"Alexander Munroe: Asian American Artist and the Transmission of the East to the American Avant-Grade" Lecture
The Vilcek Foundation
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The use of Asian art and thought to inspire new forms of artistic expression is one of the greatest forces in the history of modern art in America. Over and over, artists deliberately eschewed Europe and its culture of empiricism and utilitarianism and looked towards the East to forge an independent artistic identity that would define the modern age—and the modern mind—in terms of a new transcendentalist understanding of existence and consciousness. Many were devoted to overcoming the perception that American modernism was a derivative of Europe, and they challenged that orthodoxy by claiming an alternative intellectual and geographic identity, which was moored to America’s Pacific, rather than its Atlantic coast. They forged new levels of contact with the East and pursued the selective adaptation of transcendentalist, expressionist and minimalist ideas and art forms to create not just a new “style” of abstract art, but also a new theoretical definition of the contemplative experience and role of art itself. Central to this process were the activities of Asian American and Asian-born artists who served as a catalyst in the transmission of Asian art and sensibilities to the American vanguard. These include Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Yun Gee, Isamu Noguchi, Kenzo Okada, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, and Natvar Bhavsar. This lecture will illustrate the artistic innovations they mediated and forged, exploring a critical force in the history of American modern art.
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Schedule
March 25, 2009 from 18:00