Via PR

CHICAGO, Illinois – On February 6, the University of Chicago will host the US-China Forum 2020: The Matter of Art. Convened by UChicago Global and UChicago Arts in collaboration with the Smart Museum of Art, this year’s forum explores how China and the United States intersect, interact, and overlap through the arts.

The one-day program, which is free and open to the public, features performances, lectures, and in-depth conversations between renowned artists and distinguished UChicago faculty members. From Xu Bing’s experiments in language, to Miao Ying’s playful and complex internet-generated art, to the composition of city soundscapes in Wang Lu’s Urban Inventory, the US-China Forum offers a rare opportunity to hear from some of the most innovative Chinese artists working today and to experience the critical dialogue generated by their work. The Forum takes place from 10am to 7pm at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th Street, in Chicago. 

For a complete schedule and registration information, visit global.uchicago.edu/us-china-forum-2020-matter-art

“We are thrilled to bring together this particular group of artists and university faculty who – singly and together – are generating new ways of understanding art and its relationship to our world,” says David Levin, Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts. “The US-China Forum will introduce audiences to a broad range of topics from re-imagining the sound and bustle of contemporary life, to rethinking our relationship to the internet, to reflecting upon the role of language in our lives. It promises to be an enormously stimulating day.”

Wu Hung – the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History at UChicago, Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia, and Adjunct Curator at the Smart Museum – will deliver the closing keynote address at the US-China Forum. He also co-curated The Allure of Matter, a related art exhibition which opens the next day, February 7, and which is co-presented by the Smart Museum of Art and Wrightwood 659.

The Allure of Matter is the first exhibition partnership between the Smart Museum in Hyde Park and Wrightwood 659 in Lincoln Park. Too large for a single venue, the exhibition takes up the full gallery footprint of both institutions. It opens twenty years after the Smart Museum’s first contemporary Chinese art project with Wu Hung. The works, many monumental in scale, are made from a range of unique and humble materials and explore how conscious material choice has become a symbol of expression for many leading Chinese contemporary artists.

This fifth annual US-China Forum at the University of Chicago is sponsored by the China-United States Exchange Foundation, and brings together renowned experts—including scholars and artists from the US and China—for high-level engagements focused on issues of importance to both countries.

In addition to the US-China Forum and the events surrounding The Allure of Matter, the Logan Center will host Sifu: An Evening of Cantonese Opera on Tuesday, March 17 at 6:30pm. The tradition of Cantonese opera, with its vivid costumes, distinctive music, and dramatic presentation, has been fostered and developed for over 500 years. For one performance only, opera sifu will present a collection of these canonical stories at the Logan Center through martial arts, acrobatics, acting, and singing, accompanied by traditional Chinese percussion. This event is presented in part by UChicago Global, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (NY). For ticket pricing and program detail, visit the Logan Center Box Office website.