ASIAN ART

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
The Metropolitan have two temporary Asian exhibitions on show during March to complement their permanent Asian collections. Beauty and Learning: Korean Painted Screens runs from 11 March to 1 June. Painted screens depicting books, scholarly accoutrements, antiquarian collectibles, and auspicious objects first gained popularity in Korea during the reign of King Chongjo (r. 1776-1800). They served as pictorial representations of objects suitable for display in a scholar-gentleman's study. This special installation presents four screens dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century, drawn from American collections, including one screen from the Metropolitan Museum. It is the first exhibition in the US to focus on this visually arresting genre of Korean painting.

Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings runs from 1 March to 10 August.
This exhibition dissects 36 paintings and calligraphies from the permanent collection, juxtaposing actual artworks with enlarged photographic details that focus on fine points of style or content, in order to elucidate what makes each one a masterpiece. The display, which spans 1,000 years of Chinese art history, from the 8th to the 17th century, examines many of the museum's finest paintings, including figures, landscapes, flowers, birds, and religious subjects.

CHINA INSTITUTE
Enchanted Stories: Chinese Shadow Theater in Shaanxi, to 11 May. This is an unique exhibition of some 90 figures and screens from the Shaanxi Provincial Art Gallery will cast light on an overlooked art form that springs from the visceral core of Chinese culture. The exhibition is curated by Li Hongjun and Chen Shanqiao, Associate Researchers at the Shaanxi Provincial Art Research Institute and Zhao Nong, Professor of Art History and Theory at the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts and is really the first of its kind in the West.

Falling somewhere between the roles of troubadour and street entertainment, heavily mixed with audience familiarity with the subjects at hand, shadow theatre has direct and immediate appeal to everyday people.

Subjects spring from the cultural core, embodied by folklore, myth, religious beliefs, history, operas, dramas and comedies - tales of heroes, heroines, gods and spirits, often imbued with human emotions. The tradition of English Punch and Judy shows and Balinese shadow puppets spring to mind and the same enticing lure is exactly the same in Chinese shadow theatre. Created from relatively small panels of rawhide, the puppets themselves, as well as background and stage sets, are delicately carved, pierced and coloured.

The exhibition of these Qing Dynasty works has been divided into five parts: ‘Scenes from Dramas,' that includes operas, legends, comedies and myths; ‘Deities,' usually short, opening performances to amuse the gods; ‘The Chinese Underworld,' depicting descents and journeys to those nether regions; ‘Transformation,' devoted to the physical transmogrification of figures and animals with special powers; ‘Characters,' devoted to the repertoire of both humans, divinities and historical individuals who comprise the ‘cast' in the theatre. As an opportunity to see these works of art ‘in action,' the Chinese Theatre Works will offer three performances on Sundays, 16 March and 6 April

JAPAN SOCIETY
The Genius of Japanese Lacquer: Masterworks by Shibata Zeshin, 1 March to 15 June.
This touring exhibition examines the entire career of history's greatest lacquer artist, presenting both exquisite examples of his traditional lacquerware along with his most innovative pieces, among them rare examples of his lacquer-on-paper technique that has now been lost to history. A design revolutionary, Zeshin was one of the leaders in positioning Japan as a wonderland of master art and craft works during the later 19th century. The core of this exhibition comprised 54 works on loan from San Antonio-based collectors Catherine and Thomas Edson. To further enhance the exhibition, Japan Society's recently appointed Gallery Director Joe Earle has added nearly 20 additional works drawn primarily from the collections of Professor Nasser D. Khalili in London, the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in New York, and other private collections in the US and Japan. It is with these additions that Japan Society mounts the most comprehensive exhibition of Zeshin's work since a commemorative show held in Tokyo in December 1907.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley runs from 14 March to 13 October. Nepal Mandala is an ancient name for the valley of Kathmandu and surrounding regions of Nepal. This exhibition will highlight the best Nepalese art in the RMA collection, focusing on the aesthetic form, function, and donor relationships. Traditionally any exhibition on Nepal would only focus on the Kathmandu Valley. This exhibition will look at the entire region of Nepal identifying the different ethnic and cultural groups from east to west and the five spiritual traditions of Shaiva, Vaishnava, Buddhism, Bon, and Tribal.

Also on show in March is Bon: The Magic Word, which runs until 13 April (see Asian Art Newspaper December 2007) and is the first major exhibition dedicated to the art and culture of the Bon religion. The Bon are a culture group living in the Himalayas and Central Asia little known in the Western world.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, until 28 May.
This is the most comprehensive survey of the artist's innovative body of work to date and represents the Guggenheim Museum's first solo show devoted to a Chinese-born artist. The exhibition presents a chronological and thematic survey that charts the artist's creation of a distinctive visual and conceptual language across four mediums: gunpowder drawings, some as long as 100 feet; explosion events, documented by videos, photographs, and preparatory drawings; large-scale installations, including a version of Inopportune: featuring over 80 works from the 1980s to the present-selected from major public and private collections in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. See the fetured interview with the artist in our March website edition.

BROOKLYN MUSEUM
Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900 runs from 21 March to 15 June.
This exhibition features 95 Japanese woodblock prints by more than 15 artists, among them Utagawa Hiroshige, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. The prints on show are drawn from the holdings of the Chazen Museum of Art's renowned Van Vleck collection and is augmented with 22 woodblock prints from the Brooklyn Museum's Asian art collection.
The Utagawa School, founded by Utagawa Toyoharu, dominated the Japanese print market in the 19th century and is responsible for more than half of all surviving ukiyo-e prints. These prolific artists created a thriving print publishing industry by mass-producing their prints for the general public. Created in a climate of strict censorship and fierce creative competition, the woodblock prints are both technically sophisticated and broadly appealing.

Although the Utagawa artists paid homage to aspects of classical Japanese culture, their subject was first and foremost the modern world, ranging from portraits of the beautiful women of the pleasure quarters to images of Kabuki actors caught mid performance. Every artist from the Utagawa School made at least a few erotic prints. Even though these images were at times prohibited by the government, they were always in demand. Less controversial subjects, such as landscape, were modernised by the Utagawa artists, who presented views of well-known urban and suburban locations instead of the more dramatic, remote sites depicted by earlier artists.

These themes are presented through a vast selection of prints such as Utagawa Toyokuni's six-sheet print capturing the Fireworks at Ryogoku Bridge, a highly detailed image crowded with spectators; Utagawa Kunisada's triptych of three elegant courtesans walking through the snow while gracefully holding umbrellas; and Toyohara Kunichika's print of Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Sadanjii dramatically posed with his sword in front of a burning courtyard. This exhibition also includes an expansive view of the Nihon Bridge by Utagawa Toyohiro and a sophisticated view of Mount Fuji from the Sea of Satta by Toyohiro's better-known student, Utagawa Hiroshige.