ASIA WEEK

Anicka Yi, Each Branch Of Coral Holds Up, The Light Of The Moon (installation view), 2025, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul. © 2025 Anicka Yi / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery, and Leeum Museum of Art. Photography by Andrea Rossetti

This summer, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is thrilled to present two new exhibitions highlighting the richness and diversity of Asian art. Opening July 29, Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt invites visitors into a mesmerizing world where biology, technology, and spirituality collide through kinetic sculptures and immersive video. Already on view, From India to the World: Textiles from the Parpia Collection showcases the global legacy of Indian textile artistry—from luxurious silks to vibrant cottons, spanning centuries of cultural exchange. Come spend your summer days exploring these two compelling exhibitions and experience how contemporary vision and historical tradition come to life at the MFAH!

Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt
June 29 – September 7, 2025
Members Preview: Friday June 27, 11am-9pm & Saturday, June 28, 11am-6pm
Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street

Immerse yourself in the transcendent exhibition Anicka Yi! From animatronic sculptures that breathe and flicker like prehistoric lifeforms to generative software designed to carry on her practice after death, Anicka Yi approaches technology not as an instrument of control, but as a creative partner. Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt brings to Houston two complementary installations: a suite of five of her Radiolaria sculptures and the immersive video Each Branch Of Coral Holds Up the Light Of the Moon, recently acquired by the MFAH. Both installations dissolve boundaries between biology and technology, proposing new ways of thinking about perception, sentience, and survival across human and nonhuman realms, asking us to reimagine how life—and art—might evolve, mutate, and persist.

To learn more and view all related events, click here.

Ramayana Textile [detail], Coromandel Coast, India, for the Indonesian market, 18th century, cotton, hand-drawn and mordantdyed, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Banoo and Jeevak Parpia Collection, museum purchase funded by the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Accessions Endowment

From India to the World: Textiles from the Parpia Collection
June 22 – September 14, 2025
Saturday Members Tours: July 5, 12, 19, & 26 from 1-2pm
Tour & Toast: Thursdays, August 7 & 21 from 6:15-7:15pm 
Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street

Also be sure to stop by this newly opened exhibit featuring 67 pieces from a significant group of 187 superb Indian textiles that the museum has recently acquired from the collection of Ithaca, New York-based Banoo and Jeevak Parpia. The Parpias have, over more than 40 years, assembled one of the most significant holdings of Indian textiles in private hands outside of India.

From India to the World: Textiles from the Parpia Collection celebrates this major acquisition by highlighting a new selection from the collection, of textiles that were produced between the 17^th and the early 20^th century. This exhibition highlights the distinctions between fabrics made for the India market and those produced for export to Southeast Asia and to Europe.  The exhibition is curated by Rosemary Crill, former senior curator at the V&A, London, and Amy Poster, consulting curator, MFAH.

In July, MFAH members are invited to take part in Saturday docent-led tour tours and learn more about this fascinating exhibition. Please meet in the lobby of the Beck Building. And in August, join fellow art lovers for a special private group tour of the exhibition, followed by a complimentary drink and lively conversation – get your tickets today!

To learn more and view all related events, click here.

Keiko Arai and Susie Ferrell

Don’t miss two exciting summer events coming up at Seizan Gallery! Join them on June 28 for a special closing event featuring an artist talk with Keiko Arai, marking the final day of her solo exhibition INKSCAPE. Then, return on July 3 for the opening reception of WHERE WE ARE NOT, a vibrant summer group show!

Lecture & Talk
KEIKO ARAI × SUSIE FERRELL (LACMA)
Saturday, June 28, 2025, 2-4pm
525 West 26th Street, NYC

Join this closing-day lecture and conversation with ink artist Keiko Arai and Susie Ferrell, Associate Curator of Chinese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), on June 28. Held in celebration of KEIKO ARAI: INKSCAPE, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States, the program will begin with a lecture by Ferrell on Ink Painting of East Asia, exploring the tradition’s rich history and the ways contemporary artists are pushing the boundaries of monochrome expression. The lecture will be followed by a conversation between Arai and Ferrell, reflecting on Ferrell’s 2023 visit to Arai’s studio and discussing how Arai’s practice challenges conventional approaches to ink painting and carries the medium into the future. A casual mixer with refreshments will follow the talk. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Arai share insights into her practice and experience her exhibition on its final day!

