Art historian Dr Yeewan Koon on Hong Kong's art education, cultural appropriation, AI and intentionalism, and Nara Yoshitomo.
Dr Yeewan Koon, associate professor and Chair of the Department of Art History at the University of Hong Kong
Ep.53 | In this episode I travelled to the University of Hong Kong where I had the pleasure of meeting scholar Dr Yeewan Koon, the chair of the department of Art History of the University of Hong Kong. We addressed a broad range of topics that began with the exploration of what a Hong Kong’er and Hong Kong art is, her method behind the publication of Nara Yoshitomo’s work, why not everyone can be an artist, and her thoughts on NFT and AI.
Yeewan Koon is associate professor and Chair of the Department of Art History at the University of Hong Kong. She has published numerous works including Nara Yoshitomo (2020), “A Chinese Canton? Painting the Local in Export Art (2019) and A Defiant Brush: Su Renshan and the Politics of Painting in 19th Century Guangdong (2014). She is the recipient of several research awards including a Fulbright Senior Fellowship, American Council of Learned Scholars, and visiting scholarships at Cambridge University and Columbia University. Koon also works in the contemporary art field as a critic and curator.
In 2014, she was guest curator of It Begins with Metamorphosis: Xu Bing at the Asia Society, Hong Kong Centre, and was one of the selected curators for the 12th Gwangju Biennale, 2018. In June 2021, she curated the exhibition So long, thanks again for the fish!, which was part of the Inspired Programme of inaugural Helsinki Biennale in Finland. This year she was also awarded the prestigious UGC Teacher Award.
Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP) Hong Kong, 2021
Nara Yoshitomo book cover
Website https://arthistory.hku.hk/index.php/people/yeewan-koon/
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