Dancing with the Qi: TransMediating Chinese Calligraphy
Curated by Jia-Yan Mi. Associate Professor of Chinese and English and Jerry Kaba
February 5 – March 13, 2025
Opening Event: Wednesday, February 5, 4:00 with reception to follow
AIMM Building, TCNJ Art Gallery
Featured artists:
Cui Fei
Zhen Guo
Sin-ying Ho
Huang Xiang
Xin Song
Yin Mei
Dancing with the Qi: TransMediating Chinese Calligraphy posits Chinese calligraphy as an embodiment of the fluid flow of Qi—the vital energy of artistic creativity. Recent and ongoing technological revolutions have spurred optimistic narratives celebrating the boundless potential of Generative AI to augment and ultimately surpass human creativity, but the drawings, paintings, and sculpture featured in this exhibition make clear the authenticity, originality and tangible presence of a unique, human-made work of art. Through the work in this exhibition, curatorJia-Yan Mi. Associate Professor of Chinese and English at The College of New Jersey, celebrates the power of the authentic and the human-made, connecting it to the idea of the Qi and its reflection in the dynamic strokes shaping Chinese characters. Against the conditions of disembodiment, virtuality, and automation, the artists in Dancing with the Qi demonstrate the enduring power of Chinese calligraphy in the ever-evolving landscape of artistic expression.
The artists in the exhibition include Cui Fei, Huang Xiang, Sin-ying Ho, Xin Song, Yin Mei and Zhen Guo. They work in a variety of mediums (including ceramics, cut paper, photographic processes, found materials, and ink on paper), but all demonstrate the ongoing power and relevance of the physical gesture as part of the creative process. We are especially pleased to include the work of Huang Xiang (China, 1941– ): he is an internationally recognized poet and calligrapher, known for his activism. He was imprisoned and his work banned in China; he now lives in the United States.
Download a pdf of the Exhibition Brochure
Gallery Hours:
Week of February 2
Wednesday 2/5 12-7pmBrochurecallig2-smallfile
Thursday 2/6 12-5 pm
Friday 2/7 12-5 pm
Week of February 9
Sunday 2/9 1-3pm
Wednesday 2/12 12-7pm
Thursday 2/13 closed
Friday 2/14 12-5 pm
Through March 13:
Sunday 1-3pm
Wednesday 12-7pm
Thursday 12-5pm
Friday 12-5 pm
About the Artists:
Huang Xiang
Huang Xiang, a native of Guidong County, Hunan Province, China, was born on December 26, 1941. Huang Xiang began publishing his work in 1958, when his poems were selected in a nationwide collection of poetry. He was admitted to the Chinese Writers Association, and became its youngest member at the age of 17. However, he was expelled from this organization for his desire to write about more expansive ideas. From 1959 to 1995, he was imprisoned a total six times (for 12 years) for his determined pursuit of freedom of spirit and expression and human rights advocacy. Huang Xiang is a pioneer of the Human Rights movement in China and was the first to post poems on the Democracy wall in Beijing in 1978. His writing of “An Open Letter to President Carter” brought worldwide attention to the Human Rights movement in China.
His biography is included in the English edition of The Cambridge History of China written by John King Fairbank and The History of China (Volume Ten) written by Xiao Donglian. His poetry was selected as the authoritative selection of Chinese classics in various hundred years.In 2005, a Huang Xiang Symposium was held at the Middle East Asia Research Conference in University of Pittsburgh.He has published more than 50 books of various kinds overseas and has been translated into many languages.His life story was made into a number of Chinese and English TV and film feature documentaries. Scholars and writers in China and abroad have published Huang Xiang’s research papers, memoirs, and biography.
Cui Fei
Cui Fei was born in China and now lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Warehouse Gallery at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Queens Museum, Queens, NY; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; Jeju Museum of Art, Jeju, Korea; Rietberg Museum Zurich, Switzerland; and the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, Germany, among others.
She has received grants and fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Socrates Sculpture Park, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, and The Center for Book Arts. She was selected for the Art Omi International Artists Residency, the AIR Program at Light Work, the Emerge Program at Aljira & Creative Capital, Newark, and the AIM program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Her work has been reviewed in various magazines, including The New York Times, Art in America, and Yishu.
Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, Light Work at Syracuse University, and Stony Brook University.
