Asian Art Calendar of Events

Friday, July 01, 2022

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Conservation in Action: Japanese Buddhist Sculpture in a New Light
Place: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Boston, 465 Huntington Avenue, Massachusetts, USA
Date: Dec 15, 2020 to Jul 03, 2022
Detail: A rare, behind-the-scenes look at the conservation of seven Buddhist sculptures.

Visitors are invited to watch as objects conservators study and treat seven Japanese Buddhist sculptures in a public conservation studio. The wooden figures—images of worship depicting Buddhas, Guardian Kings, and a Wisdom King—are decorated with polychromy or gilding and date from the 9th to the 12th centuries. The conservation project occupies an entire gallery in the Museum, allowing visitors to observe the techniques employed by objects conservators as they carefully clean the sculptures and secure areas of loose paint, lacquer, and gilding. The sculptures have been relocated from the Museum's beloved Japanese Buddhist Temple Room, where they normally reside, enabling museum-goers to see the objects in a new setting for the first time in decades. Also on exhibit are three sculptures from storage that serve as points of comparison to exemplify different sculptural techniques, styles, and states of preservation.

The public studio also provides a space for conservators and curators to look closely at the sculptures in collaboration with the Museum's research scientists, identifying the original artists' materials, documenting early restorations, and working with wood anatomists in Japan to confirm the wood identifications. When the project is complete, the sculptures will return to the refurbished Japanese Buddhist Temple Room.

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Masterworks: A Journey through Himalayan Art
Place: The Rubin Museum of Art - New York, 150 West 17th St., USA
Date: Jan 29, 2021 to Jan 08, 2024
Detail: Masterworks: A Journey through Himalayan Art explores major strands in the development of art from the Himalayan region covering a period of more than one thousand years, with objects drawn primarily from the Rubin Museum’s collection.

Masterworks is organized geographically and chronologically, showcasing the diverse regional traditions of Tibet in relation to the neighboring areas of Eastern India, Kashmir, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Mongolia. Juxtaposing the art of Himalayan regions over time sheds light on the geographic, historical, religious, and artistic interrelationships among these cultures.

This ongoing exhibition reflects our evolving understanding of the relatively young field of Himalayan art. Masterworks is regularly updated as new art objects and texts come to light, reflecting the latest developments in the field. The current iteration features several loans from the Zhiguan Museum of Fine Art, which brings further depth to the themes and extraordinary craftsmanship demonstrated throughout the exhibition.

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Bodhisattvas of Wisdom, Compassion, and Power
Place: The Met Fifth Avenue - New York, 1000 Fifth Avenue, USA
Date: Mar 27, 2021 to Oct 16, 2022
Detail: Within the Buddhist traditions of the Himalayas, three bodhisattvas emerge as personifications of Buddhist ideals. Manjushri, who cuts through ignorance and personifies correct knowledge; Avalokiteshvara, a compassionate protector of the devout that helps reveal the true nature of reality; and Vajrapani as the embodiment of the energy of enlightenment. Focusing on dramatic images, a worshipper could first evoke the subtle knowledge that Manjushri personifies, then with Avalokiteshvara’s aid, it is possible to proceed in a way free from self-imposed delusions, while Vajrapani’s transcendent power aids in destroying jealousy and hatred that stand in the way of enlightenment. Venerating these three bodhisattvas together has a long history, and they play an essential role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. This exhibition draws together a dramatic group of paintings, sculptures, ritual objects, and illustrated manuscripts from the eleventh to eighteenth centuries, made primarily for Nepal and Tibet’s monastic institutions. Beautifully cast sculptures and accessible paintings showing peaceful manifestations of the bodhisattvas intended for the public are juxtaposed with complex tantric images of the highest quality done in portable media made for monastic elites. Vajrayana images offered powerful ways to access these bodhisattvas as a personal path to enlightenment, though often undertaking such rituals was done with a ruler’s sponsorship for the people’s benefit. This exhibition presents some of the sublime representations of these three bodhisattvas at the center of this great devotional tradition embraced across the Himalayas.

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Fit to Print: The Dawn of Journalism in Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Lavenberg and Michels Collections
Place: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon - Eugene, OR, 1430 Johnson Lane, USA
Date: Jul 31, 2021 to Jul 03, 2022
Detail: In the mid-nineteenth century, Japan’s Tokugawa military regime was in decline. News about political and social events that would previously have been censored began to flood the publication industry during the twilight of the Edo period (1615-1868). With the establishment of the Meiji period (1868-1912), one of the new imperial government’s major modernization efforts was to encourage Western-style journalists to cover, comment, and even critique and satirize, domestic and international events. Japanese writers and artists embraced new media, including newspapers, political cartoons, and comic strips published using intaglio and lithographic technologies that were faster and more economical than labor-intensive traditional woodblock prints. Those involved in the earlier woodblock industry struggled to keep up with the times and began to cultivate new genres such as “brocade newspapers” (shinbun nishiki-e), “civilization pictures” (kaika-e) and propaganda prints depicting the Sino-Japanese (1894-95) and Russo-Japanese (1904-05) warfronts.