To RSVP, click here.

 

Yasushi Ikejiri, Beneath an Abandoned Passenger Car, 2024, oil and acrylic on canvas, 39.4 x 31.6 x 1.2 in (100 x 80.3 x 3 cm)

WHERE WE ARE NOT
Yasushi Ikejiri, James Isherwood, Tom Nakashima, Danielle Winger
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 3, 5-7pm
July 3 – August 23, 2025
(Summer Holiday Closure: August 10-18)
525 West 26th Street, NYC

Seizan Gallery is also pleased to present the summer group exhibition WHERE WE ARE NOT, featuring works by Yasushi Ikejiri, James Isherwood, Tom Nakashima, and Danielle Winger. On view from July 3 through August 23, 2025 (with a holiday closure from August 10 to 18), the exhibition brings together four distinct but thematically convergent practices that envision landscapes largely devoid of living beings—prompting reflection on place, memory, and the quiet traces humanity leaves behind.

Yasushi Ikejiri, drawing influence from landscape painters like Ivan Shishkin and Edward Hopper, captures overlooked corners of Tokyo with meticulous realism and vivid color. His hauntingly still scenes—recently inspired by Mimei Ogawa’s The Chocolate Candy Angel—depict empty parks and streets strewn with candy wrappers, evoking a quiet, melancholic sense of absence.

James Isherwood paints architectural landscapes where human presence is felt but unseen. Using vivid, surreal color and gestural layers, his dreamlike scenes evoke Hopper and Hockney, yet infused with surrealism. His layered, gestural works conjure scenes that are both familiar and uncanny, blurring the line between reality and imagination.

Tom Nakashima’s work, spanning painting, printmaking, collage, and digital media, explores landscapes shaped by memory and cultural legacy. His meditative scenes, often centered on natural or architectural forms, evoke quiet reflection. His SEIZAN Gallery debut features Hanford K East (20XX), a monumental work inspired by a building at the decommissioned Hanford nuclear site, revealing the hidden histories within abandoned structures.

Danielle Winger paints emotionally charged landscapes inspired by German Romanticism. Through bold brushwork and vivid color, she transforms mountains, forests, and deserts into metaphors for solitude, transcendence, and memory.

To learn more, click here.

Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017), Butterflies with Water Lily (Suiren ni Asobu), self-carved, self-printed; titled and signed at lower right, Suiren, Chizuko, with red artist’s seal Chizuko; titled and signed in pencil on the bottom margin, Suiren asobu, Chizuko Yoshida, ca. 1985, 20 3/4 x 16 1/4 in. (52.8 x 41.2 cm)

Chizuko Yoshida: A Vibrant Legacy
Summer 2025
Online

Scholten Japanese Art is honored to announce the gallery’s most recent works by Chizuko Yoshida (1924-2017) received from the Yoshida Family Collection and available now on their website.

Before marrying Hodaka Yoshida, Chizuko Inoue led a life steeped in the arts—studying violin, dance, and traditional Western-style painting. After graduating from Sato Girl’s High School in 1941, she trained at the Hongo Art Institute and with woodblock printmaker Kitaoka Fumio. In the late 1940s, she joined the avant-garde Century Society (Seiki no kai) and shifted from academic realism toward abstraction.

In 1956, Chizuko co-founded the Joryu Hanga Kyokai (Women’s Printmakers Association) together with nine other printmakers including Minami Keiko (1911-2004), Iwami Reika (1927-2020), Enokido Maki (b. 1938), Shishido Tokuko (b. 1930), and Kobayashi Donge (b. 1926). Active through 1965, this group was a crucial platform for female printmakers.

Chizuko Yoshida (College Women’s Association of Japan)

From the mid-1980s, she received major commissions, including seasonal butterfly-themed prints for a major construction company. Issued in limited editions of 100 and displayed in hotels and offices, the entire run was purchased by the company—leaving only 10 to 15 artist’s proofs of each design, as such only proofs were ever available directly from the artist.

In 1985, a new high-end mail-order company commissioned large-format butterfly and floral prints from Chizuko, marketed as luxury collectibles in limited editions of just 20 to 40, with the artist perhaps retaining the other half of the edition.

