Publications and Research Creation
books
Design and Science in Modern China (London: Routledge, 2024). ISBN HB 9781032713373; EB 9781032716626
What is design in modern China? And what are the ecological stakes in understanding how modern Chinese design encourages us to see––for all of us––now? This book takes up these questions though exploration into the work of three famous designers who were actively engaged with the natural sciences in early twentieth-century Shanghai, Canton, and Beijing. Routledge is the premier publisher of design histories, and this book is part of its new Research in Design History series.
Decolonizing Time: Painting in Modern China (manuscript in progress)
Time did not exist as such in China until the mid-nineteenth century. The colonial enterprises of the West in China, built through the technology of war, shaped public opinion about the value of adopting Western measurement and theorization of time as progressing linearly and mechanically into a victorious and bright future (denoted by the neologism shijian in Chinese). It was scientific. It seemed modern.
But this adoption was neither straightforward nor simple. It put visual artists into a quandary. For paintings had long been a modality to experience time––a way for time to become embodied, made tangible on silk and paper between the rollers of a scroll, and reflected in perceptions and philosophical rhetoric about the endlessness of ink-washed rivers and pigmented mountains. Painters active in the early to mid-twentieth century instead found themselves negotiating that cultural feeling for the flow of time—an experience of time in China closer analogically to a burbling stream of water––against the Western regulation of time as if measured steps on “the path towards China’s modernization,” as related in a recent popular textbook on modern Chinese art. Decolonizing Time, hence, poses three questions: 1) Can paintings command a time of viewing? 2) How do encounters with paintings reveal cultural and scientific rhythms and tempos of time? 3) Do the ways we write about twentieth-century Chinese artworks and curate them embody the very structures of time that the artists were disturbing? The book features scholarship-in-writing case studies of geological time (Fu Baoshi), ethnographic time (Chen Shizeng), Chinese historical theorization of space-time mapped against Einstein’s (Lin Fengmian), and astronomical time (Tao Lengyue). It concludes by tessering to the present to dwell with artists grappling with temporality now.
major exhibition catalogues
ecoArt China / 境善境美. Edmonton: University of Alberta Department of Art & Design, 2021. 160 pp. ISBN 9781551954561
Exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the online ecoArt China exhibition co-curated with seminar students. Essays by Lisa Claypool, Amanda Boetzkes with Isabel Brandt, Daniel Fried, and Joshua Goldstein, as well as catalogue entries by eleven University of Alberta students.
China’s Imperial Modern: The Painter’s Craft 《中國畫家的技藝：帝國時代的現代性》. Edmonton: University of Alberta Museums, 2012. 156 pp. ISBN 9781551952918
Exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the 2012 Mactaggart Art Collection exhibition co-curated with seminar students. Essays by Lisa Claypool, De-nin Lee, and Nixi Cura, as well as catalogue entries by twelve University of Alberta students.
China Urban: Exploring the Historical and Contemporary City. Co-editor with Stephanie Snyder. Portland, OR: Reed College Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, 2009. 96 pp. ISBN 10: 0982424051 / ISBN 13: 9780982424056.
Exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the 2009 Cooley Gallery exhibition. Essays by Lisa Claypool, Stephanie Snyder, and twenty-one Reed College students. Edited volume and contributed essay, “Cityphilia” (18-27).