This exhibition explores Meiji-period news and reportage in the context of both its Japanese precursors and contemporaneous journalism in other print media. Co-curated by Art History Professor Akiko Walley, East Asian Languages and Literatures Professor Glynne Walley, and Chief Curator Anne Rose Kitagawa, it features more than 30 loans from two remarkably rich local resources, the Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints, and the Lee & Mary Jean Michels Collection, along with works from the UO Library’s Special Collections and the museum’s permanent collection.
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Companions in Solitude: Reclusion and Communion in Chinese Art
Place: The Met Fifth Avenue - New York, 1000 Fifth Avenue, USA
Date: Jul 31, 2021 to Aug 14, 2022
Detail: This exhibition will explore the twin themes of solitude and togetherness in Chinese art. For more than two thousand years, reclusion—removing oneself from society—has been presented as the ideal condition for mental cultivation and transcending worldly troubles. At the same time, communion with like-minded people has been celebrated as essential to the human experience. This choice, to be alone or to be together, has been central to the lives of thinkers and artists, and Chinese art abounds with images of figures who pursued both paths—as well as those who wove them together in complex and surprising ways. Companions in Solitude, presented in two rotations, will bring together more than 120 works of painting, calligraphy, and decorative arts that illuminate this choice—depictions of why and how people have sought space from the world or attempted to bridge the divide between themselves and others. In the wake of 2020, a year that has isolated us physically but connected us virtually in unprecedented ways, this exploration of premodern Chinese reclusion and communion will invite meditation on the fracture and facture of human connection in our own time.

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Humble Spirit / Priceless Art
Place: Mingei International Museum - San Diego, Balboa Park, 1439 El Prado, USA
Date: Sep 03, 2021 to Jul 04, 2022
Detail: HUMBLE SPIRIT / PRICELESS ART shines a light on the humblest of materials—clay, straw, paper, cotton, tin—and objects not typically associated with luxury or ostentation. These works were created from everyday found materials, but are nevertheless full of spirit, beauty and delight, upending our traditional thinking about what art is.

This exhibition will include Japanese brushes, Mexican combs and kites from India, among other Museum treasures. Many of the objects in this exhibition were made by persons, who were, no doubt, respected members of their communities, whose names are no longer known to us. This exhibition honors each of them and all the unknown craftspeople of the past and present whose imagination, skill and creativity continue to greatly enrich our lives.
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Art of the People for the People
Place: Mingei International Museum - San Diego, Balboa Park, 1439 El Prado, USA
Date: Sep 03, 2021 to Sep 03, 2022
Detail: An installation of objects from the Museum's collection intended to spark creativity, imagination and joy.
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Folding Into Space: Japanese Design and Crafts
Place: Seattle Art Museum - Seattle, 1400 East Prospect Street, USA
Date: Sep 18, 2021 to Sep 25, 2022
Detail: Creating three-dimensional objects by folding, layering, and weaving two-dimensional materials is a core concept in Japanese design and crafts. Focused on these three techniques, this installation presents objects from the museum's permanent collection and private holdings, ranging from textiles and paintings to ceramics and bamboo baskets.

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The Three Perfections: Image, Poem, and Calligraphy in Chinese Painting
Place: Minneapolis Institute of Art - Minneapolis, 2400 Third Avenue South, Minnesota, USA
Date: Dec 18, 2021 to Dec 04, 2022
Detail: Western viewers are often curious about why Chinese artists write on their paintings and what the characters say. This exhibition answers such questions and explores the idea of integrating fine painting, poetry, and calligraphy, known as the “Three Perfections,” in a single artwork.

In traditional China, painting was regarded as “silent poetry,” and poetry as “painting with sound.” Both could only be manifested through the “art of handwriting”—calligraphy. Scholars and scholar-artists used calligraphic brushstrokes in their paintings and considered their artworks to be vehicles of self-expression. As a result, painting was not only considered the only art pure and lyrical enough to stand on an equal footing with poetry and contemplative thought, but also something through which one could experience sight, sound, smell, touch, and emotions.

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Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time
Place: Seattle Asian Art Museum - Seattle, 1400 East Prospect Street, USA
Date: Jan 14, 2022 to Jul 10, 2022
Detail: Spanning a period from the third millennium BCE to today, the works in this exhibition offer transformational and compelling images of the human body. Most of the artists depict the female body, using the form in myriad ways: as an object of veneration, as a mode of self-representation, and to question the safety of public spaces.

Within the canon of South Asian art, a typical and potent subject is Devi, the great goddess who holds immeasurable sacrality and strength. In modern and contemporary art, South Asian-identified artists have reacted against traditional norms and challenged gender, national, and social stereotypes. Some have reoriented the exemplary and fierce model of the goddess. Others have attended to new subjects, selecting everyday townspeople—such as fisherwomen and local schoolgirls—to be the protagonists of their work.

Each of the artists in the exhibition invest the human body with the power to question social, political, and normative fictions. By doing so, they invite you to explore the complexities of the human body: to contemplate and question which bodies are conferred with greater degrees of humanity and perhaps to imagine, with the artists, different ways to embody change.

