This Sunday, April 17, at 1 PM local time, supporters are invited to participate in 1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei, by bringing a chair and gathering outside Chinese embassies and consulates to sit peacefully in support of the artist’s immediate release.
Via Facebook.
Location: Regenstein Library, 1st Floor Lobby
Dates: Monday, March 28th to Friday, June 3rd (Spring Quarter 2011)
Public Hours: M–Th. 8:30am–7pm ; Fri. 8:30am–5pm; Sat. 9am–1pm; Closed Sundays
Guided Tour & Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 29th at 4:30pm
Presented by Eric Huntington, Ph.D. Candidate Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
We recently updated the VRC’s Other Art Resources Online page with links to several Japanese image resources online. These include a link to the Tokyo National Museum’s website, with a version in English organized by type, region, and what is currently on display at the museum.
Other new links include: Japanese cultural properties, Japanese national treasures in public museums, Kyoto National Museum’s collections database, and Japanese modern art in Japanese public museums.
Questions, or suggestions of other websites to add to the list? Please contact the VRC.
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A new collection, Postcard Collection of Colonial Korea, is now available in LUNA. Included are over 7,500 postcard images of Korea during the first half of the 20th century from the Busan Museum.
The most recent University of Chicago newsletter highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the Smart Museum‘s current exhibition, Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan:
Visitors can step inside re-creations of spaces and groupings of sculptural images that no longer exist today. The displays combine digital imagery of the caves with physical artifacts such as three-foot-tall limestone heads of bodhisattvas and the Buddha. The exhibition’s centerpiece is a multimedia installation known as a “digital cave,” designed by artist Jason Salavon, Assistant Professor in Visual Arts and the Computation Institute. Salavon conceived of the cave as an immersive experience, using multiple screens to give visitors a glimpse inside the largest temple at Xiangtangshan.
The article also discusses at length the extensive research undertaken by The University of Chicago’s Katherine Tsiang (exhibition curator) and Wu Hung, among others. This Sunday at 2pm, Jason Salavon will discuss the components of his installation in an Artist Talk at the Smart.
The exhibition will be open from September 30, 2010 to January 16, 2011 and, like all Smart Museum exhibitions, is free.
The first issue of the Trans-Asia Photography Review – a peer-reviewed, open access online journal devoted to the discussion of photography from Asia – is now viewable at http://tapreview.org. It features commentaries or articles by many distinguished scholars, including University of Chicago’s Wu Hung.
One of the most extensive collections of rare Chinese books outside of China will be digitized and made freely available to scholars worldwide as part of a six-year cooperative project between Harvard College Library (HCL) and the National Library of China (NLC)…
…The first phase, beginning in January 2010, will digitize books from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which date from about 960 AD to 1644. The second phase, starting in January 2013, will digitize books from the Qing Dynasty, which date from 1644 until 1795. The collection includes materials which cover an extensive range of subjects, including history, philosophy, drama, belles letters and classics.
For more information, visit Harvard College Library’s article describing the project.