ASIA WEEK

Xu Beihong and Alexander Tcherepnin: A Chat on Crosscurrents of Music and Art in Early 20th Century China, China Institute
Online program, October 20, 7-8pm

Join conductor and scholar Jindong Cai and concert pianist and author Xu Fangfang, the daughter of legendary painter Xu Beihong, as they discuss two early 20th Century visionaries, composer Alexander Tcherepnin and artist Xu Beihong, who both sought throughout their lives to connect East and West through art and music, and simultaneously nurtured generations of artists who did the same.

Cai and Xu will tell stories to illuminate the program of the upcoming concert Journey to the East, taking place on October 22 in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, in honor of these two creative minds and their work. The first half of the concert will include the concert version of a rarely performed work, The Nymph and the Farmer, a 35-minute, one-act chamber opera based on an ancient Chinese folk tale by composer Alexander Tcherepnin. As Cai will explain, Tcherepnin taught at the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1930s and nurtured the early generation of Chinese composers, including Jiang Wenye, a composer who in 1964 wrote a piano concerto celebrating Xu Beihong’s work especially for Xu’s daughter Fangfang. The concerto was never performed before it was lost during the Cultural Revolution. However, one movement of the concerto was recently discovered, and will be performed for the first time by Xu Fangfang during Journey to the East. Join China Institute and hear the story of this work’s recovery and the meaning behind this piece celebrating the art and creative strength of modern China’s greatest painter.

Spatial Dunhuang: Experiencing the Mogao Caves
In-person event, October 25, 8pm

Constructed over a millennium from the fourth to fourteenth centuries CE near Dunhuang, an ancient border town along the Silk Road in northwest China, the Mogao Caves comprise the largest, most continuously created, and best-preserved treasure trove of Buddhist art in the world.

Join these distinguished art historian Wu Hung from University of Chicago and world art professor Shen Hsueh-man from New York University to re-discover the art of Dunhuang. Instead of tracing the caves’ unilinear history, the two speakers will share with the audience a novel way of examining Mogao Caves as physical and historical sites that can be approached, entered, and understood sensually, a perspective of space prioritizing the actual experiences of the people who built and used the caves.

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Plate, Iran, Sasanian period, 5th–7th century, silver and gilt, Purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment, Freer Gallery of Art, F1964.10

The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology
National Museum of Asian Art
Online and in-person symposium, October 21-22, 10am-5pm

Between the third and seventh centuries CE, the Sasanian Empire became one of the most dominant powers in the ancient world, extending geographically from Western to Central Asia. From monumental buildings and impressive rock reliefs to elaborately designed metal vessels and finely carved seals, these structures and objects provide a glimpse into the empire’s artistic diversity and its rich material culture. Recent scholarship has further expanded our knowledge of the Sasanian empire and has confirmed its enduring legacy beyond its geographic borders, long after the Arab conquest in the seventh century.

The Sasanians in Context: Art, History, and Archaeology gathers some of the most renowned national and international scholars to share their recent work on the Sasanians and their lasting artistic and historical contributions.

Read more and register, click here.

Susumu Shingu, Astral Forest, 2013, stainless steel, aluminum, polyester cloth

Susumu Shingu: Sculpting with Wind, Ippodo Gallery
October 20-December 29
Opening reception for the artist, Thursday, October 20, 5-8pm
Artist talk event, Saturday, October 22, 2pm

Ippodo Gallery presents the renowned kinetic-sculptor Susumu Shingu’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Sculpting with Wind will open October 20th and run through December 29th, 2022. Shingu’s large-scale public works are and have been continuously displayed around the world.

The artist’s large-scale permanent outdoor sculptures serve as a reminder of the constancy and immensity of the Earth’s natural forces – wind, water, light, and gravity – that affect our human bodies/lives. The artist’s elegantly engineered sculptures are durable yet never the same, responding to diverse environments. Shingu’s kinetic sculptures oppose the perception that the world around us is eternal or static; they visually and mentally activate a viewer’s sense of their individual relationship to nature.

Shingu’s wondrous churning objects explore how the environment shapes and creates behavior, and have made him a favorite of well-known architects, including Renzo Piano, Tadao Ando, and Enrique Norten. Ippodo Gallery will commemorate this exceptional showcase of drawings, interior sculptures, and colorful abstract paintings with an opening reception featuring the artist, who is visiting from Japan, on October 20th from 5-8 pm EST. This special exhibition will also feature several large-scale exterior proposals.

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Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja), Chola period, about 10th/11th century, Tamil Nadu, bronze

The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from
Chola India, 855–1280,
Art Institute of Chicago
In-person lecture, October 22, 2022, 6pm CDT

Join Vidya Dehejia, professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University, as she discusses her book, The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855–1280.

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Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), Mount Yoshino-Midnight Moon, from One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, 1886, woodblock print

In their current online exhibition, Ghost Stories: Yokai and Yurei in Ukiyo-e, even though summer is traditionally ghost story time in Japan, Egenolf Gallery thought October is the perfect time for a selection of scary stories and images here in the U.S. Supernatural beings inhabit Japanese folk tales the way that farmers inhabit the countryside; they have their roles to play and appear in many of Japan's most famous stories. Yokai and yurei are two categories given to these otherworldly visitors, and may include demons, ghosts and many other types of magical apparitions. Ghosts play leading roles in many kabuki dramas, and the ukiyo-e artists drew heavily from this wellspring of exciting characters.

To see the exhibition, click here.

