Joan Lebold Cohen, "How Chinese Is Contemporary Chinese Art?"

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University presents Joan Lebold Cohen as a part of the New England China Seminar.

The New England China Seminar series began in 1971 as a forum for scholars in the New England region to gather and discuss China topics as a larger academic community. The format is usually two lectures with a dinner break in between. Organizer: Merle Goldman.

Speaker
Joan Lebold Cohen is an art historian, photographer and curator. She began studying Chinese art in 1960 and it has informed her vision as a photographer and served as inspiration for the exhibitions she organized and books she has written. Living many years in China, Japan and Hong Kong where the art, landscape and people have informed her head, heart and lens. She wrote, exhibited and published photographs of Asia since 1973, and in China Today and her Ancient Treasures co authored with her husband Jerome A. Cohen, an expert in Chinese law. The book was a Book of the Month Club alternate.

Ms. Cohen organized the first of a number of exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art called Painting the Chinese Dream in the US in 1982-3. At the same time she exhibited her own photographs in the U.S. and Asia. Her 1987 book, The New Chinese Painting: 1949-1986 was the first book in English about contemporary Chinese art after the Cultural Revolution 1966-1976.

Since 1996 her photographs have been shown in New York's Soho Photo Gallery. Many of the books she wrote were illustrated with her photographs: Yunnan School: A Renaissance in Chinese Art, as well as China Today and The New Chinese Painting. Other of her books include Angkor: Monuments of the God-Kings, and Buddha.

Ms. Cohen was a lecturer in Asian Art and Film at Tufts University/School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from 1968-1990 as well a serving in the Education Department of the Museum. She is an associate of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard and a member of the Modern China Seminar at Columbia University.

Dinner Option
We welcome participants who wish to attend both sessions of the New England China Seminar to join colleagues for a buffet dinner at 6:30-7:30 pm, in Room S030. The dinner cost is $15 per person ($10 for students). Due to space limitations, we will accept 30 reservations on a first come first serve basis. Advance reservation and payment is required. Please register by clicking here before noon on Thursday, October 25, 2012.