Tanaka Kyokusho, Grass That Shimmers Crimson II, 2017, madake bamboo, rattan, 12.50 x 16.00 x 4.50 in.

Artist's Reception: Friday, July 28, 5-7 PM
Artist Talk & Demonstration: Saturday, July 29, 2-3:30 PM

Join Japanese bamboo artist Tanaka Kyokusho this weekend as the gallery celebrates his current solo exhibition. A reception for the artist will be held this evening, followed by a demonstration of bamboo technique and lecture on process by Tanaka tomorrow afternoon.

As one of the most well-respected creators of bamboo art alive today, Tanaka holds himself to a high standard of process and vision and takes the time before each piece to compose and experiment with shape, colors, and the widths and spacings of the bamboo strips. This leads to a series of drafts, executed through technical sketches and physical samples to evaluate the aesthetic outcomes of these variables.

For more information, click here.

Hasegawa Chikuyū (1885-1962), Deep in the Woods (detail: right side of a screen pair), 1920s, pair of two-panel folding screens, ink, mineral pigments, shell powder and gold wash on silk, 67½ x 74¼ in., courtesy Thomsen Gallery

Japanese Art 1910 – 1940 at Thomsen Gallery
Closes on Friday, July 28th

9 East 63rd Street
New York, NY 10065

There are still a few days left to view Japanese Art 1910 – 1940, an exhibition focusing on folding screens and hanging scrolls from the Taisho era (1912-26) and early Showa era (1926-1989), a time of great change for Japan and its arts. Experimented with new materials and perspectives, these painters shifted from stylized depictions of nature to naturalistic botanical studies. Making trips abroad, they incorporated foreign elements from their travels into their work.

Next to painting, bamboo baskets and intricate gold lacquer boxes from the Taisho and Showa eras highlight the technical perfection in works of art that were executed in traditional formats and materials but explored new worlds of expression and design.

For more information, click here.

 

Peng Kanglong, 彭康隆, Voiceless Landscape, 山水清音, 2022, ink and color on paper, 57 7/8 x 95 5/8 in., copyright the artist, courtesy INKstudio

Global Ink: INKstudio’s Tenth Anniversary Exhibition at INKstudio
Closes on Saturday, July 29th

Red no 1 B-1, Caochangdi
Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

Closing this Saturday, Global Ink: INKstudio’s Tenth Anniversary Exhibition consists of twelve separate solo presentations by twelve artists who INKstudio believes define the new global contemporary INK. The featured artists in this special exhibition are: Bingyi, Chen Haiyan, Huang Chih-yang, Li Jin, Li Huasheng, Liu Dan, Peng Kanglong, Wang Dongling, Wang Tiande, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang and Zheng Chongbin.

Since its founding, INKstudio has been focused on researching, documenting and exhibiting the individual practices of the most important artists of this post-Cultural Revolution period. We see each artist as an individual with his or her own unique and distinctive approach to deconstructing, reconstructing and transmitting the language of INK and the worldview it expresses. Each such artistic practice is thus a manifesto—a statement in action—about what INK art is at its most essential core.
Be sure to view these extraordinary works before the show closes.

For more information,click here.

Mindfulness Meditation with Elaine Retholtz
The Rubin Museum of Art
Thursday, July 27th 1:00-1:45 PM

For centuries Himalayan practitioners have used meditation to quiet the mind, open the heart, calm the nervous system, and increase focus. Join in this weekly program to take a short refuge from the world and engage more consciously with your inner self. This week’s in-person meditation session will be led by Elaine Retholtz, and the theme for this month is Compassion.

Whether you’re a beginner, a dabbler, or a skilled meditator seeking the company of others, join expert teachers in a 45-minute weekly program. Each session is inspired by a different work of art from the Rubin Museum’s collection. Designed to fit into your lunch break, the program includes an opening talk, a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. Chairs will be provided.

Ticket Price: $19; Members join Free.

This program is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine and supported by the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism.

For more information, click here.

Araki Minol (1928-2010), Fire Island, 1992, ink and colors on paper, 15 3/4 x 18 1/2 in.

Joan B Mirviss LTD is delighted to offer two new landscape paintings by Araki Minol to collectors. These have never been shown in public and the original colors, as the artist intended, are perfectly preserved.

An industrial designer and ink painter, Araki Minol was a fascinating hybrid figure who bridged many worlds. As a Japanese artist born in northeast China, he was influenced by traditional Chinese painting–from Bada Shanren (ca. 1626–1705) to Zhang Daqian (1899–1983)–and by the Japanese painting movements of his time and even later, by contemporary American art. His work has been featured in two major museum retrospective exhibitions in the US: at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2017, and at Phoenix Art Museum in 1999.

To learn more about Araki Minol and the works selected for the gallery show, please visit their special Viewing Room here.

Kokunimasa (1874 -1944), View of Mt Fuji from an Ocean Beach at Oiso in Kanagawa, 1893, woodblock print, 14.50 x 28.87 in (36.83 x 73.33 cm), Published by Katada Chojiro, Fine impression, color and condition

Art of Japan has just posted over 50 prints on their website. They are keeping it cool by posting images including ocean waves to chill your toes and ghosts to bring on the goosebumps.