Bingata Textiles: Preserving a Royal Tradition in Okinawa,
Japan Society
Online program, October 18, 7pm EDT

The bingata method of textile dyeing is a vibrant artistic tradition with a long history on Japan’s subtropical Okinawan islands. Originally reserved for the sumptuous garb of the royalty and ruling class of the Ryukyu Kingdom, these traditional hand-dyeing techniques are still being carried on by craftspeople in Okinawa today. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan, this program explores the fascinating history, unique methods and current state of bingata with textile specialist Ginny Soenksen, and bingata craftsman Touma Chinen. The first event in Japan Society's multi-part Living Traditions webinar series this season.

Speakers:
Ginny Soenksen, Director, Madison Art Collection and Lisanby Museum
Touma Chinen, 10th generation head of the Shimujiibu line of the Chinen family of bingata craftsmen; President of the Chinen Bingata Institute
Moderator: Dr. Masato Ishida, Director, Center for Okinawan Studies, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa

Read more and register, click here.

Fuka'e Roshu (1699-1757), Wisteria and Other Flowers, 18th century, hanging scroll,
ink and color on paper, Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

Rinpa: Creativity Across Time and Space,
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution
October 1, 2022-February 5, 2023

The Japanese painting movement now known as Rinpa was a loose association of artists that began around the dawn of the seventeenth century and continued into the nineteenth century. Their aesthetic came to define an almost stereotypical image of Japanese art consisting of stylized forms in bright colors. The National Museum of Asian Art invites you to explore a selection of paintings and ceramics by several generations of Rinpa artists from their collection.

Katsukawa Shunchō (active about 1781-95), Summer Bush Clover (Natsuhagi), from the series
Choicest Odes upon Flowers of the Four Seasons (Shuku awase, shiki no hana), circa 1792, color woodblock print, chūban, 10 1/4 × 8 in. (26 × 20.3 cm)

Monochromatic Japanese Prints, Art Institute of Chicago
September 30-April 9, 2023

In its oldest and most basic form, a printed image consists of black ink indirectly applied to paper. In Japan, this method was developed by the 8th century and employed for commercial purposes beginning in the 17th century, with color printing becoming widespread in the 1760s. The early commercial monochromatic prints are known as sumizuri-e—literally, “pictures printed in ink.” Despite their limited palette, these works by designers such as Kaigetsudō Anchi and Okumura Masanobu, who are represented in this display, have a presence and immediacy rarely seen again in Japanese printmaking until the 20th century.

After the development of full-color printing in the mid-18th century, some publishers chose to save money by continuing to use black ink alone to produce illustrated books and single-sheet prints. Other publishers deployed black ink to make a statement about the skill of an artist or to imbue a print with a painterly quality: they produced complex images rendered mostly in shades of gray, as seen in works by Katsukawa Shunchō and Utagawa Hiroshige.

In the 20th century, print designers who recognized the potential of black ink on paper took up the challenge of making compelling images with only the fundamental materials. Artists including Munakata Shikō and Hiratsuka Un’ichi spent virtually their entire careers working almost exclusively in black ink, demonstrating the expressive power of mono-chromatic printing.

The striking works in this exhibition span nearly 250 years and are drawn entirely from the rich holdings of the Art Institute’s Japanese print collection. Monochromatic Japanese Prints is curated by Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Set of Four Chinese Bronze Knives with Jade Pommels, L: 10 ¼, 9 ¾, 10 1/4 and 11 1/4 in., Estimate: $60,000-90,000, Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art

Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art,
iGavel
Online auction, October 6-25

The final big event of Asia Week is iGavel’s online auction Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art. The first part opened for bidding on October 6th and runs until the 25th. Over 500 lots from China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia represent a range of categories, including fifty Chinese archaic jades from the property of Sam and Myrna Myers, the renowned Parisian dealer and collector, who gifted the Musée Guimet. Several of these pieces have been exhibited at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, the Pointe-A-Calliere Museum, in Montreal, the Fondation Baur Musee des Arts D'Extreme-Orient, in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Asian Art Museum in Nice, France.

Among the archaic jades are a Chinese Brown Jade Huang with Dragon Head Terminals (Estimate: $30,000-50,000); a Yellow Chinese Jade Dragon Pendant (Estimate: $15,000-20,000); a Brown and Black Chinese Jade Tiger Form Pendant (Estimate: $30,000-50,000); a pair of Jade Dragon Form Pendants (Estimate: $35,000/45,000); a Brown Chinese Jade Dragon Form Pendant (Estimate: $20,000/30,000); and a Chinese Brown Jade Carved Pendant (Estimate: $20,000-40,000); a set of four Chinese Bronze Knives with Jade Pommels, (Estimate: $60,000-90,000); and a Chinese Carved Green Jade Huang, (Estimate: $10,000-15,000).

The second sale, Asian Works of Art, will open for bidding on October 11 to 27 and includes a large selection of works from the collection of George Barrie, the business partner of Jim Thompson, who mysteriously disappeared in the jungles of Southeast Asia, leaving Barrie to take over the company, expanding it to become the largest producer of raw silk in Southeast Asia. Included in the sale from his collection is the important Portrait of Merchant Howqua by the School of Lamqua (1801-1860) (Estimate: $30,000–50,000); a 16th/17th century Burmese Sandstone Buddha Footprint Buddhapada, carved with 108 Buddhist symbols; and a pair of Thai Carved Wood Chora Architectural Spires, or “sky tassels”, often used as spires which often adorned the roofs of temples and palaces and thought to bring good luck and ward off evil spirits.

Also now available for sale online at iGavel is Rugs and Carpets from the Collection of Barry MacLean, which runs until October 22nd. The highly regarded MacLean Collection is based in Chicago and was assembled over the past half century. Among the many special items in this sale is this Qing-dynasty Peking Blue Ground 5-clawed Dragon Decorated Wool Carpet (detail above) from the Qing Dynasty (Estimate: $3,000-5,000).

Read more, click here.