TU School of Art features Chinese art expert and social activist in April

Friday, March 21, 2008

The University of Tulsa’s School of Art will host two guest lecturers in April: Wu Hung, professor of art history and East Asian languages and civilizations at the University of Chicago on April 10; and Rick Lowe, artist, social activist and founder of Houston’s Project Row Houses on April 15.

In his research, Wu Hung explores the relationships between visual forms of Chinese art (architecture, bronze vessels, pictorial carvings and murals) and the ritual, social memory and political discourses surrounding those forms.

In addition to his courses at the University of Chicago, Hung has served as chief curator of the 2006 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. He also works as a consulting curator at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago and director of the Center for the Art of East Asia. His lecture, entitled "On the Contemporaneity of Contemporary Chinese Art," will be held at 7 p.m. April 10 in the Lorton Lecture Hall on the TU campus.

On April 15, Rick Lowe will speak about his journey from artist to social activist through a program he started in Houston called Project Row Houses. Lowe evolved from creating paintings and sculptures dealing with social issues to implementing programs that reshape people’s lives—a type of art that uses a community as the canvas.

Project Row Houses is a volunteer effort to restore a series of row houses in the historical Third Ward district of Houston. At the center of the project is an arts and cultural community center, which offers programs that encompass arts and culture, neighborhood revitalization, low-income housing, education, historic preservation and community services.

Lowe has received many awards for his work, including the Heinz Award in the Humanities, the Brandywine Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rudy Bruner Award in Urban Excellence and the American Architectural Foundation Keystone Award. He will present his lecture at 7 p.m., April 15 in the Lorton Lecture Hall.

Both lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the TU School of Art at (918) 631-2739.