Legion of Honor: Guo Pei, Porcelain, and Objects with Ellen Huang

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Hear Ellen Huang discuss ideas from her essay “Beauty in a Broken World,” exploring the role of ornament in Guo Pei’s designs. She will also share her thoughts on the Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy exhibition.

This event is part of Virtual Wednesdays, a weekly YouTube broadcast bringing you unique viewpoints exploring diversity, resilience, and creative spirit in the arts as we aim to reframe our exhibitions and collections.

About the speaker

Dr. Ellen Huang researches the relationship between art, science, and materials focusing on design and China. She has written extensively about topics related to ink painting, Buddhist material culture, and ceramics. She has also taught and researched in Taipei, Beijing, Seoul, and Shanghai and has been a curator for university art museums. She is an associate professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA where she teaches art and design histories. She is completing a manuscript about Jingdezhen porcelain in the early modern world as a translated practice and material and continues to work as an independent curator.

About the exhibition

Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy celebrates the extraordinary designs of Guo Pei—hailed as China’s first couturier—and includes more than 80 works from the past two decades highlighting her most important collections shown on Beijing and Paris runways. Through exquisite craftsmanship, lavish embroidery, and unconventional dressmaking techniques, Guo Pei creates a fantasy that fuses the influences of China’s imperial past, decorative arts, European architecture, and the botanical world. Through her extraordinary fashions, the exhibition reveals the trajectory of Guo Pei’s career as remarkable yet emblematic of China’s emergence as a leader in the fashion world in the early 21st century.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.