Nature’s Representation, Interpretation and Enculturation in Viewing Stones

 During “Interpreting the Natural: Contemporary Visions of Scholars' Rocks,” the curator, Donna Dodson will host a series of conversations with renowned experts, scholars and curators in the field of scholars’ rocks and viewing stones in dialogue with the award winning artists who are featured in this show. Due to COVID-19, these events will be recorded live on zoom, and each one will be approximately one hour. Watch a live recording of the event on Youtube.

 

L to R: Cleofan by Laura Cannamela, Viewing Stone by JooLee Kang

“Nature’s Representation, Interpretation and Enculturation in Viewing Stones”

Tuesday November 10^th @ 5pm Eastern with Dr. Kevin Greenwood, Joan L. Danforth Curator of Asian Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College (see his recent video essay on Chinese Scholars' Rocks), Ms. Yao Wu, Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art at the Smith College Museum of Art, and two artists in this show, Laura Cannamela and JooLee Kang. This talk will discuss the importance of nature in Asian art and culture, and how that relates to the traditions of Suseok, Suiseki, and Gongshi.  Viewing Stones appear in contemporary art work as a representation and symbol of nature, time, and the human connection to the environment. The value of the rocks themselves as well as their meaning has changed throughout history and the artists will address their significance in their artistic practices now.

Kevin R. E. Greenwood is the first Joan L. Danforth Curator of Asian Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, and he joined the museum staff in 2014. His current exhibitions include "Ukiyo-e Prints from the Mary Ainsworth Collection" and "Monkeys, Apes, and Mr. Freer." His most recent publication is “A Lasting Legacy: The Mary A. Ainsworth Collection,” in Ukiyo-e Prints from the Mary Ainsworth Collection, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College (2019). Dr. Greenwood received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, and prior to his appointment at Oberlin he taught Asian studies and art history at Willamette University in Oregon. Greenwood's research interests include art of the Chinese imperial court of the eighteenth-century, and more broadly, Buddhist art, Chinese painting, East Asian contemporary art, and Chinese and Japanese garden architecture. 

Yao Wu is the inaugural Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art at the Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA), where she oversees the museum’s growing collection of approximately 2,000 objects from East, South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas. Wu has received graduate training in art history from Williams College and Stanford University, and she is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University. Wu served as the inaugural Asian Art Curatorial Fellow at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City from 2007 to 2009. During her time at Stanford, she served as the Mellon Fellow for curatorial research in Asian art at the university’s Cantor Arts Center. Since her appointment at SCMA in 2015, Wu has organized more than a dozen exhibitions, featuring subjects ranging from Buddhist art to export lacquer, from Korean contemporary video to Japanese 20th-century prints. Her 2018 exhibition at SMCA, "体 Modern Images of the Body from East Asia," was met with critical acclaim. Wu has recently published in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Impressions: The Journal of the Japanese Art Society, Trans Asia Photography Review, and contributed to an edited volume, Xu Bing: Beyond the Book from the Sky. Wu is a participant in the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) Foundation’s 2019-2020 Mentorship Program.

Laura Cannamela received her MFA from Queens College of CUNY before moving to the Hudson Valley area of New York. Her artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions at galleries around New York and New England. Within the past year, she has shown her artwork at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY and at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY New Paltz. Her ceramic sculpture installation was selected for the Hudson Valley Artists 2017 Purchase Award and has been added into the Dorsky Museum’s permanent art collection. She has received recognition for her artwork through the Platte Clove 2014 Artist-in-Residence Program, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) 2009 SOS Grant Program, and the NYFA 2008 Mark Program. In 2010, she was awarded a grant by the Freeman Foundation, along with the Five College Center for East Asian Studies, to travel to Japan. She has taught art courses at Queens College of CUNY, the College of St. Rose in Albany, and Sage College of Albany, and at Ichabod Crane High School in Valatie, NY.

JooLee Kang received her MFA from Tufts University - School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA and her BFA in Painting from Duksung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. She had numerous exhibitions including solo exhibitions at Gallery NAGA (USA, 2020, 2017, 2014), Korean Cultural Center in Madrid (Spain, 2018), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Korea, 2018), Harvard Medical School (USA, 2018), Museum of Art at Univ. of New Hampshire (USA, 2014) and group exhibitions at Amorepacific H.Q. (Korea, 2019), Newport Art Museum (USA, 2019), Suwon Ipark Museum of Art (Korea, 2018), Fitchburg Art Museum (USA, 2018), and Taipei Fine Arts Museum (Taiwan, 2017). Kang also received Suwon Cultural Foundation Artist Grant (2019), Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture Artist Grant (2018), SMFA Traveling Fellowship (2013), St. Botolph Club Artist Award (2012), and Massachusetts Cultural Council Award (2012).  She was invited as an Artist-in-Residence at Gyeonggi Creation Center (Korea, 2018), Cheongju Art Studio (Korea, 2017), Willapa Bay AiR (USA, 2015), and Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum (China, 2014).