The China Project Workshop

The China Project Workshop, founded in 2011, is open to anyone interested in premodern Chinese art or archaeology. The Workshop meets eight times each year, from September to December and February to May, attracting on average an audience of around 40 people. Presentations are usually in English but are occasionally in Chinese.

The in-person workshops will take place at the Institute of Fine Arts (1 East 78th St). Seating is on a first come, first served basis. In order to reserve a seat, RSVP by the morning of the event is required. For the webinar workshop, please RSVP directly. The workshop will begin at 6:00 pm EST. Registration links will be sent out 1-2 weeks prior to the workshop. 

Add your name and email address to the mailing list

RSVP: chinaprojectworkshop@gmail.com

Schedule

February 2, 2024
Bryce Heatherly (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Pennsylvania): “Buddhist Personhood and Northern-Song (960-1127) Book Arts”
The discussion will be moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)
In-person

March 1, 2024
John Yiu (Jao Tsung-I Petite Ecole, University of Hong Kong): “Illustrated Classics, Imperial Calligraphy, and Imperial Education at the Southern Song Court”
The discussion will be moderated by Alfreda Murck (Independent Scholar)
Webinar

April 19, 2024
Amy McNair (University of Kansas), "A Revolutionary, A Calligrapher, and 19th-century Commercial Taste"
The discussion will be moderated by Michele Matteini (NYU)
Webinar

May 10, 2024
Yeorae Yoon (Postdoctoral Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art): "Defining the Ethnic Identity of Manchu Bannermen: Visual and Material Expressions of Martiality."
The discussion will be moderated by TBA
In-person

Archive

December 1, 2023
BuYun Chen (Swarthmore College): “Ecology of Lacquerware Production in the Ryukyu Kingdom”
The discussion was  moderated by Monika Bincsik (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
In-person

November 3, 2023
Maggie Wan (The Chinese University of Hong Kong): “The Appropriation of “Dragons” in Ming Society”
The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)
Webinar

October 6, 2023
Dorothy Wong (University of Virginia): “Prints and Narrative Paintings of the First Image of the Buddha in East Asia, 15th – 17th century”
The discussion was moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)
In-person

September 8, 2023
Lu Pengliang (Metropolitan Museum of Art): “Recasting the Past: The Power of Bronze in China, 1100-1900”
The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)
In-person

May 5, 2023

Ziliang Liu (Dartmouth College) explored the potential symbolic meanings of drainage systems in certain Western Han rock-cut tombs.

The discussion was moderated by Alain Thote, École pratique des Hautes Études and Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris.

April 7, 2023

Hu Jun (University of California, Berkeley):  "A Brief History of Small (and Inadequate) Pictures," postponed from the Fall.

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

March 10, 2023

Yukina Zhang (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU) discussed the gendered visual and material expressions in an 8th-century joint spousal burial, with a special focus on scissors and tweezers.

The discussion was moderated by Hsueh-man Shen (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

February 3, 2023
Jonathan Hay and Michele Matteini (both the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU):

"The Place of Chinese Painting Studies Today: A Conversation across Generations"

December 16, 2022
Du Xiaohan, Columbia University, presented on the topic “From Kamakura to Kyoto: Making Sense of A Chinese Monk's Calligraphy in the Cultural Matrix of Fourteenth Century Japan”

The discussion was moderated by Amy McNair (University of Kansas)

October 21, 2022
Yukio Lippit, Harvard University, presented on the topic “The Shōsōin Imperial Treasury and East Asian Mortuary Practice”

The discussion was moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

September 23, 2022
Michele Matteini, New York University, Yan Weitian, Syracuse University, and Michael J. Hatch, Miami University, discussed structure and scope of a planned edited volume by the tentative title “Antiquarian Artifacts in China and Beyond, 1700s-1900s”.

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (New York University)

May 6, 2022

Stacey Lambrow, Curator of the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, spoke on 19th-century photography of China by Chinese photographers.

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

April 1, 2022

James Robson, Harvard University, presented on his project "Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Chinese Cultic Images and Their Contents."

The discussion was moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

March 11, 2022

Michelle H. Wang, Reed College, presented on the topic "The Making of the Houma Covenants in Early China."

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History and The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

February 4, 2022

Julie Bellemare, Ph.D. Bard Graduate Center; Jane and Morgan Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presented on her project “Neither Jade nor Stone”: Agate Carvings for the Qing Court."