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Falcons: The Art of the Hunt
Place: Smithsonian Institution - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave SW, USA
Date: Jan 15, 2022 to Jul 17, 2022
Detail: Swift, fierce, and loyal, falcons have been celebrated for their exceptional qualities for millennia. In ancient Egypt, they were closely associated with Horus, the god of the heavens. By the early eighth-century in Syria, falcons were groomed and trained to become skillful hunters at the royal courts. The art of falconry soon spread across the rest of the Islamic world and as far as China. It is still practiced in many societies today, especially in the Arab world. A selection of paintings and objects from ancient Egypt to China offer a glimpse into the fascinating world of falcons.
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Strike a Pose: Kabuki Theater Prints from the Dominique H. Vasseur Collection
Place: Allen Memorial Art Museum - Oberlin, 87 North Main Street, Ohio, USA
Date: Jan 18, 2022 to Jul 17, 2022
Detail: Strike a Pose features more than 20 color woodblock prints by two Japanese masters of the art: Utagawa Kunisada I (later Utagawa Tokokuni III) and Toyohara Kunichika. All are promised gifts from Oberlin College alumnus Dominique H. Vasseur ’73. The prints were made in part as advertisements for kabuki plays, capturing moments of high drama and the often exaggerated poses known as mie 見ㄸ. Kabuki arose from the vibrant popular culture of the Edo period (1603–1868) and performances combined the spectacle of a grand opera with the excitement of a Hollywood blockbuster, entertaining audiences in Japan from the 1600s to today.
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Celebrating the Year of the Tiger
Place: The Met Fifth Avenue - New York, 1000 Fifth Avenue, USA
Date: Jan 29, 2022 to Jan 17, 2023
Detail: The traditional East Asian lunar calendar consists of a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year corresponding to one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The association of these creatures with the Chinese calendar began in the third century B.C. and became firmly established by the first century A.D. The twelve animals are, in sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Each is believed to embody certain traits that are manifested in the personalities of people born in that year. February 1, 2022, marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, a creature characterized as brave, heroic, resolute, and vigorous.
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Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits
Place: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts - Richmond, 200 N. Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Virginia, USA
Date: Feb 19, 2022 to Oct 16, 2022
Detail: Explore the captivating paintings and sculptures of Nepalese-born Tibetan American artist Tsherin Sherpa. This thought-provoking, participatory art experience is presented in the form of a narrative telling a story of loss, struggle, and re-empowerment. Last seen at VMFA in the 2019 exhibition Awaken: A Tibetan Buddhist Journey Toward Enlightenment, Sherpa’s groundbreaking artwork continues to garner international acclaim. This focused mid-career retrospective is the global artist’s first solo museum exhibition.

Tsherin Sherpa’s works are grounded in the traditional Buddhist art of his training but stretch, bend, reconfigure, and repurpose its forms to explore contemporary concerns. The exhibition’s 36 paintings and sculptures trace the evolution of his “Spirits” series whose subjects resemble Tibetan Buddhist deities transformed by the modern world. Dislocated from their home—an experience familiar to the artist and communities all over the world—these figures move from grief and confusion, to courage and self-assurance, to triumph and wisdom. In their multiple manifestations, the Spirits reveal the power and endurance of transformation.

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Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan
Place: Smithsonian Institution - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave. SW, USA
Date: Feb 26, 2022 to Jul 24, 2022
Detail: This exhibition showcases the breadth of the museum’s medieval Zen collections, highlighting rare and striking works from Japan and China to illustrate the visual, spiritual, and philosophical power of Zen. Rooted in the culture of medieval Japan, the lessons of Zen have become an important part of contemporary American life, as applicable today as they were in premodern times.

Monastic Zen painting in medieval Japan (ca. 1200–1600) is one of the great artistic traditions of East Asia and of the world. The abbreviated, seemingly impromptu paintings in monochrome ink have influenced artists and enthusiasts for centuries. Many of the most accomplished artists of this era—Mokuan, Ryōzen, Shūbun, Sesshū, Sesson, and many others—were Zen monks credited by later generations as the creators of a unique and remarkable legacy of ink painting. Indeed, Zen monk-painters inspired a number of the most important professional painting lineages of Japan’s early modern period (ca. 1600–1868) and formed a thematic backbone of Japanese art and cultural identity in modern times.

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Underdogs and Antiheroes: Japanese Prints from the Moskowitz Collection
Place: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery - Smithsonian Institution - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave., SW, USA
Date: Mar 19, 2022 to Jan 29, 2023
Detail: Expect the unexpected. The exhibition Underdogs and Antiheroes: Japanese Prints from the Moskowitz Collection focuses on the captivating stories and urban legends of individuals living on the fringes of society in early modern Japan. Key subjects in theater, literature, and visual arts reveal antiheroes and underdogs whose virtues are often embodied by their rejection of societal norms, making them misfits and moral exemplars at the same time. The exhibition will follow virtuous bandits, tattooed firemen who love to fight, rogues from the kabuki theater, and others.

