Group of works by Mori Tōgaku

Architect of the Bizen Renaissance: Mori Tōgaku
May 7 — June 26, 2026
39 East 78th St, Ste 401, NYC

This May, Joan B Mirviss LTD is honored to present, in conjunction with Shibuya Kurodatoen Co. Ltd., Architect of the Bizen Renaissance: Mori Tōgaku. While Mori Tōgaku’s (b. 1937) name has become synonymous in Japan with contemporary Bizen ceramics, Architect of the Bizen Renaissance marks the artist’s first solo show and retrospective outside of Japan. Featuring twenty-three works that span the artist’s career, this exhibition presents the remarkable aesthetic diversity that this master ceramist has been able to achieve within the Bizen tradition.

Mori Tōgaku was born on March 23, 1937, in the town of Imbe, historically part of Bizen Province. His family has been making ceramics there since the Muromachi period (1336–1573), when they were officially designated one of the six Bizen ceramic lineages that established the region’s tradition of unglazed, wood-fired ceramics. A true virtuoso in this challenging and often unpredictable ceramic style, Mori Tōgaku has long impressed Japanese art critics with his mastery of highly coveted surface effects, such as scarlet straw marks (hidasuki) and trailing natural ash glaze reminiscent of sesame seeds (nagare goma), both of which can only be achieved through meticulous wood-firing. Mori has spent decades avidly researching historical sherds and kiln sites for clues about historical firing techniques. His efforts to reconstruct the communal Great Kilns used by medieval Bizen ceramists have become a central component of his artistic legacy. Since 1980, Mori has constructed several climbing Great Kilns, including the 53-meter-long Sabukaze Great Kiln and the 85-meter-long New Sabukaze Great Kiln. In this exhibition, we are delighted to present works that were fired in these magnificent kilns.

Mori combines his unrivaled technical prowess with a keenly contemporary and sculptural sense of form. His curvilinear Banded Pattern vessels undulate with dynamic rhythm, while the sharp angles of his geometrically faceted vessels cast intriguing shadows across the surface of his clay. Earlier in his career, he also experimented with techniques not typically employed in Bizen ceramics, such as nerikomi marbleization and oxidized silver or platinum surface decorations, both of which he typically applied to low-fired earthenware. The resulting soft and porous texture of these works is reminiscent of ancient objects unearthed in an archeological dig, imbuing a sense of timelessness to these more experimental designs.

A truly unique ceramic artist, Mori Tōgaku has used his deep knowledge of Bizen ceramic techniques to bring an entirely contemporary expression of Bizen to life. Architect of the Bizen Renaissance offers a wonderful opportunity to explore the artist’s original approach to clay.

To learn more, click here.

Lucy Liu, 1965 (detail), 2026, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 in. (122 x 152.5 cm)

Lucy Liu: Hard Feelings
May 14 – June 6, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 14, 6-8pm
120 East 65th Street, NYC

Alisan Fine Arts is pleased to present Hard Feelings, a solo exhibition of paintings by Lucy Liu opening May 14. Centered on works from her ongoing what was series, the exhibition explores the emotional and psychological terrain of memory, with particular attention to family, cultural inheritance, and the shifting nature of personal history.

The title, Hard Feelings, resists a singular interpretation, pointing instead to the difficulty of feeling itself—layered, uneven, and at times inaccessible. Liu’s paintings trace this complexity, holding tensions between attachment and distance, forgiveness and compassion, while inviting viewers to reflect on how the past persists in the present.

To learn more, click here.

Installation view, Whispers of the Unseen: In Resonance

Whispers of the Unseen: In Resonance
Closing Saturday, May 9, 2026

There’s still time to experience Whispers of the Unseen: In Resonance before it closes on Saturday, May 9! Featuring three Macau-born artists—Wong Weng Cheong, Rusty Fox, and Heidi Lau—the exhibition brings together distinct practices in printmaking, photography, and ceramic sculpture. Though their approaches differ, each artist shares a quiet, introspective sensibility that whispers rather than declares. Belonging to the same generation and shaped by similar cultural landscapes, their artistic languages diverge, yet the spiritual undercurrents of their works resonate within a shared field.

To learn more, click here.

Live Panel Discussion during Asia Week New York, March 12, 2026

If you missed our live panel talk during Asia Week New York this March, The Art and Craft of Photography: From Asian Traditions to Contemporary Practice, you can watch it now on our site!

