Stanley Abe | Scholars@Duke

Stanley Abe
Associate Professor of Art and Art History

Stanley Abe has published on Chinese Buddhist art, contemporary Chinese art, Asian American art, Abstract Expressionism, and the collecting of Chinese sculpture. He is now writing a narrative account of how Chinese sculpture came into existence as a category of Fine Art during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Office Hours

Friday 1:00–2:00 and by appointment

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Associate Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2001

Contact Information

114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Smith Warehouse Bay 9, Room A289, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90766, Durham, NC 27708-0766
stanley.abe@duke.edu (919) 684-2487

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of California - Berkeley 1989
- M.A., University of California - Berkeley 1984
- B.A., University of California - Berkeley 1981
Duke Appointment History
- Interim Director of Graduate Studies of the MFA-EDA, Masters of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2019
- Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016 - 2019
- Interim Director of Graduate Studies of the MFA-EDA, Masters of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016
- Director of Arts of the Moving Image, Art of the Moving Image, Literature 2009 - 2012
- Interim Director, Art of the Moving Image, Literature 2008 - 2009
- Assistant Professor of Art and Art History, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1994 - 2001
Recognition
Awards & Honors
Expertise
Subject Headings
- Collectors and collecting
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - China (Country)
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Abe, S. Ordinary Images. University of Chicago Press, 2002.
  - Abe, S. A Freer Stela Reconsidered. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Occasional Paper, 2002.
- Academic Articles
  - Abe, S. K. “Pulitzer foundation workshop.” Archives of Asian Art 62 (December 1, 2012): 81–81. https://doi.org/10.1353/aaa.2012.0005.
    Full Text
  - Abe, S. K. “Absence and the image.” Archives of Asian Art 62 (December 1, 2012): 102–3. https://doi.org/10.1353/aaa.2012.0011.
    Full Text
  - Abe, S. “Review of Ning Qiang, Art, Religion, and Politics in Medieval China: The Dunhuang Cave of the Zhai Family.” Journal of Asian Studies 64 (2005): 454–56.
  - Abe, S. “Review of Marsha Weidner, ed., Cultural Intersections in Late Imperial Chinese Buddhism.” Journal of Asian Studies 61 (May 2002): 715–16.
  - Abe, S. “Review essay of Lukas Nickel, ed., Return of the Buddha: The Qingzhou Discoveries.” Aribus Asiae 62 (2002): 293–99.
  - Abe, S. K. “Provenance, patronage, and desire: Northern Wei sculpture from Shaanxi province.” Ars Orientalis 31 (December 1, 2001): 1–30.
  - Abe, S. “Review of Stephen Little with Shawn Eichman, Taoism and the Arts of China.” Journal of Chinese Religions 29 (2001): 332–34.
  - Stanley Abe, K. “Tobacco Art: Xu Bing's Tobacco Project.” Duke University Libraries 14, no. 1 (October 2000): 3–7.
- Book Sections
  - Abe, Stanley. “Before Sculpture.” In Towards the Future: Museums and Art History in East Asia, edited by Hiroyuki Suzuki and Akira Akiyama, 50–56. Tokyo: Japanese Committee for CIHA, Comité International de l’Histoire de l’Art and Otsuka Museum of Art, 2020.
  - Abe, S. “Sculpture: A Comparative History.” In Comparativism in Art History, edited by J. Elsner, 94–108. Routledge, 2017.
  - Abe, S., and J. Elsner. “Introduction: Some Stakes of Comparativism.” In Comparativism in Art History, edited by J. Elsner, 1–15. London: Routledge, 2017.
  - Abe, S. “General Munthe’s Sculpture Collection.” In Gifts, edited by Jorunn Haakestad, 42–47. Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum, 2012.
  - Abe, S. “The Modern Moment of Chinese Sculpture.” In Exhibiting Asian Art: Issues and Perspectives, 27–45. National Museum of Korea; Friends of National Museum of Korea, 2011.
  - Abe, S. “Rockefeller Home Decorating and Objects from China.” In Collecting China: The World, China, and a Short History of Collecting, edited by Vimalin Rujivacharakul, 107–23. University of Delaware Press, 2011.
  - Abe, S. “Locating World Art.” In The Migrant’s Time: Rethinking Art History and Diaspora, edited by Saloni Mathur, 130–45. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.
  - Abe, S. “Collecting Chinese Sculpture: Paris, New York, Boston.” In Journeys East: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia, edited by Alan Chong and Noriko Murai, 432–42. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2009.
  - Abe, S. “From Stone to Sculpture: The Alchemy of the Modern.” In Treasures Rediscovered: Chinese Stone Sculpture from the Sackler Collections at Columbia University, 7–16. Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, 2008.
