Britta Lee Erickson
Curriculum Vitae
Education
1988 - 1997
Ph.D., History of Art
Stanford University
"Patronage And Production in the Nineteenth-Century Shanghai Region:
Ren Xiong (1823-1857) and His Sponsors"
1984 - 1987
A.M., East Asian Studies
Stanford University
1981 - 1982
Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies
Taipei, Taiwan
1977 - 1981
A.B. with distinction, History of Art
Stanford University
High School American Community School, London
Academic Honors and Awards
1999
China and Inner Asia Small Grant, Association for Asian Studies, March.
1996
Margaret Kempenich Boothe Scholarship.
1992-1993
Samuel H. Kress Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Art History.
1989
Japan Fund Fellowship, Summer.
1981
A.B. with distinction, Stanford University.
1977
Phi Eta Sigma (freshman honor society).
Scholarly Papers
"'Language is the Home of the Being': The Art of Gu Wenda and Xu Bing," The Spirit of Contemporary Asian Art Symposium, California State University, Sacramento, 4 October 2003.
"Xu Bing and the Goddess," Hong Kong Museum of Art, 18 July 2003.
"Poetry of the Mundane: Yu Hong's Recent Works," College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, 22 May 2003.
Panelist, L'Art Contemporain Chinois (conference), Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, 4 October 2002.
"China: A Arte Contemporânea," Museu de Arte Brasileira, Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, São Paulo, Brazil, 20 August, 2002.
"The Contemporary Artistic Deconstruction-and Reconstruction-of Brush and Ink Painting," International Fine Arts Conference New York 2002: Retrospective of Chinese Ink Painting and Its Development in the New Millennium, New York, 10-12 May 2002.
"Contemporary Chinese Art in the West: The Question of Presentation," Contemporary Chinese Arts in the International Arena, British Museum, London, 18-20 April 2002.
"The Rent Collection Courtyard: A Model Socialist Realist Sculpture of the Cultural Revolution . . . and the Bourgeois Reactionary Time Bomb within," Cultural Production and the Cultural Revolution conference, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 22-23 March 2002.
Discussant, "Art and Artists in the Cultural Revolution," Cultural Production and the Cultural Revolution conference, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 22-23 March 2002.
"Madonnas, War, Puddled Ink, and Other Exceptional Subjects and Stylistic Novelties in Ren Xiong's Album after Poems by Yao Xie," International Symposium on Shanghai School Painting, Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing House, Shanghai, 17 December 2001.
Discussant, "Redefining Cultural Identity in the Era of Hi-Tech Globalism-Performance and Body Art in East Asia in the Age of Globalisation," Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 10 March, 2001.
"The Place of Language in Chinese Art at the Close of the Millennium," the 2001 William G. Roehrick Lectures in the Arts, Hamilton College, New York, 24 February 2001.
Series of three lectures on aspects of the reception of Chinese contemporary art in the West, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chongqing, P.R. China, 10-11 November, 2000.
Keynote Speaker, Haishang/Shanghai: The Spirit of Shanghai, international symposium held in conjunction with the Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, 8 November 2000.
"Changing Places, Changing Meanings: Chinese Contemporary Art in a Global Environment," Regionalism and Networks: Research on Chinese Art History of the Past Millennium, Taiwan National University, Taipei, 5 July 2000.
"Inter-Cultural Communication: Problems in Interpreting Contemporary Chinese Art," Inside/Out: New Chinese Art Symposium, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 3 June 2000.
"The Marginalization of Female Artists in the Chinese Art System," Art and Cultural Politics: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, international conference co-sponsored by the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs and the Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 18 December 1999.
"Where Is the Tradition in Transience?: Tradition and Modernity in the Current Exhibition," lecture held in conjunction with the Transience exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon, 11 August 1999.
Moderator, "The Tenuous Thread of Identity," (panel featuring the artists, Ho Siu-kee, Wu Mali, Xu Bing, and Gu Wenda), symposium held in conjunction with the Inside/Out: New Chinese Art exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 27 February 1999.
Panelist, "The Future of Chinese Art: Traditionalism vs. Modernism," panel discussion held in conjunction with Inside/Out: New Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 26 February 1999.
"The Question Is, Can Contemporary Ink Works Captivate an International Audience?" Ink Art in Contemporary Culture: International Symposium for the Second Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 20-22 October 1998.
Discussant, "China Avant Garde on the World Scene," Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary Art from South of the Yangzi River, International Symposium, Vancouver, 24-26 April 1998.
"Hospital Beds and the Reconstruction of the Self in Recent Chinese Art," Center for East Asian Studies Spring Lecture Series, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 2 April 1998.