Highlighting the transformative gift of the Pearl and Seymour Moskowitz Collection to the National Museum of Asian Art, Underdogs and Antiheroes features subjects that are not commonly associated with traditional Japanese print culture but were nevertheless central to the interests of an early modern public. The exhibition will explore new visual and thematic ground, further strengthening the museum’s trailblazing role in reconsidering presentations of Asian cultures.
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Samurai Splendor: Sword Fittings from Edo Japan
Place: The Met Fifth Avenue - New York, 1000 Fifth Avenue, USA
Date: Mar 21, 2022 to Mar 31, 2024
Detail: After almost a century and a half of near-constant civil war and political upheaval, Japan unified under a new ruling family, the Tokugawa, in the early 1600s. Their reign lasted for more than 250 years, in an era referred to as the Edo period, after the town of Edo (present-day Tokyo) that became the new capital of Japan. The Tokugawa regime brought economic growth, prolonged peace, and widespread enjoyment of the arts and culture. The administration also imposed strict class separation and rigid regulations for all. As a result, the ruling class—with the shogun as governing military official, the daimyo as local feudal lords, and the samurai as their retainers—had only a few ways to display personal taste in public. Fittings and accessories for their swords, which were an indispensable symbol of power and authority, became a critical means of self-expression and a focal point of artistic creation.

This installation explores the luxurious aspects of Edo-period sword fashion, a fascinating form of arms and armor rarely featured in exhibitions outside Japan. It presents a selection of exquisite sword mountings, fittings, and related objects, including maker’s sketchbooks—all drawn from The Met collection and many rarely or never exhibited before.
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Japan’s Floating World
Place: The Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, 11150 East Boulevard, Ohio, USA
Date: Apr 08, 2022 to Oct 09, 2022
Detail: A significant share of paintings, prints, and decorative arts made in Japan from the mid-1700s to mid-1800s captured artists’ responses to urban sex and entertainment districts unofficially known as the ukiyo (浮世), or “floating world.” Ukiyo-e (浮世絵), or “pictures of the floating world,” inspired by these exceptional spaces and their occupants, eschewed the grim realities of sex work, instead marketing beauty, celebrity, pleasure, and fashion, often in combination with allusions to famous literature or historical episodes. The term “ukiyo” was repurposed in the late 1600s from its much older use in Buddhism, where it described human frailty in the face of constant change. The new floating world, designed as an escape from the constraints of daily life for male government servants, thrived on ephemeral experiences and suggested a kaleidoscope of enjoyable possibilities. In addition to paintings, prints of courtesans and musicians vie with those of Kabuki actors and a sumo wrestler for attention in the spring installation (April 8–July 10), while prints of boating parties on the Sumida River feature in the summer installation (July 12–October 9). The exhibition also presents a feminist work by Oda Mayumi (b. 1941) rooted in the ukiyo-e tradition.
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Seeing Gender
Place: Asian Art Museum - San Francisco, 200 Larkin St., USA
Date: Apr 12, 2022 to Sep 05, 2022
Detail: Look at the museum collection through a new lens with Seeing Gender, a focused selection that reveals the complexities and nuances of gender across Asian art.
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Creating Urgency: Modern and Contemporary Korean Art
Place: The Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, 11150 East Boulevard, Ohio, USA
Date: Apr 22, 2022 to Oct 23, 2022
Detail: Creating Urgency: Modern and Contemporary Korean Art sparks a stimulating discussion about contemporary Korean artists and their expressive language of defining diasporic artistic identities. Korean-born French painter Ungno Lee (1904–1989) reimagined traditional Korean ink painting and its conventional methods through his exploration of Art Informel (French Abstract Expressionist approaches of the 1940s and ’50s). Berlin-based Korean artist Haegue Yang (b. 1971), on the other hand, invites the audience to critically explore issues of identity, migration, and displacement. The selected works on display share each Korean artist’s experiences and challenges in the global art scene.
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Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain
Place: National Museum of Asian Art - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave SW, USA
Date: Apr 30, 2022 to Sep 17, 2022
Detail: Revealing Krishna transports visitors to a sacred mountain in the floodplains of southern Cambodia. The exhibition showcases a monumental sculpture of the Hindu god Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan to protect his people from a torrential storm sent by an angry god. For the first time, the sculpture is explored in the context of its original environment, as part of a multi-religious landscape and quite literally built into a mountain. This larger than life-size sculpture is one of eight monumental deity figures recovered from cave temples on the two-peaked mountain of Phnom Da near the ancient metropolis of Angkor Borei. The exhibition tells the life story of this sculptural masterpiece—spanning 1,500 years and three continents—and unveils the newly restored Krishna in an exhibition that integrates art, immersive video installations, and interactive design.

The exhibition includes an original short film directed by renowned Cambodian American film maker PraCh Ly. Titled Satook, a word of blessing spoken at the end of Cambodian prayers, the film examines the role of ancient sacred sites in present-day religious landscapes, and the transformation of religious traditions in Cambodian American diaspora communities.

