May 23 Wei-Cheng Lin

Friday, May 23, 4:00-6:00pm, CWAC 153

Chinese Temple of Art: Politics of the Chinese Art Collection during the 1930s through the Lens of the Nelson Gallery in Kansas City

Wei-cheng Lin
Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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When it opened in 1933, the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City featured one of the best Chinese art collections of the time in not only quality but also strategy of display. It included a makeshift “Chinese Temple,” consisting of authentic architectural fragments and dislocated Buddhist artifacts, remodeled to bring about an ambience of art that was Chinese in character. Tracing the artifacts from their temples of origin in China to the Temple of Art in a western museum, conventional wisdom calls to interrogate the transnational cultural imperialism that made the collection possible during the first half of the twentieth century, as well as the institutional “frame” that dramatically altered its significance for a new audience. Yet the transition from a cultural object of one nation to a work of art of another is not always unequivocal, and any dislocation of art is necessarily political. This paper will unravel the complexity of the politics involved in the conception and creation of the Chinese art collection as observed in the Nelson Gallery. In particular, it will investigate the role of the authoritative “specialist”—i.e., dealers, curators, scholars—in the display of the collection informed through the intentional appropriation, alteration, and modification of the artwork to make the Chinese Temple of Art.

Friday, May 23, 4:00-6:00pm, CWAC 153

Persons with disability who may need assistance, please contact Anne Feng anf@uchicago.edu

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