Zhang Hongtu

New York–based artist Zhang Hongtu has long used idioms from both traditional Chinese painting and Western art history to explore and comment on his native China’s past and present. His Bird’s Nest in the Style of Cubism (2008), featured in After Picasso, adopts the artist’s style of analytic cubism to critique Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The work was seized by Chinese authorities on its way to an Olympic-themed exhibition in Beijing but later returned. Ohio State History of Art Professor Julia Andrews, one of the most distinguished scholars of modern and contemporary Chinese art, joins Hongtu for the talk. She also contributed an essay to the catalogue for Zhang’s upcoming retrospective at the Queens Museum in New York. Stop by the galleries after the lecture at 6 PM for a free docent-led tour.

Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Institute for Chinese Studies. This event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.