Katherine Brown Lecture Series featuring
Dr. Yong Cho
“The Mongol Impact: Why Weave When You Can Paint or Sculpt?”
Rescheduled: April 9, 2021 | 4:00pm CST
Due to severe weather and rolling blackouts across Texas, the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Lecture featuring Dr. Yong Cho originally scheduled for February 19th has been moved to Friday, April 9th at 4pm CST. (Those who have already registered for the webinar do not need to register again for the event.)
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The Department of Art History and Department of Transnational Asian Studies cordially invite you to virtually attend the first Katherine Tsanoff Brown Lecture Series of the semester with Dr. Yong Cho, Assistant Professor of the History of Art at University of California, Riverside. Professor Cho is a specialist in the art and architecture of East and Central Asia from medieval and early modern periods who focuses on the question of how artistic creativity emerges when people, objects, and ideas move or become displaced from the place of origin.
“The Mongol Impact: Why Weave When You Can Paint or Sculpt?”
Friday, February 19, 2021 | 4PM CST
This webinar is free and open to the Rice community and public. Zoom registration is required.
The Mongol Impact: Why Weave When You Can Paint or Sculpt?
The Mongol ruling house during China’s Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) enshrined portrait images of deceased emperors and empresses along with tantric Buddhist mandalas intended to represent their ritual embodiments. Interestingly, these images—portraits and mandalas—were woven completely in silk using the technique of tapestry with slits (kesi). This was a dramatic departure from established tradition in China and North Asia, where such images were either painted or sculpted. What accounted for this transition in medium? This lecture considers this question from the perspective of the Mongol ruling house at the center of a world empire.
This webinar will end with a Q&A session during which we will accept questions and comments from the audience. This webinar is open to the entire Rice community and public.
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Dr. Yong Cho is a specialist in the art and architecture of East and Central Asia from medieval and early modern periods. He focuses on the question of how artistic creativity emerges when people, objects, and ideas move or become displaced from the place of origin. His research interests cover a broad range of topics: theories of cross-cultural contact, multiculturalism and multilingualism in visual arts, the visual and material cultures of mobile societies, sacred objects and their relationship to ritual, the relationship between making and meaning, and the historiography of Silk Road art and archaeology.
His current book project, tentatively titled "The Mongol Impact: Rebuilding the Arts System in Yuan China (1271-1368)," investigates a moment of major cultural transformation in the imperial court of China, when the Mongols, the tent-dwelling pastoral nomadic peoples of the North Asian steppe, became rulers of a world empire. By focusing on fabric images, it traces how the Mongol visual culture had a lasting impact in the history of Chinese art.
Cho received his Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University in May of 2020. His Ph.D. dissertation was awarded the Frances Blanshard Prize from Yale University. In 2021-2022, he will hold a postdoctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute.