Border Crossings
dal 29/1/2013 al 3/8/2013
Segnalato da
29/1/2013
Border Crossings
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford
From Imperial to Popular Life. Focusing on 18th- and 19th-century China and Japan, includes more than 40 works. In addition, Japanese woodblock prints of civil life, urban scenes and coveted styles that reflect a growing commercialism during the Edo period.
A new exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center explores how boundaries between social classes and identities are challenged and transcended. “Border Crossings: From Imperial to Popular Life,” focusing on 18th- and 19th-century China and Japan, includes more than 40 works. The exhibition opens on January 30 and continues through August 4, 2013.
Two sets of 18th-century Chinese paintings from the Cantor’s collection are on view for the first time to the public. Scholarly perspectives and tastes have changed, so that recent research and evaluation by Cantor’s curatorial staff have shed new light on these beautiful works and rescued them from obscurity. Both “Ten Beauties” and “The Life and Miracles of the Goddess Mazu” demonstrate how workshop artists outside palace walls reproduced the subjects and styles of imperial court paintings in order to fulfill commissions by patrons of a rising social class. The rich material world depicted in the paintings is brought to life in the gallery by a complementary presentation of costumes, bronze and porcelain vessels and other decorative arts.
In addition, the exhibition features Japanese woodblock prints of civil life, urban scenes and coveted styles that reflect a growing commercialism during the Edo period. Prints of the floating world (ukiyo-e), produced rapidly at a low cost as compared to formal paintings, were especially responsive to trends and fashions. This floating world often escaped the ruling shogunate’s regimentation, which included strict class depictions and other control of content in artworks.
To address class and gender restrictions that still exist today, the exhibition also features a work from the “Identity Exchange” series by Chinese contemporary artist Cang Xin. In his photograph, the artist poses in a traditionally female costume, stepping into another profession and identity.
On March 8 at 2 p.m., Yu-chuan “Phoenix” Chen, Stanford Ph.D. candidate in art and art history, presents the month’s Spotlight on Art. Chen will discuss a work from the exhibition in the Madeleine H. Russell Gallery, where the exhibition is on view.
Anna Koster
Head of Communications
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
Lomita Dr. at Museum Way, Stanford, CA 94305-5060
Anna Koster's office: 650-725-4657
Public info line 650-723-4177
akoster@stanford.edu
http://museum.stanford.edu
Opening: 30 January 2013
Cantor Arts Center
Stanford University 328, Stanford
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 11 am–5 pm and Thursday evenings until 8 pm; Open
on Easter. Closed: Mondays and Tuesdays
Free Admission