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Japanese Design: Rinpa
Place: The Honolulu Museum of Art - Honolulu, 900 South Beretania Street, Hawaii, USA
Date: May 05, 2022 to Oct 09, 2022
Detail: This exhibition explores the profound influence that Japanese design has had on international aesthetics. Compositional features such as asymmetry, innovative color combinations, contrasting patterns and semi-abstraction can be found across artistic movements and historical periods, but arguably their most perfect expression is in the Rinpa tradition.
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Beyond the Wall
Place: Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens - Delray Beach, 4000 Morikami Park Road, Florida, USA
Date: May 07, 2022 to Sep 25, 2022
Detail: The United States is a nation comprised of immigrants who arrived with dreams of finding a better life for themselves and their families. For centuries, distinct ethnic customs introduced by these immigrants intermingled, creating unique urban and rural enclaves around the country. These cultural spheres are constantly evolving as new immigrants arrive and subsequent generations are born, inheriting the traditions, language, and customs from the countries left behind while absorbing those of their adopted home. Asian immigrants have played an integral role in building this nation in all facets of life, including agriculture, business, medicine, technology, and the arts. Yet, these communities are often still viewed through a lens of stereotype, cliché, and myth.

Beyond the Wall features the work of five dynamic contemporary artists of Japanese and Asian American descent who explore their cultural heritage and individual identities through the powerful, large-scale medium of the mural. The artists’ integration of Eastern aesthetics or concepts into a Western world construct reveals a greatly expanded identity narrative. In this compelling exhibition, we discover their unique story and voice.
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Escaping to a Better World: Eccentrics and Immortals in Chinese Art
Place: The Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, 11150 East Boulevard, Ohio, USA
Date: May 13, 2022 to Nov 06, 2022
Detail: In times of a pandemic, migration crises, and frequent natural and humanitarian disasters, the theme of “Escaping to a Better World” may resonate with many of us. In fact, this idea has long been part of China’s culture, embedded in the country’s religious and philosophical thinking. China’s legendary eccentrics and immortals often exhibit unconventional appearances and behaviors, expressing supernatural power and a rejection of everyday norms. By doing this, they embody the longing for an ideal world.

This installation presents paintings, porcelain, and metalwork, all mediums in which these popular figures and their stories were depicted throughout the ages, including today.
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Earthly Delights: 6,000 Years of Asian Ceramics
Place: Harvard Art Museums - Cambridge, 32 Quincy Street, Massachusetts, USA
Date: May 21, 2022 to Aug 14, 2022
Detail: Don’t miss this rare opportunity to explore highlights from the Harvard Art Museums’ collection of Asian ceramics. Anchored by standout works from Korea and China, and also featuring objects from Vietnam and Japan, the exhibition emphasizes how visual, material, and technical features varied across time and place—while also drawing connections among potters working in disparate contexts.

Made between the 5th millennium BCE and the 21st century, the over 100 works in the exhibition display a wide range of techniques used by potters to channel the intense heat of the kiln. These potters, whose identities have largely not been recorded, used ceramic wares to capture the essence of East Asian cultures during their lifetimes. A selection of objects in the exhibition depicting animals and observations of the natural world provides one important window into this relationship between artists and their milieus.
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Once Upon a Roof: Vanished Korean Architecture
Place: National Museum of Asian Art - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave SW, USA
Date: May 21, 2022 to Oct 30, 2022
Detail: Roof tiles made of fired clay are key elements of traditional Korean architecture. They not only protected wooden structures from the weather; they also carried aesthetic value and symbolic meaning. One special type of ornamented roof tile is the focus of this exhibition. Called chimi in Korea, these impressive features crowned both ends of the main roof ridge of prominent buildings. In addition to protecting and embellishing building peaks, they were believed to ward off evil.

While the ancient wood frame buildings they adorned are long gone, clay roof tiles, including chimi, have survived more than one thousand years. This exhibition features three chimi unearthed from the sites of two Buddhist temples and one palace complex dating to the Three Kingdoms (Baekje) and Unified Silla periods. Also included are round roof tile ends excavated at the same sites. Together, these artifacts reveal hidden stories of the ancient architecture of Korea.

Most of these works have never been exhibited outside Korea.
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Asian Treasures from The Billings Collection
Place: McCausland Gallery, Whaling Museum - Nantucket, 13 Broad Street, Massachusetts, USA
Date: May 28, 2022 to Nov 01, 2022
Detail: The exhibition draws from the collection that longtime Nantucket residents and world travelers David Billings and Beverly Hall Billings have assembled over 50 years. It all started with a book, and two pieces of Asian art David Billings received as a gift, and now their collection includes 4,000 artifacts. The items in the collection elucidate political, economic, and religious events and, at the same time, present enormous aesthetic appeal. Most illustrate significant Chinese innovations and discoveries over the millennia.

Featuring paintings, textiles, bronzes, and jade items. However, ceramics will predominate, including some of the earliest known pieces of earthenware from 5,000 BCE and porcelain, which dates from the Qing Dynasty, the last Imperial Chinese Dynasty.

The exhibit will also include a scholar’s table featuring items an ancient Chinese scholar might have used to contemplate and write, a Japanese Buddhist household shrine, and robes from the imperial court. While the Billings collection concentrates on China, additional pieces will appear from India, Burma, Tibet, Korea, and Japan.

