New Cultural Paradigm – Partnership for an Asian Age
VIEW EVENT DETAILSLuncheon discussion with Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Ted Lipman, CEO, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation; and S. Alice Mong, Executive Director, Asia Society Hong Kong Center (moderator)
Registration at 12:15 pm
Luncheon at 12:30 pm
Close at 2:00 pm
In March 2013, the Guggenheim Museum launched a project to commission works by contemporary artists born in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Developed in partnership with The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, the move is the latest in a spate of East-West art world collaborations for western cultural institutions. Both organizations join forces in taking a significant step forward to build a contemporary Chinese art collection for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
While this initiative lives up to the Guggenheim’s aspiration to become a truly global art museum, and the Foundation’s mandate to expand long-term international awareness and appreciation of contemporary Chinese art and culture, what implications does this approach to curatorial scholarship and collections building have on the broader museum community and on global art discourse? How are partnerships like this one going to shift the way Asian art history is perceived in the Western modern and contemporary art world? How can other international establishments, big and small, meaningfully play a role in interjecting a global view into the new conversation about Chinese or Asian art, while still benefiting artists back at home?
Alexandra Munroe, PhD, is the Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Since joining the Guggenheim in 2006, where she heads the Asian Art Program for the museum and its global affiliates, she has organized The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989; and co-organized Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, which was among the best-attended exhibitions in the museum's history. She is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of modern Asian art for her landmark exhibitions and publications, including Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective; Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky; The Art of Mu Xin; and YES YOKO ONO. The International Association of Art Critics (AICA) awarded Munroe, as project director, first prize for Best Thematic Show in New York City for Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, curated by Takashi Murakami, in 2005. She served as Vice President of Arts and Culture at the Japan Society, New York, and Director of Japan Society Gallery from 1998–2005. She holds a BA from Sophia University, Tokyo, an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a PhD in history from New York University, where her research was modern East Asian intellectual history. She serves as a trustee on the boards of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; the United States–Japan Foundation; the Korea Society; and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ted Lipman was born in Brazil and educated in Canada and China. He spent 35 years as a Canadian diplomat including serving as head of mission in Shanghai and Taipei with his most recent assignment as ambassador to both North and South Korea. Lipman has spent many decades engaged in cultural diplomacy, primarily in the U.S. and greater China, and joined the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation as CEO in 2011.