Art in Smog
Screening and Conversation with Director Lydia Chen
Friday, October 12th, 3-5 p.m.
Location: Cochrane-Woods Art Center, Room 157
Joint Event with the Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia Workshop
Introduced by Professor Paola Iovene (East Asian Languages and Civilizations)
Image taken from Lydia Chen’s Art in Smog ( HD / 76 min. / Color / 2018 / Mandarin with English subtitles )
On October 12th from 3:00pm to 5:00pm the Art and Politics of East Asia workshop and Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia Workshop are proud to present a screening of the 2018 documentary feature Art in Smog (76 min. / Mandarin with English subtitles) and conversation with the director Lydia Chen. Art in Smog offers an intimate encounter with four artists and a curator in China, as they pursue their dreams over 25 years of rapid change. Featured are international artists Su Xinping and Xia Xiaowan, painter and antiques connoisseur Mushi, curator Cui Cancan, and painter Chen Hui. The pursuit of art takes them from quiet lives in the 1990s to the extremes of the 2000s to their different paths forward today.
About the Filmmaker:
Lydia Chen has engaged in cultural exchanges between China and the United States since the 1980s. At first she worked for the Foreign Languages Press and studied Chinese painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Later she was communications director for the American Chamber of Commerce in China, associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University, and executive director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She received her master’s degrees in journalism and Asian studies from the University of California at Berkeley and her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.
For more information, please visit the film’s official website.
