Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 3-17, 1999

Volume 27, Number 31

Art Gallery expands its exhibit
offerings on the theme of Asian art

The Yale University Art Gallery recently opened its fourth exhibition this spring that is about, or related to, Asian art.

The latest of these, "Flora and Fauna in Asian Art," draws on a wide range of objects from the gallery's permanent collection to explore themes of flowers and animals in Chinese and Japanese art.

Owl-shaped bronze vessels from the second millennium B.C. are among the earliest work on display. Also on view are Chinese earthenware farmyard animals, ceramic flowers, a stoneware pillow in the shape of a tiger and examples of ink plum painting.

The section devoted to Japanese art includes lacquerware decorated with blossoms, embroidered robs, and lush paintings and prints of peonies and irises.

"Flora and Fauna in Asian Art" will continue through Aug. 29.

The other three Asian-art-related shows now on display at the gallery will continue through June 13. They are:

* "Worlds Within Worlds: Chinese Scholars' Rocks from the Richard Rosenblum Collection," which features 80 intricately shaped rocks of various types, colors and sizes. David A. Sensabaugh, curator of Asian art, has installed furniture from a Chinese scholar's studio where such rocks were kept as vehicles for contemplation. The display was originally organized at the Sackler Museum, Harvard University.

* "After Looking at Chinese Rocks: Brice Marden's Work in Progress," which includes six series of complex intertwined drawings and reproductions that reflect the Yale alumnus artist's interest in the rock formations he saw when visiting the ancient gardens of Suzhou. "As is always the case with Marden's praxis," says Joachim Pissaro, the Seymour H. Knox Jr. Curator of European and Contemporary Art and co-curator of this and the Conner's show, "entrances and exits are built into the work that allow time and the world to infiltrate freely and conjure up ever-new configurations."

* "After Looking at Chinese Landscape: Lois Conner's Work in Progress," which features a dozen photographs taken by the Yale alumna between 1984 and 1998 in different parts of China. Conner -- now associate professor at the School of Art -- uses an antique 7" x 17" banquet camera to make panoramic portraits of the landscape. "Conner's photographs of the Chinese mountains," says Richard S. Field, curator of prints, drawings and photographs, and co-curator of this and the Marden shows, "capture such a long gradient of tone that the viewer is moved to the slow exploration of landscape so treasured by traditional Chinese painters."

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Campus Notes