{"id":1854,"date":"2017-05-18T09:57:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/?p=1854"},"modified":"2017-05-18T09:57:09","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T13:57:09","slug":"10-13-15-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2017\/05\/18\/10-13-15-16\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201910, \u201913, \u201915, \u201916"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1948, Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki (1920\u20132013) moved to Paris. For the following six decades, he developed\u00a0a unique pictorial language influenced by East and West and has become one of the most well-known \u00e9migr\u00e9 artists internationally. From February to June 2017, the Colby College Museum of Art is\u00a0showing <\/em>No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki<\/a>, the first retrospective of the artist\u2019s works in the United States. The exhibition is the product of an almost decade-long research project initiated by Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jett\u00e9 Professor of Art Ankeney Weitz and research fellow Melissa Waltz with important contributions from many students. Professor Weitz\u2019s article Finding Zao Wou-Ki<\/a> shed some light on the process of organizing\u00a0the exhibition. Curious about what parts students had played in the project, curatorial intern Yichen\u00a0Lu ’17\u00a0sought out\u00a0four extraordinary Colby alumni who had worked on the project\u2014Fiona Braslau \u201910 in Paris, Anne-Marie Burke \u201913 in Shanghai, Jinghui Yu \u201915 in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Jacob Zhicheng Zhang \u201916 in Washington, D.C.\u2014who were deeply involved in the research and preparation of <\/em>No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki. What she found through her conversations\u00a0was both fascinating and inspiring. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Professor Ankeney Weitz and Yichen Lu \u201917 in the exhibition No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki. Photo by Erin Lu \u201919<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born and raised in Paris, Fiona Braslau \u201910 served as\u00a0a summer research assistant for\u00a0Professor Weitz after her graduation from Colby. The two traveled to Paris, where they visited the Centre Pompidou, researched in Parisian libraries, and even met Zao in his studio. Fiona remembered the afternoon at Zao\u2019s house when she spoke with the artist, his wife, and his assistant, and toured Zao\u2019s studio and library. \u201cIt was such a lovely house with a Chinese garden,\u201d she said. After returning to Waterville from the weeklong trip to Paris, Fiona started researching Zao\u2019s work and investigating its\u00a0relationship with\u00a0his Chinese heritage. She learned about the elaborate planning necessary for a large-scale exhibition and spent much of her time discussing with Professor Weitz which work would be included.<\/p>\n

Having paid countless visits to Parisian museums while she was growing up, Fiona was completely in love with Western art. But her\u00a0summer researching Zao Wou-Ki was transformative and ultimately informed Fiona’s\u00a0decision to delve into Chinese art professionally.\u00a0Fiona went to London to pursue a master’s degree in Chinese art at Christie’s Education, moved to Taiwan to learn Chinese for a year, and then returned to Paris, where everything had begun. \u201cThe Zao Wou-Ki project was the last thing I did at Colby,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it definitely got me into Asian art and helped me land where I am now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1985, Zao returned from Paris to visit his alma mater, the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he taught a monthlong workshop on oil painting. His lecture notes from the workshop were later compiled and published in Chinese by his students. Anne-Marie Burke \u201913, a double major in economics and East Asian studies at Colby, was Professor Weitz\u2019s research assistant for four years; she, together with Jinghui Yu \u201915, was challenged with the task of translating over eighty pages of Zao Wou-Ki’s lecture notes into English. \u201cThe translation took most of the 2012 academic year,\u201d Anne-Marie recalled. \u201cWe spent a lot of time verifying the Chinese names for less well-known European artists by searching and comparing their works,\u201d said Jinghui Yu. \u201cThrough the translation of the lecture notes, I actually learned a lot about oil-painting techniques and had a deeper understanding of the artists of the 1980s.\u201d Jinghui was particularly drawn to the Chinese artists attending\u00a0Zao\u2019s workshop in 1985: \u201cThe insightfulness of their questions and comments at that time was incredible, although they did not have many opportunities to be in contact with Western art.\u201d For Anne-Marie, the most memorable part of the translation project was not, she said, \u201cZao\u2019s mastery of spatial relationships, or explaining the interaction between colors, but rather how he did not emphasize theory and urged his students to find their own individuality.\u201d Burke continued, \u201cTo [Zao], it was not about which one of his students had the best technique but rather who could find his or her own unique way of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Zao with his students during his monthlong workshop at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou in 1985<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jacob Zhicheng Zhang \u201916 took over another crucial project as Professor Weitz\u2019s research assistant from 2013 to 2016. Jacob translated newspaper clippings about Zao before his departure to Paris in 1948 and letters from Zao\u2019s Chinese friends after his settlement in France. In addition to the translations, Jacob created a timeline of Zao\u2019s activities in China with details of his education and teachings, the people he met, and the places he visited. For Jacob, the most interesting part of the research was reading the historical letters and newspapers. \u201cYou can learn a lot about the reaction [to] and interpretation of Western art in China then through old newspapers,\u201d he said. It was also through research on Zao that Jacob became interested in artists with an immigrant identity, and his senior capstone project subsequently followed this interest in cultural exchange between the East and the West. To Jacob, Zao is an exemplar of Chinese \u00e9migr\u00e9 artists, whose work reflects the interconnection of the East and West. \u201cEspecially through the letters you could see how Zao\u2019s thoughts and emotions changed over time,\u201d Zhang recalled.<\/p>\n

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Jacob attaching coroplast protective backing board to a painting at Page Conservation, Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In these letters and newspapers, Jacob found his passion in art history and conservation, and subsequently became an intern at Colby College Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Today he is a conservator in training in Washington, D.C before going to graduate school for Art History in the fall. \u201cThe research I did on Zao Wou-Ki was my first step entering the art history field,” he said, “and I\u2019m here now.\u201d<\/p>\n

My conversations with\u00a0Fiona Braslau, Anne-Marie Burke, Jinghui Yu, and Jacob Zhicheng Zhang unveiled the multifaceted charm of the decade-long process of organizing No Limits:<\/em>\u00a0Zao Wou-K<\/em>i and revealed the consistent\u00a0collaboration between faculty and students that went into it.\u00a0I was truly touched and inspired as Anne-Marie summarized her relationship with the Zao project: \u201cIndividuality is the most important quality I took away from Zao Wou-Ki and my time at Colby College. Since I graduated almost four years ago, I’ve found the strength to express my individuality and push myself to continue to challenge myself. Not being afraid to show my true colors is what has propelled me so far. Much of my career still lies ahead, but I know it will be a unique one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the closing of the exhibition on June 4th, there is still more to do. This summer Professor Weitz and I will embark on a trip to China during which we will interview twenty artists who attended Zao\u2019s monthlong workshop at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou thirty-two years ago. This will be the first attempt, since the publishing of Zao\u2019s lecture notes in Chinese, to investigate the continuing contributions of Zao Wou-Ki to contemporary Chinese painting. Undoubtedly, the study of Zao Wou-Ki has and will continue to thrive through the collaboration of Colby students and faculty\u2014\u201910, \u201913, \u201915, \u201916, \u201917, and perhaps many more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIndividuality is the most important quality I took away from Zao Wou-Ki and my time at Colby College. Since I graduated, I’ve found the strength to express my individuality and push myself to continue to challenge myself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7103,"featured_media":1855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[526146],"tags":[351301,246685,99394,351274],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/files\/2017\/05\/Ankeney-and-I.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3U3TZ-tU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1858,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions\/1858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}