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History and The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

December 10, 2021

Wang Yudong, School of Arts and Humanities, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, analyzed the mountain cliff carvings created from the Ming through the 1930s in Chongqing region, revolving around and responding to Baodingshan.

The discussion was moderated by Phillip Bloom (Huntington Library).

November 12, 2021

Hui-wen Lu, Graduate Institute of Art History, National Taiwan University, presented her current research “Reliving History and Shaping Memory: Tang Remains and Song Scholars in the Old Capital Chang’an”

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

October 08, 2021

A discussion on the present and future of digital publishing in Chinese art and visual culture with Stephen H. Whiteman (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Ann Waltner (University of Minnesota), and Vivi Xie (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History and The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

September 24, 2021

Yan Weitian, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art History, University of Kansas, presented on his project “Yi Bingshou and the Ye Family: A Case of Artistic Patronage in Qing Guangzhou.”

The discussion was moderated by Michael J. Hatch (Miami University).

May 7, 2021

Yeewan Koon, Department of Fine Arts, The University of Hong Kong.

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

April 16, 2021

Phillip Bloom, Huntington Library, presented on the topic “The Pleasures of Gardens in Song (960–1279) China.”

The discussion was moderated by Julia Orell (University of British Columbia).

March 26, 2021

Xu Wenpeng, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois Chicago, presented on his research project "Export-oriented Porcelain Economy in Song-Yuan China: Production Strategies, Networks, and Interaction at Dehua."

The discussion was moderated by Hsueh-Man Shen (The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU).

March 12, 2021

Marcus Bingenheimer, Department of Religion, Temple University, presented on the topic "The Historical Social Network of Chinese Buddhism as a Visualization Tool."

The discussion was moderated by Sebastian Heath (Institute for The Study of the Ancient World, NYU).

2020

December 11, 2020

Michelle C. Wang (Georgetown University) and Soyoung Lee (Harvard Art Museums) addressed the topic "The Future of Asian Art History: Projections from Women in the Field."

The discussion was moderated by Patricia Berger (University of California, Berkeley).

November 13, 2020

Hsueh-man Shen, The Institute of Fine Arts, addressed issues surrounding the languages of Chinese art history. She was joined by Mimi G. Gates (Dunhuang Foundation and Blakemore Foundation) and Qianshen Bai (Zhejiang University) for a conversation about the topic.

The discussion was be moderated by Jonathan Hay (The Institute of Fine Arts).

October 16, 2020

Four scholars, Aurelia Campbell (Boston College), Chuck Wooldridge (Lehman College, CUNY), Rachel Silberstein (University of Puget Sound), and Yuhang Li (University of Wisconsin-Madison), discussed histories of reusing, remaking, or recycling things in late Imperial China.

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History and the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

September 25, 2020

Jonathan Hay, The Institute of Fine Arts, presented "Painting Formats in the Xuanhe huapu: A Reverse Engineering Project."

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History and the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU)

February 21, 2020

Jessica Harrison-Hall, Department of Asia, The British Museum, presented on an upcoming British Museum exhibition on nineteenth-century China.

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay (The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University).

December 13, 2019

Jason Protass, Department of Religious Studies, Brown University, spoke on digital humanities and his GIS-inflected project “Buddhist Rituals across Social Topography of China, 1065-1130."

The discussion was moderated by Wen-shing Chou (Hunter College).

November 15, 2019

Thomas Kelly, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, presented on Huizhou merchants and practices of inscribing objects in late Ming China.

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini (Department of Art History, and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University).

October 11, 2019

Ying-chen Peng, Department of Art, American University, presented her latest research project, “Ryuku Kingdom and the Fifteenth-Century Maritime Trade in East Asia.” 

The discussion was moderated by Buyun Chen (Swarthmore College).

September 20, 2019

Annette Juliano and Judith Lerner, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, presented on an upcoming exhibition on Inner Mongolia.

The discussion was moderated by Adriana Proser (Asia Society Museum).

May 3, 2019

Peter Sturman, Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, spoke on recent discoveries in Tang calligraphy and related texts.

