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Celebrating Asian Art   

ASIA WEEK

NEW YORK

Yearly Archives: 2021

Meet our new Intern!

January 29, 2021

Sosi Mehren is our new social media coordinator. She has been posting to our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts for a week, and already her fresh approach has boosted Asia Week New York numbers of followers significantly.

From Tucson Arizona, Sosi is a third-year student at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, majoring in Middle East Studies with a focus in Visual Culture. She is especially interested in Mughal Painting and Architecture and will enjoy seeing images from several of our members. She is also studying Arabic, in which she hopes to become fluent, and pursuing this in Jordan is part of that plan once it is again possible to travel.

“My favorite thing so far about Asia Week New York is experiencing the beautiful images that come from the variety of galleries and the depth of expertise across these fascinating areas of study,” said Sosi, who promises to be a valuable addition to our team.

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Tibet House US 34th Annual Benefit Concert

January 28, 2021

One of the longest-running and most renowned live cultural events in New York City, The 34th Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert will return this year for a special virtual edition combining live and pre-recorded segments streaming via Mandolin, the premiere concert livestream platform for artists, venues, and fans. For the first time ever, this year’s concert offers viewers around the world the unique opportunity to experience the warmth, sense of community and amazing music the evening has provided for so many years at Carnegie Hall. Joining esteemed composer and artistic director Philip Glass, who once again curated this year’s line-up, will be Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Flaming Lips, Phoebe Bridgers, Brittany Howard, Valerie June, Angélique Kidjo, Laurie Anderson, Chocolate Genius Inc. , Tessa Thompson, Saori Tsukada, Jesse Paris Smith, Tenzin Choegyal, Rubin Kodheli and many, many more to be announced soon.

Tibet House US is also deeply honored to announce that the concert will begin with a personal video message from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. 

There are few events that stand the test of time, and for more than three decades this annual event has been a standout. For over 33 years, this consistently sold-out concert has assembled some of the most legendary and exciting names in music and art, dazzling concertgoers with its unique mix of surprises and mesmerizing performances.

Tickets for this year’s special virtual concert are on sale now ($25-$250). Also available now are unique sponsor level cyber-tables starting at $5,000.

To Register: https://boxoffice.mandolin.com/pages/tibet-house

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Kyushu University & Yale University Organize Five Day International Symposium Repositioning Japan in the First Global Age (1500-1700)

January 27, 2021

This international symposium explores Japan’s role in the “First Global Age” through a comprehensive and interdisciplinary investigation of its cultural, material, and intellectual production from about 1500 to 1700. The thematic focus lies on transcultural exchange and its related processes, such as shifting taxonomies and iconographies; translation, interpretation, and appropriation; re-evaluation and re-interpretation; and the construction of social biographies of moving objects.

A key goal is to advance the discussion beyond prevalent yet limiting models such as, for instance, a narrowly conceived, bilateral exchange between Iberia and Japan. Instead, this symposium aims to complicate and deepen our understanding of the complex amalgam of actors and trajectories of exchange by exploring the pre-existing cultural, political, and economic spaces of an “East Asian Mediterranean;” transfer routes via South and South-East Asia as well as the Americas; diasporas and hybrid communities; continuities, ruptures, and innovations in the conceptualization of self and other; and processes of mapping, labeling, and appropriation.

Researchers from top institutions around the world and from a wide disciplinary range will convene to bridge the classical humanities (history, art history, literature, religious studies, intellectual history) and history of science (astronomy, cartography). The aim is to find a balance between established and emerging scholars as well as between the academic cultures of Japan, Europe, and the Americas.

This symposium is co-organized and co-funded by Kyushu University’s Faculty of Humanities and Yale University’s Council of East Asian Studies.

Register: https://www.imapkyudai.net/beyond-the-southern-barbarians 

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The Art of Japan at the West Coast Print Fair

January 26, 2021

Kuniyoshi, Beauties admiring the cherry blossoms at Toeizan, 1846-48

The Art of Japan is exhibiting fine Japanese prints in the virtual edition of the West Coast Print Fair from Friday, January 22 to Monday, February 8. www.WestCoastPrintFair.com

46 dealers from the United States, Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom exhibit selections from inventory in the same place at the same time. Browse through over 800 fine prints from old masters to contemporary.

Look for new acquisitions soon at www.theartofjapan.com

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Online video series at China Institute

January 25, 2021

Where does that exquisite De Gournay Chinese-inspired wallpaper originally come from? China, of course—dating back to the 1700s in the workshops of Suzhou. Join us as interiors expert and member of the British National Trust Emile de Bruijn takes us on a journey to examine a woodblock-printed wallpaper from 1750 (which survives in three magnificent British houses), that tells the story of the beginnings of China’s trade with the West, as well as the impact of Chinese design from the 18th century to today.

Emile de Bruijn is one of the world’s leading experts on Chinese Wallpaper. He worked in the Japanese and Chinese departments of the auctioneers Sotheby’s in London before joining the National Trust, where he is now a member of the central collections management team. Emile has lectured and published on many different aspects of chinoiserie in historic houses and gardens. He is the author of Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland (2017), and a co-author of the catalogue Chinese Wallpaper in National Trust Houses (2014).

