Presented in collaboration with Arthur Ross Gallery

Image: Hung Liu, Street Library, 2013, oil on canvas and Chinese picture storybooks, 60 x 88 in., Collection of Corina Cheung, Laguna Beach, CA.

Join us for an evening of art and conversation with Penn scholars Bakirathi Mani, Chloe Estep, Chenshu Zhou, and Emily Ng. On display at Penn's Arthur Ross Gallery August 15–October 26, Hung Liu: Happy and Gay, is a traveling exhibition that originated from Georgetown University Art and Curatorial Studies graduate students in collaboration with Dr. Dorothy Moss. The exhibition presents a selection of Liu’s works from 2011-2013. In the series, Hung Liu revisits cartoons of her youth that were published in children’s books and primers (known as xiaorenshu). Like the Dick and Jane readers circulating in the United States during the postwar era, the illustrations were used in China to socialize children by instilling values such as hard work, family unity, and patriotism. Liu’s reformulation of this palm-size historic childhood imagery into large-scale, richly-painted contemporary canvases not only turns mass-produced illustrations into paintings, but also raises questions at the intersection of ideology, propaganda, and education.