Gold Lacquer Tea Caddy with Autumn Leaves, maki-e gold lacquer, 1990s, 3 x 3 x 3 in. (7.7 x 7.4 x 7.4 cm)

Golden Treasures: Japanese Gold Lacquer Boxes, Thomsen Gallery
November 4-December 16, 2022
Opening reception: November 3, 5-7pm

Thomsen Gallery is delighted to open their annual gallery exhibition of Japanese gold lacquer boxes dating from the 18th century to the present.

The exhibition features exceptional works with designs in maki-e, which literally means “sprinkled pictures” and refers to the technique of sprinkling powders of gold and silver onto wet lacquer, a uniquely Japanese tradition that developed in the Heian Period (794–1185).

Dreaming in Mino: The Art of Oribe & Shino, Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd.
Exhibition dates: November 1–December 15, 2022

Dai Ichi Arts is delighted to present the Winter group exhibition Dreaming in Mino: The Art of Oribe & Shino, which explores the work of modern and contemporary artists who practice in these two beloved styles of Japanese pottery from Mino: Oribe and Shino yaki.

Heralded for its patches of copper green, its variety of colorful gradations that the glaze type permits, and the playful decorations that are often employed, Oribe ware is an indispensable part of any Japanese modern art collection. The pioneering experimental spirit of Oribe lives on in modern ceramics in the work of the artists and potters featured in our winter selection, who are all at the forefront of carrying the tradition and spirit of Oribe into the future.

Shino-yaki was first fired during the Momoyama era (1568-1603) at kilns in Mino (present-day Gifu). Usually fashioned in stoneware, it is characterized by a thick yet porous and viscous glaze. Traditionally fired in anagama kilns, Shino-yaki can assume a dramatic appearance with a stark contrast between colors, or subtle, muted tones of white gradation. Modern artists take on this traditional glaze and play with its opacity, for the silica in the glaze may oxidize differently and produce different degrees of translucency. This exhibition presents the various types of Shino-yaki by contemporary artists and ranges from various shades of blue-gray, to a fiery rust-red to a clear, pure white.

A full online exhibition catalog is available on Dai Ichi's website, click here.

Instead of the touristic and commercialized old town of Lijiang, our retreat is located at a nearby small Nashi-ethnic village named Ciman, where the traditional way of living still thrives. Surrounded by pinewoods and a pear garden, Songtsam Lijiang Lodge offers spectacular views of the old town, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and Lashi Lake. The hotel’s design is grand in appearance and has an interior layout in the style of a Nashi courtyard that is decorated with exquisite Hui-style stone sculptures. The property also exhibits a unique combination of Nashi-Dongba, Chinese-Tang, and Tibetan influenced art.

Songtsam Linka Lijiang dishes are dominated by Lijiang special hot pot, Naxi traditional dishes, and other representative Yunnan dishes. Spring-like Lijiang is rich in resources—wild vegetables and flowers in spring, mushrooms in summer, fruits in autumn, all of which enrich the dining table of Songtsam Linka Lijiang.

A special feature of this lodge is the spa, which includes four therapy rooms, as well as sauna cabins and is elaborately designed for traditional Kum Nye Tibetan massages. Leave time for Songtsam's one-day body & mind rejuvenation program. Our rejuvenation program is based on different techniques and offers a unique Tibetan experience of well-being: Food Cleaning, Hydrotherapy (Manna Bath), Himalayan Salt Body Scrub, Ku Nye Massage, and Packs with Tibetan herbs.

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Hitoshi Fugo (born 1947), Watchers-City 6, 2008 & 2006, archival pigment print, printed 2022,
15 1/4 x 10 1/8 in. (38.9 x 25.8 cm), Edition of 10 plus 2 APs

Hitoshi Fugo: Watchers, MIYAKO YOSHINAGA
November 2-December 17, 2022

Hitoshi Fugo’s photography not only captures his subjects with surrounding realities but also inspires a new set of perspectives through his conceptual approach. This exhibition features the artist’s lesser-known color series entitled Watchers consisting of a series of head-and-shoulder portraits of an anonymous person watching a scenic view from a distance. Viewed from behind, Fugo’s camera focuses on the person’s back, leaving the scenery blurry and abstract.

