News, February 26, 2025

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

The Buddha Image and Ecology in Modern Oblivion

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).

Friday, February 28, 2025, 2-5pm
Visual Arts Complex, Rm 308

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

Lecture: 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. 

TODAY AT NOON!

Difficult Dialogue Panel Discussion: Academic Freedom
Part of the Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) Difficult Dialogue series, co-sponsored by CU Faculty Affairs.

Join a panel discussion that focuses on how academic freedom has been shaped by the significant changes of the past five years, including the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, political polarization, and growing restrictions on diversity and inclusion.

Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 | 12pm – 1:30pm
Location: Norlin Library’s CBIS Room (M549)
Snacks are available for all attendees.
Free and open to the public.
RSVP: https://cvent.me/OxRrAB