The discussion was moderated by Joe Scheier-Dolberg, Department of Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art

April 12, 2019

Dagmar Schäfer, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

"Leather and Silk in Chinese Historical Arts and Sciences: On historical research and ownership, or how and what can be known and should/should not be owned"

The discussion was moderated by Jonathan Hay, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

March 29, 2019

Kee Il Choi Jr., Ph.D. Candidate, Leiden University, spoke on the topic “Ornament from China: Henri-Léonard Bertin's drawings of the Qianlong emperor's vases Chinois”.

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini, Department of Art History, New York University

February 1, 2019

Michelle Wang, Department of Art and Art History, Georgetown University, spoke on architecture, sculpture, and materiality on the Silk Road.

The discussion was moderated by Lan-ying Tseng, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU

December 7, 2018

Tina Lu, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University; Siyen Fei, Department of History; University of Pennsylvania; Shang Wei, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University; and Jonathan Hay, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University discussed the Xu Wei Project, a collaborative study of the sixteenth-century polymath, Xu Wei (1521-1593).

The discussion was moderated by Michele Matteini, Department of Art History, New York University

November 30, 2018

Anne Feng, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, spoke on the topic “Water, Ice, Lapis Lazuli: Metamorphosis of the Pure Land Tableau in the Tang Dynasty”.

The discussion was moderated by Wen-shing Chou, Hunter College

October 26, 2018

Yijun Wang, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.
Title: Suzhou Style, Guangzhou Artisans?
Locating Suzhou Style at the Interface of Texts, Materials, and Craft Cultures

The discussion was moderated by François Louis, Bard Graduate Center

September 28, 2019

Cheng-hua Wang, Department of Art and Archeology, Princeton University, discussed the Qingming shanghe as a painting theme.

The discussion was moderated by Robert Harrist, Columbia University

April 13, 2018

Mei Mei Rado, Freer/Sackler Gallery, will present on the representation of textile in late Imperial Chinese Art Postdoctoral fellow at the Freer/Sackler Gallery

March 30, 2018

Daniel Greenberg, Department of Art History, Columbia University, will discuss two models of envisioning Qing empire within time in eighteenth-century Chinese court painting.  
The discussion will be moderated by Michael Hatch, Miami University and Metropolitan Museum of Art

February 16, 2018

Susan Naquin, Department of History, Princeton University will talk about methods for using temple objects to study regional material culture in the Ming and Qing periods.
The discussion will be moderated by Jonathan Hay, Institute of Fine Arts

December 8, 2017

Zhang Fan, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, will speak on the topic "Reinventing Ear-cups: the Impact of Sino-Iranian Interaction on Northern Wei Drinking Culture." 
The discussion will be moderated by Annette Juliano, Rutgers University

November 10, 2017

Chen Kaijun, East Asian Studies, Brown University will speak on the topic "What kind of art did bannermen make and why?" 
The discussion will be moderated by Michele Matteini, New York University/Institute of Fine Arts

October 6, 2017

Nancy Steinhardt, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania will present a project titled, “The Borders of Chinese Architecture and Decoration”
The discussion will be moderated by Wenshing Chou, Department of Art and Art History, Hunter College, City University of New York

May 5, 2017

Yu-chih Lai, Academia Sinica
will speak on the encounter between Chinese baimiao "plain-line" painting and European drawing.
The discussion will be moderated by Michele Matteini, Department of Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

April 28, 2017

Lü Pengliang, Bard Graduate Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art
will speak on Yuan dynasty bronzes
The discussion will be moderated by Jonathan Hay, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

March 31, 2017

Sophie Volpp, Department of East Asian Languages and Literature; Department of Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley,
will discuss the problems of cross-disciplinary engagement, using as a case study the interest of art historians and scholars of literature in considering  Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) in tandem with the panoramic paintings (tongjing hua) of the Forbidden City.
The discussion will be moderated by Michele Matteini, Department of Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

March 3, 2017

Guo Jue, Barnard College
will speak on Baoshan Tomb 2 and Chu culture in the fourth century BCE
The discussion will be moderated by Lillian Tseng, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU

February 15, 2017

Ellen Huang, University of California, Berkeley
will speak on Jingdezhen porcelain makers' discoveries about surface, with examples from early Kangxi transitional wares and Qianlong double-layered vases
The discussion will be moderated by Lee Ambrozy, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU

December 9, 2016

Zoe Kwok, The Art Museum, Princeton University
will speak on a planned exhibition on the theme of banqueting
The discussion will be moderated by Freda Murck, independent scholar

November 11, 2016
George Fan, independent scholar
will speak on his project to reconstruct the Qianlong collection of archaic bronzes
Moderator to be announced.

