What's Happening in Asian Art...
April 17, 2022
Artist Talk: Wonju Seo, Video Release, Korea Society
Wednesday, April 20, 5pm EDT
In Wonju Seo’s hands, the aesthetics, forms, and techniques of bojagi—traditional Korean wrapping cloths—are reconfigured as abstract textile art for a global audience. Seo combines needlework, painting, photography, and other techniques to create contemplative artworks that explore her transcultural identity and life experience. In this online program, she talks about her career and work.
Wonju Seo's work is currently in the exhibition Travelogue at Korea Society. Born and raised in Seoul and now based in the United States, Wonju Seo is an artist and educator who has won numerous awards and exhibited her art in exhibitions throughout the world. Her works are in several permanent institutions in the U.S. and South Korea.
Read more and register, click here
April 16, 2022
Katsukawa Shunkо (1743-1812), Actor Onoe Matsusuke I as Retired Emperor Sutoku, ca. 1775-1785,
color woodblock print, Clarence Buckingham Collection, 1925.2370
The Golden Age of Kabuki Prints, Art Institute of Chicago
Second rotation: April 16-June 26, 2022
The drama of Kabuki theater was most successfully conveyed in the prints of the Katsukawa School of artists because they captured the individual characteristics of each actor. This exhibition is drawn from the more than 700 Katsukawa School prints in the Art Institute’s collection. Along with the dramatic subject matter, Kabuki theater is characterized by its highly stylized postures, movements, hand gestures, facial expressions, even makeup. All these elements are exaggerated to heighten narrative impact.
Read more, click here
April 15, 2022
Diana Chou has recently joined the Peabody Essex Museum as Consulting Curator.
Diana Y. Chou joined the Peabody Essex Museum earlier this year to serve as the Consulting Curator for Yin Yu Tang. In her role, she is spearheading the development of a new gallery for the 200-year-old house which was built in China and re-erected on PEM’s campus in 2003. Chou is also working with PEM education and civic engagement staff to develop a robust series of public programs related to the house.
Chou previously worked at the San Diego Museum of Art, where she reinstalled multiple galleries for Asian and Islamic Art and curated several special exhibitions on Japanese and Indian art. Chou also held curatorial roles at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum, the Dayton Art Institute, and National Museum of History in Taipei. She previously taught various subjects of Chinese and Asian Art History at the University of California, San Diego; Cleveland State University and John Carroll University.
Chou holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Art History from the University of Kansas. She was a two-time recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institutes Fellowship (Hawaii and India), and was awarded a Museum Network Fellowship from National Museum of Korea and National Central Library, Seoul, South Korea. Her publications primarily focus on collecting tastes and reinterpretations of flowers and animals in East Asian Art. In recent years, Chou has expanded her research interests to include artistic exchanges and adaptations between regions and civilizations, such as the Silk Road, and the transmission of mythical creatures in Asian architecture and design.
Interior courtyard of Yin Yu Tang at PEM.
“Yin Yu Tang” is the name of a house built 200 years ago in the small village of Huang Cun in southeastern China in Anhui province. The owner, a prosperous merchant, was a member of the locally prominent Huang family. The five-bay, two-story residence with 16 bedrooms was typical of its region, built of timber-frame construction, with a tile roof and exterior masonry walls of sandstone and brick. Unused since the 1980s, the house was disassembled and moved to Salem, Massachusetts, where it was rebuilt and installed at PEM as a permanent installation, which opened in 2003. Available for visits, Yin Yu Tang is the only example of historic Chinese vernacular architecture in North America.
To read more about and take a virtual tour of Yin Yu Tang, click here
April 15, 2022
Kunisada (1786-1865), Mitsuuji Viewing Cherry Blossoms in the Yoshiwara Genji-e (detail), 1847-52, woodblock print, courtesy of Art of Japan
At last, spring blossoms are here in New York, and much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere as well. In addition to enjoying real flowers outside, join us this weekend on AWNY's social media sites for a show of Asian works of art that celebrate the spring season. And on Sunday, we will include...bunny rabbits!
