Introduction

Hailed as one of the most important historians of Chinese art today, Wu Hung of the University of Chicago is a multiple award-winner for his teaching and prolific publications. In his research over the last forty years, Wu Hung has been working on developing new methodologies in the interpretation and writing on Chinese art through reviewing, challenging and redefining concepts from the history of Western art. His innovative interdisciplinary approach explored the relationship between art discourse and practice, drawing materials from the cultural, sociopolitical and artistic contexts of specific time and place. Based on historical practice of both Chinese and Western traditions, Wu Hung integrated conventionally separate fields of both traditions into new kinds of art historical narratives and advocated a new global art history. The three lectures in the series will demonstrate his methodologies and narratives in a wide range of topics.

About the Speaker

Wu Hung holds the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professorship at the Department of Art History and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, and is also the director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the same university. An elected member of the American Academy of Art and Science and the American Philosophic Society, he sits on multiple domestic and international committees. He has received many awards for his publications and academic services, including the Distinguished Teaching Award (2008) and Distinguished Scholar Award (2018) from the College of Art Association (CAA), an Honorary Degree in Arts from Harvard University (2019), and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art from CAA (2022).

Wu Hung’s research interests include both traditional and contemporary Chinese art, and he has published many books and curated many exhibitions in these two fields. His interdisciplinary interest has led him to experiment with different ways to tell stories about Chinese art, as exemplified by his Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (1995), The Double Screen: Medium and Representation of Chinese Pictorial Art (1996), Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square: the Creation of a Political Space (2005), The Art of the Yellow Springs: Understanding Chinese Tombs (2010), A Story of Ruins: Presence and Absence in Chinese Art and Visual Culture (2012), Zooming In: Histories of Photography in China (2016), and Space in Art History (2018). His three newest books from 2022 and 2023 include Chinese and Dynastic time (Princeton University Press), Spatial Dunhuang: Experiencing the Mogao Caves (Washington University Press), and The Full Length Mirror: A Global Visual History (Reaktion Books).