07 CHINAINSTITUTE ANNUALREPORT MISSION China Institute in America was founded in 1926 by a group of distinguished American and Chinese educators, including John Dewey, Hu Shih, Paul Monroe, and Dr. Kuo Ping Wen. It is the oldest bicultural organization in America focused exclusively on China. China Institute is a non-profit cultural and educational institution that promotes the understanding and appreciation of Chinese civilization, and provides the historical context for understanding contemporary China. 1 LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN & PRESIDENT We are very pleased to present the 2007 Annual Report, which marks another year of BOARD OF TRUSTEES extraordinary achievement for China Institute. As we enter the ninth decade of our work China Institute in America promoting a deeper understanding of China to the people of the United States, it is clear that the relationship between the two countries is more relevant and important than ever before. 2006–2007 Through the depth and reach of our many programs, exhibitions, courses and events, China Institute contributes significantly to advancing this critical relationship. Virginia A. Kamsky, Chairman Chien Chung Pei, Vice-Chair In our education work, we initiated and hosted the inaugural national meeting of 21 Patricia P. Tang, Secretary U.S.-based Confucius Institutes in January, to foster closer collaboration and learning among Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew, Treasurer these organizations. We were honored to have Director of the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) Xu Lin participate in this important gathering. At the opening Susan L. Beningson of the Beijing Headquarters of the Confucius Institutes in April, our President Sara Judge Douglas L. Brown McCalpin gave a keynote speech in Mandarin and English, following State Councillor Chen David Chu Virginia A. Kamsky Zhili. We expanded our Confucius Institute education programs in collaboration with the Sharon Crain Hanban and East China Normal University, providing U.S.–based teachers the opportunity to John R. Curtis Jr. take Masters level courses in Chinese language — addressing the growing need in this country Jane DeBevoise for trained and certified Chinese teachers. We were also delighted to further strengthen our Julie Nixon Eisenhower Teach China education programs, and to expand our Summer Study Abroad program for high Eric Hotung school students with increased funding from the U.S. Department of State. Anla Cheng Kingdon John M.B. O’Connor The China Institute Gallery broke new boundaries with Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Morris W. Offit Chinese Art, our first original exhibition of contemporary art. Curated by University of Chicago Mary Lawrence Porter scholar Dr. Wu Hung, the exhibition presented artist’s books, paintings, drawings, prints, Diane H. Schafer installation and sculpture from some of the most important Chinese artists working today, Sophia Sheng including Cai Guo-Qiang, Zhang Xiaogang, and Xu Bing. We staged our Annual Gallery Washington SyCip dinner to celebrate the opening of Shu in honor of Wan-go H.C. Weng, renowned scholar Miranda Wong Tang and former President of China Institute. Oscar L. Tang Gene Theroux In our fast expanding role in corporate education, we held the third annual China Institute John L. Thornton Sara Judge McCalpin U.S.–China Executive Summit, sponsored and hosted by Credit Suisse. Keynote addresses were Shirley Wang offered by Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong; China Institute Trustee Zhang Xin and her husband, Marie-Hélène Weill Pan Shiyi, Co-CEOs of SOHO China; and Paul Calello, then CEO of Credit Suisse, Asia Pacific I. Peter Wolff Region. This meeting was groundbreaking in its success, with 175 leading executives from across Yvonne L.C. Wong the United States and China congregating to share their experiences of the most forward-looking Zhang Xin business trends that are developing in and between China and the United States. Under the guidance of the Board of Trustees, and through the work and expertise of a talented and committed staff, China Institute has built a solid financial foundation for our work, with TRUSTEES EMERiti increased support from many sectors, including individuals, corporations, foundations and government agencies. We wish to pay tribute to the generosity of the community of supporters C.T. Shen of China Institute, without whom our work would simply be impossible. Wan-go H.C. Weng 2007 has been a very special year for China Institute. We invite you to read our report and trust you will enjoy learning about our work, about the new directions it has taken, the new audiences that we have served both in the United States and in China, the new organizations and individuals to whom we have given guidance, and the new honors and praise that we have received along the way. Our commitment to this work is unflagging, and the satisfaction we derive from it is a constant encouragement. It is our great pleasure to share it with you. Warm regards, Virginia A. Kamsky Sara Judge McCalpin