To find AWNY on Facebook, click here
And on Instagram, click here
And on Twitter, click here
To learn more about the art works in Saturday's Blossoms post:
•Kunisada (1786-1865), Mitsuuji Viewing Cherry Blossoms in the Yoshiwara
Genji-e (detail), The Art of Japan
•Zhao Mengjian (1199–before 1267), Narcissus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
•Ohara Kōson(1877-1945), Basket with Arranged Flowers, Egenolf Gallery
•Dish with Cherry Blossom and Cloud Design, Hizen Ware, Nabeshima Type, Sebastian Izzard Asian Art
•Huang Shen(1687-ca. 1768/70), Old Man Gazing at Branch of Magnolia in a Vase, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
•Qi Baishi (1863-1957), Wisteria, Christie's
•Polychrome Enamel(Ko-aka-e) Scholar-theme Porcelain Dish, Late Ming dynasty, Kaikodo
•Hanaoka Manshū, Pine and Cherries by Shrine, 1938, Thomsen Gallery
To learn more about Sunday's fluffle of bunnies post:
•Gyokuzan Asahi (1843–1923), Lunar Rabbit Pounding Rice, Yale University Art Gallery
•Unidentified artist (Qing dynasty), Three Rabbits, Metropolitan Museum of Art
•Bronze Figure of a Hare Seated on its Haunches, Tang dynasty, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
•Helmet in the Shape of A Crouching Rabbit, 17th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art
•Panel with Rabbits amid Clouds, late 16th-early 17the century, Metropolitan Museum of Art
•Yabu Chosui (1814-ca. 1870), Portrait of a Rabbit, Art Institute of Chicago
•Crouching Rabbit, green nephrite, Yale University Art Gallery
•Rabbit Shoes, China 20th century, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
April 14, 2022
Gilt Buddha Sakyamuni, 14th century, 10 in.
Roof of the World: Gems of the Guardianship Collection at the Tibet House Gallery
Tibet House US
Last day April 17
This live exhibition features a selection of tangkas, sculptures, and ritual items, including new donations. A part of the THUS mandate is to collect diverse examples of Tibetan sacred, fine, and folk arts, with the hope to ultimately repatriate them to a National Museum in a culturally free Tibet. To this end, the Repatriation Collection was started in 1992. This growing collection is comprised of over 1,000 items: tangkas, bronzes, ritual objects, and folk art. Generous collectors who are deeply concerned about the ultimate disposition of the cultural heritage of the Tibetan people have and continue to thoughtfully give representative examples of the vast and sophisticated repertoire of Tibetan arts.
Also now on view at Tibet house is David Orr: Radiance + Reflection,which integrates two primary bodies of work which evoke interconnection and impermanence: Mandala Lunae, photographs of the moon, repeated and arranged in geometric patterns via digital reflection, and ILLUMINED, a series wherein photographs of sacred manuscripts, texts, and sūtras — from myriad traditions — have been reconfigured into purely visual forms.
Read more, click here
April 13, 2022
Jayashree Chakravarty, Pulsating, 2020-2021, acrylic, oil, audiotape, plant bark, paper and synthetic adhesive on canvas
Be sure to see these three gallery exhibitions before they close soon.
Jayashree Chakravarty: Feeling the Pulse (in the pandemic)
Akar Prakar
ONLINE exhibition - closes April 15th
Seeking parallels between human and nature forms, Jayashree Chakravarty (born 1956) is drawn to the power of the delicate but resilient network of veins/lines that form a sieve to hold the structure of matter together.
Read more, click here
Ken Matsubara, Chaos, 2021, 12-panel screen, natural pigments and minerals on washi paper, sold to the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Chaos to Cosmos: White Road between Two Rivers
Ippodo Gallery
Closes April 14th
This retrospective of Ken Matsubara’s (born 1948) works presents a view of the universe that is magnificent beyond description.
Read more, click here
Bertha Lum (1869-1954), Bamboo Road, woodblock print, ca. 1912
Influencers: Japonisme and Modern Japan Scholten Japanese Art
Closes April 15th
This exhibitions features fine prints and paintings that demonstrate the dialogue between Japan and the West.
Read more, click here
April 12, 2022
Fashion design by Kim Young-Jin, photo by Kim Jung-han, The New York Times, October 19, 2020
As reported this weekend in The New York Times, Korea's traditional clothing style, the hanbok, is currently influencing popular fashion designers and au courant celebrities and performers. Hanbok are trending!
Recently, Korea Society hosted informative online lectures that trace the history of hanbok, explain its multiple components and manner of wearing, and describe its contemporary impact and variations. The two talks were presented by Dr. Minjee Kim, the preeminent scholar of Korean textile and fashion in the U.S., and focused on men's and women's wear. Recordings of these programs are available on Korea Society's website, click here for the women's hanbok program and click here for the men's hanbok program.
