The Celestial City: Newport and China
Zoom Webinar held on September 12, 2023

The Celestial City: Newport and China is currently on view at Rosecliff, the recently restored Gilded Age Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. Since Newport’s beginnings as a colonial seaport, generations of its citizens have looked to China for knowledge, beauty, fortune and freedom. In turn, many different people of Chinese heritage, including artists, merchants, immigrant entrepreneurs and women suffragists, shaped all aspects of life in Newport. Their stories are at the heart of this exhibition.

Learn more as exhibition curator, Dr. Nicole Williams, and Assistant Professor of Art History, Dr. Bing Huang, take you through an insightful tour detailing the many stories and influences between Newport and China. Moderated by Lark Mason, Jr., founder of iGavel Auctions, Emeritus President of the Appraisers Association of America and former Chairman, Asia Week New York, this panel of experts offers a fascinating view into some of the over one hundred extraordinary treasures on display.

Click here to view the webinar. 

Kishi Chikudō (1826–1897), Tigers by Mountain Streams (verso), ca. 1892–5, pair of six-panel folding screens, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Harriet and Ed Spencer, 2012.1.2.1–2

Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan
October 3, 2023 – January 7, 2024

Comprising over 80 works—including paintings, prints, photographs, sculptural works, and objects in various media, such as enamel, lacquer, embroidery, and textiles—this exhibition presents some of the finest examples of Meiji-period artworks in American collections, both public and private. Arranged around traditional Japanese motifs, such as the sea and nature, Buddhist deities, beauties, and mythical animals, Meiji Modern highlights these themes as they are transformed by the introduction of newly imported techniques, materials, and objects, surprising the viewer with works of technical virtuosity, unexpected scale, and sheer beauty. 

Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan is co-curated by Bradley Bailey, Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Curator of Asian Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Chelsea Foxwell, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Chicago.

This exhibition is organized by the Japanese Art Society of America in celebration of its 50th Anniversary, with funds generously provided by The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; The Mary Griggs Burke Center for Japanese Art, Columbia University; The Japan Foundation; Shiseido Americas Corporation; Bonhams, Japanese Art, New York; and Japanese Art Society of America (JASA) members.

To learn more, click here.

View of Mandala Lab New York installation, presented by the Rubin Museum of Art. Photo by Filip Wolak

The Rubin Museum of Art
West Side Fest
Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023
11am–5pm

For the inaugural West Side Fest this year, New Yorkers and visitors of all ages can enjoy free admission and access to all museum galleries, as well as activities like special artmaking workshops and tours, details below.

HEALING THROUGH ART
1:00–3:00 pm

Get creative and connect with your emotions and well-being! Join for a drop-in art workshop guided by art therapy graduate students from NYU’s Steinhardt Graduate School of Art Therapy. Art prompts are inspired by the Rubin Museum’s current exhibition, Death Is Not the End, and encourage self-reflection and discovery in a supportive environment. The program takes place in the lobby once you enter the Museum. All ages are welcome and no art experience is required. 

GUIDED TOURS
2:00 pm and 3:00 pm

Experienced guides lead you through the Rubin’s Death Is Not the End or Gateway to Himalayan Art exhibitions, highlighting specific artworks so that you can dive deeper. Tours meet in the lobby once you enter the Museum and last approximately 30 minutes.

To learn more click here.

Ken Ohara (b. 1942), BAUHAUS SEITE 2-3, 2012, gelatin silver print, 2 7/8 x 4 1/8 in (7.1 x 10.5 cm)

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA
More than ONE — Ken Ohara's Photographic Journey 1972-2012
September 15–October 31, 2023

Ken Ohara (b. 1942) is known as an innovator in the genre of photographic portraiture by transforming our standard perceptions of others, ourselves, and what photography might be best suited to accomplish. In 1970, while working as an assistant to Hiro and Richard Avedon, he emerged as a young artist with his seminal ONE series. ONE features close-up faces of more than 500 New Yorkers, suggesting an essentially thin boundary across all human races and genders. The same year he produced a yearlong photographic diary in an intimate miniature album. These remarkable early accomplishments marked the beginnings of Ohara’s photographic journey for the next 50 years or so, a journey upon which this exhibition strives to shed new light.

