The National Museum of Asian Art's new Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room is organized and installed to reflect Tibetan Buddhist concepts and customs.

Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
Now open to visitors ongoing for the next three years

The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room includes more than two hundred bronzes, paintings, silk hangings, and carpets that were created in Tibet, China, and Mongolia between the thirteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arranged to reflect Tibetan Buddhist concepts and customs rather than museum conventions, the glittering room evokes the Himalayan portals that bridge the mundane and the sacred worlds. A counterbalance to traditional museum displays of sacred art, the shrine room is an immersive environment that invites visitors to encounter Tibetan Buddhist art in a manner evoking the sacred precincts of the Himalayas. The experience is multisensory, as flickering lights evoke butter-lamp offerings and the sonorous chanting of Tibetan monks fills the room. More than two hundred objects are exhibited on painted furniture rather than in glass cases, hung among traditional textiles rather than on white walls, and presented without the mediation of labels.

The assemblage of objects comprising the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room is the result of Dr. Alice S. Kandell’s longstanding appreciation and collecting of Tibetan sacred art, combined with her persistent desire to share this important collection with the public. Over decades, Kandell acquired hundreds of bronze sculptures, thangkas, textile banners, painted furniture, and ritual implements. Kandell’s interest in Tibetan art and culture began during her college years, when she took the first of many trips to Sikkim, Tibet, and Ladakh. Throughout her career as a child psychologist in New York, she continued to pursue her love of Tibetan Buddhist sacred art. Along with traveling and collecting, she documented the region’s works and culture in two books of photography, Sikkim: The Hidden Kingdom (Doubleday) and Mountaintop Kingdom: Sikkim (Norton). By 1994, Kandell had amassed one of the most comprehensive Tibetan art collections in the United States, which is documented in the book A Shrine for Tibet (Tibet House US). She made her first significant gift of objects to the Freer and Sackler in 2011, the same year she donated three hundred photographs taken on her Himalayan travels to the Library of Congress.

Supporting and expanding the visitor's experiences when visiting the Shrine Room itself, the museum's website offers a variety of informative multimedia educational materials to study and enjoy. Read more, click here

Emil Orlik (1870-1932), Japanese Resting on the Mountain (Japaner bei der rast im gebirge),
color woodblock print, oban yoko-e 10 1/8 x 13 3/8 in. (25.6 x 33.9 cm.)

Influencers: Japonisme and Modern Japan, Scholten Japanese Art
Asia Week March 16-25

Scholten Japanese Art's presents their new exhibition as part of Asia Week New York, Influencers: Japonisme and Modern Japan, an exploration of the influence of Japanese art on Western art and the development of modern international art modes such as art nouveau and art deco.

In March of last year, the Asia Week exhibition at Scholten Japanese Art examined the impact of the West on Japanese art and culture during the Meiji Period (1868-1912). This year attention is turned in the opposite direction to consider the influence of Japanese art on the West, popularly known as Japonisme, while also contemplating the subsequent effect of influences traveling in both directions, resulting in the blending of art modes into an international style.

Paul Jacoulet (1902-1960), Beauté Japonaise Moderne (Kobé), color woodblock print, obaiban tate-e,
19 x 14 3/4 in. (48.3 by 37.5 cm.)

This is Scholten's largest exhibition to date and includes 102 works presented in two sections, with 44 works in the Part 1, and 58 works in Part 2. The international roster of artists includes representation by important French, Austrian, German, British, American and Japanese artists, and features paintings and prints with an emphasis on the development of Japanese-style color woodblock printing in the West.

This engaging exhibition can be viewed at the gallery during Asia Week and online now. Read more, click here

Yufu Shohaku, Meota Iwa (The Wedded Rocks), 2020, madake bamboo, rattan

Yufu Shohaku Solo Exhibition; Selected Works of Japanese Bamboo Art
TAI Modern
March 16-25, 2022
Opening reception: Thursday, March 17, 5-9pm
Exhibition talk: Saturday, March 19, 2:30pm

