Installation view, Iconology of Life, First Floor / Exhibition Hall No.2, INKstudio

Iconology of Life
Closing Sunday, December 1, 2024
Red No. 1-B1, Caochangdi, Beijing

These are the last weeks to view Iconology of Life, the first solo exhibition for the Guangdong-born visual artist Lao Tongli (b. 1982) at INKstudio. Lao Tongli is a contemporary artist working in the early gongbi or “meticulous brush” mode of painting—a tradition which can trace its roots to Imperial painting of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and religious mural painting dating as far back as the the Six Dynasties period (220-589). Unlike China’s literati painting tradition which emphasized landscape painting in ink monochrome, gongbi painting often depicted moral, spiritual and religious narratives using vibrant mineral pigments such as azurite, malachite, lapis lazuli, lead, cobalt and cinnabar. Having entered China as early as the 3rd century along the Silk Road from Central Asia, gongbi painting facilitated cross-cultural artistic exchange between China, Central Asia, the Middle East, East Asia and Europe over the ensuing millenia. As a result, gongbi painting shares many of the same materials and techniques found in European fresco painting, Persian or South Asian miniature painting, Tibetan thanka painting, and Japanese Nihonga painting.

Having mastered gongbi painting materials and methods at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Lao Tongli spent two years, following his graduation in 2006, working in France and Germany for international contemporary artist Yang Jiechang, himself a master of gongbi painting technique. There he developed a novel approach to gongbi painting that reformulates both the technique and the visual semiotics of this early transnational art form for use in our international, contemporary art discourse today.

In expanding the visual semiotics of gongbi painting, Lao starts with a simple philosophical premise that universal or trans-cultural human meaning emerges first as personal, subjective experience. Using this mode of thinking, he has over the past decade been systematically building a lexicon of images or xiang to resurrect the natural and organic world view of living systems that connects the early Taoists and Song Neo-Confucians with modern, international thinkers. This exhibition features three series—The Desire of Libido (2013–2018), Above the Horizon · Sky (2018–present), and Self and the Others (2021–present)—in which Lao develops the yixiang or ‘idea-images’ of Heart, Forest, Sky, and Self-Others, exploring their interconnected relationships.

To view these works and more, click here.

Courtesy The Charles B. Wang Center Stony Brook University

From American Missionaries’ Residences to Chanceries: Hybrid Korean-Western Architecture in Modern Korea and Beyond
Thursday, November 21, 2024, 2-3pm
Theater
Free Admission

Photographs taken by early American missionaries to Korea, such as Samuel Austin Moffett (1864–1939) and Edmund de Schweinitz Brunner (1889–1973), capture what life was like in Korea during the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, including people, buildings, streets, cityscapes, and rural landscapes. Focusing on in-depth research of rare images of now-vanished early modern architecture in Seoul and Pyongyang from the photography collections in the United States, this lecture by Dr. Suzie Kim will examine the beginning of hybrid Western-Korean architectural styles for missionary homes, schools, and churches. Dr. Kim will also cover diplomatic missions and relations between Korea and the United States through architectural style, and she will look at how this influence went both ways, such as in the buildings of first-generation Korean immigrants in Hawaii and the Habib House, the U.S. chancery in Seoul.

Dr. Suzie Kim is an associate professor of art history at the University of Mary Washington. Her research investigates how Constructivism and the International Style became the primary source for a multifaceted cultural phenomenon in Japan and Korea from the 1920s onward. Her wider areas of expertise include North Korean architecture and contemporary Asian art. Kim’s publications include articles on Korean artists Yoo Youngkuk and Lee Ungno, architecture built by American missionaries in modern Korea, the Government General Building of Colonial Korea, and Cambodian contemporary photography. The lecture is sponsored by the Korea Foundation.

To learn more and reserve your free tickets, click here.