"Ghosts Pounding the Wall: Xu Bing's Print Installations," A Celebration of the Print: Southern Graphics Council Conference, Athens, Ohio, 25 March 1998.
Panelist, Beyond Abstract Symposium, Gallery on the Rim, San Francisco, California, 13 December 1997.
"Pop Artists Feed on the Mao Craze," lecture held in conjunction with the China's New Art, Post-1989 exhibition, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California,
4 October 1997.
"Chinese Art in the Late 1980s, Following a Brief Period of Indigestion . . . ," lecture held in conjunction with the China's New Art, Post-1989 exhibition, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California, 27 September 1997.
"Stolen Art Treasures," International Forum Program, World Affairs Council,
San Francisco, California, 19 March 1997.
"A Case Study of Transference: Xu Bing and the Process of Interpreting Art," Communications with/in Asia: Twentieth Anniversary Conference of the Asian Studies Assoc. of Australia; La Trobe University, Melbourne, 11 July 1996.
"Ren Xiong's Picture of the Thatched Hall of Fan Lake: A Dream of Escape," Young Scholars' Art History Colloquium, deYoung Museum, San Francisco, California, 21 November 1992.
"Ren Xiong's Picture of the Thatched Hall of Fan Lake: Style as Meaning," International Symposium, Transcending Turmoil: Painting at the Close of China's Empire 1796-1911; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, 26 September 1992.
Publications:
"Uncommon Themes and Uncommon Subject Matter in Ren Xiong's Album after Poems by Yao Xie," in Jason Kuo, ed., Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s (University Press of Maryland, to be published 2003).
"Backflow: Returned Chinese Artists," Artlink Australia (November 2003).
"Memory Devolved and Evolved: Fantasy Photographic Works by Shao Yinong and Muchen," untitled folio of works by Shao Yinong and Muchen, 2003, n.p.
"The Contemporary Artistic Deconstruction-and Reconstruction-of Ink Painting," Yishu Journal of Contemporary Art (Summer 2003), pp. 82-89.
"Plan for an Exhibition: On the Edge . . . ," Asia Art Archives Newsletter
(Hong Kong), 18 June 2003.
Zhang Jianjun de zhuangzhi yishu: lai zi shijian he wenhua xingtai de shijue jingyan (Chinese translation of "Visual Experience of Time and Cultural Form: Installations by Zhang Jian-Jun," below), Art Today, 7/2003, pp. 150-153,
front cover.
"Visual Experience of Time and Cultural Form: Installations by Zhang Jian-Jun," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 5, no. 1 (2003). http://www.chinese-art.com/artists/zhangjianjun/zhangjianjun.htm
"Shi gan jing yi: quanqiuhua fenwei zhong de Zhongguo dangdai yishu" (Chinese translation of "Changing Places, Changing Meanings: Chinese Contemporary Art in a Global Environment," below), Art China, 4/2002, pp. 6-9.
"Transience: Faceting Quicksilver," Art Journal, vol. 61, no. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 105-106. (Review of Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century [Chicago, 1999].)
"Madonnas, War, Puddled Ink, and Other Exceptional Subjects and Stylistic Novelties in Ren Xiong's Album after Poems by Yao Xie," in Studies on Shanghai School Painting (Shanghai: Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, 2001), pp. 868-899.
"Yuyan shi shengcun de yuandi-Xu Bing zai Shakele Meishuguan" (Language is the origin of existence: Xu Bing at the Sackler Gallery), Art China, issue 1 (December 2001), pp. 90-93.
"Ru zuo yunxiao feiche chuan de cezhan jingli" (Diary of an exhibition: a curatorial roller coaster ride), Chinese Art News, issue 49 (November 2001),
pp. 57-58.
The Art of Xu Bing: Words without Meaning, Meaning without Words. Washington, D.C./Seattle: Sackler Gallery/University of Washington Press, 2001.
"Xu Bing," in Contemporary Artists, 5th edition
(Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 2001).
"Material Illusion: Adrift with the Conceptual Sculptor, Zhan Wang," Art Journal, vol. 60, no. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 72-81.
"The Rise of a Feminist Spirit in Contemporary Chinese Art," ART Asia Pacific, issue 31 (July 2001), pp. 66-71.
"Changing Places, Changing Meanings: Chinese Contemporary Art in a Global Environment," in Regionalism and Networks: Research on Chinese Art History of the Past Millennium (Taipei: Taiwan National University Department of Art, 2001), pp. 727-748.
"From the Edge of Beyond: Artists Probe the Mundane and the Horrific," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, 4, no. 3 (June 2001). http://www.chinese-art.com/Contemporary/volumefourissue3/article1.htm
"Review: Art and Cultural Politics in Postwar Taiwan, by Jason Kuo," ART Asia Pacific, issue 30 (April 2001), p. 95.