Featuring approximately 30 works, the recently opened exhibition is organized in conjunction with this season’s wide exposure of Ohara’s lifework at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brussel’s Patinoire Royale | Galerie Valérie Bach, and the Paris Photo fair.

To learn more, click here.

Stūpa drum panel with protective serpent, Amaravati stupa, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, Sātavāhana, second half of 1st century–early 2nd century CE, Limestone, 145×77.5×10 cm; Excavated by Walter Elliot, Commissioner of Guntur, 1845; transferred to Madras,1856; shipped to East India House, London, 1859; transferred to the India Museum, London; transferred to the British Museum, 1880; Collection: British Museum, London

Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India and Its Global Reach
Friday, Sept 29 (10:30am-6pm) and Saturday, Sept 30 (10:30-6pm)
The Met Fifth Avenue – The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Free with Museum admission, registration required

Join an international group of scholars this Friday and Saturday for a two-day symposium presenting new scholarship around the themes explored in the current exhibition Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE. The keynote lecture is presented by Gregory Schopen, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles.

Day 1: Friday, Sept. 29, 10:30am–6pm
Session 1: Origins of Buddhist Art in India
Session 2: Southern Buddhism of Āndhradeśa
Keynote lecture

Day 2: Saturday, Sept. 30, 10:30am–6pm
Session 3: Revisiting Āndhradeśa Art History
Session 4: India and the World—Looking West
Session 5: India and the World—Looking East
Roundtable discussion

You’re welcome to join for both days, or only the sessions that interest you.

Learn more and register here.

Giuseppe Castiglione (Italian, 1688–1766) and others (Chinese), Portraits of the Qianlong Emperor and His Twelve Consorts (detail), 1736–70s, handscroll, ink and color on silk, painting: 53 x 688.3 cm; Courtesy The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1969.31

The Cleveland Museum of Art
China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta
September 10, 2023 – January 7, 2024

This exhibition features more than 200 objects from Neolithic times to the 18th century, ranging from jade, silk, prints, and paintings to porcelain, lacquer, and bamboo carvings from the region of Jiangnan. Located in the coastal area south of the Yangzi River, Jiangnan’s lush, green scenery inspired artists to conceive it as heaven on earth. Throughout large parts of its history, it has been an area of rich agriculture, extensive trade, and influential artistic production. Art from Jiangnan—home to such great cities as Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing, as well as to hilly picturesque landscapes stretched along rivers and lakes—has defined the image of traditional China for the world. Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta is the first exhibition in the West focusing on the artistic production and cultural impact of this region and explores how this area gained a leading role in China’s artistic production and how it succeeded in setting cultural standards.

To learn more, click here.

Takashi Murakami (b.1962), Qinghua: Grass Carp, Chinese Perch, and Lotus Flowers (detail), 2019–2023, handscroll, acrylic on canvas mounted on aluminum frame; Courtesy the artist and Perrotin

Asian Art Museum
Murakami: Monsterized
September 15, 2023 – February 12, 2024

Murakami: Monsterized is the first solo exhibition in San Francisco by the internationally recognized artist, Takashi Murakami (Japanese, b. 1962). The larger-than-life paintings and sculptures in this show use monsters as a central motif to address the complicated nature of the world around us. Murakami’s recent works suggest that our rapidly changing and increasingly digital landscape is populated by monsters — whether harmful or helpful — many of which humans have created and perhaps even become.  Several new works created for this exhibit find Murakami responding to a social environment marked by a global pandemic and a shift toward virtual interaction. The artist draws from the artistic histories of Japanese supernatural creatures including kaiju (giant monsters) of postwar manga and yōkai (supernatural entities) of Edo-period scrolls and remixes these traditions with his bold palette to reflect the complexity of the present day.

To learn more, click here.