Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Bard Graduate Center advances the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through its object-centered approach to teaching, research, exhibitions, publications, and events.

At BGC, we study the human past and present through their material expressions. We focus on objects and other material forms—from those valued for their aesthetic elements to the ordinary things used in everyday life.

Our accomplished interdisciplinary faculty inspires and prepares students in our MA and PhD programs for successful careers in academia, museums, and the private sector. We bring equal intellectual rigor to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications, and innovative public programs, and we view all of these integrated elements as vital to our curriculum.

BGC’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street, a gallery at 18 West 86th Street, and a residence hall at 410 West 58th Street. A new collection study center will open at 8 West 86th Street in 2026.

Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center has become the preeminent institute for academic research and exhibition of decorative arts, design history, and material culture. BGC is an accredited unit of Bard College and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

My current research focuses on the art and material culture of the Kitan-Liao dynasty (907-1125) in northern China. I am evaluating a number of extraordinary archaeological finds made during the past 50 years that allow us to see the history of this little-known dynasty in an entirely new light. Other research projects have ranged more broadly across the history of Chinese artifacts and covered topics from early antiquity to the eighteenth century. I have published on China’s antiquarian culture, the history of ornament, and on gold and silver, including a book based on my dissertation, Die Goldschmiede der Tang und Song- Zeit, which examines the formation of the goldsmithing profession in China.

Louis’ Academia.edu Page

Selected Recent Publications

Design by the Book: Chinese Ritual Objects and the Sanli tu. New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2017.

Editor, with Valerie Hansen and Daniel Kane, Perspectives on the Liao. Special issue of Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 43 (2013).

“The Cultured and Martial Prince: Notes on Li Zanhua’s Biographical Record.” In Tenth-Century China and Beyond: Art and Visual Culture in a Multi-Centered Age, edited by Wu Hung, 319-349. Chicago: University of Chicago and Art Media Resources, 2012.

Editor, with Peter N. Miller, Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012.

“Metal Objects on the Belitung Shipwreck” and “Bronze Mirrors.” In Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds, ex. cat., 81–87; 208–215. Sackler Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2010.

“The Hejiacun Rhyton and the Chinese Wine Horn: Intoxicating Rarities and their Antiquarian Legacy.” Artibus Asiae 67, 2 (2007): 201–242.

Selected Courses

526 Arts of China (Decorative Arts of Later Imperial China, 1000–1900)

564 In Focus: Design and Ritual in Imperial China—A Case Study

567 Art and Material Culture of the Tang Period, 618–907: Famen Temple

572 Arts of Song Period China

627 Western Luxuries and Chinese Taste

646 Interiors in China

648 Art and Ornament in Early China

694 Landscape and Rusticity in the Chinese Living Environment

752 Antiquarianism and Archaisms in Chinese Design

761 Design and Material Culture of the Qing Period (1644–1911)

802 The Arts of the Kitan-Liao Empire, 907–1125

820 Chinese Ceramics

827 Issues in the Study of Ancient Art

925 In Focus II: Design and Ritual in Imperial China