WE HEAR SO much about hi-tech India, the emergent global super-star. But what about rural India, village India, hardly urbanised at all? Or is it? Two photographic exhibitions are currently exploring the state of the art and the state of… Continue reading
THIS EXHIBITION FEATURES over 100 prints of transformative promised gifts of Japanese works to LACMA, including surimono and ukiyo-e, representing the work of 32 artists. Included are examples of rare early prints of the ukiyo-e genre (pictures of the floating world),… Continue reading
Japanese digital artist Ryoichi Kurokawa’s impressive cannon of audio-visual works appear as technologically advanced exercises for the mind. Combining vast symphonies of sound, coupled with terrifyingly intelligent x-ray anchored animation, they appear as a hypnotic swell of audio and image… Continue reading
THE DETROIT INDUSTRIALIST, Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), who made five visits to Japan between 1895 and 1911, managed to assemble a formidable collection of Japanese art in the intervening years. On 18 October 1906, he acquired Waves at Matsushima, a pair… Continue reading
WE ARE MET with sounds of lapping water. A coracle rows over a pine-fringed lake, dipping its oars in rhythmic strokes. Multi-coloured prayer flags whisper in the wind. The coracle moves smoothly across the lake, arriving, at last, at a… Continue reading
This exhibition at the Wellin Museum of Art in New York, by Beijing-born artist Yun-Fei Ji (b 1963) presents 44 scrolls, paintings and drawings created by the artist over the last decade, drawn from major institutions as well as private… Continue reading
The word ‘empire’ is a controversial one, in fact highly provocative, stirring up a hornet’s nest of emotions that haunt Britain today. They include embarrassment, shame, and even amnesia. Feelings engendered among those whom the British Empire conquered cover a… Continue reading
The University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) owns the world’s largest collection of Nestorian Crosses, ornaments with decorative designs and religious motifs that were cast in the Ordos region of northwest China in… Continue reading
MUSEUM RIETBERG, in Zurich, holds a large collection of Indian paintings and is one of the world’s leading institutions in the field. Thanks to a permanent loan of 22 works, the museum has recently acquired an extremely important addition to… Continue reading
By Xenobe Purvis The Seto Inland Sea – a 450 kilometre long body of water nestled in the gaps between Japan’s three main islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu – has long inspired hyperbole in its visitors – and it… Continue reading