News
Last Chance to See Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art
May 29, 2009
PRINCETON, N.J.─If you haven’t seen Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art at the Princeton University Art Museum yet, this is your last chance. On view through June 7, the exhibition features adiverse selection of more than fifty works by six artists including paintings, drawings, photography, book arts, sculpture and installations which expand on the current popularity of contemporary Chinese art and simultaneously challenge the curatorial practices on which this popularity has been based. Guest curator Jerome Silbergeld, director of the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University, has organized this exhibition together with Cary Liu, curator of Asian art at the Princeton University Art Museum, and Dora Ching, associate director of the Tang Center.
"The art world," says Jerome Silbergeld, "is currently enthralled with contemporary Chinese art. This exhibition argues, however, that American audiences have been exposed to only a narrow range of what is available — with the majority of attention having been given to 'avant-garde' or 'experimental' art, frequently selected for its dissident political content or 'shock value' rather than for its artistic quality. Outside In presents contemporary Chinese art in a far wider range of styles and subject matter and substantially expands on our understanding of this work." The six artists featured in this exhibition, Arnold Chang, Michael Cherney, Zhi Lin, Liu Dan, Vannessa Tran, and Zhang Hongtu, are widely diverse in terms of their style and subject matter, age and experience, and geographic and ethnic origin. Some are well known internationally, others are introduced for the first time, yet each makes a unique contribution to contemporary art. Collectively, these artists represent a far wider range in Chinese artistic practice than the work shown in most exhibitions, art fairs, and galleries today.
Publication
The accompanying 304-page, full-color catalogue, Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art, substantially expands on the contributions of earlier exhibition publications in this field, examining the work and lives of the six artists in detail, with much of it told in their voices.
In addition to extensive personal interviews and artists’ statements, the book includes essays that challenge the categorization of art into such focused genres as “Chinese,” “contemporary,” and “American,” and reexamine the factors that shape the development of “Chinese art” in America.
Credit
The exhibition, catalogue, and symposium are co-organized by the Princeton University Art Museum and the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University. Support for the exhibition and catalogue and for the accompanying symposium has been provided by the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the John B. Elliott Fund for Asian Art; the Mildred Clarke Pressinger von Kienbusch Memorial Fund; the Joseph L. Shulman Fund for Publications; the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Frances E. and Elias Wolf Fund; The Blakemore Foundation; the Princeton University Art Museum Art and Apparatus Fund; and The Publications Fund, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. The opening reception and associated programming have been made possible by the Friends and the Partners of the Princeton University Art Museum.
About the Museum
Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the finest art museums in the country. Its collection features approximately 70,000 works ranging from ancient to contemporary art, and concentrating geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the United States, and Latin America, with particular strengths in Chinese painting and calligraphy, art of the ancient Americas, and pictorial photography.
The Princeton University Art Museum is located in the center of the Princeton University campus, next to Prospect House and only a short walk from Princeton’s Nassau Street. Museum admission is free and open to the public. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. Free highlights tours of the collection are given every Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For information, please call (609) 258-3788 or visit the museum’s Web site at http://artmuseum.princeton.edu.
