Email:  xenia.piech@uzh.ch

The female image in Modern China; women photographers, photographs of women and photographic self-fashioning in global perspectives; Chinese Visual Culture in the late 19th and early 20th Century

Xenia Piëch (Tetmajer von Przerwa 梅瑞婷) has worked at the intersection of Chinese art, photography and international audiences for more than two decades – as China desk editor of “ArtAsiaPacific” in Beijing, as regular contributor to “Yishu Magazine”, as co-editor of the survey volume “Young Chinese Artists – The Next Generation” (Prestel, 2008) and as a speaker on Chinese contemporary art for institutions including the Rietberg Museum and the World Economic Forum. Her doctoral research turns her long engagement with the contemporary image toward its historical origins: the moment in the late Qing Dynasty when photographs of women first entered China’s public realm.

PhD Project: “Before the New Woman: Photography and the Entrance of the Female Image into China’s Public Realm, ca. 1900 – 1917” (working title)

The dissertation investigates the formative period (ca. 1900-1917) during which the photographed woman became a public figure in China. Drawing on studio portraiture of courtesans, the palace photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the reformist self-imaging of Qiu Jin, photographs of China’s suffragettes and modern educated elite in the early women’s press, and the description of photography in late Qing fiction, it reconstructs the visual repertoire that the Republican ‘New Woman’ of the 1920s and 1930s later drew upon. A transnational strand furthermore compares these images with contemporaneous developments in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the United States and Japan, thus asking how far China’s early female image participated in a globally connected moment of women’s photographic visibility.
 

Proficient: German, English & Mandarin
Advanced: French
 

•    PhD Candidate, East Asian Art History, University of Zurich (current)

•    MA History of Art & Archaeology, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2002

•    MA Chinese Studies, SOAS, University of London, 1999

•    BA (Hons) Chinese and Economics, SOAS, University of London, 1998
 

•    Member, Board of Directors, Ladanyi Verein, Switzerland, since 2022

•    Mandate ‘Concept Country Programme China’, Swiss Cultural Council (Pro Helvetia), Beijing, 2007

•    Project Internship, “Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China” [travelling exhibition], Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2005

•    China Desk Editor, “ArtAsiaPacific”, Beijing, 2003-2007

•    Research Assistant, Lyonel Feininger Catalogue Raisonné, Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York, 2002

•    Class and Research Assistant, Prof. Jonathan Hay, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, New York, 2001-2

•    Trainee, Graduate Training Programme, Chinese Art Department, Christie’s, New York, 1999 – 2000
 

•    ‘Reminiscences’, Interview with Lorenz Helbling, in "The Crocodile in the Pond’” (exhibition catalogue), 2016 

•    ‘Zeng Fanzhi’ in Peter Achten, "Abschied von China", Stämpfli Verlag, 2016


•    ‘Ein paar Gedanken zur Künstlerin Xing Danwen’ in Peter Achten, "Weisser Lotus", Reinhardt Verlag, 2012

•    Christoph Noe, Xenia Piëch and Cordelia Steiner (eds.), "Young Chinese Artists – The Next Generation”, Prestel: Munich and New York, 2008

•    ‘Sammler, Fallschirm-Kuratoren und Diskurse: Chinesische Gegenwartskunst in
der Schweiz’ in “Passagen", Nr. 39 (Sommer), 2005

•    ‘Zhang Linhai’s World: A Sphere of Emotional Intensity’ in "Zhang Linhai” (exhibition catalogue), Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong, 2005 

•    ‘Eine Gegenwart, zwei Systeme’ in “Springerin", Band X, Heft 3, Herbst 2004 

•    ‘Eccentric Notes of Dissent: The Art of Zhu Wei’ in "Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art", Summer Issue, September 2004

•    ‘New Chinese Photography?’ in "Chinese Eyes: Contemporary Photography from China"(exhibition catalogue), Goedhuis Contemporary, New York, 2004 

•    ‘Yu Hong’s Witness to Growth: Historic Determination and Individual Contingency’ in "Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art", Fall Issue, September 2003
 

•    'Chinas moderne Frau im Spiegel der Fotografie’ (Lecture, Hybrid), Ladanyi Verein, University of Zurich, June 2022

•    'Traveling Images: Circulating Photographs, Objects, Knowledge’ at “Photography and China’s Early Emancipation Movement” (Workshop, Co-Organizer & Speaker), University of Zurich, October 2017

•    'Photography and Early Experimental Women Artists in Mainland China’ (Lecture) at Colloqium "Routes and Paths – Knowledge Transfer in Asia", University of Zürich, April 2017

•    'Out of Focus? Fotografie und Künstlerinnen in China’ (Lecture) & 'Kunst in der Volksrepublik China - globale Bedeutung und zukünftige Entwicklung“ (Panel Discussion) at "Changing China: New Perspectives on Contemporary Art" (Conference), UBS Arts Forum Wolfsberg, November 2007

•    "Art Rising“ (Panel Moderator) at "Inaugural Annual Meeting of New Champions" (Conference), World Economic Forum, Dalian, China, September 2007

•    'China’s Gegenwartskunst: Der lange Marsch von Kuriosität zu internationalem Ruhm’ (Lecture), Museum Rietberg, Zürich, August 2005
 

Association for Chinese Art History

Association of Asian Studies

European Association of Asian Studies

European Association for Asian Art and Archeology

Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China

Kulturarchiv Oberengagin

Photography Network

Royal Asiatic Society Beijing (Founding Member)