Presented in collaboration with Sigma Foundation, this compelling discussion traces the evolution of photography from its historical foundations to today’s most forward-looking practices. A distinguished panel of artists, a curator, and an industry expert reflect on how Japanese and broader Asian traditions continue to shape the language of contemporary image-making within a global context.

The conversation moves fluidly between tradition and experimentation, the influence of photographic technologies on artistic vision, and the curatorial challenges of presenting Japanese photography to international audiences. From postwar photographic narratives to contemporary abstraction, the panel offers rare insight into photography’s ongoing reinvention.

A must-watch for anyone interested in photography, contemporary art, and visual culture!

Panelists include:

Gen Aihara, Artist
Maggie Mustard, Assistant Curator of Photography, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library
Kazuto Yamaki, CEO, Sigma Corporation, and Founder, Sigma Foundation
Eric Zetterquist, Artist
Moderated by Alice Teng, Executive Director, Asia Week New York

About Sigma Foundation
The Sigma Foundation is a philanthropic initiative dedicated to advancing photography as an art form. The Foundation collaborates with artists worldwide to produce and present their work – regardless of whether they use Sigma products. Through its Photobook Project, the Sigma Foundation commissions and publishes long-form, artist-driven books. The inaugural artists in the series – Sølve Sundsbø, Julia Hetta, Stephen Gill, and Anders Petersen – reflect the Foundation’s commitment to craftsmanship, creative independence, and the enduring power of the printed image. To learn more, click here.

To watch this insightful discussion, click here!

Installation view of Kawai Kanjirō: House to House at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2026. Photo by Go Sugimoto.

Kawai Kanjirō: House to House
Closing Sunday, May 10, 2026

There’s still time to experience Kawai Kanjirō: House to House,at Japan Society before it closes on May 10! This landmark exhibition, the first in the United States dedicated to the folk potter, poet, and artist Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966), celebrates his pivotal role in shaping modern Japanese craft and aesthetics.

A key figure in the mingei (folk art) movement, which he co-founded in the mid-1920s with philosopher Yanagi Sōetsu and potter Hamada Shōji, Kawai championed the beauty of everyday objects. The exhibition features rarely seen works from his personal collection, typically housed at the Kawai Kanjirō House in Kyoto, charting his evolution from functional ceramics to late-career modernist wood sculptures.

From Kyoto to New York, House to House traces Kawai’s enduring influence on modern art in Japan and beyond.

To learn more and plan your visit, click here.

Camel with Foreign Rider, Artist Unknown, Asian Art, Chinese, ca. 618-906, Earthenware with sancai lead glaze. 34 5/16 in. (87.2 cm), w. 26 3/4 in. (67.9 cm), d. 9 3/4 in. (24.8 cm), San Antonio Museum of Art, gift of Lenora and Walter F. Brown, 2013.38.11.

Off the Wall: From China to San Antonio: The Story of a Collection
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
5:30–6:30pm
Great Hall 
Free

How did the San Antonio Museum of Art come to have one of the most important collections of Chinese art in the southern United States?

From Tang dynasty sancai figures to the ionic blue-and-white porcelains of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, follow docent Anita Guajardo to discover works once prized by European nobility and experience the richness of Chinese culture through its ceramics.

Off the Wall is a curated tour series that explores special topics across SAMA’s collections. Each session is developed and facilitated by passionate docents who can’t wait to share the stories behind SAMA’s most captivating artworks and hidden gems.

To ensure an optimal experience, Off the Wall tours are limited to 25 participants. Places are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please check in at the front desk to secure your place on the tour!

To learn more, click here.

Asa Hiramatsu, Seesaw – 08, 2025, oil on canvas, 381.9 x 572.8 in. (970 x 1455 cm)

Seizan Gallery proudly presents a dynamic spring lineup: the debut solo exhibition of Tokyo-based painter Asa Hiramatsu at their Chelsea gallery, alongside a presentation at Future Fair featuring works by Marina Berio, Miné Okubo, and Asako Tabata.

And don’t miss their Spring Group Show, closing Saturday, May 9—a bold exhibition you won’t want to miss!

Asa Hiramatsu: To Be Cloud
May 14 – July 2, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 14, 6-8pm
525 West 26th Street, NYC

To Be Cloud gathers eighteen new paintings that distill Hiramatsu’s investigation into the inner landscape she carries within herself — and that, she believes, each of us carries as well.

