Summer Kimono (Hito-e) with Swirls, 1920s-30s, printed gauze-weave (ro) silk with twisted wefts, Promised gift of John C. Weber, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kimono Style: The John C. Weber Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Concludes February 20, 2023

This popular exhibition traces 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.

Surface Trend, 2019, Photo: Mary InHea Kang/Courtesy of CFGNY

Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga
Japan Society
Concludes February 19, 2023

Refashioning: CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga is the first show devoted to the art of contemporary fashion at Japan Society. The exhibition explores the work of CFGNY and Wataru Tominaga, two emerging fashion labels that engage with the intersections between fashion, art, and identity. Featuring garments, accessories, and textile-related works, the exhibition examines the ways in which these two practices—one based in New York, and the other in Tokyo—experiment with artistic mediums beyond conventional forms of dress, while challenging preconceived notions of gender and identity.

Manjushri, West Tibet, 12th century, copper alloy and natural pigment, 20 in. Current Donor: Private West Coast collection, Formerly: Tamashige Collection, Japan

New Donations to the Tibet House US Repatriation Collection
Tibet House US
February 14-April 10, 2023

This large sculpture of Manjusri comes from Western Tibet, where the artists drew from Kashmiri examples and pulled iconographic elements from this style of sculpture, however it also includes some obvious representation of a parting from the Kashmiri style. By the 11th century, Western Tibetan rulers had brought over many Kashmiri artists and works of art in order to create images for newly-established Tibetan Buddhist temples in west Tibet.

Drawn from the artistic legacy of medieval Kashmir, as known from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, is one of extraordinary creativity. Much of what is preserved was produced in the service of Hinduism and Buddhism. A seminal moment in Tibetan Buddhist art can be seen in the late eighth century, when Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet and founded the Nyingma order, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism. With him came the first wave of external influence, from Kashmir. This wonderful sculpture is highly representative of the Kashmiri style that flourished under the Karkota kings and made its way into Western Tibet at the early stages of artistic development there.

Murase Myōdō, Breaking Waves in the Pines, late 1900s, hanging scroll, ink on paper, Denver Art Museum: Gift of Drs. John Fong and Colin Johnstone, 2018.155

Symposium: Gender and Voice in Japanese Art,
Denver Art Museum
Online and in person, February 25, 2023, 9am–4pm

The Denver Art Museum is pleased to host a one-day international symposium in conjunction with the exhibition, er Brush: Japanese Women Artists from the Fong-Johnstone Collection. Scholars and specialists from various disciplines will add to the discourse on approaches and methodologies in the study, connoisseurship, and exhibition of Japanese art through the lens of gender, agency, and artistic voice.

This event is fully supported by the generous gift of The William Sharpless Jackson, Jr. Endowment for the Advancement of Asian Art and Culture.

The symposium will be conducted in person in Sturm Grand Pavilion (Martin Building, Level 2) as well as virtually via Zoom. It is free to attend but registration is required.

Speakers:
•Paul Berry, Independent scholar and former professor at Kansai Gaidai University and University of Washington (Kyoto, Japan)
•Patricia Fister, Professor Emeritus, International Research Center for Japanese Studies Director of Research, Medieval Japanese Studies Institute/Center for the Study of Women, Buddhism, and Cultural History (Tokyo, Japan)
•Melissa McCormick, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Japanese Art and Culture, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
•Alison J. Miller, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Asian Studies, The University of the South (Sewanee, TN)
•Amy Beth Stanley, Wayne V. Jones II Research Professor in History at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
•Marcia A. Yonemoto, Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO)

Read more and register, click here

Ana Zemánková, Untitled, circa 1970, oil pastel and ink on paper, framed, 25 1/4 x 19 1/4 in.
(64.1 x 48.9 cm.)

Eccentric Visions: Works on Paper from a Private Collection,
MIYAKO YOSHINAGA
February 17–March 11, 2023
Opening Reception February 17, 6-8pm

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA is pleased to announce a new exhibition of twenty works on paper from a private collection. The exhibition recreates the distinctive spirit of a lifetime interest in nontraditional techniques, mediums and narrative visions. The exhibition features works dating from the 1970s to 2010s that embody the collector’s open-minded approach with a nod to eccentric imagery. While Susan Te Kahurangi King and Anna Zemánková demonstrate unique visions of self-taught or Outsider Art, Kiki Smith, Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek, Nusra Quereshi and Jennifer Perry Shingelo share issues of identity, gender and family relationships through a variety of media and techniques. While Tony Fitzpatrick, Sue Coe, Joanne Carlson, Mary Frank and Tara Tucker depict surreal imaginings inspired by flora and fauna, Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Marc Bell and Frances Hamilton engage in humorous narratives.

