Portrait of Calligrapher Weng Dehong (翁德洪像) (detail), 1639; Zeng Jing (Chinese, c. 1564–1647), landscape by Cao Xizhi (Chinese, active 1600s), inscribed by Jin Ye (Chinese, active 1600s); Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper; painting: 118.7 x 41.3 cm; University of California, Berkeley Art Museum of Pacific Film Archive; Museum purchase, 1967.22

In conjunction with the recently opened exhibition, China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents a weekend of insightful events focusing on the artistic and cultural role of the Jiangnan region in China and beyond.

Symposium: Jiangnan—Objects in Focus
Saturday, November 4, 2023
10:00 am–6:00 pm

Jiangnan—Objects in Focus is an international one-day symposium featuring 15 scholars from the United States, Asia, and Europe, who will each give a talk spotlighting one exhibit in their respective area of expertise. The goal of the symposium is to discuss highlights of the exhibition and foster a better understanding of the Jiangnan region and its artistic and cultural role in China and beyond.

To view the full schedule and register for free tickets, click here.

Lecture: “Heaven Is High and the Emperor Is Far Away”: Jiangnan in Ming-Dynasty China
Sunday, November 5, 2023
2:00 pm

Although the Jiangnan region of China, meaning “south of the Yangtze,” was the site of the first Ming dynasty capital, the court relocated to the north of China half a century after the dynasty’s founding. From this time, emperors and their immediate families were largely absent from the culture of this prosperous and vibrant heartland. But many ties still linked the culture of Jiangnan’s “Southern Paradise” and that of the Ming court. This lecture focuses on what artworks, as well as literature, can tell us about the often-fraught relationship between Jiangnan, its people, and their distant rulers in the north.

To learn more and register for free tickets, click here.

(L-R): Honda Syoryu, Aurora II, 2023, madake bamboo, rattan, 8.75 x 12 x 10 in.; Shono Tokuzo, Setting Sun, 2023, madake bamboo, rattan, 36 x 29 x  25 in.; Kawano Shoko, Red Sky on the Morning of New Year’s Day, 2022, madake bamboo, rattan, 8 x 16.5 x 16.25 in.; Courtesy TAI Modern

A selection of new bamboo pieces has just arrived at TAI Modern by artists Honda Syoryu, Shono Tokuzo and Kawano Shoko.

Honda Syoryu began his career studying bamboo basket making for flower arranging but the limitations of this centuries-old genre constrained his creativity. He takes what are deceptively simple techniques, such as plait weaving and twining, and turns them into beautiful expressions of playfulness and agility. The sculptural form of Honda’s Aurora II is reminiscent of fabric folding, showing his mastery of organic movement in abstract shape.

Shono Tokuzo is meticulous in his artistic process and prefers to prepare the bamboo entirely by himself in order to have greater control over the medium. The bamboo is cut in the winter from a mountain grove and processed traditionally. He then lets the culms dry standing up for 100 days. Thus, the process of removing the oil and sugar through heat leaching is easier. The bamboo then goes into a special hot chamber and dries for another 20 days which gives it its final ivory color and luster. Finally, it is ready to be cut and prepared to be used in Shono’s works.

Kawano Shoko has exquisitely balanced his basket, Red Sky on the Morning of New Year’s Day, with an open ajiro technique for the inner wall with a line construction for the outer wall. Kawano says “I try to express my creativity mostly within the vessel form. However, I think sculpturally. My consciousness moves from lines to planes, from planes to three-dimensional forms, and from three-dimensional forms to space.”

To learn more, click here.

Maeda Masahiro (b. 1948), Faceted waterjar decorated with owl-motif panels, 1980, iro-e porcelain, lacquer lid, 5 7/8 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.; Photo by Noda Kōichi; Courtesy of Joan B Mirviss LTD.

Playing with Pattern: MAEDA MASAHIRO
Retrospective of an Iro-e Master
November 2–December 15, 2023
Opening Reception with the Artist: Thursday, November 2

Avidly collected in Japan for decades, this artist-curated exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD marks Maeda Masahiro’s first retrospective show outside of Japan. Playing with Pattern brings together major works from each stage of his career. Though his style has undergone transformations over the years, Maeda’s artistry is rooted in a unique layering of decorations, often utilizing a remarkable range of colors and motifs that are accentuated in gold and silver. Working steadily for over fifty years, Maeda is renowned for his skills in iro-e, an overglaze enamel technique that traces its roots to the vibrant Japanese polychrome porcelain ware of the seventeenth century. By combining his technical expertise with exuberant patterning, Maeda Masahiro is a modern master committed to enlivening tradition while occasionally imbuing it with wry humor.

Artist Maeda Masahiro will be present for the exhibition opening. Please email the gallery for more information.

To learn more about this upcoming exhibition, click here.

Munakata Shiko, Rahula (Ragora), from the series Two Bodhisattva and Ten Great Disciples of Sakyamuni (Nibosatsu Shaka judai deshi), 1939/68; Courtesy Art Institute Chicago

Art Institute Chicago
Munakata Shikō and Buddhism in 20th-Century Japanese Prints
October 21, 2023 – January 7, 2024

In Japan, printing and Buddhism have long been closely linked. The earliest surviving prints date back to the 8th century; these were sacred texts that were placed within small wooden pagodas. Japanese printmakers continued to develop related imagery even after developing commercial forms of their work in the 17th century. Over the past 100 years, artists’ prints have become a significant way for individuals to express their beliefs by depicting Buddha, bodhisattvas, and other deities of the Buddhist pantheon. Foremost among 20th-century artists who drew upon Buddhist iconography for their subjects is Munakata Shikō, whose 25 prints are presented in this exhibition.

