ASIA WEEK

Court Art of the Islamic and Indian World, Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch Ltd.
October 20-28, 2022
Open daily 10am-5pm
Weekend opening 11am-5pm

ONE OF FOUR KNOWN SAFAVID FIGURAL VEVET PANELS
A large Safavid silk velvet panel (detail), Persia, 1600-25 A.D., 165 x 31 cm. (65 x 12 ¼ in.)

For more highlights from the exhibition, click here
To view the exhibition catalogue, available online, click here

iGavel's showroom on East 120th Street in Manhattan.

iGavel now has available a special display of highlights in their Manhattan gallery at 227 East 120th Street, open by appointment Monday through Friday. Fine Asian works of art from the following current online auctions are featured:

Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art – Part I
October 6-25, 2022

Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art – Part II
October 11-27, 2022

Asian, Ancient, and Ethnographic Works of Art – Part III
October 20-November 3

Archaic Jades from the Sam and Myrna Myers Collection
Presented by Lark Mason Associates, online catalogue available

Read more, click here

The Ann and Gordon Getty Collection, Christie's New York
Available now through October 24
The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection—a symphonic tour-de-force of masterpieces drawn from history’s most esteemed collections and from one of America’s most storied interiors—is now being sold at Christie’s New York in a series of landmark sales. Nearly 1,500 superlative works of decorative and fine arts will be offered by Christie’s from the couple’s San Francisco residence. Proceeds from the sales will benefit the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts, dedicated to the support of arts and science organizations.

The series of auctions that include Asian art are as follows:

The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Volume 4 | Chinese Works of Art, English and European Furniture and Decorative Arts, Day Sale
In-person auction, October 23, 10am EDT
Through dedication and a sharp eye, Ann Getty created complexly layered and beautifully refined interiors. Volume 4 of the series of sales includes Asian works of art and showcases the contents of the more intimate spaces of the couple's Pacific Heights home's principal suite, the library, and the upstairs bedrooms, including the inimitable Turkish Bedroom. Highlights include English and European Furniture, maps, and important Chinese Works of Art.

The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Chinese and Japanese Works
of Art and Textiles
Online sale now through October 24
This curated sale of Chinese and Japanese works of art draws upon the Getty’s fascination with the historical interplay of European and Asian cultures. Like the Silk Road that connected East and West, in the Gettys’ collection there is a through line of mutual exchange between objects that look both forward and back. This online auction features Chinese Export porcelain and mirrors, Chinese furniture, lacquer and textiles.

The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Indian, Ottoman, Global Works of Art, Jewelry and Textiles
Online sale now through October 24
“I love the hunt,” Mrs. Getty once said, “and I especially love finding something exquisite, moving, rare, unexpected and rich with history.” This intrepid spirit would take the Gettys across the world in search of rarities, and travel’s influence on their collecting habits cannot be overstated. Eighteenth Century world trade and travel would become a major theme in their Pacific Heights home with an emphasis on Indian and Ottoman textiles and decorations. Sale highlights also include selections from Mrs. Getty’s collection of Indian and Mughal jewelry.

Read more, click here

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.

Read more, click here

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.

Read more, click here

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.

Read more, click here

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.