News, February 18, 2025

Thursday, February 27, 2025 5pm to 6pm
Location change!
Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE), 4th Floor

The Buddha Image and Ecology in Modern Oblivion
Lecture by Boreth Ly

The historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni) is arguably one of the most reproduced Buddha figures in the world. Our understanding of his representations, however— from the “aniconic” to “iconic”— remains intensely debatable. Is the Buddha image considered to be a portrait of the founder of this world religion? If not, how are we supposed to experience and to interpret his images? This talk examines the ontology of the Buddha image and ecology. Moreover, it takes a transhistorical and ecological approach to understanding his image: What is the power of the Buddha body? What relationships does it have to the environment? What can the Buddha body tell us about ecologies of belief and about gender? By looking at the corporeal genesis of Shakyamuni Buddha, this talk argues that the natural and ecological similes embedded in Buddha images shed light on the interrelationships between being and non-being and between dream and reality.

Born in the cosmopolitan village of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Boreth Ly is an associate professor of Southeast Asian art history and visual culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She coedited with Nora A. Taylor, Modern and Contemporary Art of Southeast Asia (2012). In addition, she has written numerous articles and essays on the arts and films of Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Academically trained as an art historian, Ly employs multidisciplinary methods and theories in her writings and analysis, depending on the subject matter. Last, she authored, Traces of Trauma: Cambodian Visual Culture and National Identity in the Aftermath of Genocide (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022).

Artist Talk: Monday, March 3, 2025 at 4:00 pm
Visual Arts Complex Auditorium (located on the lower-level), RM 1B20

Kelly Chorpening work primarily explores drawing, as a contemporary art discipline, and as a tool for thinking and communication across disciplines. She has had solo presentations of work in the UK, USA and Austria and done residencies that include Voorkamer (Belgium), Shandy Hall, The Laurence Sterne Trust (UK) and Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh). Many of her projects are co-developed as books, published by Studio International (USA), RGAP (UK), Sint-Lucas Visual Arts and OPAK, FAK, KULeuven (Belgium). In 2020, she co-edited and contributed to A Companion to Contemporary Drawing, published by Wiley Blackwell. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Contemporary Painting (Intellect, UK) and in 2024, edited and co tributed to a double issue on correspondence as a creative research method.

Her interdisciplinary work has involved collaborations with the Architectural Association, Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music, the Gordon Museum of Pathology and the National Gallery, London. In 2023, she chaired and presented at ‘Land, Water, Place: an Art and Science Collaborative’, at Nevada Museum of Art, a symposium that brought artists, poets, geographers and biologists together to explore the politics and possibilities of working in the Great Basin region. A curatorial project, "Drawing in Social Space," was exhibited at Drawing Room London in 2023. The project involved artists and communities from around the UK, USA, Bolivia, Morocco, Netherlands, Ghana and Russia, using drawing within collective, creative processes.

Chorpening was appointed Professor and Chair of Art, Art History and Design at University of Nevada Reno in 2022. 

Save the Date! Friday, Feb 28th from 2:00-5:00 PM

Art History Graduate Symposium
Art History M.A. and PhD students will present their research. Please join us!

• Sam Hensley, The Legend of Rengetsu: Creative Collaboration and the Construction of a Legacy
• Taite Shomo, Uncovering “Secrets of Women”: Gender, Bodies, and Medicine Across Time
• Felicity Wong, Pendleton, Pachuca, and Performance: Reimagining the Chola Aesthetic as a Liminal Space
• Brittany Ashley, The Curatorial Dream of Patricia Still
• Natalie Ginez, Artistic Production and Religion in Colonial Quito
• Courtney Pierce, The Fashion System as Praxis

Image: Portrait of Clyfford Still and Patricia Still seated on a boat in Paradise Island, Bahamas, ca. 1969. Photographer unknown. Courtesy the Clyfford Still Archives.

Accepting student applications for funded core members of the Art Buffs Collective (ABC), demonstrating to campus and beyond how Boulder students create their “ABCs”. 
 
This is the second year accepting applications and building a student community which represents a new focus on the centrality of creative work to all CU students. Through this community, students form connections anchored in creativity both on campus and beyond. The application is open to all students with a major in the College of Arts and Sciences. 

Successful applicants will receive a $5,000 internship stipend for Summer 2025. This stipend can support an internship that students have already secured, however we can also support selected students in their search who do not already have an internship lined up. Internships can be in any discipline/area of the selected students’ choosing. 

Link to application, with full details here: Art Buffs Collective Summer Internship Stipend Application - Summer 2025  

 Applications are due by March 10th at 11:59pm.