To learn more, click here.

Lai’an (Chinese, approx. 1250–1350), Fish and Waterweed, approx. 1300, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), pair of hanging scrolls; ink on paper; Gift of the Tang Foundation; Courtesy Asian Art Museum

Asian Art Museum
Deities, Paragons, and Legends: Storytelling in Chinese Pictorial Arts
October 13, 2023 – July 8, 2024

This selection of paintings, textiles, and lacquerware illustrates well-known historical stories and love romances, tales of popular deities and heroic figures, and anecdotes of filial sons and celebrated scholars in Chinese art. For centuries, these fascinating images and their inscriptions were used to inform, entertain, and instruct various audiences, whether for religious persuasion, social engagement, cultural statement, or moral teaching. A showcase of these narrative or figural images in various mediums illuminates the deeply rooted visual cultural tradition that has existed in Chinese society across dynasties.

To learn more, click here. 

Sonam Dolma Brauen (Swiss, born in Tibet, 1953), My Father’s Death, 2010 (detail), cloth and plaster, 49 cast-off monk’s robes, 2 vests, and 9 molded plaster tsa tsa, dimensions variable; Photo by Martin Brauen; Courtesy The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Sonam Dolma Brauen, My Father’s Death
October 28, 2023 – November 11, 2024

Personal biographies, political histories, and Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and practices inform Sonam Dolma Brauen’s sculpture My Father’s Death (2010). Born in 1953 in Tibet, Sonam and her family fled their homeland when she was a child. Assembled with robes donated by Tibetan monks and tsa tsas, molded objects used as votive offerings, My Father’s Death commemorates Sonam’s own father, Tsering Dhondup, who died a few years after the family came to India as refugees. The exhibition pairs Sonam’s work with Buddhist sculptures from Nepal and Tibet, offering visitors the opportunity to contemplate how concepts of consecration, relics, and commemoration are explored in Buddhist art and ritual practices across time.

To learn more, click here. 

Kyungah Ham (b. 1966), What you see is the unseen / Chandeliers for Five Cities (detail), 2015; Photo by Hyunsoo Kim; Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989
October 21, 2023 – February 11, 2024

Through the lens of 28 Korean artists, all born between 1960 and 1986, The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 focuses on South Korea’s growing influence on the world stage and how the country continues to grapple with its past. The artists bend time—addressing the past, present, and future, sometimes all in the same work—and place to make sense of their complex cultural experiences. They reflect on the rapid urbanization and industrialization that shaped South Korea, unresolved political tensions with North Korea, the use of traditional techniques in contemporary art, the pressure to conform to societal norms around gender and sexuality, and their own resistance to these experiences. Many of the artists are well known in South Korea or have an international following, but others have not yet been properly introduced to audiences beyond Korea, especially in American museums, until now.

To learn more, click here. 

Suneil Sanzgiri (born Dallas, Texas, 1989; active in Brooklyn, New York), Still from My Memory Is Again in the Way of Your History (After Agha Shahid Ali), 2023, 16 mm film (color, silent): 1 min., looped; Courtesy of the artist

Suneil Sanzgiri: Here the Earth Grows Gold
October 27, 2023 – May 5, 2024
Brooklyn Museum
Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia Gallery of Contemporary Art, 4th Floor

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s.

Here the Earth Grows Gold, Sanzgiri’s first solo museum exhibition, pairs the film with a 16 mm projection and new sculptural work. Modeled on bamboo structures seen across South Asia, the assemblage features family photos, 3D renderings, anti-colonial publications, and images of water and red clay soil from Goa that are drawn from his research. Together these works present the concept of diaspora as a way to reconfigure our understanding of history and belonging.

To learn more, click here.

(L) Goto Hideki 後藤秀樹, Watatsumi No.1 海神, 2023, with signed wood box, stoneware, H9.4″ x W16.5″ x D12″; (R) Higashida Shigemasa 東田茂正, Oribe Water Jar, 2023, with signed wood box, stoneware, H9″ x W6.4″ x D6.6″

Goto Hideki, Higashida Shigemasa & Contemporary Expressions of Shino and Oribe
October 26 – November 13, 2023
In-Person and Online

Dai Ichi Arts is delighted to present a two-person show of contemporary ceramic artists and craftsmen who breathe new life into traditional techniques, the Oribe & Shino talents Higashida Shigemasa and Goto Hideki.

The accompanying exhibition catalog showcases articles by their guest essayist Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

To view the exhibition, click here.

The Preservation Society of Newport County Fall Lecture Series
"The Celestial City: A Closer Look at Treasures Illuminating China’s Contributions to Newport"
Thursday, October 26, 2023
6:00pm – 7:00pm EDT
Live at Rosecliff and via Zoom Video Conference

In conjunction with groundbreaking exhibition, The Celestial City: Newport and China,  the Fall Lecture Series explores different aspects of the Chinese-American experience and the many ways life in Newport and America was influenced and enriched by people of Chinese heritage.

Presented by Dr. Nicole Williams, Preservation Society curator of collections and curator of the The Celestial City exhibit, and Dr. Bing Huang, Assistant Professor of Art History at Providence College, this second lecture highlights the dazzling artworks in the show that reveal the unsung contributions of Chinese and Chinese-American individuals to life in Newport.

Gain an insider's look as Dr. Williams and Dr. Huang tell inspiring stories about the Chinese artists, merchants, immigrant entrepreneurs and women suffragists who shaped the city’s culture, economy and politics. Dr. Williams also will discuss the show’s innovative curatorial process that engaged descendants, contemporary artists and scholars across multiple disciplines. 

To learn more and register, click here.