COTA Receives First NEA Grant

	Fu Dao/Fu Dao: Upside-down Buddha/Arrival at Good Fortune was shown at the Center for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu, Japan in 1997.
	A Hanging/Detaching World included 99 objects hanging in a burnt forest Pourriere, France in 1990.
	Round Table was created for the celebration of the United Nations’ fiftieth anniversary and was installed outside U.N. headquarters in Geneva.

The College of the Arts recently was notified that it will receive its first grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The $10,000 grant was successfully solicited by KSU Director of Galleries Roberta Griffin and Associate Professor of Theatre Ming Chen to support an art exhibition of works by the late Chen Zhen.

The Zhen exhibition, "Merging East and West: Cross-Cultural Installations of Chen Zhen," will be presented in spring 2006 as part of Kennesaw State's celebration of "The Year of China." A Chinese-born artist who grew up during the infamous Cultural Revolution, Zhen emigrated to Paris in 1986 to pursue his dream of integrating traditional Chinese philosophy with western practices. Before his death in 2000, Zhen had earned worldwide recognition for weaving complex political, economic, social and cultural issues into the "open architectures" of his works. Although his work has been shown throughout the world, the KSU exhibition will be the first time it has been seen in the southeastern United States.

"The Year of China provides the perfect opportunity to introduce audiences in the southeastern United States to the cross-cultural installations of this important and innovative contemporary artist," said Ming Chen, who knew the artist and who has been selected as his official biographer by his family.

The NEA grant will enable the KSU Art Galleries to present several lectures during the exhibition, including talks by Zhen's former assistant, Antoine Guerrero, and Chinese art critic Hou Hanru. Griffin and Chen now are seeking additional support from the Georgia Humanities Council for this very special exhibition.