Smart Museum of Art

Aught Culture: The Exhibitions That Defined the 2000s

Smart Museum Exhibition: Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China

The illuminating exhibition “Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China,” co-organized by University of Chicago professor Wu Hung and International Center of Photography curator Christopher Phillips (a former senior editor at A.i.A.), the survey comprised 130 works by sixty Chinese artists. It debuted at the International Center of Photography and the Asia Society, both in New York, and toured to six other museums in the United States and abroad, including the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. The vision it delivered was that of a nation utterly transformed both physically and socially. Photographs by Zhang Dali and Sze Tsung Leong showed historic neighborhoods reduced to rubble to make way for soaring modern towers; Rong Rong and Xing Danwen documented the renegade life of their artist friends in the squalor of Beijing’s self-styled East Village; Liu Zheng turned his lens on everyone from professional village mourners to convicts to decadent businessmen; Wang Qingsong staged elaborate scenes melding Chinese history and folklore with contemporary life.

Valerie Snobeck, MFA’08, Creates Piece for Smart Museum Courtyard

Valerie Snobeck, MFA'08, has created a piece titled American Standard Movement as part of the annual Threshold series sponsored by the Smart Museum of Art. The site-specific work, presented in the Vera and A.D. Elden Sculpture Garden, re-uses debris netting that was previously part of a construction project on the University of Chicago campus in order to open up questions about environment, the passage of time, and progress.

Doctoral Student Discusses Symbolism of Korean Art at Smart Museum

Eleanor Hyun, a PhD candidate in Art History, shared her expertise in Korean and Chinese art during a lecture at the Smart Museum of Art on calligraphy and brush-and-ink painting from Korea’s Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). The lecture was part of a Smart Museum exhibition titled "From the Land of the Morning Calm." From the article:

While Western artists frequently depicted the human figure, in East Asia calligraphy was considered the highest art form, Hyun said. But calligraphy did incorporate the body: the brush was thought of as an extension of the arm, and the precise strokes were likened to martial arts. Characters were often described in corporal terms, such as “meaty” or “skinny.” Referring to Yi’s calligraphy of a poem by renowned Joseon-dynasty writer Sin Heum, Hyun pointed out the vigorous, semicursive characters: “If anybody here has ever touched ink and brush, you know how easy it is to make a stray mark, a drop here or a drop there.” To achieve the sort of balance and rhythm displayed in Yi’s work required intense concentration and mastery of the discipline.

For more information about the Smart Museum and upcoming exhibitions, click here.

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