"Mao Xuhui," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, January 2001. http://www.chinese-art.com/artists/MaoXuhui/maoxuhui.htm
Bibliography of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art website, 1998-2000. URL: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/art/china/ Editorial, Introductory Essay, Introduction to Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts Press Release, "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 3, no. 4: "Special Issue: Recent Riffs on the Cultural Revolution in Chinese Art" (August 2000).
"Feng Bin's Art: Traditional Media in a Modern World," in Eternal Present: Feng Bin 1997-2000 (Chengdu, 2000), n.p.
"Wenda Gu's Silent Selves and Pseudo-Characters," Art Asia Pacific, issue 26 (April 2000), pp. 78-83.
"Cai Jin, Master of the Living Brush," in Drawings by Cai Jin (Beijing: Huaxia Publishing House, 2000), pp. 1-3.
"Cai Guo Qiang Takes The Rent Collection Courtyard from Cultural Revolution Model Sculpture to Winner of the 48th Venice Biennale International Award," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 1, no. 4 (August, 1999). http://www.chinese-art.com/Contemporary/volume2issue4/Other/other2.htm
"Zhan Wang," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 2, no. 3 (June, 1999). http://www.chinese-art.com/volume2issue3/index.html
"Zhou Xian's Fabulous Construct, the Thatched Cottage of Fan Lake," in Ju-hsi Chou, ed., Art at the Close of China's Empire: Phoebus (a journal of Art History, School of Art, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona), vol. 8, 1998, pp. 67-93.
"Made in China: Is There a Market for New Chinese Art?" "Beyond the Confines of The Market," "China's Virtual Galleries," Limn Magazine, issue 2 (August 1998), pp. 24-30.
"Evolving Meanings in Xu Bing's Art: A Case Study of Transference," "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 1, no. 4 (May, 1998). http://www.chinese-art.com/volume1issue4/index.html "Comparing Dynastic and Communist China Through Art," in Communist China and Modern Japan (Mountain View, CA: Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 1995).
"Ren Xiong's Final Dated Work, Mending the Official Robe," Stanford University Museum of Art Journal, vols. XXII-XXIII (1992-1993), pp. 6-13.
"Three Installations by Xu Bing," The Elvehjem Museum of Art Artscene, Vol. 7, No. 5 (Nov./Dec., 1991), p. 1.
Exhibition Catalogue Texts:
"Luxuriant Obsession in Red," in "The Beauty Banana Series": The Art of Cai Jin (New York: Goedhuis Contemporary, 2003), pp. 2-5.
"Rifts, Change and Creativity," in The Paintings of Qiu Deshu (New York: Goedhuis Contemporary, 2003), pp. 2-5.
"Poetry of Everyday Existence," in A Woman's Life: The Art of Yu Hong (Charleston: Halsey Gallery, 2003), pp. 2-7.
"The Reception in the West of Experimental Mainland Chinese Art of the 1990s" in Wu Hung, Wang Huangsheng and Feng Boyi, eds., The First Guangzhou Triennial: Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000) (Guangzhou: Guangdong Museum of Art, 2002), pp. 105-112.
Catalog entries, Paris-Pékin (Paris: Chinese Century, 2002).
"1988-2002: A Second Twentieth-Century Crest of Internationalism in Chinese Art," in Jean-Marc Decrop, curator, China: Art Contemporânea (São Paulo: Museu de Arte Brasileira, Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, 2002), pp. 44-49.
"Raw Beneath the Mask," in Zeng Fanzhi: Raw Beneath the Mask (Shanghai: Shanghart, 2001), pp. 7-9.
"Architecture, Sex, Rotting, Dissolving: Paint! Recent Works by Liu Wei and Zhao Gang," in Liu Wei Zhao Gang 2001 (Sydney: Ray Hughes Gallery, 2001), n.p.
Catalog entries on eight paintings, including works by Ren Xiong (1823-1857), Ren Xun (1835-1893), Ren Bonian (1840-1896), Huang Shanshou (1855-1919), and Wu Qingyun (d. 1916), in New Interpretations of Ming and Qing Paintings (Shanghai: Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing Society, 1994), pp. 80, 86-87, 98, 108-109, 113.
"Process and Meaning in the Art of Xu Bing," Three Installations by Xu Bing (Madison, Wisconsin: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1991), pp. 2-32.
Professional Experience:
2003
Guest Curator, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University. Organizing On the Edge: Chinese Artists Encounter the West.
Guest Curator, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong S.A.R. Organizing Flights of Fancy: Xu Bing Experiments with Language.
Lecturer, Stanford University. Taught an upper level colloquium, "Issues in Contemporary Chinese Art."