Between 1994 and 2008, Fugo photographed these portraits in universally attractive sceneries such as a waterfall and a cityscape. The former were shot in Kegon Falls in Japan and Niagara Falls in Canada in the same year (1994) and the latter at the Empire State Building in New York City (2004) and the Tokyo Tower (2008) in Tokyo. These portraits are presented in pairs in single frames: Kegon vis a vis Niagara; Tokyo Tower vis a vis the Empire State Building). These pairs seem to be random combinations but similar in gender and age. These contrasts, apparent or nuanced, urge the viewer to further engage in comparisons and the rear-view portraitures allow the viewer to enter into the spiritual realms surrounded by the spectacle.

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Zhu Da (Bada Shanren, 1626-1705), Flowers on A River (detail), handscroll, ink on paper.
Collection of the Tianjin Museum

The Nuts and Bolts of Chinese Painting: Connoisseurship,
Brushwork and Materials
Asia Week New York
Zoom Webinar, Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 5pm EST

Join AWNY for an illuminating and exhilarating Zoom webinar about China’s rich and sophisticated traditional paintings. Artist Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong) demonstrates the distinctive brushwork and painting techniques that comprise this ancient art form. Willow Hai of China Institute and Joseph Scheier-Dolberg of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will preview and spark our interest in two extraordinary Chinese classical paintings by noted masters Bada Shanren and Wang Yuanqi, respectively, which you can see in New York in March. Accomplished collector Dr. Matthew Edlund will provide insights into his experiences acquiring Chinese paintings over many years. AWNY’s Liz Hammer will moderate the program.

PANEL:

Fast-forwarding a Landscape: Painting with Brush and Ink
Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong), Artist

Meet Bada in New York, His “Flowers on a River” from the Tianjin Museum
Willow Hai
SVP, Director of China Institute Gallery
Chief Curator of the Exhibition

March Highlight: Wang Yuanqi's “Streams and Mountains without End”
Dr. Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang Associate Curator of Chinese Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Art as Words, Painting as Politics
Dr. Matthew Edlund, Director, Center for Circadian Medicine and collector

Moderator:
Elizabeth Hammer, AWNY Production and Content Manager
Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden, Executive Director

To register, click here

Participant’s Biographies:

Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong), Artist
Arnold Chang was formerly Director of the Chinese Paintings Department at Sotheby’s and then Chinese Painting specialist at Kaikodo Gallery in NY. He has taught and lectured extensively, including at Columbia University, Arizona State University, Connecticut College, and the University of Colorado. Arnold received an M.A. degree from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of Chinese painting with James Cahill. Chang also studied painting and connoisseurship with C. C. Wang for twenty-five years. He now works as an artist and is a full time literatus living in the wilds of New Jersey.

Willow Weilan Hai, SVP, Director of China Institute Gallery
Chief Curator of Flowers on a River: The Art of Chinese Flower and Bird Painting, Masterworks from Tianjin Museum and Changzhou Museum
Willow Weilan Hai, a native of Nanjing, has directed China Institute’s gallery since 2000. She has organized and presented many exceptional and important exhibitions, most from mainland China and many never shown previously in the United States. Hai holds a B.A. and M.A. in archaeology from Nanjing University. Among her many notable collaborative exhibitions are The Last Emperor’s Collection: Masterpieces of Painting and Calligraphy from the Liaoning Provincial Museum (2008, served as Chief Curator), Dunhuang: Buddhist Art at the Gateway of the Silk Road (2013, served as Project Director), and Art in a Time of Chaos: Masterworks from Six Dynasties China, 3rd-6th Centuries (2016, served as Chief Curator).