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ERP1RV9iRHChiOuBq02kEQ 

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Asia Week New York Zooms in on the Allure of Indian Paintings on January 28 at 5pm EST

January 21, 2021

A party of hunters returning to camp, Leaf from the British Library-Chester Beatty Library Akbarnama, Mughal India, 1603-04
9 by 5 in., 22.9 by 12.7 cm., painting; Image courtesy Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd.

New York: Continuing its lively series of virtual panel discussions, Asia Week New York is delighted to present Tales in Connoisseurship: Appreciating Indian Painting with an all-star panel of specialists including Brendan Lynch, co-director of London-based Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd., Marika Sardar, PhD, Curator, The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, and collector Gursharan Sidhu, PhD. These renowned experts will reveal their personal journeys of connoisseurship within the rich and wonderful world of Indian paintings. The presentation will be held on Thursday, January 28 at 5:00 p.m. (EST), 2:00 p.m. (PST). To reserve, visit: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ksNoWmVSRzagAi5UYrouCg

Says moderator Anu Ghosh-Mazumdar, Senior Vice President & Head of the Indian & Southeast Asian Art Department at Sotheby’s: “Any collecting category requires three lynchpins to thrive and survive – the collector, the curator and the dealer. We are excited to host this panel which brings together these three key elements, showcasing the synergy of interest, curiosity, discipline, scholarship and commerce in forging connoisseurship.”

About the Experts:
Anu Ghosh-Mazumdar has been with Sotheby’s since 2003 and was appointed Head of the Sotheby’s Indian & Southeast Asian Art department in 2011. A specialist for both Classical as well as Modern Indian art, she plays a key role in securing major consignments for Sotheby’s sales of Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art and Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art held in Asia, Europe and the United States. Landmark sales of Indian and Himalayan art for which she recently provided her expertise include: Indian paintings from the Estate of Dr. Claus Virch (2015 & 2016), The Richard R. and Magdalena Ernst Collection of Himalayan Art (2018), and most recently an historic collection of Mughal and Ottoman textiles from the Estate of H. Peter Stern, co-founder of the Storm King Art Center (2020). Ms. Ghosh-Mazumdar has lectured widely on the South Asian art market at both private and public international forums.

Brendan Lynch is a London-based dealer in Indian and Islamic Art. He spent twenty years at Sotheby’s, working in London and New York, and left in 1997 as Director of the Islamic and Indian Art Department. In 1998 he set up, with former colleague Oliver Forge, an art consultancy dealing and acting as agents in Indian and Islamic Art and Art of the Ancient World. The company has exhibited Indian Court Paintings annually at Asia Week New York since 2009.

Gursharan S. Sidhu holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Madras) and Stanford University. After a long career in academia and the technology sector at Apple Inc. and Microsoft, he now focuses on his lifelong passion for the arts of India. Currently, Sidhu is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Art Museum, as well as on the Acquisitions Committee of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Board of Trustees of the Museum for Art and Photography (MAP), in Bengaluru. He served as co-chairman of the Board of the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC. He and his wife collect traditional and vernacular paintings from India and art from Mexico.

Marika Sardar is Curator at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. She previously worked at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her major exhibitions include: Interwoven Globe (2013), focusing on the worldwide textile trade from the 16th-18th century; Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1750 (2015), examining the artistic traditions of the Muslim sultanates of central India; and Epic Tales from Ancient India (2016), looking at narrative traditions and the illustration of texts from South Asia. Ms. Sardar, along with John Seyller and Audrey Truschke, has recently published the Mughal-era Persian-language manuscript of the Ramayana in the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art.

About Asia Week New York
The collaboration of top-tier international Asian art galleries, the six major auction houses, Bonhams, Christie’s, Doyle, Heritage Auctions, iGavel, and Sotheby’s, and numerous museums and Asian cultural institutions, Asia Week New York is a week-long celebration filled with a non-stop schedule of simultaneous gallery open houses, Asian art auctions as well as numerous museum exhibitions, lectures, and special events. Participants from Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, and the United States unveil an extraordinary array of museum-quality treasures from China, India, the Himalayas, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, and Korea.

Asia Week New York Association, Inc. is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade membership organization registered with the state of New York. For more information visit www.AsiaWeekNewYork.com @asiaweekny #asiaweekny

About Songtsam, Presenting Sponsor
Founded by Baima Duoji, in 2000, the Songtsam Group is the only collection of luxury Tibetan-style retreats found across the Tibetan Plateau that offers guests sophisticated elegance, refined design, modern amenities, and unobtrusive service in places of natural beauty and cultural interest. With his long-standing and strong interest in Chinese, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian art, Mr. Baima started collecting art long before he established his first hotel, Songtsam Lodge Shangri-La, which is located next to the famous Songzanlin Monastery in Shangri-La. Many of the properties across the Tibetan plateau are decorated with Mr. Baima’s personal collection, with each hotel acting as a private art museum. For more information, visit www.songtsam.com.

