Release Date: May 11, 2018

Wu Hung of the University of Chicago Presents the 68th Annual A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts in 2019 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, University of Chicago, presents the 68th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts on Sundays, March 31, April 7, April 14, April 28, May 5, and May 12, 2019, at the National Gallery of Art.

Updated December 31, 2018

Washington, DC—The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art has announced that Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, University of Chicago, will give the 68th annual A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts in 2019.

The lecture series, entitled End as Beginning: Chinese Art and Dynastic Time, will be held in the East Building Auditorium at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, on March 31, April 7, April 14, April 28, May 5, and May 12 at 2:00 p.m.

In his six-part series, Wu Hung will explore the narratives of Chinese art and their relationship to artistic production. The most lasting temporal framework in narrating Chinese art has been "dynastic time," which organizes factual accounts and channels the historical imagination through successive dynasties from the third millennium BCE to the 20th century. Wu Hung reflects on a series of questions: How did dynastic time emerge and permeate writings on traditional Chinese art? How did it enrich and redefine itself in specific historical contexts? How did it interact with temporalities in different historical, religious, and political systems? How did narratives based on dynastic time respond to and inspire artistic creation?

March 31: The Emergence of Dynastic Time in Chinese Art

April 7: Reconfiguring the World: The First Emperor's Art Projects

April 14: Conflicting Temporalities: Heaven's Mandate and Its Antitheses

April 28: Miraculous Icons and Dynastic Time: Narrating Buddhist Art in Medieval China

May 5: Art of Absence: Voices of the Leftover Subject

May 12: End as Beginning: Dynastic Time and Revolution

About the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Since 1949, the preeminent A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts have presented the best in contemporary thought and scholarship on the subject of the fine arts to the people of the United States. The program itself is named for Andrew W. Mellon, founder of the National Gallery of Art, who gave the nation his art collection and funds to build the West Building, which opened to the public in 1941.

Past speakers have included Sir Kenneth Clark, T. J. Clark, Thomas Crow, E. H. Gombrich, Michael Fried, Mary Miller, Helen Vendler, Irene Winter, Alexander Nemerov, and, most recently, Hal Foster. For a full list, visit www.nga.gov/research/casva/meetings/mellon-lectures-in-the-fine-arts.html.

About Wu Hung
Wu Hung is director of the Center for the Art of East Asia and consulting curator of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. His books and exhibitions on both traditional and contemporary Chinese art have explored ways to integrate these conventionally separate phases into new kinds of art-historical narratives. His award-winning publications include Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (1995), The Double Screen: Medium and Representation of Chinese Pictorial Art (1996), Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space (2005), A Story of Ruins: Presence and Absence in Chinese Art and Visual Culture (2012), and Zooming In: Histories of Photography in China (2016). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1999) and Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching at the University of Chicago (2007). The College of Art Association has recognized his contributions to the profession with its Distinguished Teaching Award (2008) and Distinguished Scholar Award (2018). A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Wu Hung sits on the boards and advisory committees of many research institutes and museums in the United States and China.

Press Contact
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