Among the many objects that will captivate visitors is a pair of exquisite gold finials inlaid with rare kingfisher feathers, a selection of Chinese snuff bottles, Tibetan and tea ceremony objects, a large Butsudan shrine, a Jin Rickshaw, and a wonderfully articulated diorama of a Peking opera. A Jade burial body suit cleverly concealed will round out this exceptional exhibition.
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Kimono Style: The John C. Weber Collection
Place: The Met Fifth Avenue - New York, 1000 Fifth Avenue, USA
Date: Jun 07, 2022 to Feb 20, 2023
Detail: This exhibition will trace the transformation of the kimono from the late Edo period (1615–1868) through the early 20th century, as the T-shaped garment was adapted to suit the lifestyle of modern Japanese women. It will feature a remarkable selection of works from the renowned John C. Weber Collection of Japanese art that explore the mutual artistic exchanges between the kimono and Western fashion, as well as highlights from The Costume Institute’s collection.
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Scholars and Ancestors: Traditional Functions of Portraiture in China and Korea
Place: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College - Oberlin, 87 North Main Street, Ohio, USA
Date: Jun 09, 2022 to Dec 23, 2022
Detail: Portraits are powerful images. We seem to feel an immediate connection with the people we see in them, even if they lived long ago or far away. Despite this sense of familiarity, prior to the 20th century in the elite cultures of China and Korea portraits were thought of very differently than in Europe or the Americas. People considered portraits private things; viewing them was usually reserved for family or others with close ties. And unlike landscape paintings or calligraphy, which were considered high forms of art, portraits were seen as functional art, produced by anonymous painters in professional studios.

Three traditional functions of portraiture in East Asia are represented here: religious, memorial, and documentary. In China—from the 11th century until photographs all but replaced them in the 20th century—painted portraits were commissioned by families who could afford them for tombs or domestic religious use. In Korea from the late 17th through the 19th centuries, academies that trained government officials displayed portraits of famous graduates and associates in shrines. Finally, in both China and Korea, groups of prominent scholars and officials were sometimes documented in small, bust-length portraits that included their names and titles and were collected in albums.
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New Directions: Abstract Prints by Yoshida Toshi
Place: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College - Oberlin, 87 North Main Street, Ohio, USA
Date: Jul 27, 2022 to Dec 23, 2022
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Life Full of Changes: Kenji Nakahashi
Place: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College - Oberlin, 87 North Main Street, Ohio, USA
Date: Jul 27, 2022 to Dec 23, 2022
Detail: How can we characterize the art of Kenji Nakahashi (1947–2017)? Playful? Conceptual? Observational? Abstract? Ironic? All of these terms and more apply to the artist’s diverse work. This exhibition brings together photographs, prints, drawings, and one painting, which represent Nakahashi’s career from the early 1970s through the 1990s. Through this collection—donated anonymously to the museum last year—we can see, even in the earliest works, his mastery of varied techniques and styles combined with a unique artistic voice.

Born and educated in Japan, Nakahashi moved to New York City in 1973 at the age of 26 after a short period working as a designer and illustrator. His artistic career in the United States proceeded largely on his own terms. He avoided commercial galleries and worked directly with curators at museums across the U.S., where his work is now widely represented.

Nakahashi is best known for photography, an art in which he was largely self-taught. His photographs of everyday objects, moments, or settings reveal the often overlooked beauty, geometry, and even humor around us. Will seeing the world through Kenji Nakahashi’s eyes help you to find the remarkable in the unremarkable?
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Text and Image in Southern Asia
Place: The Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, 11150 East Boulevard, Ohio, USA
Date: Aug 26, 2022 to Mar 05, 2023
Detail: The Cleveland Museum of Art is home to a collection of illuminated Buddhist and Jain manuscript pages, many of which were recently identified and dated by Phyllis Granoff, Lex Hixon Professor Emerita of World Religions at Yale University. This exhibition is dedicated to her work for the museum and is in celebration of her recent retirement. On view are palm-leaf manuscript pages reunited after having been separated, many with colophons providing new information about when and for whom they were made. The installation includes Buddhist manuscripts from the 1100s and shows the development of Jain manuscript painting from the 1200s to 1500s, alongside paintings of how they were used and vintage photographs of sites where they were kept. Small-scale sculptures in stone and gold from the same regions and periods are three-dimensional versions of imagery painted in miniature on the manuscript pages. Illuminated with narrative scenes, depictions of monks, donors, celestials, and enlightened or liberated beings, the exquisite works from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Myanmar (Burma) reveal a surprising diversity of literary sources. The exhibition explores the relationship between the images and the content of the text, adding to a broader understanding of medieval South Asian manuscripts.
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A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur
Place: Smithsonian Institution - Washington, 1050 Independence Ave. SW, USA
Date: Nov 19, 2022 to May 14, 2023
Detail: Around 1700, artists in Udaipur (a court in northwest India) began creating immersive paintings that conveyed the mood (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes, and mountains. These large paintings and their emphasis on lived experience have never been the focus of an exhibition.

With dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—A Splendid Land reveals how artists conveyed emotions, depicted places, celebrated water resources, and fostered personal bonds over some two hundred years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia.

The exhibition is organized as a journey that begins at Udaipur’s center and continues outward: first to the city, then to the countryside, and finally to the cosmos. A soundscape by the renowned filmmaker Amit Dutta invites contemporary audiences to sense–and not just see—the moods of these extraordinary places and paintings.

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur will also be on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Summer 2022.

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China through the Magnifying Glass: Masterpieces in Miniature and Detail
Place: The Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, 11150 East Boulevard, Ohio, USA
Date: Dec 11, 2022 to Feb 26, 2023
Detail: Objects in miniature have mesmerized people of all cultures throughout the ages. The CMA’s Chinese collection has an extraordinarily large number of high-quality small-scale objects and miniatures from various dynasties. This exhibition focuses on China and explores the role and function of miniatures and small-scale masterpieces of craftsmanship. About 80 objects dating from ancient times to the 1800s will be presented according to their respective use and function in themed sections: “Accessories and Ornaments,” “Objects of Ritual and Devotion,” “Luxury and Pride in Craftmanship,” “the Scholar’s Desk,” and “Toys, Boys, and Games.” These themes question each object’s function and role in society as a way of achieving a better understanding of China’s culture and history, as well as miniatures worldwide.
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Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing
Place: Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Los Angeles, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., USA
Date: Apr 09, 2023 to Jul 16, 2023
Detail: In the work of American artist Sam Francis (1923–1994), Western and Eastern aesthetics engage in a profound intercultural dialogue. Francis first traveled to Japan in 1957, developing a lifelong affinity for Japanese art and culture that influenced his work. His expressive handling of negative space shared pictorial and philosophical affinities with aspects of East Asian aesthetics, particularly the Japanese concept of “ma,” the dynamic between form and non-form. With over 60 works from LACMA’s collection and key lenders, this is the first exhibition to explore the artist’s work in relation to “ma” and other aspects of Japanese aesthetics. It will include works by Francis in the company of historic Japanese works to illustrate stylistic priorities shared by both. Also on view are works of contemporary Japanese artists (many associated with Gutai and Mono-Ha) whom Francis knew from his extensive time in Japan in the 1960s and ’70s.
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Europe & Africa

USA & Canada | Asia

Vision of a Moment - Japanese Prints 1950-1960
Place: Ashmolean Museum - Oxford, Beaumont Street, United Kingdom
Date: Jan 28, 2022 to Sep 18, 2022
Detail: In 1961 the Japanese government presented the Ashmolean Museum with a set of forty works by Japan’s leading contemporary print artists. The gift was part of a cultural exchange between the UK and Japan, and also celebrated the establishment of a new Eastern Art Department in the museum.

This exhibition commemorates the 60th anniversary of this extraordinary gift and of the founding of the Eastern Art Department. It includes a range of abstract and figurative works, including woodblock prints, mezzotints and lithographs – all examples of sōsaku hanga ‘Creative Prints’, made by artists who embraced modernist ideals of artistic self-expression.
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Shin hanga. New prints from Japan
Place: Japanmuseum SieboldHuis - Leiden, Rapenburg 19, Netherlands
Date: Jun 17, 2022 to Sep 11, 2022
Detail: From 17 June to 11 September 2022, Japan Museum SieboldHuis will exhibit the new prints of Japan in ‘Shin hanga’. This exhibition presents an impressive overview of 20th century print art with top pieces from private collections. Shin hanga (new prints) can be seen as the ‘re-discovery’ of traditional print art, but in a new form. Over one hundred and thirty works in this exhibition are characterized by technical perfection and exceptional quality.
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Asia

