Die Abteilung Ostasiatische Kunstgeschichte lädt ein zum Gastvortrag von Professor Cao Yiqiang (China Academy of Art, Hangzhou)

"China and Gombrich"

am 16. Mai 2022, 18-20 Uhr ct, Raum A 127

Kunsthistorisches Institut, Koserstr. 20, 14195 Berlin

This lecture is intended to unfold a little-known episode about the hidden links between Gombrich and China. The attempt to present all of his works to a Chinese audience, which began in the mid-1980s, not only developed, with him as an axis, into a systematic project of translating representative works by western art historians, particularly from German-speaking countries, but also led to the discovery that Gombrich’s first passionate intellectual endeavour actually focused on Chinese culture and art, which may offer a new perspective for understanding him and his reception in China.

Cao Yiqiang is an art historian and artist. He has been professor of art history since 1996, and, from then until 2019, director of the Advanced School of Art and Humanities at the China Academy of Art, and also the chief-editor of New Arts. He is the executive director of the Institute of Art Education in China, head of the National Committee of MFA in the visual art. For last 15 years he was in charge of the National Committee of Academic Assessment in the Arts. In this capacity he has helped to establish the arts and art history as an independent discipline of education in the country. He has received numerous honorary professorships, rewards and fellowships for his work in scholarship, art and educational development. The scope of his writings ranges from the historiography of art, the history of ideas, the hidden links in European and Chinese art to creativity in education. He has published numerous essays both in Chinese and English, his books include Art and History (2000, republished 2021), Approaches to Art Histories (2009), Perspectives on Theories of Art (2015), and Artistic Intelligence (2015).