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Upcoming Exhibition at the Worcester Museum of Art

Artist unknown, Kosode with Overturned Flask Design, Mid to late 17th century, Edo period, 1603-1868, kanoko shibori tie-dyeing and ink on white figured satin

From February 6 to May 2, 2021, the Worcester Art Museum will present The Kimono in Print: 300 Years of Japanese Design, the first show devoted to examining the kimono as a major source of inspiration and experimentation in Japanese print culture, from the Edo period (1603–1868) to the Meiji period.

Over the course of three hundred years, Japanese print artists such as Nishikawa Sukenobu, Okumura Masanobu, Kitagawa Utamaro, and Hashiguchi Goyō documented ever-evolving trends in fashion, popularized certain styles of dress, and even designed kimono. Modern design books and prints from the early 20th century, inspired by or made for kimono, by such pioneering figures as Kamisaka Sekka, Tsuda Seifū, and the Mavo art collective will demonstrate how the boundaries between print and textile fashion and design became more fluid.

The exhibition will feature a one-of-a-kind, contemporary wedding kimono specially commissioned by the Worcester Art Museum from Chiso, the prestigious 466-year-old Kyoto-based garment maker. Presenting ten different themes inspired by Chiso's kimono, the virtual exhibition, Kimono Couture: The Beauty of Chiso, on the museum's website, unveils a theme a week over the ten weeks leading up to the opening of The Kimono in Print.

View the exhibition here

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Zoom presentation of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

January 20, 2021

Chinese, Bottle and Stand, 1736–98, ceramic with gold filigree, turquoise, and lapis lazuli, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, bequest of Charlene Quitter Thompson.

Quest for Gold
Chinese Artifacts from Hepu to Houston
A presentation of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston via Zoom
Thursday, January 21 at 6:30 PM (Central Standard Time)

Join special guest, Dr. Sarah Laursen, the Alan J. Dworsky Associate Curator of Chinese Art, Harvard Art Museums, and the MFAH Asian art department for a scintillating conversation about exquisite gold artworks from ancient China and beyond. This program will share broad perspectives on gold’s craftsmanship and usage in the ancient world, as well as the history of collecting, studying, and displaying it in the West.

Before joining the Harvard Art Museums, Dr. Laursen curated Lost Luxuries: Ancient Chinese Gold (2020) at Middlebury College Museum of Art. Dr. Laursen has lectured extensively using new approaches to studying ancient gold and will share the latest insights from the field with the MFAH audience.

To attend this Zoom session click HERE at 6:30PM CST on January, 21st (https://zoom.us/j/99104530639)

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Online video series at China Institute

January 19, 2021

Sancai (三彩), Chinese pottery with green, brown/amber, and off-white glaze, is a craft perfected during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) – think of the iconic Tang Dynasty horse. But is it really Chinese, or did it come from Europe or Central Asia? Yale curator Denise Leidy will share her favorite Sancai pieces and talk about the “madly cosmopolitan” Tang Dynasty, which is often referred to as China’s Golden Age.

Denise Patry Leidy is one of the world’s leading curators of Asian art. She is the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art and head of the Department of Asian Art at Yale University. Previously, she served as the Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as curator at the Asia Society and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Denise has curated exhibitions such as Global by Design: Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection (2016), Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom (2013), Red and Black: Chinese Lacquer from the 13th to the 16th Century (2012), and Hidden Treasure of Afghanistan (2009). Her publications include How to Read Chinese Ceramics (2015), Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2010), and The Art of Buddhism: An Introduction to Its History and Meaning (2009).

To register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Vb-aWr8VTj6mlbVux3aZEg

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Thomsen Gallery at the Winter Show 2021
January 22-31
Online only

January 18, 2021

Shigaraki Jar, Stoneware with natural ash glaze, Muromachi period (1333-1573), 15th-16th century
H 18½ x W 16¼ x D 16 in.

Thomsen Gallery will present select works of Japanese art from the 6th century to the present, including folding screens and hanging scroll paintings, gold lacquer boxes, signed bamboo ikebana baskets, tea ceramics, and contemporary porcelain sculptures by Sueharu Fukami.

A highlight among the screens is Autumn Flowers by the Kyoto School, a six-panel screen painted in ink and mineral colors on paper with gold leaf from the 19th century. Additional folding screens date from the Edo period and the Showa era also focus on seasonal motifs.

The gold-lacquer boxes included in the show are writing boxes, tea caddies, and document boxes dating from the Taisho through Heisei eras. Standing out is a tea caddy with the bold design of stretched dried abalone, an auspicious betrothal symbol in Japan, by the ninth-generation lacquer artist Nishimura Hikobei of Kyoto.

Among the bamboo ikebana baskets are works by the famous first generation basket makers Tanabe Chikuunsai I and Maeda Chikubosai I, as well as works by later artists, such as Tanaka Kosai. Early ceramics from the 6th through the 16th centuries are contrasted by iconographic porcelain sculptures by the contemporary ceramic artist Sueharu Fukami.

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