Art & Art History News - September 6, 2022

Lecture: Exile and Redemption—The Strange Case of the Poetic Ideas Scroll

Wednesday, October 19 at 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Norlin Library, Center for British & Irish Studies (room M549)
1157 18th Street, Boulder, CO 80309

About the lecture: The Poetic Ideas scroll has long posed a mystery. Consisting of two unsigned paintings of a riverside landscape and twin wintry trees, early colophon writers attributed the compositions to two scions of famous families: Sima Huai, descendant of the statesman Sima Guang (1019-1086), and Mi Youren (1074-1151), whose father was the well-known calligrapher and connoisseur Mi Fu (1052-1107). But who painted which? And what are we to make of the choice of poetic lines by the famous Tang dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770) that served as the impetus for the two images? In this presentation, Peter Sturman demonstrates how the paintings were part of a carefully constructed program integrating text and images to comment on the fate of family legacies in the fraught world of late Northern Song politics. Through the Poetic Ideas scroll, we gain an important glimpse into the sophisticated world of early literati painting in China.

About: Peter Sturman (Yale University PhD, 1989) is Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in the study of Chinese painting, calligraphy, and text-image relationships during the medieval and early modern periods. His primary focus is on literati culture of the Northern Song and its immediate aftermath, though he has also published on landscape painting of the tenth and eleventh centuries, court art of the late Northern Song, loyalist art of the Song-Yuan transition, and painting and calligraphy of the seventeenth century. Book-length publications include Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China (1997) and The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17^th-Century China (2012). His current projects are a book on Northern Song literati painting titled Form and Shadow: Painting and the Literary Mind in Song-Dynasty China, and a study of the calligraphy of the Ming-dynasty polymath Xu Wei (1520-1593).

Exhibition: "Aqueous Bodies"

Venue: BMoCA at Macky
August 29 – November 13, 2022

BMoCA @ Macky is a collaboration between BMoCA and The Andrew J. Macky Gallery, located in the foyer of the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall at the University of Colorado Boulder. The gallery is currently open Monday afternoons, Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am-4pm, and when there is a performance at the auditorium. The gallery is also open by appointment

This exhibition explores trauma, healing, and close inspection through Marcella Marsella’s textile and collage-based practice. The artist uses color as a vehicle to unite both aspects of her practice. Aqueous Bodies is about life, living, and making sense of the physical world through symbols and the use of color. The word “aqueous” can mean flowing, as life can be. Marsella’s body of work is meant to be physical. As we move through the exhibition, we might physically feel a comfortable, childlike curiosity to explore the world around us. The artist’s hope is that the contrast of the lighter colors with the darker colors will make the journey through this space relaxing and easy, yet exciting.

How did the University of Colorado Boulder’s art scene survive the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history?

Reeling from the pandemic, CU Boulder’s art community has undergone various transformations. Undergraduates, educators, graduate students and curators alike encountered both creative inspiration and devastation during some of the pandemic’s most tumultuous times. Artists accustomed to intimate studio hours were confined to their living spaces. The average student sought refuge in crafts. The practice of art as self-therapy skyrocketed. 

Read the full article featured in the CU Independent

Native Welcome is an open house at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS). We welcome incoming Native American students, transfer students and current students to meet with our CU Boulder staff, faculty and community. Join us at the CNAIS cottage and make connections with supporting offices on campus. 

Friday, September 16 at 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies
Outside and Inside Event 
1330 Grandview Ave. Boulder, CO 80309
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