Lectures and Talks

Join Hyonjeong Kim Han, Joseph de Heer Curator of Arts of Asia, for a conversation with artists YoungJune P. Lew, and Minjae Kim, whose works are featured in the Lunar Phases: Korean Moon Jars. With diverse backgrounds and varied use of materials, these artists have reflected the meaning of Korean moon jars. The artists will share their own creative processes of reinterpreting moon jars while conveying the immigrant experience as artists.

Shiva Ahmadi orchestrates exquisitely crafted scenes of beauty and terror. Her vibrant fantasy realms are, upon closer inspection, macabre theaters of conflict where faceless figures engage in endless cycles of struggle and pain. Combining luminous colors and mystical beings with violent imagery, Ahmadi creates watercolor paintings, sculptures, and digital animations that illuminate global issues of migration, war, and brutality against marginalized peoples. Her work is informed by current events in the Middle East and the US, and inspired by Iranian, Turkish, and Indian book and miniature painting traditions.

In 2016, Ahmadi received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her work is in the collections of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Dallas Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.

The Provenance Research Department is excited to present Looking Out, Looking In: Legacies of the Masuda Collection. Provenance Research Fellow Mac Coyle will highlight works at the Denver Art Museum from the collection of Baron Masuda Takashi (1848-1938). President of Mitsu Company, Masuda was an avid collector during Japan’s transformative Meiji period (1868-1912) who assembled one of the most impressive and influential holdings of Japanese art—the legacy of which can still be felt in Japan’s cultural patrimony laws and in Japanese art collections worldwide.

Members see it first! Discover the timeless beauty of Lunar Phases: Korean Moon Jars. This captivating exhibition celebrates the elegance of the Korean moon jar—a white porcelain treasure that flourished in the 17th-18th centuries—and its enduring influence on contemporary art. Explore twelve exquisite historic and modern moon jars, paired with ten stunning artworks in diverse media, all inspired by the moon jar’s signature white hues and organic forms.

Research shows that humans are hard-wired to create and to look at art. Both activities stimulate our brains, provoke our emotions, and help us to connect with the world around us. In this learn about the impact of artmaking and art-viewing on the brain, explore artworks that were created for the act of beholding, healing, and growth, and spend time in the galleries with a slow art experience.

Across cultures and time, art has played a deep role in human connection. Indigenous elders have passed down creative traditions from one generation to the next, some artworks were created to support spiritual connection (with higher powers or ancestors), and other objects came to be through human collaboration. In this session, we’ll consider artists and their work as ties that bind us together in the past, present, and future.

As a form of communication, art has the power to provoke, ask important questions, and call for change. In this we’ll look at artists as observers of and participants in contemporary life. Explore their visual interrogation of politics, identity, and history and celebrate their diverse creative voices. We’ll also ask what happens to the human creative voice and agency with the rise of AI.