Later in her career, Chizuko pioneered a fusion of photoetching and traditional woodblock printing, contributing to the prestigious One Hundred Views of Tokyo: Message to the 21st Century, a decade-long project featuring 100 prints from 100 artists, which was conceived and published by the Japan Print Association starting in 1989.

Don’t miss out and explore these remarkable works today by clicking here.

Installation view, Craft Garden: Landscape of Japanese Art

Craft Garden: Landscape of Japanese Art
Closing Saturday, June 28, 2025
35 N Moore Street, NYC

Don’t miss the final days of Craft Garden: Landscape of Japanese Art at Ippodo Gallery before it closes on June 28! Featuring around twenty living artists who envision the philosophy of the Japanese garden in ceramics, lacquer, bamboo & plant fibers, glass, metal, wood, and painting, this mesmerizing exhibition is not to be missed.

The Japanese garden, amongst the pond, trees, rocks, and moss, is a place to discover the fundamental attitude of coexistence between nature and humans. In the face of common natural disasters, this relationship defines the harmonious, yet resilient, Japanese lifestyle. Classical architecture such as the sitting veranda engawa connects inside and outside spaces. There is a closeness to nature; at a low viewing angle, aromas are most fragrant, shadows create beautiful vignettes, and sounds of the river current are peaceful. From this vantage, the sensory experience draws focus to craftsmanship where a glaze holds an entire cosmos.

The passage of time and change of the four seasons transpire with imperfection. A unique character emerges with appreciation for decay, weathering, asymmetry, or the ‘kiln-effect.’ The inextricable link between fine art craft and the garden is articulated as the transient wabi-sabi aesthetic; these artists exemplify this through different approaches.

To learn more and catch a glimpse of this poetic show, click here.

Josephine Shuk-Fong Cheung, Untitled, 1981, acrylic on canvas, 167.5 x 127 cm (66 x 50 in)

Josephine Shuk-Fong Cheung: A Commemorative Exhibition
June 24 – July 3, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 26, 2025, 6-8pm
120 East 65th Street, NYC

Alisan Fine Arts is pleased to present Josephine Shuk-Fong Cheung: A Commemorative Exhibition, dedicated to the late Hong Kong-born artist whose compelling body of work has remained largely unseen by the public for nearly four decades. The exhibition opens June 24, with an evening reception on Thursday, June 26.

Despite her brief yet prolific career from 1981 to 1989, Cheung’s artistic practice demonstrates a constant evolution—marked by her fearless experimentation with form, color, and composition. Her paintings deftly navigate the liminal space between abstraction and figuration, ultimately achieving a deeply personal and embodied visual language.

Born in Hong Kong and trained in Canada, Cheung began making art at 19 and quickly rose to prominence, earning prestigious scholarships and exhibiting internationally throughout the 1980s. Her early abstract expressionist style gave way to deeply humanist figuration, influenced by her time in New York and exposure to street artists like Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. A turning point came in 1983 when her work as a social worker with Indochinese refugees infused her paintings with psychological depth and emotional resonance.

Her late work, including The “I” Series and In Limbo, reveals a more introspective, contemplative vision—marked by bold lines, subdued tones, and intimate scale. Diagnosed with lung cancer in 1989, Cheung passed away at just 35. Her archive remained dormant until 2021, when renewed interest followed the death of her partner, artist Andrew Lui.

This exhibition marks the first major presentation of Cheung’s work in decades, offering a powerful rediscovery of an artist whose voice continues to resonate.

To learn more, click here.

Installation view, Giving Form to Color: New Work by Sawada Hayato

Giving Form to Color: New Work by Sawada Hayato
Closing Friday, June 20, 2025
39 East 78th Street, Suite 401

These are the last days to experience this vibrant exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD before it closes on June 20! Giving Form to Color is the long-anticipated international solo debut for artist Sawada Hayato featuring exciting new works created exclusively for this show.

Sawada’s unique forms—which can be angular and multi-planar or rounded and curvilinear—are further highlighted by the application of boldly contrasting surface patterns, which are themselves richly textured.  Using traditional techniques like hand-building and his own “raw inlay” method, he creates layered, multi-fired works that come to live as three-dimensional abstract paintings.

In describing his approach to ceramic art, Sawada uses the language of classical music, another passion of his. Just as musicians bring centuries-old scores to life by infusing the music with their own contemporary sensibilities, Sawada creates ceramics that exude modernity while employing the ancient techniques of hand-building, slip glazing, and inlay.

