Adriana Proser is the John H. Foster Curator of Traditional Asian Art at the Asia Society New York City USA. Join me on Saturday, June 3 as I welcome her to Conversations on Marvels of China: Pathways to the Pacific Rim.
A specialist in Chinese art, over the last fifteen years she has organized and co-organized over forty exhibitions featuring diverse works from all over Asia. These include the upcoming loan exhibition Buddhist Art of Myanmar and the exhibitions Gilded Splendor: Treasures of China’s Liao Empire and Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857 for Asia Society Museum.
Her publications include Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art (Asia Society Museum and Yale University Press, 2010), for which she served as editor and contributor.
Dr. Proser is recipient of a Ph.D. in Chinese art and archaeology from Columbia University. Proser was formerly Assistant Curator of East Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Dr. Proser will be commenting on Secrets of the Sea: A Tang Shipwreck and Early Trade in Asia on exhibit at the Asia Society Museum in New York City.
NOTE: The final day of this exhibit is Sunday, June 4, 2017, the day after this broadcast.
For more information on this remarkable exhibit go to this link to Artsy.com.
Secrets of the Sea: A Tang Shipwreck and Early Trade in Asia features precious cargo—bound for the Abbasid Caliphate, an empire that included present-day Iran and Iraq, and produced in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907)—including ceramics, gold and silver vessels, bronze mirrors, and other artifacts.
Discovered in 1998 off of Belitung Island, Indonesia, the ship’s contents were miraculously protected from erosion and breakage by tight and ingenious packing as well as the conditions of the silty floor of the Java Sea.
Until the discovery of this ship, it was believed that the Tang traded primarily through Central Asian land routes, mainly on the Silk Road. The discovery of the ship’s cargo confirmed the significant maritime trade route. Most of the works in the exhibition have never traveled outside Asia.
Highlights in the exhibition include a magnificent ewer and other glazed stoneware objects with copper green splashes over white slip, which were highly desirable in the Middle East, also known as West Asia, from the largest cache of this type of ware recorded to date. A Chinese blue-and-white stoneware dish, with a lozenge motif that was common in West Asia, is one of three from the shipwreck.
Created around 830, they are some of the earliest known complete examples of Chinese blue-and-white ceramics. The cobalt-blue pigments used, imported from the Abbasid Caliphate, had previously been found only in that part of the world and had not yet appeared in China. The exhibition also boasts rare and imperial-quality silver boxes and gold vessels, which are thought to have been used in trade negotiations and as diplomatic gifts.
"The artifacts exhibited will expose American audiences to the rich narratives of the two great trading powers of the ninth century—Tang China and the Abbasid Caliphate—and highlight ancient Asia’s early advances into industrial production for the export market,” noted Kennie Ting, director of the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.
You are invited to click this link to a presentation on YouTube featuring Executive Vice-President Tom Nagorski of the Asia Society.
Scholar Regina Krahl delivered this keynote address at a symposium dedicated to the exhibition Secrets of the Sea: A Tang Shipwreck and Early Trade in Asia on display at Asia Society through June 4. The symposium was co-organized by Asia Society and the Tang Center for Early China at Columbia University.
We'll also feature our usual weekly words of wisdom in the Confucius Moment. On Treasures of China let your imagination soar as we'll take off for a new, amazing destination. Learn about what's going on and things to see at museums on the Weekly Almanac. We'll have more for you on Historical Notes and Chinese Fun Facts, too.
We remind our audience that Host Jeffrey Bingham Mead is the American representative of the Admissions Network of Chinese Universities and Colleges. The Sino-American Cultural Exchange Scholarship Program offers numerous opportunities for qualifying Americans to study for their Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral programs at Chinese universities and colleges. Please contact Mr. Mead for further details and to register today.
I’m back in Greenwich, Connecticut and this week I’ll be with you from the studios of 1490 WGCH.com. Be part of the journey this coming Saturday, June 3, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern USA Time/ 10:30 p.m. Beijing Time on 1490 WGCH Greenwich, Connecticut USA and anywhere in WGCH.com via audio-streaming.
If you miss the show fear not! We'll post a link on our archives site on Podcasts.com and the blog site on the 2017 Shows page.
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