Sin-ying Ho
Sin-Ying Ho was born in Hong Kong, immigrated to Canada, and currently resides in New York City. Ho is an associate professor at Queens College, City University of New York teaching ceramics art. She holds an MFA from Louisiana State University in 2001, BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1997. High Diploma from Sheridan College Craft and Design in 1995. Ho is the first off campus study from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design to Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute in PR China, 1996.
Ho has taught and run workshops, lectures, and exhibitions across Canada, as well as from Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harvard University to Hong Kong and Jingdezhen – over 1000 years old city of porcelain in China. She has taught at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond; Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary; and Concordia University in Montreal. Among her honours, she has received the San Angelo National Ceramic Competition Merit Award, Canada Council Grant for the Canada Year of Asian Pacific, Canada Council of the Art Research and Development Grant, and a PSC-CUNY Grant.
Xin Song
Born in Beijing, Xin Song creates contemporary Chinese papercuts inspired by the traditional form she learned from studying with farmers in the Chinese countryside in her youth. Using her own photography, magazines, Mylar, rice and other papers, her often large-scale site-specific installations use draping, hanging, glass lamination, and light depending on the project. Her highly diverse themes range from venerable flower motifs and landscape studies to urban scenes that reflect her longtime residence in New York.
Among her numerous public commissions for the Manhattan Borough are her Five Elements for the Fashion District’s Broadway Boulevard Plaza, a permanent installation at the Bay Parkway Landmark Station, D Line in Brooklyn, NY and an installation for Grand Central’s 100 Anniversary Celebration awarded by the MTA Arts for Transit.Permanent installation for Ps170k public school lobby in Brooklyn.The recipient of multiple awards and grants, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at museums, commercial galleries, and alternative spaces. Notable recent exhibitions include The Today art museum in Beijing, China, Center for Mediterranean Architecture, Chania Greece, the Chengdu Biennale, The Rampa art center in Porto Portugal,the Contemporary Art Museum of Crete at Rethymnon, Greece 2018. Venice Biennial 2017, Noyes Museum of Art of New Jersey 2017,Staten island museum2016, Musée du Louvre, Paris 2014; National Art Museum of China 2013; Prow Art Space of the Flatiron Building 2012; and Paper Art Biennial in Sophia, Bulgaria 2011. As an art educator, Xin Song has been a guest lecturer at stony brook university, University of South Florida，SUNY College at Old Westbury, Hampshire College, Hunter college, FIT and has created Chinese papercut and shadow puppet workshops for cultural institutions and schools since 2001.
Yin Mei
Yin Mei is a director, choreographer, visual artist, and curator known for her work that fearlessly bridges geographic, technological, artistic, and cultural divides. Employing Chinese energy direction and spatial principles, her work explores themes of artistic and spiritual significance arising at the intersection between Asian traditional performance and Western contemporary dance. Yin Mei’s choreography has been hailed by critics as “theatrical magic” (New York Times) and as inhabiting “the tremulous space where dreams and memory reside” (Village Voice). Yin Mei herself is described as a “dancer of exquisite lyricism and delicacy” (New York Times) and “a stunning presence, bringing her classical Chinese training and aesthetic into a blend with her adopted Downtown sensibilities with refined grace” (Dance Insider). (Ethan Cohen Gallery)
Zhen Guo
Zhen Guo lived her early years during China’s “Cultural Revolution,” when that nation was dominated by political turmoil and arts were repressed. She felt the effect of repressive government but survived as part of a new generation which emerged creating art distinctly Chinese while reflecting artistic influences from the West.
Zhen immigrated to the United States in 1986, leaving behind her family, status, and position to pursue her artistic visions freely. As she settled into her new country, her art migrated from an optimistic, romantic vision to exploring the nexus of emotion and art and the struggle women face in seeking their place as full citizens in the world.
Zhen’s art has been exhibited widely in China and throughout the United States and cities around the world. These shows include “Existence: Women’s Art Exhibition” in Changsha, China, “Please Touch, Body Boundaries” at Mana Contemporary Art in Jersey City and “Asian Women Artists Exhibition” at South Korea’s renowned Jeonbuk Museum. Zhen also delivers academic lectures at universities and educational institutions and is the founder of the Chinese Feminist Artist Alliance. She is a member of various art associations, including the International Women’s Art Association, the North American Artists Association, and The Chinese Artists Association
Zhen Guo now lives and makes art in New York City.