Mo Zhang
Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor in Art
Art Historian focusing on the visual and material cultures of early modern East Asia. Research interests include Chinese painting, text-image relationship, cross-cultural artistic exchange, and the role of environment in artistic practices and reception.
My research focuses on the art and architecture of East Asia, especially Chinese painting, text-image relationship, and the relationship between art, literature, environment, and viewing practices in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). My broader research interests include cross-cultural artistic exchange, and the role of maritime trade in tropical hardwood in shaping Ming and Qing furniture production. My teaching introduces students to the art and architecture of East Asia, with an emphasis on close looking, object-based learning through museum field trips, and attention to the historical contexts in which works of art were made and viewed.
Prior to Wellesley, I held curatorial and research positions at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC, and the Penn Museum.
Selected Publications
“Under the Pushed-Out Awning: Tuipeng Painting and Waterborne Viewing in Early Modern China.” Archives of Asian Art, Volume 77, no.1 (2027). (In press)
“Coded Perception and Emotional Topographies in Tuipeng Painting of Early Modern China,” in Coded/ Objects, Edited Volume, Proceedings of Symposia “Objects. Between Absorption and Isolation” and “Coded. A Somewhat Emotional State.” Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, forthcoming.
Selected Conference Panels and Talks
“Riverscapes, Vision, and Mind in Tuipeng Painting of Ming China,” Society for Ming Studies Graduate Student Symposium, Association for Asian Studies Annual conference, Vancouver, 2026
“Utopia Disrupted: Architecture, Memory, and a White Pagoda in a Fifteenth-Century Chinese Painting of the Peach-Blossom Spring,” in the panel “The Densities of Space, Memory, and Knowledge in Art,” CAA 114th Annual Conference, Chicago, 2026
“Push Out the Awning: Coded Perception and Emotional Topographies in Tuipeng Painting of Early Modern China.” “Coded Objects” Symposium: Coded. A Somewhat Emotional State, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Italy, 2025
Invited talk, “Push Open the Boat Awning: Jiangnan Waterscapes and Visual Codes in Tuipeng Painting.” Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, 2025 (Online)
“Text and Image in Motion: Decoding Riverscapes in Tuipeng Paintings of Early Modern China.” Ink with Flying Colors—Textual and Pictorial Interaction in Premodern and Early Modern China, University of Pennsylvania, 2025
“Push Out the Awning: A Coded Way of Looking in 15th-Century Chinese Painting.” CAA 113th Annual Conference, New York City, 2025
Public lecture, “Palace Splendor: A Closer Look at A Chinese Lacquer Screen at the Penn Museum,” Asia Seminar “Chinese Lacquer Screens at the Smithsonian and Penn Museum,” Penn Museum, Philadelphia, 2023
“Not Just Hairpins: Contextualizing Gold Louge Hairpins from the Ming Princely Tomb in Jiangxi” The 3rd Conference of the European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology. University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2023
“Distilled Moments: The Making of Guanghan Palace.” The Third Middle Period China Humanities Conference, Yale University, 2023
“Turning the Leaves: Embodied Experiences of Albums in mid-Ming China.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2022
“Visual and Poetic Imagination in The Four Seasons, A Ming Handscroll in the Metropolitan Museum.” Association for Asian Studies New England Regional Conference, Harvard University, 2021
Education
- B.A., University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
- M.A., Columbia University in the City of New York
- Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Current and upcoming courses
Asian Art and Architecture
ARTH240
This course is a survey of the major artistic traditions of Asia including China, Korea, and Japan from Neolithic times to the turn of the twentieth century. It introduces students to Asian art and architecture by exploring the interactions of art, religion, culture, and society, especially how different artistic styles were tied to different intellectual thoughts, political events, and geographical locations. Students are expected to acquire visual skills in recognizing artistic styles, analytical skills in connecting art with its historical contexts, and writing skills in expressing ideas about art. Field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Harvard's Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and/or the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, depending on available exhibitions.