UPCOMING EVENT
The Making of Modern Korean Art
The Letters of Kim Tschang-Yeul, Kim Whanki, Lee Ufan, and Park Seo-Bo, 1961–1982
Friday, May 9, 2025 from 6-7:30pm
On the occasion of the new publication, The Making of Modern Korean Art: The Letters of Kim Tschang-Yeul, Kim Whanki, Lee Ufan, and Park Seo-Bo, 1961–1982, Asia Society brings together the contributors of this seminal book to share new scholarship on the role four pioneering artists played in the building of a modern identity of a nation through their artistic and intellectual exchanges, in the wake of a series of tumultuous historical events. This program is co-presented with Tina Kim Gallery.
The book includes newly translated, previously unpublished correspondences among the four titular artists, co-edited by Dr. Yeon Shim Chung, Professor of Art History and Theory at Hongik University, Seoul; and Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator at M+, Hong Kong. Kyung An, Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, also contributes to this title. Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co, the title is a new milestone in the field of modern and contemporary Asian art, providing a comprehensive English-language survey of Korean abstraction that further contextualizes the best-known Dansaekhwa as one part of diverse and robust postwar Korean art movements. All three contributors will be speaking at the Asia Society program, along with the artist Lee Ufan, moderated by Yasufumi Nakamori, Vice President of Arts & Culture and Director of Asia Society Museum, and Andrew Russeth, Editor of Artnet News Pro.
Limited copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, after the conversation.
The Making of Modern Korean Art sets up the scene in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953), when Korean artists were redefining their cultural identity while articulating their collective trauma and existential dislocation. Many turned to abstraction when forging a distinctly Korean modernity.
To learn more and register, click here.
ASIA WEEK NEW YORK EXHIBITIONS
Howardena Pindell, Autobiography: India (Lakshmi), 1984, mixed media collage on paper. 18 x 20 1/2 x 2 in. (45.7 x 52.1 x 5.1 cm); Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York
(Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection
March 4 – August 10, 2025
Patrons Preview Tour: Monday, March 3, 5:30-6pm
Members-Only Opening: Monday, March 3, 6-9pm
This exhibition reintroduces key works in Asia Society Museum’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection of pre-modern Asian art through the lenses of three leading contemporary artists: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell. Each artist has selected a number of works in the collection within which to situate their own new and existing works, approaching historic objects in the collection through their practices and from multiple cultures, heritages, and positions. Creating dialogues across multiple histories and places, these artists offer a range of new insights and entry points into the collection.
To learn more, click here.
Platter, Yuan period, mid-14th century, China, Jiangxi Province, porcelain painted with underglaze cobalt blue (Jingdezhen ware), h. 3 in. x diam. 18 3/8 in. (7.6 x 46.7 cm); Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 1979.151.
Imperial Treasures: Chinese Ceramics of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection
February 18 – August 10, 2025
Known for exquisite porcelain production and expansive trade, the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) represents a period of Chinese imperial rule between the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1911). The approximately 20 works selected for this exhibition demonstrate how early Ming ceramics inherited the rich and culturally diverse legacy of the Mongol rulers by adopting foreign influences through vibrant trade with the Islamic and Central Asian worlds and combining them with indigenous Chinese traditions.
To learn more, click here.
Yang Fudong (born 1971 in Beijing, China; lives and works in Shanghai), Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, Part I, 2003, single-channel video with sound; 35mm black-and-white film transferred to DVD, duration: 29 minutes, 22 seconds; Asia Society, New York: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harold and Ruth Newman, 2011.24
Yang Fudong: Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest
February 18 – August 10, 2025
Asia Society Museum is showing Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, in its entirety as a prelude to the upcoming exhibition, (Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Collection, opening in March. The work follows seven young men and women on journeys in search of their identities and ideal lives, reflecting the many urban, ideological, and economic transformations across China today.
In 2003, Yang Fudong produced the first part of his five-part film; one part of the film was created each year (in sequential order), and the entire work was finished in 2007. The work has no clear narrative, although each part takes place in a different setting. Some parts take place in a rural environment, while others are set in cities. The film poses questions about the dissonance between men and women, individuals and society, the past and present, and reality and an ideal world.
Each part was originally shot in 35mm film, which was then transferred to DVD. Yang prefers to shoot in film, as opposed to digital video, as he believes that film retains a strong sense of the artist’s touch, which digital videos often lack. The five parts differ in length, ranging from approximately thirty to seventy minutes; the total running time amounts to about four hours.
Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest was first screened at the 2007 Venice Biennale, receiving high praise. Asia Society Museum acquired the work in 2011.
To learn more, click here.
Hiraki Sawa: Journeys in Place
March 4 – August 10, 2025
Japanese-born and London-based Hiraki Sawa creates video works that explore psychological landscapes, unexpected worlds, and the playful interweaving of domestic and imaginary spaces. His works traverse specific, often personal, landscapes to consider memory, migration, and displacement. Asia Society invited Sawa to frame his video trail (2005), held in the museum’s collection, with a selection of works from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, echoing the approach of the exhibition (Re)Generations in the museum’s 2nd- and 3rd-floor galleries. His selection of a small-scale pair of lion-dogs (flanking the video monitor) and bixies (mythical creatures) relate to the miniaturized camel who is the main protagonist of trail. Asia Society’s beloved elephant-headed sandstone Ganesha completes the display, bringing joy, good luck, and wealth to the many who venerate the popular deity.
Sawa’s trail is looped with his works fantasmagoria (2017) and pilgrim (2022), while the artist-made monitor box on view loops dwelling (2002) and elsewhere (2003). All five videos present abstracted montages of spaces that are intimate to the artist.
To learn more, click here.
Installations
March 4 – August 10, 2025
Also on view will be Marcos Kueh’s colorful, fluorescent tapestries that critically address the theme of eroticization and tourism, particularly on the island of Borneo, where Kueh was born and where identity and culture are commodified as touristic entertainment; Yoko Ono’s ongoing interactive art installation, Wish Tree, begun in 1996, where visitors are invited to write a wish on a paper tag and tie it to the tree; and Ai Wei Wei’s With Colored Vase, 2008, where he asks us to confront our values in relation to the past.
To learn more, click here.