2002
Lecturer, Stanford University. Taught a seminar,
"The Flowering of Contemporary Chinese Art."
Curator, Closed Off/Unfettered Mind, DDM Warehouse, Shanghai. Organized exhibition of six international artists; cancelled as too confrontational.
1999 - 2002
Guest Curator. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C.: Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing, 21 October 2001-12 May 2002.
2001
Lecturer, Stanford University. Taught a colloquium,
"Studies in Contemporary Chinese Art."
Guest Editor, "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 4, no. 3. Organized a focused issue of the only Western-language publication devoted to contemporary Chinese art; solicited and edited articles.
2000
Lecturer, "Between the Thunder and the Rain," a course held in conjunction with the exhibition by the same name, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Presented three lectures on subjects ranging from the nineteenth-century Shanghai School to present day Chinese art.
Guest Editor, "Chinese Type" Contemporary Art, vol. 3, no. 4: "Special Issue: Recent Riffs on the Cultural Revolution in Chinese Art."
Instructor, University of California at Berkeley. Taught a survey course on East Asian Art from 5000 B.C. to 2000 A.D., and a seminar on Post-Cultural Revolution Chinese Art.
1999
Instructor, University of California at Santa Cruz. Taught an upper-division course, "Contemporary Chinese Avant Garde."
1998-1999
Advisor, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Facilitated educational programs to be held in conjunction with the Inside/Out: New Chinese Art exhibition; lectured to docents at both museums, to the general public, and to teachers at a curriculum building workshop.
Lecturer, Stanford University. Taught a Continuing Studies courses on Chinese Art; team-taught an upper-division course on Contemporary Chinese Art.
Curator, 1999: Art China, Limn Gallery, San Francisco. Organized and wrote catalog for an exhibition of works by twenty-nine avant-garde art Chinese artists.
1998
Lecturer, University of San Francisco. Taught "Asian Art," an introductory course.
1997
Lecturer, Stanford University. Taught an Art Department undergraduate seminar and a Continuing Studies course, both focusing on the exhibition, China's New Art, Post-1989.
Lecturer, San Francisco State University. Taught an original and innovative course, "Twentieth-Century Chinese Art."
1995
Research Assistant, Stanford Museum of Art. Documented a group of Chinese paintings, and translated inscriptions.
1991
Curatorial Consultant, Elvehjem Museum, Madison, Wisconsin. For an exhibition of works by Xu Bing, wrote the catalog essay, the exhibition room text panels, and an essay for the museum newsletter; lectured to the docents, translated for the artist, and participated in numerous television, radio, and newspaper interviews.
1990
Research Assistant, Department of Art, Stanford University. Prepared materials for a new course, "Across Cultures: Encounters of Eastern and Western Arts", to be taught by Richard Vinograd.
1989
Teaching Assistant, Department of Art, Stanford University.
Research Assistant, Department of Art, Stanford University. Compiled notes comparing Japanese Nanga and Chinese literati painting theory.
1985-1988
Manager, Far East Fine Arts, San Francisco. Conducted research on the gallery's collection of five hundred Chinese paintings of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), and hosted international scholars and collectors.
1982-1983
Intern, Textile Conservation Laboratory, deYoung Museum. Prepared Chinese textiles to be used as a study collection.
1979
Intern, Department of Asian Art, Stanford Museum.
Service:
2003
Member, Board of Advisors, Ink Society, Hong Kong
Editor at Large, ART Asia Pacific, New York
2001
Member, Academic Advisory Board, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
Member, Editorial Board, YISHU, A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, published by Art & Collection Ltd., Taiwan
Advisor, Floating Rock project, Göteborg, Sweden
2000-
Member, Board of Advisors, Chinese-Art.Com, Beijing
1999-2001
Academic consultant, Firefly Films (Melbourne, Australia) television documentary series, [Metamorphose: Avant Garde Chinese Artists in the Era of Globalization]
Participant, formal discussion of the Rent Collection Courtyard potential lawsuit, Art Gallery of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chongqing, P.R. China
2000
Participant, workshop on curating contemporary Chinese art, Australian National University, Canberra
Speaker, China Brown Bag Lunch Series, Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University
1999
Interviewee, Associated Press story on the prominence of Chinese artists in the 48th Venice Biennale
1997
Interviewee, News Hour with Jim Lehrer story on contemporary Chinese art, Public Television
Member, "Brainstorming" Committee for New Art in China, Post 1989 exhibition, San Jose Museum of Art
Member, Chinese Garden Development Committee, School of Creative Arts, San Francisco State University
1985
Member, Admissions Committee for the Master's Degree Program in East Asian Studies, Stanford University