UPCOMING EXHIBITION

Moon Jar, 1700s, Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), porcelain with clear glaze, 17 1/2 x 17 1/8 in. Amorepacific Museum of Art © Amorepacific Museum of Art. Treasure of Korea (2005-4)

Lunar Phases: Korean Moon Jars

March 2, 2025 – June 8, 2025
Artist Conversation: Saturday, March 1, 2025 from 11am–12pm
Location: Hamilton Building, Level 1

Lunar Phases: Korean Moon Jars continues the Denver Art Museum’s collaboration with the National Museum of Korea (NMK) and other institutions in Korea, inviting visitors to experience the breadth and beauty of Korea’s art and culture.

Lunar Phases explores how the moon jar from Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392-1897) has evolved into a national artistic icon of Korea and how contemporary artists, both within and beyond Korea, reflect on the moon jar. Moon jars are elegant white globular jars that flourished in Korea during the 17th and 18th centuries, when naturalism and spontaneity became the desired aesthetic. At the same time, the simplicity of their shapes, as well as the ceramic’s unique hue in each of them, have been esteemed and respected in Korea and across the world.

The exhibition traces the artistic phases of the moon jar with 12 exquisite ceramics spanning from the 18th century to the present, each implying a month of the lunar calendar. With 21 objects in total, it also features five paintings, two photographs, one video work and one installation work in addition to an interactive mindfulness zone with a touchable moon jar from master ceramicist LEE Dong Sik.

Be sure to join Hyonjeong Kim Han, Joseph de Heer Curator of Arts of Asia, for a conversation with artists YoungJune P. LEW, Ken Gun Min, and Minjae KIM in Artists’ Reflections on Moon Jars on March 1. With diverse backgrounds and varied use of materials, these artists have reflected the meaning of Korean moon jars. The artists will share their own creative processes of reinterpreting moon jars while conveying the immigrant experience as artists. Following the conversation, visitors will be invited to join the artists in the gallery to learn more about their artworks on view. This event is included in general admission and is open to all visitors.

To learn more and register for the talk, click here.

 

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

Barrel-Shaped Bottle with Peony Motif 모란무늬 장군(액체를 담는 그릇). Korea, 1400s, Joseon dynasty (1392–1897). Buncheong with inlaid and stamped design. 8.75 × 6.25 in. dia. (22.2 × 15.9 cm dia.), National Museum of Korea: Bequest of Lee Kun-Hee, 2021. © National Museum of Korea

Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics

December 3, 2023 – December 7, 2025
Location: Martin Building, Level 5

Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics, co-organized with the National Museum of Korea (NMK), features exquisite works of Korean Buncheong ceramics from the 15th century to today, renowned for their white slip and adorned with diverse surface decorative techniques. The exhibition also includes 20th- and 21st-century paintings as well as 16 drawings by painters.

Sophisticated, playful, and engaging, buncheong ceramics became a uniquely Korean art form in the late 14th to 16th centuries. Elements of the buncheong style have remained relevant in modern and contemporary Korean art and have influenced other artistic expressions. Its refined and rustic aesthetic has been admired by generations of potters and artists in Korea and across the world.

Curated by Hyonjeong Kim Han, Joseph de Heer Curator of Arts of Asia, and Ji Young Park, National Museum of Korea Fellow of Korean Art at the Denver Art Museum, along with curators at NMK, Perfectly Imperfect inaugurates unique programs, exhibitions, and collaborations between the NMK and the DAM over the next three years.

To learn more, click here.

Tokio Ueyama, The Evacuee, 1942, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in; Courtesy Japanese American National Museum; Gift of Kayoko Tsukada; ©Estate of Tokio Ueyama

The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama

July 28, 2024 – June 1, 2025
Location: Martin Building, Level 7

The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the DAM for the first time.

Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Tokio and his wife Suye were among more than 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated into American concentration camps. More than 10,000 people were incarcerated at Amache in the following years, making it the tenth largest “city” in Colorado at the time. There, Ueyama taught adult art classes to 150 students. This exhibition tells a story of a time in Colorado’s history, of a place where Americans experienced dislocation and loss, and, more importantly, displayed unimaginable resilience, tenacity, and creativity in the face of prejudice.

To view our digital catalog, click here.

To learn more, click here.

Shiva Holding a Trident, late 500s, Rajasthan Province southern, India, stone, 1982.15; Funds from Ruth Luby,Dorothy Hietler,Fay Carter & Norman Degan in loving memory of their parents, Nellie & Jesse Shwayder, & acquisition challenge fund

Arts of Asia Galleries: Calligraphy in China

Ongoing

Originating with a major gift from Mr. Walter C. Mead in 1915, the Asian art collection is one of the earliest at the Denver Art Museum. It encompasses rare and important artworks from East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan), South and Southeast Asia, and Central and West Asia. Its holdings of some 7000 objects span nearly six millennia, from prehistoric to contemporary art. The collection boasts strengths in Chinese textiles from the Qing dynasty, South and Southeast Asian sculpture, ceramics from across the region, East Asian bamboo art, as well as Japanese Edo period painting and twentieth- century prints.

The Arts of Asia collection is the home to more than one thousand bamboo works from China, Korea and Japan, one of the largest Asian bamboo art collections in the United States. A majority of these are from the collection of Walter E. and Mona Lutz, their children and grandchildren. This amazing collection is particularly notable for historical bamboo sculptures, scholar objects, tea ceremony and flower arrangement articles. A recent gift of Japanese paintings and ceramics from Dr. John Fong and Dr. Colin Johnstone has made the Asian art department particularly strong in representing Japanese women artists from the 1600s to the early 1900s, and is probably the largest collection of its kind outside Japan.

The museum’s department of modern and contemporary art holds an important collection of contemporary Chinese painting and sculpture, significantly enhanced by generous gifts from Kent and Vicki Logan. Included are works from internationally recognized artists such as Xu Bing, Yue Minjun, Fang Lijun, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Dali, Zhang Huan, Sui Jianguo, Chen Wenling, Hung Liu, Yu Hong, Lin Tianmiao, and Xiaoze Xie.

To learn about current works on view, click here.