Chairman of the Board of Trustees President 2 3 EXHIBITIONS In connection with the exhibition, we organized both an academic symposium on December 16, 2006, and a short course on contemporary Chinese art, which took place in four sessions on January 9, 12, 16, Showing China to America and 18. Both were “It is amazing, in the world The China Institute Gallery attracted an international audience of 10,000 visitors extremely successful. during the year. Forty-five hundred students — drawn from every tier of education The symposium of contemporary Chinese from kindergarten to university — participated in the Gallery’s dedicated Discover attracted 100 scholars China Through Art education program which hosts students from public and private and specialists who art, to be able to have such schools and other special interest groups. heard a keynote presentation by the show’s curator Wu Hung, plus papers by a meaningful exhibit as in Philip K. Hu (of the Saint Louis Art Museum), Bettie-Sue Hertz (from the Shu. Viewers are treated to San Diego Museum of Art), Robert E. Harris, Jr. (of Columbia University), Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art and Wen C. Fong (of Princeton University), and a conversation between works of many artists, with One of the Gallery’s true highlights of the year was Shu: Reinventing Books Wu Hung and contributing artist Xu Bing. in Contemporary Chinese Art, a remarkable, wide-ranging, and groundbreaking so many different mediums exhibit —‘Shu’ is the Chinese word for books. The exhibition animated the entire Predictably the day concluded with an animated and memorable debate between represented. Especially Institute in two overlapping components: part 1 from September 28 through speakers and audience. The entire proceedings were video recorded and have been November 11, 2006, and part 2 from December 13, 2006 through February 27, 2007. released on a very popular DVD funded by the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation. meaningful to me are some The first major exhibition of contemporary art to originate at our Gallery, it played a crucially important role in expanding our exhibitions into the contemporary era, The short course, which attracted almost 90 participants (whose profiles ranged special earlier works of the broadening our constituency, and contributing to our core mission of rendering from interested members of the public to specialists in the field), was led by now very famous artists.” Chinese culture more comprehensible via its artifacts. Curated by Wu Hung, the Beijing-based Philip Tinari, and received an overwhelming response and created respected Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History a demand for similar courses in future. sophia sheng at the University of Chicago, Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art examined Chinese artists’ reconsideration of books and the language and information they carried during the tumultuous years of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It presented more than thirty paintings, drawings, prints, books, sculptures, and installations, many of them on display in this country for the first time. Works were made by 23 Chinese artists since the 1980s, and included key pieces by some of the most celebrated Chinese artists working today, including Xu Bing, Liu Dan, Yue Minjun, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Zhang Xiaogang. photos opposite page, left to right this page, top to bottom Wu Hung, Curator of Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Discussing The Book of Humanity by Lü Shengzhong Chinese Art giving a talk in the Gallery The show was a major critical and popular success and led The New York Times in Wan-go H.C. Weng, former President of China Institute, its glowing review to declare that “China has metamorphosed from an isolated, Yuan Chin-taa, Piling up Books, 2005 was honored at the Gallery Dinner intellectual desert into fertile ground for cultural exchange. It is in this soil, not The Members opening for Friends of the Gallery including Yue Minjun, Garbage Dump Virginia A. Kamsky, Chairman, China Institute; John R. Curtis, Jr., Trustee, making a toast in the post-Tiananmen world of the early 1990s, where the future of Chinese Yvonne L.C. Wong, Trustee; Daniel Shapiro and Agnes Gund contemporary art lies. China, after all, now more than ever, is a superpower.” Text Inset: Willow Hai Chang, Gallery Director, with 4 Oscar Tang, Trustee, Peggy Danziger and Patricia Tang, Trustee Tea, Wine and Poetry: Qing Dynasty Literati and their Drinking Vessels We hosted this exquisite exhibition of almost 50 teapots, wine ewers, cups, hanging scrolls, fans, seals, calligraphy, albums, and ink rubbings, organized in collaboration with the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong, from March 24 through June 16, 2007. Exploring the wine and tea-drinking culture in China between the 17th and 19th centuries, the exhibit focused on that period of the Qing dynasty when teapot makers were no longer anonymous craftsmen, but rather respected polymathic artists who signed their work.