Dr. Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang Associate Curator of Chinese Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Joe Scheier-Dolberg has worked as The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curator for Chinese painting and calligraphy for ten years. In that time he has reinstalled the galleries for Chinese painting twelve times, with exhibitions on topics ranging from calligraphy to landscape painting to the practice of reclusion. He has published on Chinese portrait painting, Chinese albums, and contemporary art, among other subjects. His current show is entitled Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art.

Dr. Matthew Edlund, Director, Center for Circadian Medicine and Collector
Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H. is an internationally recognized and award-winning expert on rest, sleep, and body clocks who founded the West Coast Regional Sleep Disorders Center and now runs both the Center for Circadian Medicine and The Gulf Coast Sleep Institute in Sarasota, Florida.  He has collected Chinese and Japanese paintings since 1993.  He is the former vice-president of the Museum of Asian Art (Sarasota) and has donated works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ringling Museum of Art, while loaning art works to numerous museums, including the China Institute, the Norton Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ringling Museum of Art, and others.

Elizabeth Hammer, Moderator
Liz Hammer received a B.A. from the College of William and Mary and an M.A. from Yale University, respectively. She worked for Christie’s auction house as a Chinese Paintings specialist in the early 1990s and again from 2007-2020. Liz worked in Education at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1995 to 2006 and focused on teaching and writing about Asian art. Now Executive Director of the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden in North Salem, NY, Liz also advises private clients, prepares appraisals, and is Production and Content Manager for Asia Week New York as Hammer Fine Art Services, LLC.

Cong (Ts'ung) Prismatic Cylinder and Bi disc, Qijia Culture, Late Neolithic Period (2100-1600 BCE), jade

Round Heaven | Square Earth: Ancient Chinese Jade, TAI Modern
October 28-December 21, 2022
Opening reception: Friday, October 28, 5-7pm

Chinese cosmology views the world in geometric terms. The Earth was square shaped and the Heavens round. As far back as the Neolithic period (10,000 – 2,000 BCE), Chinese artisans have used these shapes to symbolize their universe, which is most apparent when viewing the jade objects on display in Round Heaven | Square Earth: Ancient Chinese Jade.

The Neolithic Period witnessed stone workers carving jade into beautifully polished objects with possible ritual, symbolic or astronomical functions. As jade is both very tough and harder than steel, it is very durable but difficult to shape and carve. As the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Museum of Asian Art describes it, “Working jade is an extremely laborious process that involves both slicing and removing unwanted stone with powdered abrasive minerals.”

This exhibition primarily highlights two distinct types of ritual jade objects: Bi (pronounced Bee), a thin disc with a hole in the center, and Cong (Tsung), a cylindrical tube encased in a square prism. They clearly had great significance, but despite many theories, the purpose of Bi and Cong remain a mystery.

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Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995), One More Scene: Stonehouses, Tomo (Mouhitotsu no fukei: kura, tomo), 1988, 16 7/8 x 24 3/8 in. (43 x 61.8 cm.)

Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995) & Yoshida Family Abstracts, Scholten Japanese Art
Featured at the 2022 IFPDA Print Fair New York
October 27-30, 2022

Scholten Japanese Art is pleased to announce their participation in the upcoming International Fine Print Dealers Association Print Fair opening on October 27th at the Javits Center in New York with a special presentation of works by the 20th century print artist, Hodaka Yoshida (1926-1995), accompanied by a selection of complimentary abstract prints by members of his extraordinarily talented family, including his wife, Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017), his brother, Toshi Yoshida (1911-1995), and his mother, Fujio Yoshida (1887-1987). The entire collection is available in an Online Exhibition.

You are invited to join Scholten at their booth (#107) on Saturday October 29, at 3pm, for an informal talk given by Ayomi Yoshida, the daughter of Hodaka and Chizuko Yoshida. An internationally recognized print artist, Ayomi is traveling from Japan to be here just for the Print Fair exhibition. She will be speaking about Hodaka’s life and printmaking process and answering questions about her family of artists.