articles, refereed
“China’s Feminist Gap: Edges, Nearness, and Distance in Women’s Arts.” positions: asia cultures critique (forthcoming). (Duke University, h-index 26)
“Hauntings: An Ink Painter and a Coal Mine in 1960s China.” Oxford Art Journal 45, no. 1 (July 2022): 45–61. (Oxford University, h-index 16)
“A Glance at Nanjing.” Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia. Special Issue about Nanjing, ed. Joshua Stenberg. 11, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 75–88 essay. (Ateneo de Manila University, brand-new journal)
“Beggars, Black Bears, and Butterflies: The Scientific Gaze and Ink Painting in Modern China.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review no. 15 (March 2015): open-access e-journal; (May 2015): 189–237. (University of California, Berkeley, ceased publication 2020)
“Habitat Dioramas: The Animal Paintings of Liu Kuiling in Republican-era Tianjin.” Archives of Asian Art 64, no. 2 (November 2014): 163–188. (Duke University, h-index 6)
“Feminine Orientalism or Modern Enchantment? Peiping and the Graphic Artists Bertha Lum and Elizabeth Keith, 1920s–1930s.” Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China 16, no. 1 (2014): 91–127. (Brill, h-index 10)
“Boundary Forms: Calligraphy and the City at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 27, no. 3 (September 2014): 273–289. (Springer, h-index 29)
“Ways of Seeing the Nation: Chinese Painting in the National Essence Journal (1905–1911) and Exhibition Culture.” positions: asia cultures critique 19, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 52–85. (Duke University, h-index 26)
“Zhang Jian and China’s First Museum.” The Journal of Asian Studies 64, no. 3 (August 2005): 567–604. (Association for Asian Studies, h-index 53, cited by 82).
book chapters, refereed and invited
“Touring Spaceship Earth.” In Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy, eds. Sean Burns and Matthew Wilson, 102–108. New York: Routledge, 2022.
“Nanjing yipie” 南京一瞥 [A glance at Nanjing]. In Wangshi ruzuo: Fu Baoshi xiansheng guju shiliaozhan qingnian xuezhe luntan, lunwen ji往事如昨：傅抱石先生故居史料展青年学者论坛·论文集, edited by Huang Ge 黄戈, 75–90, translated by Li Han李菡. Nanjing: Fu Baoshi Jinianguan, 2021.
“Liquid Space.” In Liquid Space: Zheng Chongbin Light Space Installation, 86-90. Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 2020.
“Sites of Visual Modernity: Perceptions of Japanese Exhibitions in Late Qing China.” In The Role of Japan in Modern Chinese Art, ed. Joshua Fogel, 154–80. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013.
· reviewed by Don J. Cohn in ArtAsiaPacific no. 87 (2014): 126–127.
“Painting Manuals and Gendered Modernity in Republican-era Shanghai.” In Visualizing Beauty: Gender and Ideology in Modern East Asia, ed. Aida Yuen Wong, 23–44. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012.
· reviewed by Erin Schoneveld for the College Art Association, caa.reviews (February 27, 2014)
· reviewed by Sarah Frederick in the Woman’s Art Journal 34, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2013): 66–67.
Drawing a line between modernity and tradition? Haipai paintings in the 1897 Jieziyuan huazhuan siji.” International Symposium on Nineteenth-century Chinese Visual Culture, Shanghai. December 2001. Published in Haipai huihua yanjiu wenji 海派绘画研究文集 [Studies on Shanghai School Painting], 1051–72. Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2001.
invited interviews
“Liquid Space: A Conversation with Zheng Chongbin.” Yishu: The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 18, no. 3 (September/October 2019): 100–107.
“Revisiting the Technological Society: A Conversation with Feng Mengbo”《重访技术社会：与冯梦波交谈》Yishu: The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art [Chinese language edition 中文版，《典藏: 國際版文選》] 12, no. 4 (December 2013): 80–87; [English language edition] 12, no. 4 (July/August 2013): 69–76.
“Architectonic Ink: Zheng Chongbin in Conversation with Lisa Claypool”《营造水墨: 郑重宾与祁珊立的对话》Yishu: The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art [Chinese language edition 中文版，《典藏: 國際版文選》] 1, no. 2 (April 2012): 15–24; [English language edition] 10, no. 4 (July 2011): 41–53.
“The China Syndrome: Lisa Claypool in Conversation with Peter Kreider and Zhou Yi” 《中國綜合症: 周翊和Peter Kreider 與祁珊立對話》 Modern China Studies 18, no. 2 (2011): 215–33.