To view the exhibition, click here.

Shivalal (Indian, active 1858–93), Maharana Fateh Singh crossing a river during the monsoon (detail), opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 82.6 x 158.8 cm, The City Palace Museum, Udaipur, courtesy The Cleveland Museum of Art

As a continuation from last week’s newsletter, here are some more great museum exhibitions in New York and elsewhere to check out this summer.

The Cleveland Museum of Art
A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur
On view through Sept 10, 2023

Around 1700, artists in Udaipur (a court in northwest India) began creating immersive paintings that convey the mood (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes, and mountains. With dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—A Splendid Land reveals how artists visualized emotions, depicted places, celebrated water resources, and fostered personal bonds over 200 years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia.

For more information, click here.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Woven Wonders: Indian Textiles from the Parpia Collection
On view through September 4, 2023

The Parpia Collection is one of the most significant private collections of Indian textiles outside of India and one of the most important in the United States. Woven Wonders: Indian Textiles from the Parpia Collection brings this extraordinary collection to Houston audiences for the first time.

For more information, click here.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE
Newly opened on July 21–November 13, 2023

Featuring more than 140 objects dating from 200 BCE to 400 CE, the exhibition presents a series of evocative and interlocking themes to reveal both the pre-Buddhist origins of figurative sculpture in India and the early narrative traditions that were central to this formative moment in early Indian art.

For more information, click here.

Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
Picturing Paradise: Blue and Green in Chinese Painting
January 6–August 6, 2023

Beginning in the 400s C.E., Chinese painters used qinglü, a palette of blues and greens, to depict paradise or fantastical places. The paintings and objects dating from the 1200s to 1800s in this exhibition, organized by the Nelson-Atkins, exemplify the enduring tradition of blue and green landscape painting. The colorful landscape paintings span many contexts, showing how a visual vocabulary can be created, built upon, and transformed.

And

Found in Translation: Explorations by 8 Contemporary Artists
October 8, 2022–August 20, 2023

We often hear of the risks of losing meaning in translation. But visual artists are skilled at converting ideas and questions into art. Found in Translation: Explorations by 8 Contemporary Artists reveals the richness and nuance that can be discovered through this process of change and transformation. These eight artists use their practices to explore evolving personal questions tied to place, memory, relationships, and other complex topics.

For more information, click here.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Oneness: Nature and Connectivity in Chinese Art
On view through October 29, 2023

This exhibition features the work of four contemporary artists whose practices examine the boundaries between humans and nature from a philosophical, spiritual, and material perspective. All the featured artists embrace and adapt historic Chinese artistic traditions through their chosen materials, process, or themes.

For more information, click here.

San Antonio Museum of Art
Creative Splendor: Japanese Bamboo Baskets from the Thoma Collection
July 15, 2022–January 2, 2024

This exhibition consists of a series of three installations of approximately 15 baskets each that will survey the outstanding accomplishments of Japanese basket makers active since the 19th century to the present day from three regions of Japan: Kansai, Kanto, and the southernmost island of Kyushu. The exhibition demonstrates the specific techniques and styles of cutting and weaving bamboo that are particular to each of these geographic regions.

For more information, click here.

Tibet House US
Alchi: Visions of Enlightenment
Monumental Photographs by Peter Van Ham
On view through September 2023

View monumental photographs of the world-renowned Buddhist monastery complex of Alchi by Peter van Ham. Mandalas and towering sculptures of Bodhisattvas adorn the walls, ceilings and doors of each temple and include scenes from the Buddha’s life as well as secular life from a period of tremendous cross-cultural activity in the region. Spend this summer in this immersive exhibition and view some of the oldest surviving paintings in Ladakh.

For more information, click here.

Installation view of Explore Asia

Starting tomorrow, July 21st, Asia Society Texas will unveil their new permanent, immersive exhibition Explore Asia. Highlighting five Asian countries – China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam – across six unique experiences, Explore Asia is the only interactive learning exhibition in Texas focused specifically on Asia.

Beginning with a lively lion dance, the three-day celebration features all-ages fun, food, and activities. Learn more deeply about the highlighted countries and their arts, cultures, and traditions through hands-on activities and demonstrations, and enjoy storytimes and locally-owned food trucks as part of the fun!

Admission is free, but registration (online or walk-up) is required. Timed tickets are available for two-hour time slots each day. Admission to the interactive Performances Across Asia Drumming Experience is separate of general admission; tickets are limited-quantity and cost $6 per guest.

Presented by The Ling and George Yang Family.

For more information, click here.

Fukuda Kodōjin, Blue-green Landscape, February 1926 (detail), hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of the Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture 2013.29.902

This comprehensive retrospective of scholar-artist Fukuda Kodōjin will close this Sunday, July 23rd at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  Kodōjin continued the tradition of Japanese literati painting (nanga) after 1900. His painting style is characterized by bizarrely shaped mountain forms rendered in vivid color or monochromatic ink that often include a solitary scholar enjoying the expansive beauty of nature. Not only a painter, Kodōjin was also an accomplished poet and calligrapher patronized by influential industrialists and politicians of the era. Following his death, he slipped into obscurity, and today is better appreciated in the United States and Europe.

To view the exhibition, click here.