Metamorphosis or Confrontation at the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong is Tobias Klein’s most extensive solo exhibition to date on the theme of Digital Craftsmanship. By exploring applications of 3D printing in architecture, art, design and interactive media installations, Klein has created a fusion of contemporary CAD/CAM technologies built from natural materials, found objects and cultural historical references. His works explore the emerging discipline of Digital Craftsmanship as an operational synthesis between digital and physical tools and techniques. Klein taught for more than ten years at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art and currently teaches in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.

Join the artist and curators Florian Knothe and Harald Kraemer on a tour of the exhibition.

We will also walk through three paintings exhibitions showing the works of Hou Beiren, Wesley Tongson and Chak.

Please contact us by email to office@friendshkmoa.hk for registration and payment details before 13 July 2020.
As places are limited, they will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

6:15pm cocktails, 6:30pm lecture, 7:30pm dinner

The Detroit-based industrialist Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) was a pioneering collector of Chinese art in America. His collection laid the foundation of the world-class Chinese holdings at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, the US national museum of Asian art. Why Chinese art? How did he assemble this significant collection? Delving into his diary, purchasing records, and spectacular art collection, Dr. Daisy Yiyou Wang, Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, told stories of Freer as a savvy collector, a fearless adventurer, and a visionary philanthropist. Dr. Wang also shared her new research on Freer’s collecting strategies and the international art market in the early years of the twentieth century.

According to legend, on this date, 21st April, in 753 BCE, the semi-divine twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, founded the settlement that was to become the majestic city of Rome. This event spawned a mighty empire and nurtured a visual culture that left a lasting imprint on the subsequent civilizations and (art) histories of the western hemisphere. What better way to acknowledge such a birthday than to investigate and interrogate its continued legacy? Today, some 2,772 years later, remnants of Roman art and architecture are still being discovered meters below the modern cities of Europe, Africa and the Near East, as well as in the deserts and forests of over 40 countries whose modern borders now fall within the territory once controlled from Rome. With a particular focus on wall paintings, this talk details some of these recent discoveries so as to introduce revitalized assessments of “Classical” art for the new millennium.

This is the second lecture of Art and its Histories – Scholars in Lecture, a series of public lectures organized by the Department of Fine Arts, HKU and presented in collaboration with Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Friends of Hong Kong Museum of Art and The University of Hong Kong Museum Society. The programs aim to deliver current art-historical thinking in an accessible manner presented by specialists in the field. The series is part of the Fine Arts Department’s broader dedication to promoting the importance and relevance of art history in Hong Kong.

Susanna McFadden is Assistant Professor and M.A. coordinator in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania and specializes in the art, architecture, and archaeology of the Roman and late antique Mediterranean, with a particular emphasis on the medium of wall painting. She has been a fellow in residence at the American Academy in Rome (2009-2010) and the Getty Research Institute (2016) and since 2005 has been a member of the New York University sponsored team excavating the late Roman site of Amheida in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis. Recent publications include essays on the wall paintings from Amheida and a multi-disciplinary exploration of the Tetrarchic era wall paintings in Egypt, The Art of Empire: The Roman Frescoes and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple (Yale University Press, 2015), which won the 2017 Archaeological Institute of America’s James R. Weisman Book Award.

In view of the COVID-19 public health situation, this lecture is taking place online, free of charge, instead of at The Asia Society Hong Kong Center as originally planned.

How to view the lecture

1. To view the lecture using your Facebook account, the link is: https://www.facebook.com/events/2559976717591763/
2. Using Zoom. Please email Wendy Lo at office@friendshkmoa.hk to be allocated a link nearer the date of the lecture.
3. If you have questions for the Lecturer, please go to http://www.slido.com and enter code #85641