Virtual Panel on Fantastic Brush

Overview

The transformations of ink arts in twentieth-century China tell the story of modern Chinese art at large. This Zoom panel explores different visions—different answers—put forth by artists during these watershed times, to the looming question: what’s next for ink art? Celebrating the exhibition, Fantastic Brush: Twentieth Century Ink Art from the Robert and Lisa Kessler Collection, now on view at the Denver Art Museum, the three papers coalesce around the return to ink.

Professor Ren Wei lays down the social stakes of Chinese modernity, and their reflection in Chen Shizeng’s innovative vernacular ink painting. Professor Stephanie Su traces artists’ explorations of the subjectivity of color and the turn to realism. Professor Yang Wang examines the context in which ink painters navigated the expectations placed on them and their medium by the Communist state. The panel will be moderated by Hyonjeong Kim Han, Joseph de Heer Curator of Asian Art at the Denver Art Museum, with an introduction by Einor Cervone, Associate Curator of Asian Art, Denver Art Museum.