Portrait of Tong Yang-Tze, 2021 © At Ease Studio Limited; Photo by Te-Fan Wang

The Great Hall Commission: Tong Yang-Tze, Dialogue
November 21, 2024 – April 8, 2025

Artist Talk: An Evening with Artist Tong Yang-Tze
Thursday, November 21, 6:30-7:30pm
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (entrance at Fifth Avenue and 83rd Street)
Free with advance registration

For the 2024 Great Hall Commission, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is thrilled to invite Taiwanese artist Tong Yang-Tze (born 1942, Shanghai; based in Taipei) to create two monumental Chinese calligraphy works for the Museum’s historic space. Opening on November 21 with an evening talk, this project will be the third in the series of commissions for The Met’s Great Hall and marks the artist’s first major project in the United States.

Taipei-based Tong is one of the most celebrated artists working exclusively in Chinese calligraphy today. Best known for making calligraphy in monumental scale, Tong brings Chinese characters into dialogue with three-dimensional space and pushes the conceptual and compositional boundaries of the art form, while remaining dedicated to calligraphy’s raison d’être as the art of writing. Her commitment to the written characters is rooted in her belief in its centrality in Chinese cultural identity and calligraphy’s capacity for visual, emotional, and social impact beyond linguistic barriers. Working on the floor, she manipulates the movement and tension in the brushstrokes, the foremost quality in calligraphy. The oversized characters pose physical, formal, and conceptual challenges while offering new compositional possibilities and a unique viewing experience.

Celebrate the opening by joining the artist for a conversation about the commission, her decades-long career, and her commitment to expand calligraphy’s capacity for visual, emotional, and social impact beyond linguistic barriers. Please note that this program includes interpretation from Mandarin Chinese into English.

To learn more and reserve your free tickets, click here.

Installation view, Ikuro Yagi: Grand Nature, Ippodo Gallery, Photo by Douglas Dubler

Ikuro Yagi: Grand Nature
Closing Friday, November 22, 2024

This is the final week to experience the premier exhibition of Japanese painter Ikuro Yagi in the United States at Ippodo Gallery.  Spanning works from 1984 to 2009, this overseas debut features over 15 exquisite masterpieces that showcase the breadth of Yagi’s illustrious career. Painted and collaged on traditional Japanese washi paper, wood panels, and canvas, these works weave a universal narrative of nature and city life in Japan through the evocative mediums of sumi ink and nihonga.

At the heart of Yagi’s art lies a profound theme: the quiet, healing power of nature on the human soul—a gentle reminder that boundless kindness is always within reach. As the artist explains, “Sumi ink is not simply carbon; infusion into the washi paper grants us a sense of holding a piece of nature. Perhaps it is the same sort of sensation as strolling amidst the trees.”

Born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1955, Yagi continues to innovate within the nihonga tradition from his home near the majestic Mount Fuji. For Yagi, no boundary exists between the man-made and the natural world, a perspective vividly reflected in his work. His artistic journey began under nihonga master Matazo Kayama and Western-style painter Koji Kinutani at Tama Art University, later enriched by his time in Paris. This French influence infused his practice with bold new approaches, blending classical nihonga techniques with depictions of diverse material cultures. Yagi’s vivid portrayals of sea creatures, blooming flowers, and other elements of wilderness pay homage to the decorative traditions of Edo-period nihonga, evoking the era’s opulent interior designs.

Don’t miss this mesmerizing exhibition before it closes on Friday, November 22!

To learn more, click here.

Wang Dongling 王冬齡, When will the moon be clear and bright (detail), 2015, Chinese ink on paper, 27 ⅛ x 27 ⅛ in. (69 x 69 cm)

Word Play: New York
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 23, 2024, from 2-4pm
November 23 – December 21, 2024

Alisan Fine Arts is thrilled to announce their upcoming exhibition, Word Play: New York, a companion to their current calligraphy show at Alisan Fine Arts in Hong Kong. Centered around the expression, investigation and deconstruction of Chinese characters, the exhibit will feature works by 6 artists across different generations: Cui Fei, Hung Keung, Chiu Li, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande and Wei Ligang. The written word – long considered the essence of Chinese culture – continues to serve as the point of departure for both faithful emulation and radical innovation in contemporary art.