Exhibiting at:
Colnaghi
38 East 70th Street
New York 10021

For the 2022 edition of Asia Week New York, TAI Modern travels to New York from Santa Fe to present Japanese bamboo artist Yufu Shohaku’s first solo exhibition outside of Japan. Yufu Shohaku (born 1941) turned eighty years old earlier this year. A second-generation bamboo artist from Beppu, Yufu began making baskets in elementary school and achieved mastery by middle school. Today, he is known for his robust and energetic rough-plaited baskets that incorporate bamboo branches and roots, half-split chunks of bamboo, and bamboo ropes.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is the magnificent and unusual Meoto Iwa (The Wedded Rocks). Yufu recreates in bamboo these sacred rocks, tied together with a rope, representing the union between Izanagi and Izanami, the two central deities in Japan’s creation myth. The artist spent much of 2020 working on this sculptural homage to connection and new beginnings.

Maeno Koyo, Tatezashi Flower Basket, 1960s-1980s, madake bamboo, rattan

Also on view in New York are selected works from over 40 bamboo artists working in a broad range of styles and techniques.

Read more, click here

Paying attention to every detail, Heakyum Kim of HK Art and Antiques LLC makes sure Wonsook Kim's Shadow a Bird is free of dust and fingerprints.

Preparing the exhibitions and auctions that comprise Asia Week involves a myriad number of details—many hours of work, an enormous amount of collaboration, lots of cleaning, and checking-checking-checking. And because the best display has little meaning without visitors, there is no such thing as too much marketing and promotional efforts.

Next week, everything will come together—online and in person—and we all eagerly look forward to gather together……after a long delay!……and enjoy wonderful Asian artworks and each other's company.

Bonhams prepares their galleries, as Bruce Maclaren (left) hangs calligraphy from Richard Fabian's collection

Asia Week New York has assembled a number of features to provide you the information you need, so that you are sure not to miss a thing!
•Daily Digest — an email list of day’s events, plus a bonus round-up, March 15-26. Check your daily email box.
•Calendar — AWNY’s website has a new feature for Asia Week that lists all events each day, click here
•Map — find out where each participating member is located, click here
•Comprehensive list —This blog post has expanded to include all exhibitions and events, organized by date and by category (galleries/auctions/museums), click here
•Participant’s pages and daily blog posts — stay tuned to our daily online news posts and participant’s pages for the latest and most detailed information.

Jayashree Chakravarty, Pulsating, 2020-2021, acrylic, oil, audiotape, plant bark, paper and synthetic adhesive on canvas

Jayashree Chakravarty: Feeling the Pulse (in the pandemic year)
Akar Prakar
Online exhibition, March 15-April 15

On March 15th Akar Prakar will debut their newest online exhibition Jayashree Chakravarty: Feeling the Pulse (in the pandemic year). As explained by Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of KNMA, “Feeling the pulse and sensing all is well has become a preoccupation emphasized more than ever before, with disruptions and disaster that have drawn us to witness sudden, inexplicable loss, extreme vulnerability and anxiety all around. Jayashree has been seeking recuperative energies through her art-making, using grass and roots, seeds and mud, imagining sproutings of a new life from within the fertile tending of her canvas.”

Jayashree Chakravarty, Soaring, 2021, acrylic, oil, paper, audiotape, seeds, synthetic adhesive, shell flakes on canvas

Jayashree Chakravarty, who was born in 1956 and now lives in Kolkata, studied first at Visva Bharati, amidst the sprawling natural environs of Santiniketan, and then at the Faculty of Fine Arts at MS University, Baroda, where she was exposed to an urban sensibility. From 1993-95, she was artist-in-residence at Aix en Provence, where she was influenced in the formative years of her practice by the French movement Supports/Surfaces, especially the work of Claude Viallat. Inventing her own creative techniques, using organic material and varied kinds of paper, her installations in the form of paper scrolls remain unique in their conceptions and execution.

Founded in 2004 by Reena and Abhijit Lath, Akar Prakar traces its roots to a family of Indian modern and contemporary art collectors, spanning three generations. Engaging in transcultural histories through collaborations with international museums and curators, Akar Prakar has created a space for indigenous representations from Indian modern and contemporary artists. Operating between its two galleries, in Kolkata and New Delhi, and participating in shows and projects throughout the world, Akar Prakar curates narratives drawn from the subcontinent’s modern and contemporary art movements. Recently, they have expanded their curatorial focus to include emerging and historical narratives of Southeast Asian art and culture.

