About Meredith Martin
New York, New York
Meredith Martin (CBA ’21) is associate professor of art history at New York University and the Institute of Fine Arts. A specialist in French art and architecture from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, she is the author of Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de’ Medici to Marie-Antoinette (Harvard University Press, 2011), and most recently, with Gillian Weiss, The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV’s France (forthcoming from Getty Research Institute Publications). She is currently working on an exhibition on the 1720 Mississippi and South Sea bubbles with The New York Public Library, and a study of porcelain rooms from the seventeenth century to the present. Dr. Martin is a founding editor of Journal18.
Reviving the Ballet des Porcelaines
At CBA, Dr. Martin researched, wrote about, and organized a restaging of the Ballet des Porcelaines. In its own time, the original ballet exemplified a European fascination with Asia and an interchangeability between persons and things. Performed today, it brings alive the magic and mystery of eighteenth-century porcelain for contemporary audiences, particularly when placed in dialogue with porcelain displays in museum settings. She and her collaborator, Phil Chan of Final Bow for Yellowface, premiered their restaging of Ballet des Porcelaines in December 2022 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with New York City Ballet soloists Daniel Applebaum and Georgina Pazcoguin performing the roles of the prince and princess, while Broadway star Tyler Hanes portrayed the porcelain collector. Watch their discussion of the project here.
Gallery
