6-8th Dec., 2007

An International Symposium

‘China’ on Display:
Past and Present Practices of Selecting, Exhibiting and Viewing Chinese
Visual and Material Culture

Leiden, The Netherlands, 6-8 December 2007

Venue:
Leiden University School of Management Gravensteen, Pieterskerkhof 6, Room 111

As displays in museums and galleries become increasingly globalized, it is
essential to turn critical attention towards the historical and cultural
variations that exist in display practice. This symposium focuses on China as
a case study to examine how the visual production of non-European cultures
has been represented in exhibitions and museum displays, both historically
and in the contemporary period. The period covered spans from late Imperial
China to the contemporary, and the papers focus on the presentation of
Chinese material culture to both a Chinese and a non-Chinese public. The
symposium will bring together an interdisciplinary group of art historians,
anthropologists and practitioners (critics, artists and curators) who both
study and create the dynamics for displaying Chinese art and material
culture. The goal of the symposium is to develop new theoretical frameworks
for research and identify patterns of intervention that could modify how
contemporary representations and interpretations of ‘China’ are
conceptualized through exhibition and display.

PROGRAM
Thursday, December 6

9:15- 9:30:Introduction by Francesca Dal Lago (CNWS, Leiden University)

Day 1: Imperial Objects for Display in China and Europe: china as ‘China’

9:30-10:30: Keynote Address by Stanley Abe (Department of
Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke
University, Durham):
Figuring China: Sculpture, Authenticity, and
the Native

10:30-11:10: John Finlay (Independent Scholar, Paris):
Displaying Art at the Qing Court:
The Qianlong Emperor on Display

11:10-11:40: Coffee Break

11:40 -12:20: Ting Chang (College of Fine Arts and the
College of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh):
Fantasies, Images and Objects: Two Nineteenth-
Century European Displays of ‘China’

12:20-14:00: Lunch Break

14:00-14:40: Maris Gillette (Department of Anthropology,
Haverford College): China on display and china
not on display: the politics of copying in
Jingdezhen

14:40-15:20: Ni Haifeng (Artist, Amsterdam):
The Void between the Departure and the Arrival –
Translations and Misunderstandings in Cross-
Cultural Presentation

15:20-15:50: Coffee Break

15:50-16:30: Oliver Moore (Department of Chinese Studies,
Leiden University): Art staged for the Camera in
Qing and Republican China

16:30-17:15: Discussion introduced by Menno Fitski
(Department of Fine and Decorative Arts,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Friday, December 7

Day 2
Morning: New Categories for Display in the Republican Period

9:30-10:10: Anik Fournier (Amsterdam School of Cultural
Analysis / Montreal Museum of Contemporary
Art): Representing Self and Nation Through the
Other: the 1933 Exposition de la Peinture
Chinoise at the Jeu de Paume Paris

10:10-10:50: Guo Hui (Center of Non-Western Studies, Leiden
University): New Objects, New History: the
Preliminary Exhibition of Chinese Art,
Shanghai, 1935

10:50-11:20: Coffee Break

11:20 -12:00:Felicity Lufkin (Fairbank Center for East Asian
Research, Harvard University): Bringing Folk in:
The Folk Picture Exhibition, Hangzhou, 1937

12:00-13:30: Lunch Break

Day 2
Afternoon: Aesthetics of Disappearance in Selection and Display Practices

13:30-14:10: Rubie Watson (Department of Anthropology and
Peabody Museum, Harvard University): Old Hamlets
and Old Houses: Memory, Ritual, and Heritage in
Hong Kong’s Walled Villages

14:10-14:50: Ren Hai (Departments of East Asian Studies and
Anthropology, University of Arizona): Memories
of the Future: Politics of Disappearance and
Historical Representations in Hong Kong's
‘Return’ to China

14:50-15:30: Coffee Break

15:30-16:20: Wang Nanming (Sichuan Art Academy, Chongqing):
Art and Local Politics: Practices of Display
and Criticism

16:20-17:00: Discussion introduced by Wilfried van Damme
(Art History Department, Leiden University)

Saturday, December 8

Day 3: Agents and Objects in Contemporary Display

9:30-10:10: Morgan Perkins (Departments of Anthropology
and Art, State University of New York,
Potsdam): ‘What They Do Doesn’t Interest Me.’
Perceptions, Tastes and Social Practices of
Displaying Contemporary Chinese Art.

10:10-10:50:Davide Quadrio (Biz-Art Shanghai): No Cleaning
and No Money Required: The Contradictions of
Showing Undecoded Art in Shanghai in the 1990s.

10:50-11:20: Coffee Break

11:20 -12:00: Sasha Su-Ling Welland (Departments of
Anthropology and Women’s Studies, University of
Washington): Showcase Beijing: Art, Real
Estate, and Urban Planning in the Capital

12:00-13:30: Lunch Break

13:30-14:10: Franziska Koch (Staatliche Akademie der
bildenden Künste, Stuttgart):
Chinese Pictures on Display for Western
Audiences: Three Early Group Shows of Chinese
Contemporary Art in Berlin, Hong Kong and
Venice, 1993

14:10-14:50: Francesca Dal Lago (Center of Non-Western
Studies, Leiden University):
Papercuts, Colorful Pictures and Mountains of
Shit: ’China’ at the Venice Biennale , 1980-2007

14:50-15:30: Coffee Break

15:30-16:10: Zhang Peili (Department of New Media, China Arts
Academy, Hangzhou): Chinese Artists in a
Chinese Spectacle

16:10-16:30: Discussion introduced by Kitty Zijlmans (Art
History Department, Leiden University)

16:30-16:45: Break

16:45-17:30: Final Participants Discussion and CONCLUSION

For a complete list of abstracts and bios see:
http://www.tcc.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?c=422

or http://www.cnws.leidenuniv.nl
and click news/forthcoming

Information
Francesca Dal Lago
Center for Non-Western Studies, Leiden University,
Nonnensteeg 1-3, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden,
The Netherlands
t + 31 (0) 71 527 4110
f + 31 (0) 71 527 2939
f.dal.lagolet.leidenuniv.nl