A self-taught painter and illustrator, Hiramatsu makes tranquil, contemplative scenes built up in muted color and the heavy, layered surface of oil paint. She calls them inner landscapes: a world she holds within herself, running parallel to the one we share. For Hiramatsu, painting is a way of descending into her own inner topography and registering what she finds there — meeting familiar faces, finding new patches of ground, driving a stake to mark that she has been. It is, in her words, an act of “understanding why I am myself.” That journey, by its nature, opens into the viewer’s own — into the self, and into its relationships with others, with society, with the natural world.

To learn more, click here.

Miné Okubo, Untitled (Girl with Flower), 1973, 54 x 44 in (137.16 x 111.76 cm)

Future Fair
May 13 – 16, 2026
VIP Preview: Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Booth U10
Chelsea Industrial, 535 W 28th St, NYC

Seizan Gallery is also pleased to announce its participation in Future Fair, on view May 13–16, 2026, at Chelsea Industrial. The presentation brings together works by Marina Berio, Miné Okubo, and Asako Tabata, offering a dynamic dialogue across generations and practices.

To learn more, click here.

Installation view, Spring Group Show

SPRING GROUP SHOW
Closing Saturday, May 9, 2026
525 West 26th Street, NYC

Don’t miss your final chance to see the Spring Group Show before it closes on May 9. Featuring nine distinguished artists from Japan, the exhibition brings together practices grounded in tradition yet pushing boldly into contemporary explorations of materiality and perception.

To learn more, click here.

Song E Yoon; Courtesy Space 776

////
May 1 – 26, 2026
37-39 Clinton Street, NYC

Space 776 is pleased to open “////,” a group exhibition bringing together four key Korean artists—Jeoung Keun Chan, Song E Yoon, Sunjoo Jung, and Beom Jun—featured in the gallery’s recent program. The exhibition explores the idea of intervals as active, generative spaces, where distinct artistic trajectories unfold in parallel rather than converge.

Each body of work sustains its own formal and temporal logic, creating a dynamic field of tension in which relationships remain open, contingent, and unresolved. Rather than offering a singular narrative, “////” presents a set of coordinates—inviting viewers to navigate the shifting perceptual space that emerges between four independent yet interconnected practices.

About the Artists:

Jeoung Keun Chan (b. 1965) develops monochromatic abstract paintings through repetitive gestures and the accumulation of material. Subtle variations within restrained color fields register the density of time, while the surface holds a quiet yet persistent rhythm and tension. In 2026, the artist participated in Asia Week New York, situating his work within an international context.

Song E Yoon (b. 1983) moves fluidly between painting and installation, focusing on the sensory properties of material and the invisible dimensions that underlie it. Her practice traces the emergence and dissolution of form, attending to the flows of energy that accumulate in between. The question of how the invisible might become perceptible remains an ongoing undercurrent in her work. In 2026, she was invited to participate in a collateral event of the 61st La Biennale di Venezia, marking a significant expansion of her international presence.

Sunjoo Jung (b. 1969) engages materiality, memory, and the aesthetics of the everyday through the use of mother-of-pearl. The reflective and iridescent qualities of the material produce subtle shifts in perception, transforming familiar surfaces into perceptual fields that change with light and viewpoint. Her work reconfigures the sensory and temporal layers embedded in ordinary objects. In 2025, she participated in SCOPE Miami Beach.

Beom Jun (b. 1985) constructs layered compositions in oil painting, where waves and mountainous forms overlap to create a dynamic sense of movement. Through repeated brushwork, the surface becomes a site where multiple temporalities and rhythms intersect. Landscape, in his work, is not a fixed image but a fluctuating field of energy and perception. In 2026, he participated in EXPO Chicago.

To learn more, click here.

Courtesy of Kawai Kanjirō’s House

Kawai Kanjirō: House to House Documentary Premiere
Screening and Panel Discussion
Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 7pm
Tickets: $25 Non-members; $20 Seniors/Students; $15 Members

The Japan Society warmly invites you to the world premiere of the documentary film Kawai Kanjirō: House to House on May 7.  The film chronicles the making of their spring exhibition, Kawai Kanjirō: House to House, the first US solo exhibition of the renowned folk potter, poet, and artist Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966), and the first time Kawai’s personal collection has been shown outside of Japan. In celebration of the milestone exhibition, the documentary features views of the Kawai Kanjirō House (the artist’s home, studio and climbing kiln) in Kyoto, scenes of the neighborhoods surrounding both the Kawai House and Japan House (home to Japan Society), glimpses of curatorial meetings, interviews with young potters in Kyoto and New York, and footage of the opening events at Japan Society.