USA & Canada | Europe & Africa

The Door to Japanese Art
Place: Tokyo National Museum - Tokyo, 13-9 Ueno Park, Taito-ku, Japan
Date: Apr 01, 2022 to Mar 31, 2023
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Itaya Hazan －A New World of Ceramics Transcending Space and Time
Place: Idemitsu Museum of Arts - Tokyo, 9th Floor, Teigeki Bldg., 3-1-1,Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Japan
Date: Jun 18, 2022 to Aug 21, 2022
Detail: In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Itaya Hazan (real name: Kashichi, 1872-1963), who is known as one of the pioneers of modern ceramic art, the Museum will present a retrospective exhibition featuring his life and works. In addition to experimenting sculptural patterns and various underglaze techniques, Hazan was an early adopter of the Art Nouveau style popular in Europe at the time and created new expressions of design in Japanese ceramics. He also studied ancient Chinese ceramics, producing his original celadon and white porcelain works. In this exhibition, we will introduce the everlasting charm of Hazan’s art through the transition of his works.
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All about Sengai
Place: Idemitsu Museum of Arts - Tokyo, 9th Floor, Teigeki Bldg., 3-1-1,Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Japan
Date: Sep 03, 2022 to Oct 16, 2022
Detail: Sengai (1750-1837) was a zen monk active in Hakata (present-day Fukuoka), Kyūshū during the Edo period. From the Museum’s vast collection, this exhibition features representative works such as “Hotei (Budai) Pointing at the Moon”, “The Universe”, “The Willow”, “Mazu and Linji” and still many others, making this the definitive and ultimate exhibition of Sengai. It will be a show in which you will be able to encounter Sengai’s paintings and calligraphy, to feel his stoic yet heart-warming messages, and to also discover his real image. We hope this exhibition will satisfy not only Sengai enthusiasts but also the beginners, hoping to meet the expectations of every fan.
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Intertwining Beauty and Creation - Interinfluence in Ceramic Art of East and West
Place: Idemitsu Museum of Arts - Tokyo, 9th Floor, Teigeki Bldg., 3-1-1,Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Japan
Date: Oct 29, 2022 to Dec 18, 2022
Detail: Rich in variety, the ceramics have enriched people’s lives with their unique forms and exotic designs. Not only are they rooted in the local cultures and climates, but they have also created fascinating cultures as people from Asia and Europe have interacted and been attracted to each other’s beautiful decorations and techniques. This exhibition invites all to the world of the beauty of ceramics born through the exchange between the East and West throughout the ancient to modern times, including Japanese, Chinese, Islamic ceramics, Meissen and Sèvres porcelain, as well as works of artists like Tomimoto Kenkichi (1886-1963) and Itaya Hazan (1872-1963).
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The Splendor of Edo Painting - Part I: Itō Jakuchū and Edo Painting
Place: Idemitsu Museum of Arts - Tokyo, 9th Floor, Teigeki Bldg., 3-1-1,Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Japan
Date: Jan 07, 2023 to Feb 12, 2023
Detail: The works collected by American collectors of Japanese art, Etsuko and Joe Price (Price Foundation) have been added to the Museum’s collection. This exhibition features works by Itō Jakuchū (1716-1800) and Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-95) who vividly colored the Kyoto art world in the 18th century as well as paintings by Sakai Hōitsu (1761-1828) who led the Edo Rimpa school. The exhibition will be held in two parts. The Edo period was a time of great prosperity in the history of Japanese painting with these prominent painters competing against each other. We hope you will enjoy the brilliant world of the gorgeous paintings by the master artists of the time.
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The Splendor of Edo Painting - Part II: Kyoto art world and Edo Rimpa
Place: Idemitsu Museum of Arts - Tokyo, 9th Floor, Teigeki Bldg., 3-1-1,Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Japan
Date: Feb 21, 2023 to Mar 26, 2023
Detail: The works collected by American collectors of Japanese art, Etsuko and Joe Price (Price Foundation) have been added to the Museum’s collection. This exhibition features works by Itō Jakuchū (1716-1800) and Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-95) who vividly colored the Kyoto art world in the 18th century as well as paintings by Sakai Hōitsu (1761-1828) who led the Edo Rimpa school. The exhibition will be held in two parts. The Edo period was a time of great prosperity in the history of Japanese painting with these prominent painters competing against each other. We hope you will enjoy the brilliant world of the gorgeous paintings by the master artists of the time.
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Fairs

Europe & Africa

USA & Canada | Asia

Asian Art in London Summer Event
Place: London - London, United Kingdom
Date: Jun 29, 2022 to Jul 02, 2022
Detail: As part of the celebrations for Asian Art in London’s milestone 25th edition, we are delighted to host the inaugural Asian Art in London Summer Event. Taking place during London’s wonderful summer season, from Wednesday 29th June to Saturday 2nd July, collectors and visitors can enjoy exhibitions, a packed talk schedule and a themed art trail all focused on the very best Asian art that London has to offer.
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Exhibition Private

USA & Canada

Europe & Africa | Asia

Oki Toshie
Place: TAI Modern - Santa Fe, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, New Mexico, USA
Date: Jun 24, 2022 to Jul 23, 2022
Detail: OPENING RECEPTION: June 24, 5-7pm
VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK: June 25, 3pm
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2022 Honma Hideaki
Place: TAI Modern - Santa Fe, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, New Mexico, USA
Date: Jul 29, 2022 to Aug 27, 2022
Detail: OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, July 29, 5-7pm
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Auctions

Europe & Africa

USA & Canada | Asia

Art d'Asie
Place: Christie's - Paris, 9 Avenue Matignon, USA
Date: Jul 06, 2022
Detail: Christie’s Art d’Asie auction in Paris features a curated selection of works from private European collections spanning more than 3000 years of Asian art. The sale showcases Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain from several private European collections, jade carvings, cloisonné enamels, lacquer and classical and modern Chinese paintings. Highlights include a rare imperial cinnabar and ochre lacquer ‘dragon’ circular box and cover from the 15th century, an important pair of zitan cabinets from the Qianlong reign, a very nice flambé-glazed vase with an impressed Qianlong mark and of the period and a green-ground Famille rose vase from the Daoguang reign. We will also present another part of the Galerie Duchange collection including porcelains, Buddhist art and scholar’s objects as well as an important selection of imperial porcelain, lacquer boxes and cloisonné enamels from a French private collection never offered on the market before.
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