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Keyu Yan

Art history professor

Education

  • Ph.D., History of Art, The Ohio State University
  • M.A., History of Art, The Ohio State University
  • B.A., Art History, St. Olaf College

Credentials

  • Professor of art history, 2025–present, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
  • Instructor of record, 2018–25, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
    Research assistant for Dr. Christopher A. Reed, department of history, 2024
    Research assistant for Dr. Julia F. Andrews, department of history of art, 2022–23
  • Henry Luce curatorial research associate, 2023, The Frank Museum of Art, Westerville, OH
  • Teaching assistant, 2014–18, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
  • Museum and collections assistant, 2014–18, Flaten Art Museum, Northfield, MN
  • Curatorial and collections assistant, 2015, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

Awards, recognitions, and honors

  • International Research and Scholarship Grant, Office of International Affairs, OSU, 2024–25
  • Cathleen M. Murnane Travel Scholarship Fund, History of Art Department, OSU, 2024, 2022
  • Arts and Humanities Small Research Grant, College of Arts and Sciences, OSU, 2024, 2022, 2019
  • Louise Zung-Nyi Loh Memorial Scholarship, East Asian Studies Center, OSU, 2023
  • Andrew W. Mellon Grant for Chinese Object Study Workshop, 2022
  • Aida Cannarsa Snow Endowment Fund, College of Arts and Sciences, OSU, 2022, 2020
  • OSU History of Art Graduate Research Symposium Award, 2021
  • Sara Jane Pyne Memorial Scholarship, History of Art, 2021, 2019
  • Buckeye Access All-Star, Student Life Disability Services/Office of Student Life, OSU, 2020
  • Senior Thesis Distinction, Art and Art History Department, St. Olaf College, 2018

Organizations

  • Association for Asian Studies, 2022–present
  • College Art Association, 2023–present
  • Association for Chinese Art History, 2023–present

Publications and presentations

Peer-reviewed articles

  • "Contested Traditions: Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art and Gu Wenda's Wisdom Comes from Tranquility (1986)," World Art 14, no. 1 (2024): 55-82., https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2023.2252383.
  • "Modernizing Sculpture: Print Culture and the New Discourse on Sculpture in China, circa 1880-1929," East Asian Publishing and Society 13, no. 2 (2023): 133-169. https://doi.org/10.1163/22106286-12341378.

Reviews

  • Review of Xu Bing: Word Alchemy at Asia Society Texas, Burlington Contemporary (July 2024)., https://contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/reviews/xu-bing-word-alchemy.
  • Review of Sasha Su-Ling Welland, Experimental Beijing: Gender and Globalization in Chinese Contemporary Art (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018). ASAP/J: The Open Access Platform of the Association of the Arts of the Present Journal (November 2023). https://asapjournal.com/sasha-su-ling-wellands-experimental-beijing-gender-and-globalization-in-chinese-contemporary-art-keyu-yan/.
  • Review of Sianne Ngai, ed., Documents of Contemporary Art: The Cute (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2022). InVisible Culture (June 2023). www.invisibleculturejournal.com/pub/5h4105bd.

Selected lectures and presentations (invited)

  • Department of Art and Art History, Macalester College (virtual), "Contact and Resonance: Chinese Installation Art in the 1980s," Guest Lecture for ART 210 Globalization and Contemporary Art, 10/2024
  • Department of Art History, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, "Gu Wenda and His Artistic Experiment," Guest Lecture for ARHS 377 China's Avant-Garde Movement in the 1980s, 04/2024
  • Department of Art History, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, "The Art of Neolithic Japan," Guest Lecture for ARHS 114 Introduction to Asian Art, 04/2023
  • Department of History of Art, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, "Sculpture in Early Twentieth Century China," Guest Lecture for HA 4815 Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art, 02/2023
  • Department of Art History, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, "Zhao Mengfu and the Art of Acquiescence," Guest Lecture for ARHS 291 Art of Late Imperial China, 01/2023

Selected lectures and presentations (refereed)

  • College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, NY, Paper: "Beijing to Hangzhou: Maryn Varbanov and the Significance of Mixed Media in Post-Mao China," 02/2025
  • Global Asias Interdisciplinary Annual Conference, Irvine, CA, Paper: "Remaking Spaces: Agency and Queerness in the Art of Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-1990)," 02/2024
  • Annual Southwest Conference on Asian Studies (online) Paper: "Pushing Boundaries: Revisiting the Contribution of Post-Mao Artistic Exchanges to Contemporary Chinese Art," 11/2023
  • The Historical Society for Twentieth Century China Biennial Conference (online) Paper: "From Craft to Fine Art: The New Discourse on Sculpture in Republican China," 08/2022
  • Midwest Art History Society Annual Conference, Houston, TX Paper: "The Art of Yanobe Kenji: Torayan, Cuteness, and Nuclear Disasters," 03/2022
  • Science and Research Centre Koper Symposium, University of Ljubljana (online) Paper: "Christian Art and Fu Jen University in Republican China (1911-1949)," 05/2021
  • Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Carlisle, PA Paper: "The Contested Body and the Great Wall," 10/2019
  • Midwest Art History Society Annual Conference, Cincinnati, OH Paper: "The Uncompromising Body: Gender in Chinese Performance Art," 03/2019
  • Ohio State Graduate Student Conference for Chinese Studies, Columbus, OH Paper: "He Chengyao's Opening the Great Wall and the Re-Shaped Memory," 11/2018
  • Annual Student Art History Symposium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN Paper: "Close Looking: Ma Shouzhen's Orchid and Bamboo, 04/2018

Conferences and talks organized

  • "Queer X Contemporary X China," Organizer/Discussant, The Ohio State University, 09/2024–04/2025
  • "Assembling Gods: Ecology, Memory, and Temple Murals in North China" Co-organizer, OSU History of Art GILD lecture with Anne Feng, Boston University, 03/2021
  • "Edmonia Lewis and the Poetics of Plaster" Co-organizer, OSU History of Art GILD lecture with Caitlin Beach, Fordham University, 11/2020