Kamoda Shōji (1933-1983), Jar (detail), 1971, stoneware with red and green painted glazes, 4 ½ x 6 1/2 in.

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Kamada Shōji: The Art of Change
December 11, 2021-April 17, 2022

Kamoda Shōji (1933–1983) became one of Japan’s most celebrated potters. His groundbreaking approach to the interplay among material, form, and surface helped revolutionize the way Japanese artists approached ceramic production. Inquisitive, thoughtful, and tireless, Kamoda was driven to innovate and experiment. His astonishing output and creativity garnered him a considerable following in Japan, and more recently in the United States. Despite his untimely death at the age of 49, this admiration continues today. This exhibition, the first outside of Japan, features nearly 50 works from 10 private American collections and spans the breadth of his brilliant artistic career.

Read more, click here

Wonsook Kim, Walking the Dry Land III, 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in.

Dreams of Nature
November 11, 2021-January 29, 2022

This exhibition includes paintings by Woonsook Kim and ceramics by Geejo Lee, who are both Korean artists.

Wonsook Kim creates story-based figurative paintings that are poetic and ethereal in their fluid execution and mythical subject matter. She accepts that calligraphy has a clear influence on her work because she grew up surrounded by images of this type. Kim’s artworks are the result of her lifetime experiences in Korea and the United States. The highlight among her recent paintings is Walking the Dry Land III from the series The Wilderness (Gwang-ya) paintings.

Geejo Lee, Moon Jar, 2020, white porcelain, 19 1/8 in. high

Geejo Lee was born on Jeju Island. He received both his BA and MA from Seoul National University. In his pieces, Lee is fully absorbed with interpreting the unique aesthetics of Joseon white porcelain. This Moon Jar, dated 2020, is one of the best works from his series of moon jars.

Read more, click here

Anonymous, Quail, Sparrows, and Millet, early 16th century, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk,
32 5/16×13 5/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Japan: A History of Style, 3rd Rotation, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Closing this weekend, last day Sunday, December 5, 2021

This exhibition celebrates how gifts and acquisitions of the last decade have transformed The Met’s ability to narrate the story of Japanese art by both expanding and deepening the range of remarkable artworks that can meaningfully elucidate the past. Each of the ten rooms that make up the Arts of Japan Galleries features a distinct genre, school, or style, representing an array of works in nearly every medium, from ancient times to the present. Highlights include the debut of a spectacular group of contemporary metalwork by Living National Treasures and emerging artists.

Read more, click here

While at the Met, be sure to see as part of this rotation and before it closes, too, the works from artist and collector Paul Binnie's completed series, A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo. The prints, which the Met acquired from Scholten Japanese Art in 2017, are brilliantly displayed side-by-side with stunning examples of ukiyo-e masterpieces that inspired Binnie's compositions—in a way that very few museums would have the ability to do.

Read more, click here

Masatoshi (sign.), Recumbent Hare with Raised Forepaw, c. 1880, ivory and buffalo horn, de Waal Family Collection

The Hare with Amber Eyes Exhibition at the Jewish Museum
November 19, 2021-May 15, 2022

The Hare with Amber Eyes tells the story of the Ephrussi family—celebrated in the 2010 memoir and The New York Times bestseller of the same name by Edmund de Waal—and showcases the breadth and depth of their illustrious collection. The exhibition explores the family’s rise to prominence and splendor in the first half of the nineteenth century, followed by a focus on the prolific collector and historian of art, Charles Ephrussi, to the inter-war years, and finally World War II, when the family lost its fortune and collection to Nazi looting.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is the extraordinary collection of Japanese netsuke, miniature carved sculptures of the Edo Period (17th-19th centuries), hidden by a maid from German officials in her mattress during World War II, and later returned to the family after the war. Also on display are items from the Ephrussi’s collections, including artworks by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Gustave Moreau, and Auguste Renoir, among others; decorative objects; and family photos and ephemera from their lives across four continents. The most recent member of the family to inherit the netsuke collection, author and ceramicist Edmund de Waal, drew from them the inspiration for his memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes, continuing the family’s storied legacy of artistic and cultural pursuits.

Read more, click here

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Dragon head Kannon (The Great Picture Book of Everything), 1820s-40s, ink on paper. Purchase funded by the Theresia Gerda Buch Bequest, in memory of her parents, Rudolf and Julie Buch, with support from Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation). © The Trustees of the British Museum

Hokusai: A Curatorial Perspective
Zoom Webinar, Wednesday, December 1, 5pm EST

JASA (Japanese Art Society of America) welcomes you to join their exciting and informative series of presentations about this year's several superb exhibitions focusing on the master artist Hokusai. A wonderful show at the National Museum of Asian Art focuses on the collection of Hokusai drawings, paintings and screens collected by its founder, Charles Lang Freer. Across the Atlantic, the British Museum features a much-anticipated exhibition of drawings by Hokusai. Other museum curators have turned their attention to new publications. This webinar offers an opportunity to hear four expert curators and specialists speak about their perspective on connoisseurship of Hokusai drawings, prints and paintings.

The presentations are:
Frank Feltens, Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art, National Gallery of Asian Art, Visualizing Thunder: Hokusai’s Thunder God
Alfred Haft, JTI Project Curator for Japanese Collection, British Museum, Hokusai’s Illustrations for The Great Picture Book of Everything
Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, To Wave or not to Wave: Variations in Hokusai's Fuji Prints
Sarah Thompson, Curator of Japanese Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Drawings by Hokusai and His Pupils at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

To register for this program, click here

Read more, click here

Kenji Wakasugi, Sanctuary (detail), 2021, photograph of washi mounted screen, 23 5/8 x 33 1/2 in.

Synthesis II Exhibition: “Adore” Madonna and Fusuma
Photography by Kenji Wakasugi
December 3, 2021-January 11, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday, December 3, 5-8pm
Book Signing: Saturday, December 4, 3-5pm
Ippodo Gallery, 32 E. 67th St., 3rd Floor, New York
Tuesday-Friday, 10am-6pm and Saturday, 11am-5:30pm

A sequel to Synthesis, Wakasugi’s inaugural exhibition at Ippodo Gallery in 2016, Synthesis II highlights the artist’s exploration of photography inspired by traditional ink-painting. The show will also feature individual prints and a limited second edition publication of the photo book ADORE from his 1985 photoshoot with Madonna, published by Nick Groarke, NJG Studio in London.

Juxtaposed to works emphasizing traditional styles and architecture are Wakasugi’s images of Madonna, demonstrating a vivid sense of modernity and nostalgia for the late 20th century. Taken during a 45-minute photoshoot, Wakasugi captures the then 27-year old Madonna promoting her album Like A Virgin wearing clothes by Jean Paul Gaultier, as well as numerous crucifixes and rosaries. Transcending typical fashion photography, Wakasugi’s portraiture focuses on Madonna’s facial expressions and gestures to reveal the superstar’s stunning sincerity.

Wakasugi uses an array of modern and traditional techniques, such as digital manipulation and the application of gold leaf and his ink-wash painting or calligraphy, to further alter his photography. Emphasizing his range of styles and influences, Wakasugi mounts his paintings using Western-style framing and hanging scrolls or fusuma sliding doors.

For more information, click here

Kenji Wakasugi, Madonna_14, 2021, Photography, Small (Edition 15), 22 x 17 in.