"Ekphrastic Assimilations" Art line-up, VALA Art Center, RTC

EKPHRASIS (org. Greek "ek" -- out, "phrasis" -- to speak) is the art of using words to describe something beautiful, usually visual art.  EKPHRASTIC ASSIMILATIONS is an interactive project designed to bring together poets, artists, and art-lovers of all kinds from China and the United States.  The artworks were created by six Chinese and six American artists, many of them explicitly for this project.  We invite you to follow these links to find the ekphrastic poems, written in either Chinese or English, behind each image.  If so moved, please contribute your own poems to our Ekphrasitic Assimilation project.  All images and poems will be exhibited at the VALA Art Center in Redmond, WA. in partnership with ryan james fine arts.

All the artwork is exhibited at VALA Wednesday - Sunday, 9 am - 5 pm until Oct. 30.

Ekphrastic Assimilation events schedule (free)
VALA Art Center, Redmond Town Center (RTC)

Friday, Oct. 14th Ekphrastic Poetry Writing Workshop, curated by Michael Dyan Welch, with presenting poets Duane Kirby Jensen, J.I. Kleinberg, Jared Leising and Joannie Stangeland, hosted by the Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP), 6:30 pm - 9 pm,  RTC

Saturday, October 22nd Paint and Panda Workshop with Maggie Ho, 1 pm - 4pm, RTC

Sunday, October 30th Ekphrastic Assimilations Exhibition Closing Viewing and poetry reading, 6 pm - 8 pm,  RTC

WORDIMAGE SYMPOSIUM, FUNDED BY CHIANG CHING-KUO FOUNDATION

The Wordimage symposium will be a three-day event examining recent but also long-unfolding relationship between writing, particularly in poetic format, and Chinese visual art. Collectively, themes to be addressed will include reception of Chinese contemporary art in global environment, formal dimensions of visual and verbal texts including concrete poetry and abstract expressionism, and word-image innovation in light of established word-image traditions of calligraphy and other genres connected with literati (文人) culture. In the process we will interrogate familiar critical categories such as “dissident,” “experimental” or “avant-garde” art in order to both delineate limitations of their previous iterations as well as explore ways in which literary or word-oriented analysis might change their function in critical understanding. The roster of artists whose work we will engage includes Xu Bing 徐冰, Lo Ch’ing 羅青, Ai Weiwei 艾未未, Hsia Yu 夏宇, Ouwaiou 欧外鸥, Xu Demin 许德民 and Chen Li 陳黎, among others.

Ekphrastic Assimilations Conference and Reading – Open to the Public

DAY 1 – Friday, Oct 28th  Word/Image in Chinese/Global Context
Pacific Lutheran University, Philips Center Room 201
Presentations, discussion:  11 am – 1 pm
Presentations, discussion:  3 pm – 5 pm

DAY 2 – Saturday, Oct 29th Word/Image in Chinese/Global Context
The Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, the Alford Board Room
Presentations, discussion: 11 am – 1 pm
Presentations, discussion: 3 pm – 5 pm

DAY 3 – Sunday, Oct 30th Poetry Reading with Digital Images
The Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, Auditorium 11 am – 1 pm

Attending Scholars:
Paul Gladston, University of Nottingham
Christopher Lupke, University of Alberta
Shen Kuiyi, University of California, San Diego
Michelle Yeh, University of California, Davis
Jonathan Stalling, University of Oklahoma
Rick Barot, Pacific Lutheran University
Jason Kuo, University of Maryland
Yang Xiaobin, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Brian Reed, University of Washington
Yomi Braester, University of Washington
Paul Manfredi (Director), Pacific Lutheran University

Source:  http://ekphrasticassimilations.org/