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28 ASIAN ART Exhibitions


DRAMATIC THREADS Textiles of Asia


Objects ranging from theatrical and political costumes to architectural textiles and presentation cloths are featured in an exhibition throughout Newark’s Asian galleries over the summer. Works featured in Dramatic Treads can be found throughout the Asian galleries – China, Japan, Korea, Nepal and Tibet – and are identified by a unique text label. Weaving and stitching


techniques employed to fashion the works in the exhibition have been passed down for countless generations, but always with constant small modifications over time. Te imagery in these textiles communicates narrative stories and auspicious emblems that express cultural identity and announce different lifestyles. Some embroidery stitches may be read like signatures, revealing where they were sewn. A variety of decorative


woven textiles features a range of construction methods, including virtuoso brocades, and complex slit-woven tapestries alongside more basic twill and plain weaves. Embroidery and other needlework techniques add surface decoration and layers of meaning to the structure of the fabric. Te materials used – gold, silk, wool, cotton – all hold keys to understanding regional access to resources; weighing the value and desirability of luxury imports compared with local production. Cultural preferences for specific colour palettes and subject matter intertwine with a range of techniques and underscore distinct regional histories. However, many textiles also demonstrate shared purposes across cultures, as gift covers, interior decorations and dress worn for special occasions. Until February 2018, Newark Museum, New Jersey, newarkmuseum.org


LIKE LIFE Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-Now)


Te ability to replicate life is essential to artistic practice. Beyond the more literal quest for figurative perfection, emotion through form is arguably at the core of captivation by objects altogether. So while the ambitious undertaking by the Met Breuer’s Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-Now) is to reflect this urge around the globe through just 127 works spanning over nearly a millennium, although seeming incredibly vast, the motifs across cultures are expertly exhibited, proving that the human experience and its representations are ultimately collective. Art works from Europe,


Koshimaki kosode embroidered with pine, bamboo, plum, and tortoiseshell motifs, Japan, Edo period (1615-1868), silk floss embroidered on nerinuki silk. Gift of Herman AE Jaehne and Paul C Jaehne, Newark Museum


JAPAN IN ARCHITECTURE Main Entrance, Imperial Hotel, Tokyo by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1923. Photo: Imperial Hotel Ltd


Japanese architecture today attracts attention from all over the world. Numerous architects, from Tange Kenzo to Taniguchi Yoshio, Ando Tadao, Kuma Kengo, Sejima Kazuyo and other young upcoming architects have received great international acclaim. Founded on rich traditions that stretch back to ancient times, contemporary Japanese architecture encompasses exceptionally creative and original ideas and expressions. In the 150 years following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, architecture presented immense opportunities for experimentation in Japan. How did the long and rich Japanese tradition of wooden architecture evolve, among a great number of practices? What did the West find attractive about architecture in Japan, and how did Japanese architecture then respond to this interest? Te transitions of such things invisible to the eye and seen as everyday life and views of nature also provide important elements for understanding Japanese architecture. Structured around nine


Snow at Kaiunbashi Bridge and First National Bank by Kobayashi Kiyochika Heisei edition, large nishiki-e (wood engraving print), from Shimizu Corporation Collection, Tokyo


ASIAN ART SUMMER QUARTER 2018


sections, based on key concepts for interpreting architecture in Japan today, this exhibition traces the lineage of architecture from ancient times until the present, and explores the elements of genealogy undermined by modernism and concealed beneath, yet undeniably vital still. Featuring important architectural materials, models, and interactive exhibits, the wide-ranging exhibits will illuminate not only the state of Japanese architecture in the past and present but also a vision of the future. Until 17 September, Mori Art Museum, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, mori.art.museum


Asia, Africa and North America seek to reveal this expanse of lifelike renderings. Te question of perfection is qualified through various lenses of class, race, and geopolitical tensions throughout history. Among the Asian artists on


view is Bharti Kher (b 1969), who lives and works in New Delhi. Her work of ‘Mother’ features in the first room of the exhibition, titled, Te Presumption of White. In the accompanying catalogue, Kher is quoted as she relays the familiarity and intimacy of her own mother’s body, as well as the shared experience of womanhood on view that pervades her thought process. ‘Tere’s a truth that the self is multiple, which is the reality of many women’s lives,’ she says, ‘It is akin to role-playing, and there is quite a lot of that in my work’.


Tat the sculpture is


all-white is addressed with deep roots in colonialism and Euro-centric artistic practice. Te exhibition delves into the stark contrast between polychromy in the ancient world and the later impetus to scrub and whitewash a variety forms. Yet the whiteness of


Kher’s work is somehow subversive, raising larger questions around imperfection in contrast. Te breasts of the figure hang slightly as she stoops, a far cry from the postulating athleticism of Greco-Roman origins. But rather than defeat, this sheds a cast of humility on the figure, a reverence at once rooted in and differentiated from the narrow idealism of the classical past. Yet the colonialist world’s


polychromatic implications also feature at the Met Breuer, with a clay depiction of Raj Kissen Mitter of Bengal, dated circa 1848, and attributed to Sri Ram Pal. Vividly coloured in his turban and trousers, the sculpture is from the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, gifted the year it was rendered. In this example, colonialism is proven to add colour to the Western world, and provide new audiences with an understanding of likenesses beyond their own. Exoticism and Orientalism does feature elsewhere in the showcase, with European artists depicting African men and women alike with a sense of mystery, but the concept of whiteness in a contemporary context across nations is deeply impactful. Tese reflections show us


our own perceptions of defining life. From curiosity to activism, lifelike artworks allow for intense examination of cultural values as they change around the world. Tis exhibition reveals these truths successfully, allowing the viewer to move beyond observation towards deeper introspection. Alexandra Bregman


Until 22 July at Te Met Breuer, New York, metmuseum.org


Raj Kissen Mitter, attributed to Sri Ram Pal, (Indian, flourished mid-19th century), circa 1840, turban and trousers, 2017, unfired clay, pigments, cotton over bamboo and straw,


122.873 x 61.913 x 85.09 cm). Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, Gift of John A Parker in 1840


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