As part of the Nelson Lectures on Southeast Asia, we will be welcoming Dr. Rebecca Hall, Curator at the University of Southern California's Pacific Asia Museum, for her lecture "New Insights for Old Heads."
Public and academic narratives about Asian art in Western museums overwhelmingly focus on large institutions and well-known artworks, or masterpieces, together with the donors who assembled the collections. News articles often report on repatriation concerns, such as calls from foreign governments for the safe return of objects and statements from institutions about the provenance of their collections, especially sculptures from Southeast Asia. Questions of display, restitution, agency, nationalism, and community have become central to curatorial and academic perspectives on historic collections of Asian art. Many larger museums have hired researchers to investigate the provenance of their collections. But what comes next?
This talk argues that the perspective of contemporary artists whose communities have been impacted by war and theft can play a central role in our discussions, alongside the curators, government officials, lawyers, and academics involved in the public conversations about repatriation and restitution. In a newly developed exhibition, Los Angeles based artist Phung Huynh calls attention to the damage and destruction of sculptures in Cambodia as connected to the violence that has haunted the country for a half century. By giving form to headless figures seen at temples in the Angkor Archaeological Park and the plentitude of bodiless heads in museum collections around the US, Huynh makes connections to the Cambodian diaspora and the trauma inflicted on the Cambodian people. In a discussion of Huynh’s exhibition and insight into her work, this talk expands our understanding of how to engage with pressing issues of repatriation and restitution in museum collections.
Join us for the lecture, co-sponsored by the Fralin Museum of Art, on Friday, February 7, from 3:15 - 4:30 p.m. in New Cabell Hall 232.