Read more, click here

Gomai-dō tosei gusoku with “Kyu” kamon, Mid-Edo period, 18th century

Japanese Art and Antiques, Giuseppe Piva Japanese Art
March 16-25, 2022
Opening reception, Friday, March 18, 5-9pm

Exhibiting at:
Adam Williams Fine Art
24 East 80th Street
New York 10075

This season Giuseppe Piva returns to New York from his base in Milan with an exceptional array of Japanese armor, ceramics, paintings, and metalwares. Each item is presented with the gallery's thorough research that explains its history, artistic importance, and aesthetic sensibilities.

Jizai Okimono, A russet-iron articulated figure of a hawk, Edo period, 19th century

One of the highlights of this season's exhibition is a jizai okimono in the form of an alert hawk. Jizai okimono are realistically shaped figures of animals. Their bodies and limbs are articulated, and can be moved like real animals; among these figures are found models of dragons, birds, fish, snakes, lobsters, crabs and insects. This iron hawk, constructed of numerous hammered plates jointed inside the body, can move its head, wings and claws remarkably smoothly. Its finely chiseled feathers move individually and can spread, which enhances its realistic appearance.

The fearsome beauty and predatory features of hawks, with their sharp beaks, keen eyes, long curving talons, made them metaphors of martial training and the warrior spirit since the Muromachi period. Samurai found in the brave and daring nature of these birds a congenial expression of their ideals, and hawks became a preferred theme in painting. To collect and maintain fine hawks constituted a status-symbol of the warrior class.

Read more, click here

Osumi Yukie (b. 1945), Silver Plate Bogetsu (Full Moon), 1994, hammered silver with nunomezōgan (textile imprint inlay) decoration in lead and gold, H. 2 1/4 x Dia. 17 3/4 in. (5.7 x 45 cm)

The Eternal Beauty of Metal, Onishi Gallery
March 16-23
Opening reception March 17, 5-8pm

In celebration of Asia Week New York March 2022, Onishi Gallery presents their anticipated exhibition The Eternal Beauty of Metal. The exhibition’s title reflects the philosophy of Ōsumi Yukie—Japan’s first female Living National Treasure in metal art. Yukie articulates, “ . . . something particularly meaningful about the way that metals can substitute the permanent for the fleeting and transitory, conferring eternity on phenomena that would otherwise have a limited lifespan.” The exhibit features vessels made from gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, and unique Japanese alloys that are worked using techniques including casting, chiseling, hammering, and overlay.

The Eternal Beauty of Metal showcases the beauty behind these contemporary artists' masterpieces, while enhancing distinct personal modes of expression, unified together by their embrace of traditional methods. Select metalwork artists will be displayed in this exhibit, among artists featured in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current exhibit, Japan: A History of Style.

Sako Ryuhei (b. 1976), Mokume-gane Vase 03, 2020, silver, copper, shakudo (alloy-copper, gold) and shibuichi(alloy-copper, silver), H. 9 5/8 x Dia. 6 in. (24.5 x 15 cm.)

The gallery's website includes much engaging information and videos about these art works, the artists that make them, and the techniques employed. Read more, click here

Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt, tapis inuh cumi cumi, Paminggir People, Lampung, 19th century, cotton, silk; embroidery, warp ikat, 50.5 x 45.5 in. (128 x 116 cm.)

Important Indian, Indonesian and Other Textiles and Masks: Inspiration and Interpretation, Thomas Murray
Online and in person by appointment, March 16-25

This Asia Week, Thomas Murray, who is based in California, hosts a display of important textiles and masks on his gallery website. For collectors with particular interest, he also has available a choice selection for examination by appointment in New York.

A number of the textiles are drawn from his new publication, Textiles of Indonesia, which presents an array of traditional weavings from the Indonesian archipelago and provides a unique window into the region's cultures, rites, and history. The objects comprise ritual clothing and ceremonial cloths that tell us much about the traditions of pre-Islamic Indonesian cultures, as well as about the influences of regional trade with China, India, the Arab world, and Europe.

