Asian Art

ABSTRACTS

Asian Art panel

Chair: Jennifer Dorothy Lee, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

1. Dr. Punam Madhok, East Carolina University

Title: “The Multifarious Temple Art of Jayavarman VII and the French Orientalist Interest in Cambodia”

Some of the most impressive Angkor temples were built during the reign of Jayavarman VII, a devout Buddhist. He was emulating Emperor Ashoka of India. Jayavarman’s Bayon is the magnum opus of Khmer sacred architecture. Carved into its towers are large faces, that have been variously interpreted. Jayavarman also dedicated temples to deified family-members. The mythical eagle, Garuda, and multi-headed serpent, naga, feature prominently on these temples. A project with remedial power that has survived is Neak Pean, built in reverence of Buddha Bhaisajyaguru. Dancing maidens -- Apsaras or Yoginis -- are carved on many temple walls. Jayavarman had halls attached to temples where living damsels would perform ritual dances. They have inspired the creation of classical Cambodian ballet of today. After Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863, Louis Delaporte (1842-1925), a young French naval officer, made fanciful watercolors of Angkor temples and usurped statues that are now housed in Paris’ Guimet museum. Drawing upon my field trip of December 2019, I wish to explore further the amalgamation of Buddhist and Hindu imagery on these temples as well as the French orientalist interest in this region.

2. Toby Wu, Art History and Media Studies, University of Chicago

Title: “Aesthetic Tensions in Mediations of the Cold War—Water, Performance, and Gameplay in Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s Memorial Project Series (2001-2014)”

As a cumulation of his earlier artistic experiments with the iconography of “relics” of post-Cold War Vietnam in installation and performance, Jun Nguyen-Hatushiba’s Memorial Project series figures an artistic strategy that produces mediations of history beyond mere appropriation (Joselit, Heritage and Debt, 2020). This paper situates the Memorial Project series within a genealogy of water-video mediations, proposing that the site-specific video-performance form produces the affect of embodied displacement. This paper investigates the necessity to formulate new aesthetic idioms, specifically in conveying local and historical specificity that are legible to a global audience. Furthermore, the paper engages with Melody Jue’s Wild Blue Media theory (2020), considering the capaciousness of the underwater seascape as a site of mediating trauma, and arguing for its persistence in the Global Contemporary.

The paper considers the first and last editions in the series (out of five), Memorial Project Nha Trang: Vietnam (2001) and Memorial Project Waterfield (2006-14). The latter work is rooted in aesthetic traditions following American and Japanese visual culture, reflecting the development of Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s subjectivity as a Viet Kieu (overseas/diasporic Vietnamese) working in the local post-Doi Moi (new change) art scene, towards the global contemporary.

3. Keyu Yan, Department of History of Art, The Ohio State University

Title: “The Art of Yanobe Kenji: Torayan, Cuteness, and Nuclear Disasters”

In contrast to many Japanese artists whose cute or kawaii artworks are often co-opted by consumer culture, Yanobe Kenji (b. 1965) has consistently used his toy-like Torayan figure to attend to issues of nuclear crisis, traumatic memory, and disillusionment. With a chubby face, ruby cheeks, and a mustache, Torayan seems to be both a cute/kawaii and scary (kowai) toy. By situating Yanobe’s Torayan (2004) in Japanese visual culture, this paper focuses on how Yanobe utilizes the aesthetic of kawaii to comment on the aftermath of the Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and, more recently, Fukushima disasters.