Don’t miss the chance to experience these extraordinary works today!

To learn more and view the online catalog, click here.

Kimura Kōsuke (b. 1936), Present Situation (Framing B) (detail), Japan, Shōwa era, 1971, screenprint and lithograph; ink on paper, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Purchase and partial gift of the Kenneth and Kiyo Hitch Collection from Kiyo Hitch with funds from the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment, S2019.3.982, © Kosuke Kimura

Come see what’s new at the National Museum of Asian Art this summer! Opening June 21, Cut + Paste: Experimental Japanese Prints and Photographs showcases 17 artists from the museum’s collection who redefined printmaking and photography, blurring the boundaries of memory, reality, and perception. Then, on June 27, join artist Park Jinwoo for a talk on the history and modern evolution of Korean calligraphy, followed by hands-on workshops on June 28 and 29 where you’ll create your own expressive works using traditional materials. All events are free with registration.

Cut + Paste: Experimental Japanese Prints and Photographs
June 21 – November 30, 2025
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | Gallery 25

Leave your assumptions about prints and photographs behind. In this exhibition, flat surfaces expand outward. Images aren’t simply printed—they are worked, reworked, and then reworked again. Paper artworks accumulate layers of unusual materials like plastic, foam, glue, and tape. In our era of media endlessly copied, reproduced, and loaded to screens, these photographs and prints beg to be viewed in person.

Cut + Paste showcases seventeen Japanese artists who pushed the limits of printmaking and photography. By combining techniques, these artists created multilayered images that challenge distinctions between mediums, art-making traditions, and notions of fine art and commercial design.

Spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and drawn entirely from the museum’s collection, these works blur reality and memory, space and time—inviting you to look closer and experience each piece from your own unique perspective.

To learn more, click here.

Artist Talk: Korean Calligraphy, Past & Present
Friday, June 27, 2025, 12-1pm
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | Gallery 27

Get a primer on Korean calligraphy, both traditional and experimental, from artisan Park Jinwoo. Delve into the history and practice of calligraphy as a long-standing art form in East Asia. Then learn about the artists in the field who are merging calligraphy with contemporary art, including Jinwoo himself! Want to put what you’ve learned into practice? Follow up with hands-on calligraphy workshops on June 28 and June 29 (see below).

To learn more and register, click here.

Artist Workshop: Korean Calligraphy
Saturday, June 28 or June 29, 2025, 1-3pm
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery | ImaginAsia Studio

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use traditional calligraphy materials and create works that express your personal story. Calligraphy has been a medium for communicating one’s own story since ancient times, and some of the most famous calligraphic works in East Asia are examples of this: Wang Xizhi’s Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, Yan Zhenqing’s Draft of a Requiem to My Nephew, and Kim Jeong-hee’s Sehando. Open to all ages, no experience necessary. Materials provided; space is limited.

To learn more and register, click here.

Gambhira putra, fourth ‘son’ of Sri Raga, from a Ragamala series, North Deccan, c. 1630-50, opaque pigments and gold on paper, folio: 33 x 27 cm, painting: 29 x 22.5 cm including yellow border

Sound, Text, and Image: Picturing Music through Ragamala
Summer 2025

Francesca Galloway is pleased to present a selection of newly available works that accompany Richard David Williams’ essay on Ragamala painting this summer.

What does sound look like? In pre-colonial north India, music scholars, poets, and painters developed images and descriptions for the musical entities known as ragas, and strung them together in a series or “garland” (mala). While it is not clear precisely when listeners began to conceive of music this way, by the 1500s, ragamala poetry and paintings were well established, and proved to be extremely popular until the nineteenth century.

In his insightful essay, Richard David Williams explores how Ragamala paintings weave together sound, text, and image to create an immersive multi sensory experience—where melodies are not only heard but also seen and read. Drawing from a group of rare Ragamala paintings from the north Deccan, dating from 1630–50, Williams reveals how artists from this period used color, composition, and accompanying verse to evoke the emotional and aesthetic essence of musical modes.

His essay provides fresh insight into the cultural and historical context of these works, highlighting the distinctiveness of Deccani aesthetics, marked by lyrical compositions, jewel-toned palettes, and Persianate influences. By examining how painters translated sonic and poetic structures into visual form, Williams invites us to rethink the boundaries between art forms and appreciate Ragamala not simply as illustration, but as a unique form of musical translation. These paintings make melody visible, readable, and deeply felt.