L-R: 1. Nuo Mask, Minority Areas, Southwest China, 19th/ early 20th century, wood, pigment, fiber; 2. Court Mask of a Hero, with Old Label, Cirebon, West Java, 19th/early 20th century, wood, pigment, leather; 3. Apa Mask “The Father” Character, Monpa or Sherdukpen People, Arunachal Pradesh or Bhutan, 19th century or earlier, wood, pigment

Thomas Murray is currently also offering an exceptional exhibition of masks from numerous tribal groups, ranging from the Himalayas to Indonesia, even a Swiss mask from a remote Alpen valley. These striking images are crafted of a variety of materials, including wood, metal, and papier mache.

Read more, click here

Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958), Monumental standing zigzag monolith with pâte de verre cast clear and black glass titled, “Wave”, 2021, marbleized porcelain, “silver mist” overglaze, cast glass, removable stainless-steel base, 60 5/8 x 10 1/4 x 6 3/4 in.

Kondō Takahiro: Making Waves, Joan B Mirviss LTD
March 16-April 22, 2022

After six years of planning, acclaimed contemporary artist Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958) presents his latest solo exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD this spring for Asia Week New York. These thirty new sculptures in swirling whirlpools of black, gray, and white marbleized porcelain glisten with ‘silver mist’ that resembles morning dew. His signature gintekisai (silver mist) overglaze technique finds new expression here as he plays with scale in striking geometric forms that catch light from daring angles. In a departure from his earlier “Wave” artworks, Kondō incorporates a whiter clay into his marbleization (nerikomi) technique. Its combination with the darker clay that seemingly flows down the surfaces creates an ink-on-paper effect, transforming his sculptures into what he calls “porcelain ink paintings”. From major zig-zagging rhomboidal monoliths to glass-capped vessels to wondrous teabowls, the incomparable skill and singular creativity of master artist Kondō Takahiro is on full display in Making Waves.

Kondō Takahiro (b. 1958), A standing rectangular marbleized form titled, Nami; “Wave”, 2021, marbleized porcelain, “silver mist” overglaze 18 1/8 x 7 x 4 1/2 in.

As an artist, Kondō Takahiro has always been focused on water, especially as a life-giving and spiritual force. However, following the devastating 3.11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Kondō gained new perspective on the dichotomy of water’s creative and destructive powers. Reflecting on the many aspects of water since then, Kondō has returned in Making Waves to this inherent tension. On some of his smaller table-top forms, the blending of the clay in pooling thin layers of gray and black, set against the white ground, conjures gentle, lapping tides. On larger sculptures, the swirling layers plummet downwards, evoking powerful rapids and crashing waterfalls; additionally, the capping or angled joining of large porcelain sections with clear and black cast-glass punctuated with air bubbles suggest floating seaweed.

ZOOM online panel discussion
MAKING WAVES
with artist Kondō Takahiro
March 17, 2022 at 5pm EDT
In celebration of his latest exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD, the artist Kondō Takahiro will join us live from Kyoto for an in-depth discussion with a panel of experts. Reflecting on the many aspects of water, Kondō's latest striking sculptures are masterful explorations of his marbleized clay (nerikomi) technique married with his signature “silver mist” (gintekisai) overglaze. Reimagining clay's relationship to another classical art form, ink painting, Kondō finds resonance in their shared origins in water.

This event brings the artist together in conversation with design historian and curator Glenn Adamson, former Director of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and scholar and curator Joe Earle, formerly of the V&A, MFA Boston, and Japan Society. They will discuss his creative process, the challenges posed by his sculptures, and his fascinating legacy.

PANELISTS:
KONDŌ TAKAHIRO, artist
GLENN ADAMSON, independent curator based in New York and formerly Director at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York
JOE EARLE, Senior Consultant, Japanese Art, Bonhams
CAROL HORVITZ, art collector and museum patron
Moderated by JOAN MIRVISS

Read more and register, click here

Exhibiting in tandem with Kondō Takahiro: Making Waves is INKstudio's show of contemporary ink paintings, Bingyi: Land of Immortals, which was conceived as a collaborative event. For more information, click here

Joan B Mirviss gallery website is rich with additional information about the artist and this exhibition, a preview video, and recent press coverage. For more information, click here