THIS 2004 DIGITAL c-print by Cao Fei, “Deep Breathing” (from COS Players series), is one of the images that will be on view during the “Breakthrough: Work by Contemporary Chinese Women Artists” at Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
This fall, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art will present an exhibition showcasing the artwork of eight pioneering Chinese women artists who, collectively, have played a major role in shaping the current landscape of contemporary Chinese art.
“Breakthrough: Work by Contemporary Chinese Women Artists” comprises more than 25 works, including painting, sculpture, photography and video, all created within the past decade.
Spanning multiple generations of artists, ranging from those who came of age during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s to those who grew up amid China’s massive infrastructural reforms and global emergence during the 1990s, the artists featured in “Breakthrough” are Cai Jin, Cao Fei, Chen Qiulin, Hung Liu, Lin Tianmiao, Peng Wei, Xing Danwen and Yin Xiuzhen. Organized by Sarah Montross, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the BCMA, in collaboration with Shu-chin Tsui, associate professor of Asian studies and film studies, and Peggy Wang, assistant professor of art history and Asian studies, the exhibition will be on view at Bowdoin from Sept. 27 to Dec. 22.
Breakthrough is organized in connection with an international symposium on Sept. 28, which will provide the intellectual discourse around the burgeoning study of art by contemporary Chinese women.
“Breakthrough and the related symposium will bring together, in cross-cultural dialogue, leading voices in contemporary Chinese art,” said Anne Collins Goodyear, codirector of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with our colleagues across Bowdoin College departments to offer our museum audiences and the college community an unparalleled opportunity to engage with these incredible works of art,” continued Frank Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. “The exhibition and symposium will support one another and will foster deep engagement with the artworks and inspire further the study of art made by women in China today.”
The artists featured in “Breakthrough” work across a wide range of media, as reflected in Peng Wei’s use of traditional ink wash, Cai Jin’s visceral abstract painting, and Cao Fei’s interventions in the online realm of Second Life. To focus the exhibition, much of the work selected by curator Sarah Montross features the human form, often the artists themselves or other female bodies.
There are several associated events at Bowdoin College. All are free and open to the public:
— Sept. 27, 4:30 p.m., Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center; lecture: “Women Artists in 20th Century China: A Prehistory of the Contemporary”
Julia F. Andrews, professor of art history at Ohio State University, has been a leading scholar of Chinese art since 1979, when she became the first American art historian to conduct research in China after formal establishment of U.S.-China relations.
— Sept. 27, 5:30-7 p.m., fall open house at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
— Sept. 28, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Beam Classroom, Visual Arts Center; symposium: “Female Embodiment of the Visual World: Women’s Art in Contemporary China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.”
More information is available at www.bowdoin.edu/asian-studies/ symposia/female-embodiment-ofthe visual-world-2013/index.shtml.
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