Based in New York, Cui Fei is well known for her work that uses natural materials (thorns, grape vine tendrils) to emulate calligraphic writing. Hong Kong-based Hung Keung is known for his interactive installations that integrate film, video and digital new media with classical Chinese themes of philosophy, art and literature, with innovative installations that employ imagery of Chinese characters, ink, rice paper, and flowers. Born in Hong Kong, Chiu Li’s work blends Western design principles with traditional Chinese aesthetics, exploring the intersections of painting, calligraphy, and poetry. Wang Dongling is celebrated around the world for his large-scale abstract “calligraphic paintings.” Wang experiments with ways in which the calligraphic stroke might be liberated from the conveyance of meaning, using the line as a form of expression. The act of his painting became a physical performance in which Wang translates the text of ancient Chinese poems with gestural interpretations of traditional characters.

Wang Tiande is an innovative avant-garde ink artist known for his creative use of incense sticks as a form of brush. Well versed in traditional Chinese art and culture, Wang searches for further possibilities in the realm of ink art, transforming paintings of traditional landscapes and calligraphy while conveying the ephemeral quality of painting. Originally trained in mathematics and Chinese calligraphy, Wei Ligang takes an analytical approach to revolutionize traditional calligraphy. Initially playing within traditional rules and structures of classic calligraphy, Wei has since pushed past textual playfulness into a purely abstract form. He aims to develop “writing” (shuxie) into an art form capable of embodying all phenomena and things in the universe and a way to construct “pure structure itself.”

They warmly welcome you to the opening reception on Saturday, November 23 from 2-4pm.

To learn more, click here.

Richard Bell, Embassy, 2013–ongoing. 20th Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Public program 9 March 2016. Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Tate, with support from the Qantas Foundation in 2015, purchased 2017

In conjunction with their fall exhibition, Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala, Asia Society is excited to present two upcoming events with artist Richard Bell. As a member of the Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang communities, Bell has worked at the intersection of art and politics, advocating for Indigenous sovereignty through activism for over three decades. Don’t miss the chance to learn about how he uses his multimedia art practice to explore the complex artistic and political problems of Western, colonial and Indigenous art production.

Viewpoints: Art and Post-Colonial Activism
Conversation with Artist Richard Bell and Carin Kuoni
Friday, November 15, 2024, 6:30–8:30pm
Tickets: $30 Nonmembers; $20 Members; Discount for Seniors/Students

Can art have social impact? Through his multimedia art practice, Richard Bell has, for years, addressed the mainstream systemic colonialism that permeates Australian society, a reality that many First Nations people around the world continue to experience. In this conversation, Bell will be joined by Carin Kuoni, Senior Director and Chief Curator of Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, to retrace his journey from activist to artist, and how his work and his role in the Aboriginal art community shapes the discourse on Indigenous and human rights in Australia and beyond.

To learn more and register, click here.

Richard Bell: Embassy at Asia Society
An Afternoon of conversations on Indigenous sovereignty, land rights, and arts education
Saturday, November 16, 2024, 12:30–6:00pm
Free Event

Asia Society is proud to present Richard Bell’s major work, Embassy (2013­–ongoing), an activated space for activism and dialogue in support of Aboriginal and Indigenous land rights. Created in 2013, it is inspired by the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which was pitched on the grounds of Canberra’s Parliament House in 1972 by four young activists. It has previously been presented at various locations around the world, including Tate Modern, London (2023); documenta fifteen, Kassel (2022); 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016); and Performa 15, New York (2015).

The Asia Society edition of Embassy features an afternoon of conversations joined by artists, scholars, and educators focusing on issues including Indigenous sovereignty, land rights, and arts education in Australia and North America.

To register and view the full schedule of events, click here.

