The University of Melbourne
6.45pm-8.00pm Tuesday, 7 August
Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre A (G06)， University of Melbourne， Swanston Street， PARKVILLE VIC 3010
Admission is free. To register visit: http://alumni.online.unimelb.edu.au/krischer
In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in China and Japan aesthetics was debated not only by artists but also political thinkers, social reformers and revolutionaries. Aesthetics became intimately tied to cultural and national identities, often framed as a state of being rather than a question of style. While most reformers advocated the adaptation of Euro-American realism to modernise national culture, some argued for a deeper, more thorough understanding of traditional intellectual culture, on which to build an indigenous modernity; a critical reappraisal, rather than rejection, of Asian intellectual tradition.
This lecture examines the art and art history of Chen Shizeng in China and Ōmura Seigai Japan, both of whom championed literati ink painting around 1920, and briefly collaborated. While their collaboration may have been mutually beneficial at that time, numerous factors leading to outright war made such pan-Asian initiatives increasingly untenable. While the idea of shared aesthetic and cultural legacies might echo in Japan today, in China, it isn’t surprising perhaps to find a surge of interest in Chen’s once apparently anachronistic call to look deeper into China’s historical tradition for a modernity with Chinese characteristics.
About the Speaker
Olivier Krischer is deputy director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He is an art historian interested in modern and contemporary China-Japan relations, and networks of art activism across East Asia. Olivier completed his PhD at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, after which he has been a Visiting Fellow in the Institute for Modern History, at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World, ANU. In Japan, Olivier was assistant professor in art history at the University of Tsukuba, and in Australia has lectured and supervised at the University of Sydney, UTS and ANU. He is co-editor of the journal issue ‘Asian Art Research in Australia and New Zealand: Past, Present and Future’, Australia & New Zealand Journal of Art (Taylor & Francis, 2016), and the book Asia through Art and Anthropology (Bloomsbury, 2013). He has also worked as managing editor of the contemporary Asian art periodical ArtAsiaPacific in Hong Kong. At the Australian National University Olivier also managed the CIW Gallery, curating exhibitions including “China and ANU: Scholars, Diplomats and Adventures” and “Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video” (co-curated with Kim Machan, Media Art Asia Pacific), supported by an Australia-China Council grant. He also established and co-programmed the Centre’s “Asia & Pacific Screens” film series (2013-2016).
For further information please contact: Associate Professor Claire Roberts claire.roberts@unimelb.edu.au