“Chado: The Way of Tea” Exhibition

Exhibition (ends Nov. 30, 2018!!) features photographs, ceramics, lacquer ware, bamboo, wood, iron, textiles, and calligraphy.

On display through November 30, 2018
Gallery open from Noon to 4pm

Middletown, Conn.—“Chado: The Way of Tea,” an exhibition curated by Stephen A. Morrell that explores the prominent role and significance of the tea ceremony as an art and spiritual practice in China and Japan, is on view in Wesleyan University’s College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, located at 343 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, Connecticut, through Friday, November 30, 2018. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from Noon to 4pm. The exhibition will also be open on Saturday, October 13 and  Saturday, November 3, 2018. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more than a century, American artists, architects, and landscape designers have been inspired by the beauty, simplicity, and underlying philosophy of traditional Japanese arts. The aesthetic characteristics that inform these arts and the underlying spiritual basis can be traced back to monasteries in China and Japan where they have evolved for over a thousand years in the arts of Zen. Objects displayed have been selected from the College of East Asian Studies collection and loaned by tea enthusiasts in the Wesleyan community. Several media are represented, including ceramics, lacquer ware, bamboo, wood, iron, textiles, and calligraphy. In addition, photographs from National Geographic photographerMichael Yamashita ’71 will be featured. This exhibition is supported by a grant from the Freeman Foundation.

The exhibition will be closed Saturday, October 20 through Tuesday, October 23, 2018; and Saturday, November 17 through Sunday, November 25, 2018.

Related Events

Tea Ceremony Talk and Demonstration with Curator Stephen Morrell

Monday, September 24, 2018 at 4:30pm

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT

FREE!

Film Screening: “Rikyu” (1989)

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Monday, October 1, 2018 at 4:30pm

Seminar Room, Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Gallery Talk with Curator Stephen Morrell

Saturday, October 13, 2018 at 2pm

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Lecture by Assistant Professor of Art History Talia Andrei: Tea Culture and Japanese Aesthetics

Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at 4:30pm

Seminar Room, Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Tea Ceremony with Ikumi Kamanishi and Curator Stephen Morrell

Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 2pm

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Sung Poetry and Tea with Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Ao Wang and Curator Stephen Morrell

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 at 4:30pm

College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown

FREE!

Facebook event for the exhibition and related events: https://www.facebook.com/events/301490197318884/

About College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center

The College of East Asian Studies houses and maintains collections of East Asian art and historical archives as educational resources for Wesleyan’s East Asian Studies Program. Both collections were established in 1987, the year of the Mansfield Freeman Center’s founding, with an initial gift of Chinese works of art and historical documents from Dr. Chih Meng, Founding Director of the China Institute in America, and his wife Huan-shou Meng. The collection includes approximately 300 works of art in various media, from works of painting and calligraphy, prints, and rubbings to rare books, textiles, ceramics, and other miscellaneous media from China, Japan, and Korea. The majority of the works date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

For more information about the College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center, please call (860) 685-2330 or visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/ceas/exhibitions.

About the Center for the Arts

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts exists to catalyze people’s creativity by engaging them in the dynamic work of diverse artists. Three inter-related activities enable the CFA to realize its purpose:

• Supporting the research, public productions, and in-studio teaching needs of the departments of Art and Art History, Dance, Music, and Theater.
• Leading inter-disciplinary collaborations and other initiatives that integrate artists into creative curricular and co-curricular initiatives.
• Organizing powerful encounters between visiting artists and diverse elements of the Wesleyan community, the greater Middletown community, statewide, and regional audiences.

The Center for the Arts opened in the fall of 1973, and includes the Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall, the 400-seat Crowell Concert Hall, the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, the 260-seat Ring Family Performing Arts Hall, the 400-seat Theater, the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), and classrooms and studios.

The Center for the Arts gratefully acknowledges the support of its many generous funders and collaborators, including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the City of Middletown, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Middletown Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts, as well as media sponsors the Hartford Courant, WESU 88.1FM, and WNPR.

For more information about the Center for the Arts, please call (860) 685-3355, or visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.