“China Urban: An Interview with Xie Xiaoze.” Yishu: The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8, no. 4 (July/August 2009): 41–50.
invited feature articles
Co-written with Wenyu He. “On Lam Qua’s Medical Portraits.” Orientations (forthcoming).
“An Ink Painter’s Eyes Wide Shut.” Proceedings of Conference in Honor of Fu Baoshi’s 120th Birthday. Organized by the Nanjing Museum 南京博物院 and the Jiangsu Academy of Chinese Painting 江蘇省國畫院. Nanjing, PRC. (Chinese translation; forthcoming).
“An Ink Painter’s Eyes Wide Shut.” Orientations. September/October 2024. (in press)
“Tao Lengyue yu lishide shijian” 陶冷月与阴历的时间 [Tao Lengyue and the Time of History]. 全球化语境中的中国近现代艺术 Modern Chinese Art in the Context of Globalization Conference Proceedings. Central Academy of Fine Arts, 2023. [Chinese].
“Fu Baoshi’s Sympathetic Ink.” Orientations 51, no. 5 (Sept/Oct 2020): 30–35.
“Hearing Colour: Yu Fei’an’s Pigeon Paintings in Modern Beijing.” Center 37. Eds. Peter Lockhart, Therese O’Malley, 73-75. Washington, D.C.: The National Gallery of Art and CASVA, 2017.
“Postmodern Ink”《后现代水墨》. In China Jinling Exhibition Chinese and Foreign Scholars BBS Peak 《2011。中国百家金陵画展，中外学者高峰论坛论文汇编 》, 17–23. Nanjing: Nanjing University, 2011.
Where is Shanghai?” Orientations 41, no 1 (January/February 2010): 50–54. Commissioned by the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
invited catalogue essay
“City Windows.” Catalogue essay for the exhibition Across Time and Space: Revisiting Twentieth-Century Chinese Oil Paintings. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery, 2023.
encyclopedia entries
Encyclopedia entries on “Ren Xiong,” “Art Museums.” In Encyclopedia of Modern China, 4 vols. Edited by David Pong. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2009.
book reviews
Shadow Modernism: Photography, Writing, and Space in Shanghai, 1925–1937 by William Schaefer (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017). caa.reviews. May 2019. http://caareviews.org/reviews/3527
The Other Kang Youwei: Calligrapher, Art Activist, and Aesthetic Reformer in Modern China by Aida Yuen Wong (Brill, 2015). China Review International: A Journal of Reviews of Scholarly Literature in Chinese Studies 21, no. 2 (May 2016): 192–195.
Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press by Joan Judge (University of California Press, 2015). Twentieth-Century China 41, no. 2 (March 2016): 203–05.
Art by the Book: Painting Manuals and the Leisure Life in Late Ming China by J.P. Park (University of Washington Press, 2012). The Journal of Asian Studies 72, no. 1 (March 2013): 191–93.
Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai’s China by Shane McCausland (Hong Kong University Press, 2011). Journal of Historical Biography 11 (Spring 2012): 138–44.
Friendship in Art: Fou Lei and Huang Binhong by Claire Roberts (University of Hong Kong Press, 2010). The Journal of Asian Studies 71, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 233–34.
The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China by Laikwan Pang (University of Hawaii Press, 2007). China Review International: A Journal of Reviews of Scholarly Literature in Chinese Studies 16, no. 3 (November 2010): 369–71.
The Odyssey of China's Imperial Art Treasures by Jeanette Shambaugh Elliott with David Shambaugh (University of Washington Press, 2005). caa.reviews. September 2006. http://caareviews.org/reviews/887
public-facing writing
“Staring at the Ceiling” blog. Arts writing and exhibition reviews, https://staring-at-the-ceiling.com
“All Under Heaven: Walter Davis in conversation with Lisa Claypool.” August 20, 2013. www.ualberta.ca/art-design/about-art-and-design/news/2013/august/allunderheavenwalterdavisinconversationwithlisaclaypool.html