(L): Image ©Odawara Art Foundation; (R): The earliest known depiction of a three-man puppet, from the ukiyozōshi novel Tōsei shibai katagi of 1777, depicting a scene from the jōruri puppet play Ranjatai nitta keizu by Chikamatsu Hanji, first performed at Osaka Takemoto-za in 1765

Join the Japan Society this week for an engaging series of talks accompanying Bunraku Backstage, their current fall exhibition offering a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Bunraku theater. This captivating art form, blending masterful puppetry, shamisen music, and evocative narration, has evolved in Japan since the early 17th century and is recognized by UNESCO as a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.”

Sugimoto’s Sonezaki Shinjū: Onstage and Backstage
November 12, 2024 at 7pm EST
Tickets: $25 Nonmembers; $20 Members

In this talk on Tuesday, Nov 12, contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto delves into his groundbreaking reimagining of the 18th century classic play Sonezaki Shinjū (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki). Sugimoto will share insights into the onstage and backstage workings of his novel approach to his productions. This event also offers a rare opportunity to see Sugimoto perform his Ohatsu puppet as she makes a cameo appearance.

To learn more and purchase tickets, click here.

Picturing Three-Man Puppets: Lecture and Tour with Dr. Henry Smith
November 15, 2024 at 10am EST
Tickets: $5 General Admission

On Friday morning, join the Japan Society for coffee and a lecture by Dr. Henry Smith, Professor Emeritus of Japanese History at Columbia University, where he will take a closer look into the history of the three-man puppet system (sannin-zukai, “three-person handling”) that has been carefully preserved in the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka since its opening in 1984. The talk will be followed by a tour of Bunraku Backstage.

To learn more and purchase tickets, click here.

Robe with Sash, 1905-15, Kyoto, part of the Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, August-October 2020

Zoom Webinar
Material Transformation: Japanese Textile Art
Thursday, November 14 at 5pm EST

Discover the rich legacy of Japanese textile art in a captivating webinar hosted by Joan B Mirviss LTD and Asia Week New York. For over a millennium, Japan has been celebrated for its vibrant and diverse textile industry. From weaving with silk, wool, wood, stainless steel and even silkworm cocoons to numerous styles of fabric dyeing, Japanese artists have continually pushed the boundaries of tradition and technology.

Join our esteemed panel of experts as they delve into this vibrant history of Japanese textile art, tracing the evolution of the kimono, the sustainable tradition of using recycled materials, and the ways contemporary makers use traditional aesthetics and techniques innovatively to expand the field of Japanese textile art.

PANELISTS:

Steve Beimel, a longtime resident of Japan who produced in-depth cultural tours with a Japanese culture-focused company that he founded in 1992. In 2018, he founded JapanCraft21 (NPO) to save and revitalize Japanese master crafts, support apprenticeships in vulnerable craft genres, and host national contests that give ongoing support to craftspeople.

Monika Bincsik, the Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specializes in Japanese decorative arts and textiles. She was co-curator of Kimono: A Modern History (2014) and curated Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection (2017), and Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination (2019). She has published widely on decorative arts and collecting history.

Anna Jackson is the Keeper of the Asian Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A specialist in Japanese textiles and dress, she has written widely on the subject. Most recently she curated the exhibition Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk and edited the accompanying publication. Jackson was awarded the Foreign Minister`s Commendation in 2020 for the promotion of Japanese culture in the United Kingdom.

Reiko Sudō is the design director for the leading textile design firm Nuno, founded in 1984, and a member of the prestigious Japan Design Committee. Additionally, Sudō is an Emerita Professor at Tokyo Zokei University, an honorary MA graduate from the University for the Creative Arts (UK), and a recipient of the Mainichi Design Award, the ROSCOE Design Prize and the Japan Interior Design Association JID Award.

Moderated by Joan Mirviss, whose renowned New York gallery is among the foremost in the field of Japanese art.

To register for this free event, click here.