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Power in Perspective: Early Photography in China: Closing Weekend

Saturday, April 1, 2023 from 11 am - 5 pm

Join us in celebrating the closing day of Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China through art making, a curator talk and a conversation with filmmakers.

Please note that all events except drop-in art making require same-day tickets. Visit the Admissions or Information desk when you arrive to reserve your spot.


Curator Talk: China Trade Paintings at PEM with Karina Corrigan, Associate Director of Collections and H. A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art
11 am | Morse Auditorium
Tickets available at the Admissions and Information desks.

PEM is home to the world's foremost collection of Cantonese trade paintings, including reverse paintings on glass, wallpaper, watercolors and oil paintings. These works offer us rich insight into the dynamics of early artistic exchanges between China and the West. Join PEM's associate director of collections and curator Karina Corrigan for a thought-provoking lecture on the origins of these hybrid works of art and the relationship between Chinese painting and photography in the 19th century, one of the themes explored in Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China.

Bio:

  1. Karina Corrigan's interests center on the material culture of global connections. She serves as PEM's Associate Director of Collections and The H.A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art. In her curatorial practice she oversees the largest, most comprehensive public collection of art made in China, Japan and South Asia for export to other cultures. In her role as Associate Director of Collections, Corrigan explores new ways to improve access to the museum’s rich and storied collection through digitization, increased documentation, new research and acquisition guidance.


Drawing on Photographs: Drop-In Artmaking with Patricia Scialo
1-3 pm | Create Space Studios
No advance ticketing required.

Join fine art photographer Patricia Scialo in a hands-on exploration of the historic art of drawing on photographs with pastels. She will also share a demonstration of the encaustic method, which uses beeswax to transform images.

About the Artist:

  1. Patricia Scialo’s art practice focuses on altering photographs using a mixed-media approach. She transforms prints using techniques and materials such as oil, graphite, the encaustic method and embedding found objects. These techniques allow her to build layers, adding depth to photographic imagery by hand. Rediscovered through the lens of Scialo’s camera, the subject is often recreated, with the intention to give the viewer a desire to pause and look closer. Scialo was the recipient of 2020 Julia Margaret Cameron Gala Awards for professional photography in the categories of Abstract, Alternative Processes and Children.

Filmmakers in Conversation
3 pm | Morse Auditorium
Tickets available at the Admissions and Information desks.

Join Emmy-nominated director Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, 2012; The Brink, 2019; Jagged, 2021) and cinematographer Julia C. Liu (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, 2023) for a conversation about documentary filmmaking, visual storytelling and collaboration. The discussion will be moderated by Stephanie Hueon Tung, PEM’s Byrne Family Curator of Photography.

What’s the relationship between a cinematographer and a director like? How do they work together to tell stories visually? Liu and Klayman, who have worked together on Netflix projects such as White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch (2022) and Take Your Pills (2018) take us behind the scenes in this exciting conversation, illustrated with clips from their projects.

About the Artists:

  1. Alison Klayman directs and produces timely, intimate films with larger-than-life figures. Her debut feature, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2012, where it was awarded a US Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance. It premiered internationally at Berlinale and was shortlisted for an Academy Award and nominated for two Emmys and a Director’s Guild of America Award. It was also one of the highest-grossing films of 2012 directed by a woman. Klayman's newest feature documentaries include the WNBA story Unfinished Business (Tribeca 2022), the Netflix original White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch and the HBO documentary Jagged (TIFF 2021), which looks back at Alanis Morissette's album Jagged Little Pill. Other notable films include The Brink (Sundance 2019) and the Emmy and BAFTA-nominated Netflix Original Take Your Pills (SXSW 2018). Currently based in Brooklyn, Klayman is a member of the DGA and AMPAS.

  1. Julia C Liu is a Providence-based filmmaker and artist seeking to promote diversity in front of and behind the lens. Her passion for visual storytelling started through comics, evolving to filmmaking as a way to bring her illustrations to life. In 2020, her narrative directorial debut “Driving While Black Magic” screened at Urbanworld, Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival and the Montreal International Black Film Festival. Liu directed J. PERIOD x Rakim Present: The Live Mixtape God MC Edition and has directed and shot music videos premiering on Stereogum and NPR Music. She is a contributing director to the New York Times’ Emmy-nominated Op-Doc Series, and an honoree of the 2021 DOC NYC 40 Under 40 and 2022 Gracie Awards for Digital Media. Liu is the cinematographer for Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2023. She is the director of photography and executive producer of the Netflix original White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch. Before becoming a cinematographer, Liu spent years working as a camera assistant on hit shows like Person of Interest and Girls. Liu is a camera operator in the International Cinematographers Guild.


About the Moderator:

  1. Stephanie Hueon Tung leads the interpretation and presentation of the museum’s growing photography collection, which spans the 19th century through today. A specialist in the history of photography of China, her research focuses on transnational art exchanges, global modernism, translation studies and notions of artistic labor. Tung was instrumental in shepherding the 2020 acquisition of approximately 1,600 photographs by artists with ties to East Asia, a gift made possible through the generosity of the Joy of Giving Something Foundation. Tung served as the Assistant Curator on PEM’s 2019-20 exhibition, A Lasting Memento: John Thomson’s Photographs Along the River Min. Prior to joining PEM in 2018, Tung worked at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing, China, as a curator and director of international affairs. She has published widely on photography and contemporary art from China as a contributor to Aperture and the Trans-Asia Photography Review and contributing author to The Chinese Photobook (Aperture, 2015) and Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World (Guggenheim, 2017). Her most recent book, Ai Weiwei: Beijing 1993-2003 (MIT Press, 2019), was co-authored with Ai Weiwei and John Tancock and serves as a continuation of Ai Weiwei: New York 1983-1993, for which she also served as lead researcher. Tung holds a Bachelor of Art in Literature and History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University, and a Masters of Arts in Art & Archeology from Princeton University. This year, she is completing her Ph.D. in Princeton’s Art & Archeology program with her dissertation, Pictorial China: Art Photography in the Republican Era, 1923–1929. Follow her @i.am.stung on Instagram.