Chinese Artist Shares Ceramic Techniques

03/12/2010 

Li Jiansheng, one of China’s foremost ceramic artists and scholars, will discuss Chinese and American cultural similarities and differences that find common ground in the clay medium, on Wednesday, March 24, at SUNY Cortland.

Li begins his lecture, “A New Age of Contemporary Chinese Art,” at 6:30 p.m. in Brockway Hall, Jacobus Lounge. During the presentation, Li will show his award-winning documentary, Tao Yao (Pottery and Dragon Kiln Village), which won the 2008 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Clay Art Award and the 2008 Montreal Film Festival Heritage Award for documentary films.

Li’s talk, which describes the recently emerging field of contemporary art in China and the role SUNY Cortland has played in artistic exchanges in China since 1998, is free and open to the public, as is one of his workshops, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23, in the ceramics studio located in Old Main, Room G-39.

From March 22-29, the visiting scholar will demonstrate traditional Chinese techniques of brush painting on rice paper and on porcelain bowls. Visitors also are welcome to observe him at any time throughout the week working on ceramics at the studio.

Li, who directs the Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, and previously visited the College in 2007, was again invited to the campus by Jeremiah Donovan, professor of art and art history.

Li earned a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from the Jingdezheng Ceramic Institute in Jiangxi, China. He has a second M.F.A., from the SUNY College of Ceramic Arts at Alfred (N.Y.). His artwork has been exhibited in China, Norway, Holland, Canada and the U.S. His work is included in collections at the H. F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University; the Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred University; the Everson Museum of Ceramic Art in Syracuse, N.Y.; the Erie (Pa.) Art Museum, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada; and Jingdezheng Ceramic Institute. His scholarship appears in Art and Perception Magazine in Australia and Ceramic Art in Taiwan. He conducts workshops in the U.S. and Canada.

Li’s visit advances Donovan’s 10 years of work to establish ties with ceramics faculty at Chinese institutions of higher education. Since his first visit to China in 1998, Donovan has fostered a series of student and faculty exchanges with Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Institute and The Fine Art College at Shanghai University. Each year he has invited a leading international artist in the field of ceramics to the College for workshops and lectures. In 2007, Li arrived in Cortland to give a studio workshop on his innovative ceramic processes.

In 2004 Donovan launched a study abroad program, titled China Summer Study: History, Culture and the Arts, in coordination with the College’s James M. Clark Center for International Education. The annual interdisciplinary course was selected for a 2005-06 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Internationalization.

“Part of my intent in hosting Li is to expose a broad range of Cortland students to an intimate experience of China from the perspective of an artist and scholar,” Donovan said. “They will see his artwork unfold in front of them during the week of his residency and hear his insights and philosophy on this unique form of expression in ceramics and brush painting. His ceramic work expresses a passionate and personal insight into the struggles and concerns he sees in the transformation of China as it emerges onto the world stage.”

Together, Li and Donovan will collaborate on a piece of ceramic sculpture, Donovan said. The finished work, expressing their unity in promoting an international ceramic art dialogue, will be donated to the Cortland campus.

“This summer, I will be taking my China Summer Study students to visit that traditional Chinese pottery and dragon kiln village shown in Li’s documentary,” Donovan said.

Li’s talk is supported by a 2010 President’s Small Grant Program, Campus Artist and Lecture Series, Yuki Chin Memorial Fund, Art and Art History Department and the China Ceramic Cultural Research Institute at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute. For more information, contact Donovan at (607) 753-4310.