October 7, 2016

Micki McCoy, History of Art Department, University of California, Berkeley
will speak on the topic "Thinking with the Kharakhoto Astral Mandala"
The discussion will be moderated by Elena Pakhoutova, Rubin Museum of Art

May 6, 2016

Olga Panova, Russian University of the Humanities, Moscow
“Early Northern Song Painting as a Social Practice through the Lens of Liu Daochun’s Evaluations of Song Painters of Renown“

April 23, 2016

Pop Up Graduate Student Symposium
NEW RESEARCH ON EARLY CHINESE PAINTINGS AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM 
Full schedule and a list of speakers 

April 8, 2016

Katherine Tsiang, Associate Director, Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago
will present on the use of virtual reality techniques in an exhibition of early Buddhist sculpture

March 25, 2016

Jeffrey Moser, Assistant Professor, Dept. of History of Art and Architecture, Brown University
will assess the potential of skeumorphy as a conceptual device for integrating histories of Chinese bronze and ceramic manufacturing

January 29, 2016

Julia Orell, Postdoctoral Fellow, Academia Sinica
will present on the German-language historiography of Chinese art

February 6, 2015

Freda Murck, Independent Scholar
Is Cui Bo's Magpie and Hare of 1061 an Allegory?

March 13, 2015

Clarissa von Spee, Curator, China, British Museum
Multiples in Chinese Painting

April 24, 2015

François Louis, Associate Professor, The Bard Graduate Center
Picturing Antiquity in China's Middle Period: Nie Chongyi's Illustrations to the Rites Classics

May 8, 2015

Yunru Chen, Curator of Chinese Paintings, National Palace Museum, Taipei
The Legacy of Song Huizong in East Asian Art

February 21, 2014

Qianshen Bai, Associate Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Boston University
Wu Dacheng (1835-1902) and the Modern Fate of Chinese Literati Culture

March 7, 2014

Hiromi Konishita, Associate Curator of Chinese Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Reinterpreting the Chinese Architectural Galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

March 26, 2014

Co-sponsored by the Colloquium for Spanish and Latin American Art
Shane McCausland, Reader in the History of Art of China in the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London
“About 1638: Artists and Networks in the Early Modern World”

April 4, 2014

Roderick Campbell, Assistant Professor of East Asian Archaeology and History, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU
The Wild and the Numinous: Animals in Shang Art

May 9, 2014

Eileen Hsiang-ling Hsü, Independent Scholar.
Thus Have I Heard: Writing and Picturing the Dharma

September 12 , 2014

Susan Whitfield, IDP, The British Library
“The Silk Road Contextualised: Stupas, Silk and Slaves”

October 10, 2014

Dr. Susan L. Beningson, Assistant Curator of Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum
“Bridging Past and Future: The New Chinese Art Galleries at the Brooklyn Museum”

October 24, 2014

“Painting under the Five Dynasties, Liao, and Northern Song Dynasties”
7 papers by IFA students, and one by Jonathan Hay
Hsueh-man Shen and François Louis will act as discussants.

December 5, 2014

Tao Wang, Senior Vice President, Department Head, Chinese Works of Art, Sotheby’s
“Collecting Antiques, Collecting Friends: The Collectors of the Owl-Headed Hu”

February 22, 2013

Nicholas Grindley, Nicholas Grindley Works of Art Limited
“A possible chronology for the dating of Chinese yokeback armchairs”
Moderated by Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts)

March 1, 2013

Alain Thote (Ecole pratique des hautes études, Paris)
Early Chinese Manuscripts in Archaeological Context
Moderated by Lilian Tseng (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)

April 5, 2013

Denise Leidy (Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Extreme Practices: Shakyamuni and other Ascetics in Buddhist Art
Moderated by Hsueh-man Shen (Institute of Fine Arts)

May 3, 2013

Joe Scheier-Dohlberg (Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Non-portrait Paintings by the Portrait Painter Yu Zhiding (1646-1716)
Moderated by Lulu Brotherton (SUNY, New Paltz)

October 18, 2013

Michael Hatch, PhD candidate, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
“Clarity and Quietude: Literati Aesthetics between Tea and Painting in the Work of Qian Du (1764-1844)”