The collector and artist, Karen Moss, was born in Boston and moved to Toledo, Ohio when she was eight. This exhibit celebrates a collection based on years of looking at and finding unique artistic visions. The works have greatly enriched the life and home of the collector and now she hopes to share them with a wider audience.

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Sneak Peek—From the Lab: Pigments in Chinese Painting
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
Online event, February 14, 2023, 12pm (EST)

Pigments in the Chinese palette for paintings on silk and paper from the Song dynasty (960–1279) through the early twentieth century were identified in a study of over two hundred paintings from the National Museum of Asian Art’s collections. Detailed studies of both scholar-paintings and portraits revealed that the introduction of new imported pigments such as Prussian blue, invented in Germany in 1704, and cochineal, an insect dye from the Americas, occurred primarily in the products of professional painters. In this talk, senior scientist Blythe McCarthy will discuss the research on Chinese paintings in the context of the museum’s past, present, and future scientific studies of pigments. This multiyear scientific research project was partially funded through grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation. The results of the research are available in the book Scientific Studies of Pigments in Chinese Paintings.

Read more and register, click here.

L-R: Shimaoka Tatsuzō (1919-2007), Iron Fish Trailed on Rope Impressed Inlay, Heisei period, 1990s, stoneware, Dai Ichi Arts, LTD; Oshiyama Motoko (born 1957), Kakuhanmon Vase “Shunen” (Spring Festival), 2022, silver, brass, shakudo and copper; Wada Morihiro (1944-2008), Kakugenki (Brilliance and Mystery Vessel), 1997, glazed stoneware, Joan B Mirviss LTD; and Teramasu Ikeda (born 1987), Tea Caddy Winter Wind, 2022, lacquer (urushi, wood, abalone shell), Ippodo Gallery

Four Asia Week New York dealers are preparing exhibitions of innovative and stunning artworks by Japanese contemporary artists in ceramic, metal, and lacquer.

Dai Ichi Arts, LTD
Intangible Heritage: The Art of Japan's Living National Treasures
March 1-31, 2023
Opening reception: Thursday, March 16
18 East 64th Street, Suite 1F
Dai Ichi Arts is delighted to present an exhibition of the exceptional works of Japan’s ceramic Living National Treasures, on the occasion of March Asia Week 2023. The exhibition showcases the masters of a range of ceramic techniques from porcelain to stoneware; from celadon to iron glazes. These sublime artworks take the potential of ceramics art to new heights.

Ippodo Gallery
Terumasa Ikeda: Iridescent Lacquer
March 16-April 16, 2023
Opening reception March 16, 6-8pm
32 East 67th Street, 3rd Floor
Ippodo Gallery New York illuminates a modern lacquer technique that disrupts preconceived notions of the raden (mother-of-pearl inlay) tradition. Terumasa Ikeda: Iridescent Lacquer showcases Terumasa Ikeda’s revolutionary laser-incised raden technique, a method the artist spent eight years developing. Ikeda was born and resides in Kanazawa, known as the country’s preeminent hub for lacquerware production. Arabic numerals, computer screens, and digital signals—all assembled from abalone shell—adorn the twenty object boxes, tea caddies, and incense containers.

Joan B Mirviss LTD
Painted Clay: Wada Morihiro and Modern Ceramics of Japan
March 16-24, 2023
39 East 78th Street, Suite 401
Standing at the center of a long tradition of ceramic surface decoration is Japanese artist Wada Morihiro (1944-2008), a revered master of intricate surface patterning. For Asia Week New York, Joan B Mirviss LTD is thrilled to present an exhibition of this past master’s oeuvre alongside the many Japanese artists who paint on clay, employing a wide range of techniques. These works by Wada’s predecessors and successors will stand in conversation with those by Wada. A fully illustrated catalogue with relevant essays will accompany the exhibition and will be available online.

Onishi Gallery
Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan
March 16-24, 2023
Opening reception: Thursday, March 16, 5-8pm
521 W. 26th Street
Onishi Gallery is proud to feature the best of Japanese metalwork and represents many of its leading contemporary practitioners, including nine who have been designated Living National Treasures. The March exhibition, Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan, turns the spotlight on the contribution made by women to the revival of this demanding art form, highlighting seven female artists who are distinct in their personal modes of expression, but united in their embrace and adaptation of traditional methods.

