UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Solid Gold
November 16, 2024 – July 6, 2025
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th Floor
Behold the majesty of gold in a shimmering exhibition dedicated to the element that has inspired countless works of art, fashion, film, music, and design. As a material and a color, gold has symbolized beauty, honor, joy, ritual, spirituality, success, and wealth throughout history. It has also taken on myriad forms: from millennia-old depictions of an idealized world to opulent 13th- and 14th-century Italian altarpieces and intricate Japanese screens, to contemporary artwork and haute couture marvels. With a sweeping range of objects and a global perspective, this exhibition will trace the many odysseys of the metal that has influenced cultures and legacies worldwide.
Opening on the occasion of the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th anniversary, Solid Gold features more than 400 works, pairing showpieces from the collection with stunning international loans, including standout fashion designs, paintings, sculptures, coins and jewelry.
While celebrating the seductive magic of this luminous material, the exhibition will also confront darker histories, inviting frank discussions about the human and environmental costs of extracting gold ore from the earth. Solid Gold will immerse you in one of humankind’s most dazzling obsessions.
To learn more, click here.
Kondō Takahiro (Japanese, born 1958), Reflection: TK Self Portrait, 2010., glazed porcelain, 19 1/16 × 6 3/16 in. (48.5 × 15.7 cm); Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection, © Kondō Takahiro. (Photo: Richard P. Goodbody and John Morgan)
Museum Spotlight: Porcelains in the Mist: The Kondō Family of Ceramicists
December 8, 2023 – December 8, 2024
Arts of Japan, 2nd Floor
This porcelain head, a self-portrait, is glazed in shades of blue and covered with metallic droplets called “silver mist,” or gintekisai. The term, like the secret technique that produces the effect, was invented by ceramicist Kondō Takahiro (born 1958). Based in Kyoto, Japan, he carries on a legacy of innovation in ceramic art. For the last one hundred years, Kondō Takahiro and his father Kondō Hiroshi (1936–2012), grandfather Kondō Yūzō (1902–1985), and uncle Kondō Yutaka (1932–1983) have broken free of centuries-old traditions to pursue original, individual expression.
Porcelains in the Mist brings together sixty-one pieces that celebrate the Kondō family’s innovations and talents. Their early creations range from freehand-painted vases to pure-white jars. Most of the works on view are by Takahiro, who often pairs his “mist,” which he describes as “water born from fire,” with dramatic shapes and textures. Several of these powerful porcelains reflect his personal responses to monumental events, particularly the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan.
To learn more about how each generation of the Kondō family has distinguished their innovation from Curator Joan Cummins, click here.
To learn more about the exhibit, click here.
Museum Spotlights are intimate installations of noteworthy collection works, recent acquisitions, and loans, presented to encourage deeper conversations about art, history, and justice.
RECENTLY CLOSED EXHIBITION
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858), Plum Estate, Kameido (Kameido Umeyashiki), no. 30 from 100 Famous Views of Edo, 11th month of 1857, woodblock print, 14 3/16 × 9 1/4 in. (36 × 23.5 cm), Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.30. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami)
April 5 – August 4, 2024
What are the must-see locations in your favorite city? Where do you go when you need a breath of fresh air? What makes certain neighborhoods famous? Join an artist-insider on a tour of nineteenth-century Tokyo (then known as Edo), from lumberyards to destination restaurants, and see if his choices illuminate your own relationship with the cities you know well.
For the first time in twenty-four years, Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo—one of the Brooklyn Museum’s greatest treasures—returns to public display. The Museum’s complete set of these celebrated prints is among the world’s finest, full of vibrant colors preserved by decades in the dark.
While most presentations have centered on the prints’ technical sophistication and influence on European artists, here we focus on their urban subject matter. Originally published in 1856–58, the series captures the evolving socioeconomic and environmental landscape of the city that would become Tokyo. Through both the prints and complementary objects drawn from the Museum’s collection, you’ll be immersed in mid-nineteenth-century Edo and see it through the eyes of the ordinary people who populate Hiroshige’s settings. You’ll encounter all four seasons in scenes of picnics beneath cherry blossoms, summer rainstorms, falling maple leaves, and wintry dusks. The exhibition also includes modern photographs to show how Hiroshige’s scenes morphed into today’s Tokyo.
Artist Takashi Murakami (born Tokyo, Japan, 1962) takes Hiroshige’s views into a more fantastical realm with a set of his own paintings. Created in direct response to 100 Famous Views of Edo, these works invite us to reconsider Hiroshige’s world and his contributions to global art history.
Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami) is organized by Joan Cummins, Lisa and Bernard Selz Senior Curator, Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum.
There are also many, exciting programs accompanying this exhibition scheduled throughout the month, including printmaking workshops and a conversation between Takashki Murakami and curator Joan Cummins.
To learn more, click here.