  - Merali, Shaheen, ed. “China, The Buddha, and Modern Aestheticism.” In Re-Imagining Asia: A Thousand Years of Separation, 124–33. Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2008.
  - Abe, S. “To Avoid the Inscrutable: Abstract Expressionism and the "Oriental Mode".” In Discrepant Abstraction, edited by Kobena Mercer, 52–73. MIT Press, 2006.
  - Abe, S. “Xu Bing de zhenshi de yishu 徐冰的真实的艺术 (The Genuine Art of Xu Bing).” In Xu Bing – Yancao Jihua 徐冰 – 烟草计划 (Xu Bing: Tobacco Project), edited by 巫鸿 Wu Hong, 106–114. Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin daxue chubanshe, 2006.
  - Abe, S. “Why Asia Now? Contemporary Asian Art and the Politics of Multiculturalism.” In Shades of Black: Assembling the 80s, A Transatlantic Dialogue on Afro-Asian Arts in Post-War Britain, edited by David A. Bailey, Ian Baucom, and Sonia Boyce, 109–14. Duke University Press, 2005.
  - Abe, S. “Bei Liang shita yu Mogao ku zaoqi san ku de niandai wenti (Northern Liang stone pillars and the dating of the earliest Mogao caves.” In Dunhuang Xue Guoji Yantaohui Wenji , Shiku Kaogu Juan (Collected Works of the 1994 International Conference on Dunhuang Studies, Cave Temple Archaeology Volume), edited by Dunhuang yanjiuyuan Dunhuang research academy, 159–65. Lanzhou: Gansu minzu chubanshe, 2000.
  - Abe, S. “Nanbokucho no dokyo to zokei (Daoist sculpture of the Northern-Southern Dynasties period).” In Sekai Bijutsu Daizenshu, Toyo Hen (New History of World Art: Asia), 3:362–68. Tokyo: Shogakkan, 2000.
  - Abe, S. “Shaanxi sheng de Beiwei diaoke: Laiyuan, zanzhu, yuanwang (Northern Wei Sculpture from Shaanxi Province: Provenance, Patronage, Desire).” In Between Han and Tang: Religious Art and Archaeology in a Transformative Period, edited by Wu Hung, 461–88. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 2000.
  - Abe, S. “Reading the Sky.” In Cross-Cultural Readings of Chineseness, edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, 53–79. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2000.
  - Abe, S. “No Questions, No Answers: China and A Book from the Sky.” In Modern Chinese Literature and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, edited by Rey Chow, 227–50. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000.
  - Abe, S. “Chugoku o miseru (Exhibiting China).” In The Present, and the Discipline of Art History in Japan, edited by Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, 192–206. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1999.
  - Abe, S. “Inside the Wonder House: Buddhist Art and the West.” In Curators of the Buddha, edited by Donald Lopez. University of Chicago, 1995.
Exhibitions, Screenings, & Performances
- Buddhist Sculpture In a New Light | at Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 2002 - 2003
Artistic Works & Non-Print Media
- Exhibits
  - Buddhist Sculpture In a New Light. Creator. 2002
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
- ARTHIST 588S: Sculpture Europe to China 2021
- ARTHIST 724S: Copies and Duplication 2021
- MFAEDA 791: Thesis Writing Workshop 2021
- VMS 588S: Sculpture Europe to China 2021
- ARTHIST 378: Chinese Buddhist Art 2020
- ARTHIST 691: Independent Study 2020
- ARTHIST 778S: Chinese Buddhist Art 2020
- MFAEDA 791: Thesis Writing Workshop 2020
- VMS 378: Chinese Buddhist Art 2020
- VMS 590S: Special Topics in Visual Studies 2020
- ARTHIST 378: Chinese Buddhist Art 2019
- ARTHIST 691: Independent Study 2019
- ARTHIST 724S: Copies and Duplication 2019
- ARTHIST 778S: Chinese Buddhist Art 2019
- MFAEDA 791: Thesis Writing Workshop 2019
- VMS 378: Chinese Buddhist Art 2019
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession
Service to Duke
- Director. MFA in Experiemtal and Documentary Arts. July 2020 - December 2020 2020
- Director of Graduate Studies. Department of Art Art History and Visual Studies. 2020 - 2021 2020 - 2021
- Director of Graduate Studies. Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. 2016 - 2019 2016 - 2019
- Graduate School. Executive Committee of the Graduate Faculty. 2014 - 2016 2014 - 2016
- Director. MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts. 2010 - 2011 2010 - 2011
- Office of the President. University Priorities Committee. 2010 - 2012 2010 - 2012
- Arts & Sciences Council. Executive Committee. 2008 - 2010 2008 - 2010
- Director. Arts of the Moving Image. 2008 - 2012 2008 - 2012
- Arts & Sciences Council. 2007 - 2011 2007 - 2011
- Director of Graduate Studies. Department of Art and Art History. 2002 - 2003 2002 - 2003
- Duke University Press. Editorial Advisory Board. 2002 - 2008 2002 - 2008

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Exhibitions, Screenings, & Performances

Artistic Works & Non-Print Media

Exhibits

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession

Service to Duke