32 Exhibitions
DRESSED TO IMPRESS Netsuke and Japanese Men’s Fashion
Netsuke are a form of Japanese miniature sculpture that were primarily functional, but evolved into an important art form in Japan. Tey were used by men as toggles to fasten tobacco and medicine pouches to the belts of their kimonos. While men of all classes of society used netsuke, they were particularly popular with merchants, who wanted to demonstrate their style and financial status through these fashion accessories. Tis exhibition features a selection of
netsuke, chosen from over 2,300 in the British Museum’s collection, with more pieces added from Museum of East Asian Art’s collection to show the range and beauty of these objects and their excellent craftsmanship. Netsuke come in a variety of forms and materials such as wood, ivory and porcelain. Te beauty of these objects is in their individuality, and is reflected in the variety of the netsuke on show; a goldfish, a Chinese boy holding a lion mask and a drum and fox’s mask. Also on display will be a number of inro (a case for holding small objects), a sword, as well as smoking accessories. Te exhibition places the netsuke and other objects in context with a bespoke male kimono to demonstrate how they were worn as a complete outfit in the 18th century. From 4 November to 22 April 2018, Museum of East Asian Art, Bath,
meaa.org.uk. A number of events have been organised, including a talk: Adornment in Early Modern Japan on 10 November; and a workshop on Japanese Textile Dyeing on 18 November
ART AND CHINA AFTER 1989 Theater of The World
After being the first museum to create the position of Curator in Asian Art and presenting several exhibitions of leading Asian artists, the Guggenheim Museum in New York is pursuing this endeavour with this next major survey of Chinese contemporary art. Taking as a point of departure 1989, the year of the events on Tian An Men Square, the exhibition is the largest of its kind ever mounted in the United States. Bringing together more than 70 artists, the exhibitions aims to show how through their
work, they strived to establish the individual as opposed to the traditional concept of collectivity. Curated by Alexandra
Munroe from the Guggenheim Museum New York, Philip Tinari from the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing and Hou Hanru from the Maxxi National Museum in Rome, the show highlights more than 150 works from private and public collections which will subsequently be shown at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Running alongside the exhibition is the film series co-curated by Ai Weiwei and Wang Fen, Turn It On: China on Film 2000-2017, which features 20 independent documentaries by China’s most daring artists and filmmakers investigating the political, social, economic, and cultural conditions of contemporary China. More information on the museum’s website.
From 6 October to 7 January, Te Guggenheim, New York,
guggenheim.org
Olivia Sand
Chinese boy holding a mask for a lion dance. Mikawachi kilns (Saga prefecture), Japan, 1800s. © Te Trustees of the British Museum
Tere Came a Mr Solomon to China (1994) by Zhou Tiehai, ink, graphite, watercolour, and paper collage, 230 x 350 cm. Collection of Laurence A Rickels. Photo: courtesy the artist
NALINI MALANI The Rebellion of The Dead Retrospective 1969-2018
Chaekgeori, Korean, eight-panel folding screen, ink and colour on paper, early 1900s, each panel: 105 x 46.5 cm, private collection.
CHAEKGEORI The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens
Chaekgeori, translates as ‘books and things’ and are painted screens that depict scholarly objects, exotic luxuries, symbolic flowers, and gourmet delicacies dispersed in artful arrangements on bookshelves. Such screens were praised by King Jeongjo (reigned 1776-1800), and were enthusiastically collected by the educated elite throughout the 19th and early 20th century in Korea. By the late 1800s, chaekgeori screens embellished the studies of scholars and aristocrats as well as the homes of middle- class merchants.
Tis exhibition in Cleveland, Ohio, features nine large-
scale screens ranging from the 19th through the 21st centuries on loan from the Korean Folk Village, Yongin, Korea and the Sungok Memorial Hall, Monkpo, Korea as well as from private collections. Te exhibition catalogue also reveals new scholarship about the artist who painted the rare, 10-panel folding screen, Books and Scholars’ Accoutrements, acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2011.
Exhibited alongside the screen are selection of decorative objects from the museum’s renowned collection of Chinese art. Te display emulates Chinese display cabinets of the Qing period (1644-1911) that inspired chaekgeori artists
ASIAN ART OCTOBER 2017
who began working in the Korean royal court of King Jeongjo (r 1776-1800). Tese types of screens became one the most prolific and enduring art forms throughout the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) and is also the earliest style of Korean painting to employ the European pictorial techniques of trompe l’oeil and chiaroscuro to create visual illusions of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface. Te primary motif of chaekgeori is books, the objects Korean intellectuals traditionally
associated with
knowledge and social distinction. Preferred by the court and elite classes, chaekgado, translated as ‘picture of bookshelves’, is a sub-genre of chaekgeori developed in the second half of the 18th century that represents a Korean collectors’ desire to amass books on diverse topics to express their aesthetic discernment. Tis desire for books and other commodities, including
writing implements, exotic foreign luxuries, symbolic flowers and gourmet delicacies, set in motion a significant social and cultural shift toward a fascination with material culture that continues in Korea today and finds its expression in this exhibition’s contemporary works. Until 5 November, Cleveland Museum of Art,
clevelandart.org
Te Centre Pompidou in Paris and Te Castello di Rivoli in Turin are joining forces to present the first retrospective in France and in Italy of the Indian artist Nalini Malani. Covering the
timespan 1969-2018, the exhibition investigates Malani’s relentless sense of innovation, acting as a pioneer for woman’s art whilst also
collaborating with leading figures of other disciplines in publishing, theatre, or performance. Originally trained as a painter, Malani has throughout her work been a constant advocate of feminist issues, also addressing larger issues of gender, race, myths in her various films. After a career spanning more than 50 years, she remains committed to a feminist approach, considering there is still a great deal to be accomplished for the position of women in society.
From 18 October to 8 January, 2018 Centre Pompidou, Paris,
pompidou.fr. A symposium connected to the exhibition, Memory: Record/Erase is on 19 October. Te exhibition travels to Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino from 27 March to 22 July 2018.
Olivia Sand
All We Imagine as Light (2016) by Nalini Malani, diam. 122 cm, Arario Museum, Seoul. Photo: Anil Rane
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