Last year Asia Society Korea also offered a multi-part illustrated essay on the history of traditional hanbok that is available to read. For Hanbok Park 1: Origin and History, click here and for Hanbok Part 2: Hanbok in Modern Days, click here.
For The New York Times article One Garment's Journey Through History by Aileen Kwun on April 9, 2022, click here.
April 10, 2022
Blanket from Zhuang Tribal, early 20th century, silk supplementary weft on a fine cotton tabby ground, 45 x 67 in., Collection of Chinalai Tribal Antiques
Auspicious Dreams: Tribal Blankets from Southern China
Charles B. Wang Center Stony Brook University
Exhibition: Ongoing-May 31, 2022
Rescheduled reception and lecture:
Lecture: Tribal Blankets of South China: Power, Protection, & Prestige
Wednesday, April 13, 4pm
Reception: Wednesday, April 13, 5pm
Because of inclement weather, the opening reception and lecture accompanying the current exhibition, Auspicious Dreams: Tribal Blankets from Southern China, has been rescheduled.
The Charles B. Wang Center celebrates precious, rarely seen Chinese textiles, specifically blankets made by South and Southwest Chinese tribes in Auspicious Dreams: Tribal Blankets from Southern China exhibition. Often made with fine materials, exemplary techniques, and unparalleled artistry, these striking textiles convey the unique identities, statuses, and traditions of diverse Chinese tribal groups. Curated by Vichai and Lee Chinalai of Chinalai Tribal Antiques and Jinyoung Jin, director of cultural programs at the Charles B. Wang Center, the treasures in this exhibition take visitors on a remarkable journey across regions and time.
Read more, click here
April 8, 2022
Osumi Yukie (born 1945), Wave Crests, 2008, silver with gold and lead inlay, Bequest of Shirley Z. Johnson, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Sneak Peek—Refined Elements: Japanese Metalwork from the Shirley Z. Johnson Collection
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
Presented by Curator Sol Jung
Online lecture, Tuesday, April 12, 12-12:40pm
The history of Japanese metalworking evolved over two millennia through cultural exchange and internal innovation. Techniques unique to Japan flourished as metalworkers created armaments, Buddhist ornaments, and vessels used in Japanese tea practice. Traditional metalworking survives into the present in works by Japanese studio artists, who have continued to employ time-honored methods while innovating Japanese metalwork design. In this talk, curator Sol Jung examines modern and contemporary Japanese metalwork from the bequest of Shirley Z. Johnson (1940–2021), a distinguished lawyer, philanthropist, and former board member of the National Museum of Asian Art. This bequest focuses primarily on postwar works that represent the rich tradition of Japanese metalworking techniques (such as casting, hammering, soldering, and inlay) through which artists combine and refine silver, gold, copper, and lead to stunning effect.
Sol Jung is the Shirley Z. Johnson Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the National Museum of Asian Art. She specializes in Japanese art history with a focus on how transnational maritime trade impacted Japan’s visual culture during the premodern period. This talk is part of the monthly lunchtime series Sneak Peek: New Research from the National Museum of Asian Art, where staff members present brief, personal perspectives and ongoing research, followed by discussion. In 2022, the series will focus on collecting practices and the collections of the National Museum of Asian Art.
Read more and register, click here
April 6, 2022
An Enameled Porcelain Plaque of Fishermen, Republic period (1912-1949), style of Wang Qi,
15 3/8 x 10 in. (39 x 25.3cm), Estimate: $5,000-7,000, Asian Art Online
Asia Art Online, Bonhams
Los Angeles, April 4-14
Conducted out of the Los Angeles office, Bonhams presently has on offer an online auction of Asian Art. Included in the diverse array of fine Chinese ceramics, jades, scholar's objects, and paintings; Japanese works of art and paintings; and a selection of South and Southeast Asian works of art, are two collections being sold to benefit charities. Proceeds from the sales of items from the collection of Dr. Wallace and Alice Smith of San Francisco will benefit The Panda Fund at Guide Dogs for the Blind, San Rafael, an organization supported by the Smiths' daughter Wallis and from the collection of Richard R. Silverman, a devoted and highly experienced collector of Japanese art, for Brandeis University. Many of the lots from these collections are being sold without reserve.
Read more, click here
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