Get The Latest Issue Now!
FEBRUARY 2012
A Fragile Heritage, China Counts its Lost Ruins
January 2012
A Chinese Conundrum: Hong Kong Sales Slow Down
NOVEMBER 2011
Hong Kong Autumn Sales: Reading the Mixed Messages
OCTOBER 2011
Museum der Kulturen Basel Opens After Refurbishment
September 2011
Cover: World Heritage List New Sites
JUNE 2011
Thai Border Clashes Continue Around Preah Vihear Temple
January 2007
Foreign Faces in Japanese Prints
Foreign Faces in Japanese Prints
JAPANESE OF THE EDO PERIOD (1600-1868), like most peoples around the world, found foreigners fascinating – and print (ukiyo-e) artists and publishers were happy to accommodate the public’s appetite. From the 17th-century master Hishikawa Moronobu, to Okumura Masanobu, Suzuki Harunobu and Kitagawa Utamaro in the 18th, or Katsushika Hokusai in the 19th century, print artists found foreign faces an irresistible subject. They could be comic and yet somehow dangerous; both exotic and erotic; but at the same time mirrors to identity. In the Edo period artists produced scenes of Chinese and Koreans, Portuguese and Hollanders, in the port of Nagasaki, on the streets of Kyoto and Edo, and on the highways in between.
The Smile in Japanese Art
The Smile in Japanese Art
TO START THE YEAR, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is presenting two exhibitions that explore laughter. The Smile in Japanese Art: From the Jomon Period to the Early Twentieth Century, examines the many faces of the smile in Japanese art from the prehistoric Jomon Period until the Taisho Period (1912-1926) and All About Laughter: Humor in Contemporary Art, looks at the multifaceted role of humour in contemporary art throughout the world. The former exhibition is also the Mori Art Museum’s first presentation of Japan’s classical art.
Janet Leach: A Retrospective
Janet Leach: A Retrospective
This exhibition is the first critical retrospective of the career and work of Janet Darnell Leach (1918-1997). Whilst known as the wife of potter Bernard Leach and as a driving force of the Leach Pottery in St Ives, Janet Leach is acknowledged in her own right as one of the leading potters of the second half of the 20th century.
Nihon Mingeikan: Japan’s Folk Craft Museum
Nihon Mingeikan: Japan’s Folk Craft Museum
IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE a visitor from past centuries witnessing today’s art world and being completely mystified on seeing the extent to which beauty has been sacrificed to satisfy strange new tastes and market forces. No doubt he would be puzzled to see how some artists lacking any ability at all can create eye-blisteringly ugly works, yet gain fame and fortune through the machination of promoters, publicity agents, motivated critics and writers. And he might ponder just how such otherwise-intelligent people were exactly motivated. Nevertheless, what he would recognise in this bizarre scene is that, as in organised religions, believers and non-believers have very little time for each other or any other points of view. He would notice too how so many dealers can challenge their customers to realise that, should they fail to part with large sums of money for works that had been blessed with critics’ seals of approval, they skirt the grave risk of being condemned to the social abyss as Philistines and unbelievers.