Celebrating Asian Art

March 9-May 31, 2023
The Charles B. Wang Center celebrates the extraordinary beauty and intricate craftsmanship of Japanese bamboo baskets with a new generation of Japanese artists who produce functional, sculptural, and refined baskets with their individual sensibility and creativity. Twenty-seven baskets on display reflect the longstanding basket-weaving traditions and transformation of Japanese basketry with advanced plaiting skills and experimentation with new shapes. All works are on loan from TAI Modern.

Special Programs
In person lecture: Listening to Bamboo by Rob Coffland
Friday, March 24, 4pm
followed by a reception at 5pm

Workshops:
Weaving Workshop by Heechan Kim, Friday March 31, 3pm
Playing with Cable Ties by Sui Park, Saturday, April 29, 1pm

Charles B. Wang Center Main Lobby

Again is a typographical mural by Brooklyn-based artist Seongmin Ahn, expressing her manifesto of overcoming the global COVID-19 pandemic. The mural is a cross-cultural exchange and community bonds, and it incorporates both Eastern and Western styles, motifs, ornaments, and symbols. The ornamented images celebrates "the beginning of a prosperous future again" in various languages, including Korean, English, Spanish, Chinese, and Hindi.

The mural has been installed in various communities in New York City, including the neighborhood of Corona, Queens, an area that was hit hard by COVID-19.

Charles B. Wang Center Theatre Gallery

White, flat, dreamlike spaces, serving as thresholds between the inner, subjective self and the external, physical world, were a subject that fascinated the South Korea-based project group GREEM (a name that literally translates to “picture” in Korean). GREEM’s goal is to elicit feelings of strangeness, difference, curiosity, and fun in its audiences. Following a long and rich Surrealist tradition, GREEM draws inspiration from dreamlike narratives, absurd juxtapositions, and comic books for new graphic languages.

A huge, flattened, and cartoon-like artist’s studio in white and black is open, inviting viewers to live out their surrealistic fantasies. The realistic detailing of the artist’s studio also adds touches of humor, utility, and everyday-ness. As soon as the viewer enters the studio (which is carefully modeled and gives the illusion of a three-dimensional form), surrealistic dreams are triggered; the white, flat scene and the viewer’s point of view are disrupted.

The current exhibition is designed to be reproduced and seen on social media as much as it is meant to be enjoyed in its actual location. This imaginative exhibition crosses perspective, culture, and media.

Curated by Jinyoung Jin, Director of Cultural Programs at the Charles B. Wang Center, this exhibition is designed and presented by Project Group GREEM, based in Seoul, South Korea.

The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan: [De]Colonialism, Orientalism, and Imagining Asia
In person lecture, March 20, 2:30-4pm
Ayelet Zohar will discuss the camel in Japanese art and visual culture, from early depictions in the Nara period to Edo era, until the first living pair arrived in Japan in 1821.

Miss Hokusai
In person film screening, March 31, 6:30pm
Miss Hokusai is a movie based on the Japanese manga series of the same name by Hinako Sugiura. It tells the story of O-Ei Katsushika, an artist who worked in the shadow of her father, the revered painter Hokusai.