To read the full essay and view new works of art, click here.

Installation view, Project Room, Seizan Gallery

Special Project
MORIOKA SHOTEN: THE BOOK OF TEA
Closing Saturday, June 21, 2025
525 West 26th St, NYC

Don’t miss the final week of MORIOKA SHOTEN: THE BOOK OF TEA, a special pop-up at Seizan Gallery featuring the internationally celebrated Tokyo bookstore Morioka Shoten before it closes on June 21!

This unique presentation centers on The Book of Tea, the seminal 1906 text by Japanese art critic, scholar, and collector Okakura Kakuzō (1863–1913). Written in English, Okakura’s essay introduced Western audiences to Japanese aesthetics, spirituality, and philosophy through the lens of tea, becoming a touchstone for cross-cultural understanding. Okakura also played a pivotal role in building the East Asian art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Over the decades, The Book of Tea has inspired countless artists and thinkers—including Georgia O’Keeffe. Earlier this year, Yoshiyuki Morioka of Morioka Shoten visited O’Keeffe’s home and studio in Abiquiú, New Mexico, where he discovered two copies of the book—one annotated by the artist herself.

On view in SEIZAN’s project room are photographs from Morioka’s visit, featuring marked pages and quiet moments captured in O’Keeffe’s desert sanctuary. The installation also includes a rare first edition of The Book of Tea, a portrait of O’Keeffe by photographer Todd Webb, and a curated selection of vintage and contemporary objects inspired by the book and O’Keeffe’s singular sense of place.

This quietly powerful exhibition is not to be missed!

To learn more, click here.

(Left): Tokuda Yasokichi III, Jar, deep blue brilliant glazes, wave pattern, 2005, porcelain with vivid colored glaze (yosai), 7 1/2 x 10 in (19 x 25.5 cm); (Right): Tokuda Yasokichi IV, Jar, Loulan, 2010, porcelain with vivid colored glaze (yosai), 17 x 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 in (43.2 x 21.6 x 21.6 cm)

KOGEI and Art
Closing Friday, June 20, 2025
16 East 79th Street

This is the last week to experience KOGEI and Art at Onishi Gallery before the exhibition closes on June 20! This dynamic exhibition highlights contemporary works across a range of KOGEI media, including metalwork, lacquerware, ceramics, painting, and screens, celebrating the enduring legacy and innovation of Japanese craftsmanship.

“KOGEI” refers to works made using materials and methods that have stood the test of time, reflecting uncompromising dedication to technical perfection and a search for new forms of expression. This exhibition highlights the growing role of KOGEI in contemporary Western lifestyle and global art and design. The title KOGEI and Art is given to reflect the unique character of KOGEI, not seen in other cultures, and to emphasize its separate but complementary status compared to “Art” in the conventional Western sense.

The first category is Metalwork, including works by artists whose works were shown in Japan: A History of Style (2021) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and subsequently acquired by the Museum, or are currently on display in Striking Objects: Contemporary Japanese Metalwork at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, comprising masterpieces from the Shirley Z. Johnson Bequest. The second category is Lacquerware by artists who participated in The Spirit of Noto: Urushi Artists of Wajima, held at Onishi Gallery in October 2024 and highlighting leading figures from a region whose tradition of lacquer production dates back more than five centuries. The third category is Ceramics, an aspect of KOGEI that Onishi Gallery has foregrounded ever since its opening in 2005.

The show includes works by numerous Living National Treasures of Japan such as Ōsumi Yukie, Nakagawa Mamoru, Katsura Morihito, Tamagawa Norio, Murose Kazumi, Yamagishi Kazuo, Imaizumi Imaemon XIV, and Yoshita Minori as well as younger artists including Onihira Keiji, Noguchi Ken, Rusu Aki, and Konno Tomoko, creating a lively intergenerational dialogue within Onishi Gallery’s historical space in the Sidney Ripley mansion, built in 1905 and designed by Warren and Wetmore in Neo-Georgian style. They are also delighted to premiere a new jewelry artist, George Inaki Root, whose practice is based on kintsugi , the Japanese philosophy of “mended, not broken.”

Don’t miss the opportunity to experience these timeless pieces today!

To learn more and view their online brochure, click here.