Debasish Mukherjee, Floating Nights (set of 4), 2023, acrylic on wood, 45 x 40.5 in.

This week Akar Prakar opened two new exhibitions in New Delhi with innovative artworks by two important contemporary Indian artists.

Debasish Mukherjee: Whispering Lanes
February 18-March 17, 2023
Akar Prakar New Delhi
Curated by Siddhi Shailendra

The concept of spaces is often defined by the lines and limitations placed in a three-dimensional area, but what these primary geometrical definitions neglect to take into consideration is our inhabitation of these spaces. The weight of our experiences and memories within the walls of one’s home or the street crossed too often are woven into the fabric of the place. In his latest solo exhibition, artist Debasish Mukherjee (born 1973) makes use of these limitations, the elemental aspects of the spaces, the line, the architecture and the everyday objects to create visual metaphors in an effort to uncover the dormant stories of his past.

An aesthetic that combines the language of abstract expressionism and structural minimalism, Mukherjee experiments with the medium of sculptural installations, paintings, and textile-based works employing a purposefully limited color palette. The silhouettes of the ghats, the lanes, the structures, and the steps take on the manifestation of the city of Benares, a place that is his muse and a mystery yet to be solved. Having spent years of his childhood at his maternal grandmother’s house in Benares and then again as a student of painting at the Banaras Hindu University, he spent some of the most formative years of his life in the city.

A remembrance of the days gone by and the reality of its present, the essence of the city forms the premise of the suite of works displayed in this exhibition. With a history of countless cycles of destruction and revival at the center of its past, the works like Monsoon Fables and Pakka Mahal are a reference to the recurring historical and current displacement and resettlement of the populace. The carved-out bricks and grids of sites and lands, within the motif of the almirah wide open and submerged, connotes the idea of unlocking our memories of the familiar places of the past.

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Jayashree Chakravarty, Rajbari (detail), 2004-2022, oil, acrylic, cotton, tea stain, grass, seeds, roots, jute, synthetic glue on canvas, 42 x 192 in.

Jayashree Chakravarty
India Art Fair 2023
Booth A4
at NSIC Ground Okhla, New Delhi

Jayashree Chakravarty (born 1956) is a Kolkata based Indian visual artist, working with the medium of paintings, and large-scale installations of paper with mixed media. Rooted in the themes of ecology and nature, her works often include organic materials such as grass, roots, leaves and seeds with paper.

“The Worlds of Bernice Bing”: Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
In person program, February 11, 2pm

An exploration of Bernice Bing’s art, life, and enduring legacy, featuring some of the Bay Area’s most accomplished Asian American women artists and activists.

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Kyohei Inukai (1913-1985), Striped Cat with Purple Background, circa 1978-1984, watercolor painting with charcoal and pastel, 13 5/8 x 11 in. (34.5 x 27.9 cm.). Provenance: Estate of Kyohei Inukai

Kyohei Kats: Paintings, Drawings & Woodblock Prints by Kyohei Inukai
Scholten Japanese Art
Online exhibition, February 2023

Scholten Japanese Art is pleased to announce an online exhibition featuring fabulous and feisty felines by the Japanese American artist, Kyohei Inukai (1913-1985).

Born in Chicago in 1913, Kyohei Inukai was the son of the notable Western-style Japanese American painter, Kyohei Inukai (1886-1954). The younger Inukai studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and The National Academy of Design and The Art Students League in New York. Inukai exhibited his first one-man show at the California Arts Club in 1934, followed by subsequent works exhibited at museums in the United States and in Japan. He was multi-talented artist, actively working as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His works are found in the collections of the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts, and the Wichita University Museum of Fine Art in Kansas.

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Sun Xun, The Time Vivarium-16, 2014, acrylic and ink on paper mounted to aluminum, Pizzuti Collection

Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions,
Asia Society Texas
In person event, opening reception, February 10, 2023:
5:30pm Conversation with Artists
6:30–8pm Reception and Gallery Opening

The show highlights work by over 30 contemporary artists of Chinese descent who reinterpret traditions in dynamic and innovative ways.

To celebrate the exhibition, join guest curator Dr. Susan L. Beningson for a conversation with featured artists Zheng Chongbin, Zhang Jian-Jun, Wu Chi-Tsung, Kelly Wang, and Bingyi. Discussing their art on view in the exhibition, the artists will guide the audience through their respective practices and a reflective conversation on the essential themes of Summoning Memories, including how each artist explores, changes, and subverts various aspects of Chinese art historical traditions to forge new artistic ground.