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L-R: Oshiyama Motoko (born 1957), Kakuhanmon Vase “Shunen” (Spring Festival), 2022, silver, brass, shakudo, and copper, H. 15 5/8 x W. 5 3/4 x Dia. 2 3/8 in. (39.7 x 14.5 x 8.5 cm), Onishi Gallery and Ogawa Machiko (born 1946), Akai utsuwa, “Red Vessel”, 2021, unglazed porcelain and stoneware with iron-oxide glaze, 16 x 13 3/4 in., Joan B Mirviss LTD

RED EARTH: New Work by Ogawa Machiko, Joan B Mirviss LTD
Concludes October 28, 2022

Ogawa Machiko is one of the most celebrated ceramic artists today, male or female. She won the Japan Ceramics Society Award in 2000 and their Gold Prize in 2018—one of only three women to be so honored by this prestigious institution. Evoking the geological cycles that have long informed her works, RED EARTH brings this venerated artist full circle to her origins. Her latest solo exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD is inspired by the Japanese concept of the vessel, utsuwa, as well as by the unique red-colored earth of Burkina Faso, West Africa, where she lived as a young woman for several years.

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Heated Colors, Hammered Forms: Female Metal Artists of Japan, Onishi Gallery
Concludes October 29, 2022

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. Our September 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 four female artists who are distinct in their personal modes of expression, but united in their embrace and adaptation of traditional methods.

Read more, click here

Artist Talk : Tuesday, October 25, 2022 5pm EDT
The Share for Those Who Remain, Korea Society

In his paintings Young Min Moon depicts Jesa, a Confucian ritual for commemoration of the deceased, which was one of the earliest memories he holds while growing up in the military regime of South Korea in the 1970s and 80s. Despite the gender politics now associated with the ritual today due to its patriarchal nature, Moon insists on exploring the legacy. For him, the ritual holds multiple layers of meanings: an occasion of silence utterly severed from the violent era of his childhood, a means of remembering the deceased, and a tradition that may be discontinued in the age of globalization.

Moon's paintings are also a way of honoring women’s labor for the patriarchal tradition, and an invitation to the celebration of familial ties that are largely inaccessible for diasporic Koreans. In his solo exhibition at The Korea Society, which is on view through December 9, Moon also complicates his relation to the legacy of Jesa by situating it in relation to Catholicism that impacted the Confucian tradition in Korea.

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Hokusai (1760 – 1849), The Falling Mist Waterfall at Mt Kurokami, Shimotsuke Province, 1832,
woodblock print, 15 x 10.25 in. (38.10 x 26.04 cm.)

Doug Frazer and Richard Waldman of The Art of Japan have been hard at work hunting for and finding, beautiful and interesting images. These 107 images are now added to their New Acquisitions, which may be their finest grouping in 35 years. From Hokusai to Hiroaki and from Sumo to Surimono, there is something for everyone who loves Japanese prints. Particularly notable is this very fine impression of Hokusai's waterfall design, The Falling Mist Waterfall at Mt Kurokami, Shimotsuke Province, from 1832. This impression, on a nearly full sheet, is comparable to the best impressions found in any museum collection. Hiroaki's 1931 Awabi Diver is lavishly printed with Mica background in double oban format and has a red key block that warms and accentuates the model's form. Of special interest is a group of seven exquisitely printed designs from Kunisada's painfully rare 1823 series of ten prints, Mirrors of the Modern Boudoir, which depicts beautiful women at their ablutions within their private quarters. For Sumo fans, they have assembled seven Katsukawa school designs that are full of character and in remarkably fine condition. One of their favorite designs of the collection is a delightful depiction of Onoe Kikugoro V as the Balloonist Spencer, by Kunisada III, a vertical diptych showing an actor as Spencer suspended from a balloon.

To see these and more exceptional prints, click here.