After the screening, join the exhibition curators, Michele Bambling, Japan Society Gallery Director, and Tamae Sagi, Curator, Kawai Kanjirō House, for a panel discussion. They will be joined by special guest Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and curator of the exhibition The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics (open through August 8, 2027). The three curators will discuss Kawai Kanjirō’s pioneering work and enduring legacy.

To learn more and purchase tickets, click here.

Zhang Xiaoli: Traveller 旅者
May 5 – June 13, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7, 5-8pm (kindly RSVP)
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 9, 10:30-12pm (kindly RSVP)
Artist-led Fan-Painting Workshop: Saturday & Sunday, May 16-17, 2:30-4:30pm (ticketed)
65 East 80th St., Ground Fl, NYC

On May 5, the story unfolds at Fu Qiumeng Fine Art on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Here, a theater built from LEGO® bricks takes shape, and you are its protagonist: a traveller on horseback. For this moment, step out of everyday life. Welcome to Zhang Xiaoli’s world.

This exhibition is structured as “theatre,” and centered on the idea of “play.” It unfolds in four sections. In the Prologue, the grammar of Chinese landscape painting is translated into a LEGO®-based visual order, establishing the rules of this world. In the Scenes, the traveler moves through shifting landscapes, wandering across time and space. In the Open Rehearsal, viewers are brought behind the stage. Over the course of a week, the artist works on-site, and the making of a distinctly “Zhang Xiaoli” work gradually comes into view. In the final act, Into the Play, LEGO® bricks are placed in your hands. The moment you begin to assemble, you become part of the story.

Alongside the exhibition, join a special artist talk and an artist-led fan painting workshop with Zhang Xiaoli, inviting participants to engage directly with the artist’s playful reinterpretation of pictorial traditions through hands-on experience. To learn more and reserve tickets, click here.

To learn more, click here.

Pacita Abad (1946–2004), Door made of straw I (detail), 1998, oil, acrylic, printed cloth, dyed canvas stitched on straw mat, 89 x 53 1/8 in. (226 x 135 cm)

Pacita Abad: Door to Life
April 30 – June 20, 2026
Opening reception: Thursday, April 30, 6–8pm
525 West 21st Street, NYC

Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to present Door to Life, its third solo exhibition of works by the visionary artist Pacita Abad (1946–2004). The exhibition centers on a remarkable body of work inspired by Abad’s trip to Yemen in the spring of 1998—a journey that profoundly shaped her practice in the years that followed. Drawing from the country’s architecture and decorative arts, Abad created works across a range of scales and media that reflect her deep engagement with local visual traditions.

Bringing together the Door to Life series in its entirety for the first time, the exhibition also marks the debut of Abad’s never-before-seen qamariya paintings, inspired by the intricate stained glass windows of Sana’a. On view are both intimate and large-scale trapunto paintings, alongside works from her Door Made of Straw series, in which she painted on woven mats and incorporated textiles. The qamariya works, painted on collected stencils, extend her dialogue with regional craft practices.

Together, these works underscore Abad’s enduring commitment to centering cultural materials and artistic traditions beyond the frameworks of Western art markets and institutions, offering a vibrant and deeply considered vision of global interconnectedness.

Abad was a pioneering artist known for her rigorous political engagement and radical embrace of global arts and crafts practices, which she encountered throughout decades of extensive travel. Born to a politically-active family in Batanes, the northernmost province of the Philippines, Abad came to the United States in 1970 where she studied at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco before embarking on her decades of nomadic travel to 62 countries across Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Africa. Although she took courses at The Art Students League and the Corcoran School of Art, Abad stated, “Traveling for me is my art school.” Abad’s practice was distinctly porous, accumulating layersof material, technical, and formal influences throughout her 32-year-long career. Her practice was profoundly influenced by the artisans, seamstresses, craftspeople, journalists, and everyday people she met across her travels. Abad considered her practice to be global rather than defined by any single artistic style or national identity.

To learn more, click here.