Chang Tan

Dr. Tan specializes in Chinese, East Asian, and Asian diasporic art of the 20^th and 21^st century. Her research interests include global avant-gardism, public and socially engaged art, eco art and activism, vernacular artmaking, and the history of collecting and exhibiting Asian art. Her monograph The Minjian Avant-garde: Art of the Crowd in Contemporary China (Cornell, 2023) studies how experimental artists mixed with, brought changes to, and let themselves be transformed by minjian, the volatile and diverse public of the post-Mao era, and critically assesses the rise of populism in both art and politics. Dr. Tan has published in peer-reviewed journals such as positions: asia critique, Art Journal, Diacritics, World Art, and Third Text. Her curatorial and editorial activities explore the connections between Asian and Asian American art through the concept of Global Asias. Her current book project Network Moderns studies the intersection between photography, painting, design, and theater in China and the Chinese diaspora from the 19^th century to present, emphasizing the collaborative and vernacular aspects of modernisms. The research for this project has been supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Humanities Institute, Center for Humanities and Information, and Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. She is also working on a collaborative project on Sinophone eco art. Her teaching ranges from graduate to freshman seminars in both Art History and Asian Studies. She serves on the editorial board of Verge: Studies of Global Asias and Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.

• Ph.D. in comparative literature and contemporary art history (University of Texas at Austin)
• M.A. in comparative literature (University of Texas at Austin)
• B.A. in Economics and Chinese Literature/Language (Peking University, China)

ARTH100: Intro to Art; ARTH 120Z: Asian Art and Architecture; ARTH220Z: Chinese Art; ARTH 350W: Writing for Art History; ARTH 435: Grounded Visions: Modern Art and Ecology; ARTH 435: Studies in Modern Art; ARTH470: Studies in Contemporary Art; ARTH515: Worlding Art History; ARTH597: Chinese Art in the World; ASIA 083: Asia on Display; ASIA 501: Seminar in Asian Studies.

• Center for Humanities and Information Fellowship
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Research Fellowship
• Humanities Institute Residential Fellowship
• William C. Seitz Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts

Global Asias: Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, Palmer Museum of Art, Fall 2021; Knoxville Museum of Art, Spring 2022; Heckscher Museum of Art, Summer 2022; Yellowstone Art Museum, Fall 2022; Pacific Asia Museum, Spring 2023

Book

• The Minjian Avant-garde: Art of the Crowd in Contemporary China (Cornell University Press, 2023).

Edited Volume

• Remapping Asian and Asian Diasporic Art. Special Issue in Verge: Studies in Global Asias 8.2. (Minnesota University Press), co-edited with Laura Kina and Tina Chen. 2022.

Selected Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• “Rewriting the Heart Sutra: The Radical Buddhism in Qiu Zhijie's Art.” positions: asia critique, 32.3 (2024), 509-39.
• “A Turn to the Many: Ai Weiwei.” Diacritics, 49:1(2022), 150-55.
• “Art of the Global Asias: from Identity to Intervention.” Verge: Studies in Global Asias 7:1 (2021), 49-76.
• “Politics of (In)Visibility: Yumen, and Zhuang Hui’s Anti-Art Photography.” Art Journal, 79:2 (2020): 24-41.
• “Landscape without Nature: Ecological Reflections in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 3:3 (2016), 223-42.
• “Telling Global Stories, One at a Time: The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Asian Art,” World Art 5:2 (2015), 307-30.
• “Art For/Of the Masses: Revisiting the Communist Legacy in Chinese Art.” Third Text, 26:2, (2012), 177-94.

• College Art Association
• Association of Asian Studies
• Association of Asian American Studies
• Association for Chinese Art History

Two art history faculty awarded National Gallery research institute fellowships

Art History faculty member’s book explores artists’ social engagement in China