November 15, 2013

Zheng Yan, Professor of Chinese Art, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing
The E-Pang Palace: Memories and Imaginations

December 13, 2013

Lothar von Falkenhausen, Professor of Art History, UCLA
Culture and Personality in Early China

February 10, 2012

Hsueh-man Shen, Assistant Professor, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
“Between One and Many: Interpreting Large Numbers in the Buddhist Art of China”

March 1, 2012

Alain Thote (Directeur d’Etudes, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris),
Early Chinese Manuscripts in Archaeological Context

April 13, 2012

James Lally (J.J. Lally and Co.)
Ancient Chinese Silver and Gold: Dating and Attribution

May 4, 2012

Lihong Liu, PhD student, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
The Path in Mid-Ming Landscape Painting

September 14, 2012

Dorothy Ko, Professor of History, Barnard College
Body, Text, and Stone: The Crafting and Connoisseurship of Inkstones in Eighteenth-Century China
Moderated by Jonathan Hay (Institute of Fine Arts)

October 5, 2012

Judith Zeitlin, Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Chicago, and Yuhang Li, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Grinnell College
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture
Moderated by Susan Naquin (Princeton University)

November 9, 2012

Linda Lin, object conservator, Fellow, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Study and Conservation of the Asian Amber Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Moderated by François Louis (Bard Graduate Center)

December 7, 2012

Wen-shing Chou, Hunter College
History and Memory in the Visionary Landscape of Qing-Dynasty Wutai Shan
Moderated by Denise Leidy (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

September 9, 2011

Jonathan Hay, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Professor, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
Early Ming Beijing: What Did It Look Like?

October 14, 2011

Jeehee Hong, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Music Histories, Syracuse University
Shifting Margins of the Sacred Realm: Commonalities Between Tombs and Buddhist Architecture in the 1oth – 14th Centuries

November 11, 2011

Bruce Rusk, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University
Reignmakers: Ming Imperial Production and Its Imitators

December 9, 2011

Colin Mackenzie, Senior Curator of Early Chinese Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Rethinking the Display of Chinese Art in a Museum Setting: The Nelson-Atkins Museum as an (ongoing) Case Study

A FORUM FOR INFORMED DISCUSSION

New York has an extraordinary concentration of expertise in premodern Chinese art and archaeology. New York is also an important destination for expert colleagues living elsewhere. The China Project workshop is designed to be an ongoing forum where those with a serious interest can meet regularly to keep up with new developments in the field and engage in informed discussion. In order to ensure that the range of presenters reflects the full spectrum of expertise on Chinese art and archaeology, projects are presented at the Workshop by invitation. Each year's line-up draws from a diverse pool of art history professors, archaeologists, historians, museum curators, leading dealers, auction house specialists, and graduate students. 

AN UNUSUAL FORMAT

Lectures on Chinese art and archaeology are by no means uncommon in New York City, and it is not the purpose of the China Project Workshop to add to their number. Important as lectures are, the experience of giving a lecture rarely changes very much the publication that the lecturer eventually authors. Correspondingly, for most audience members the experience of hearing a lecture tends to be rather passive. The scholarly purpose of theWorkshop is to provide an opportunity for someone working on a particular project to receive informed, constructive feedback at a point where it can really make a difference.

For this reason the China Project Workshop operates on a discussion principle using the following format:

•1-2 weeks in advance we circulate to everyone on the mailing list an explanatory text (maximum 1,000 words) by the upcoming presenter. The presenter briefly introduces a project in progress, explaining why s/he is undertaking the project, and what s/he sees as the challenges. 

•On the day of the workshop, the presenter takes no more than 30 minutes to present the project in slightly more detail, with a heavy emphasis on visual material, whether in the form of images or, occasionally, actual artifacts. 

•Following the initial presentation, the rest of the session is devoted to a general discussion lasting up to 80 minutes led by an invited moderator.

•A reception follows at 8 p.m.

SPONSORED EVENTS

From time to time the Workshop also sponsors events at the IFA such as the livestreamed graduate student workshop on Painting under the Five Dynasties, Liao, and Northern Song Dynasties held on October 24, 2014. These events are also open to the public and announcements are sent to everyone on the China Project Workshop mailing list.

The China Project Workshop acknowledges the generous support of an anonymous donor.