ON CHRISTMAS EVE 1923, Carl Whiting Bishop, the Freer Gallery of Art’s first curator, acquired a sculpture of ‘the Cosmic Buddha’, or Vairochana in Beijing. A headless, life-size limestone figure, the Buddha is an important figure in the Buddhist pantheon,… Continue reading
AT THE RISK of sounding trite, this exhibition promises to be amusing, being, as it is, a survey of Chinese misogyny. The title rather sums it up well, being akin to the old adage of ‘Good little girls go to… Continue reading
Having looked at many gardens around the world and pottered about in my own for a decade or two, I have come to feel that those of Japan and the British Isles seem to best delight the eye and stimulate… Continue reading
DECCAN ART IS having a breakout year. Although it opened on 20 April at the Met, curator Dr Navina Najat Haider has been compiling, researching, and anticipating Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy for more than a decade.… Continue reading
IN A 1984 4 catalogue of the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware in Hong Kong, Dr Lo Kwee-seong – a prominent businessman who founded the Vitasoy beverage empire – recollected fondly of the serendipity that led him to a… Continue reading
CHINA HAS BEEN fuelling the fashionable imagination for centuries. Ever since the Silk route opened up trade between China and the Roman Empire almost two thousand years ago and began transporting precious cargoes of decorative arts and silk textiles to… Continue reading
THE PHOTOGRAPHER Tomoko Sawada (b 1977 in Kobe, Japan) has been part of the international art world for almost 20 years, exploring the concepts of personality and identity. Relying on her own face and body, Tomoko Sawada has impersonated countless… Continue reading
XU BING IS one of China’s most influential living artists. For more than 25 years his works have been challenging, probing and teaching a diverse global audience. In this time he has developed a rich artistic idiolect. His ground-breaking early… Continue reading
THIS YEAR, the first sign of spring in the Caucasus was marked not only by warmer weather it also heralded an exciting new dawn for contemporary art in the Caucasus and the wider Central Asian region. In March, the new… Continue reading
CONTEMPORARY CULTURE in the Middle East is greatly enriched by a phalanx of inspired and inspiring Iranian artists. But in fact, despite the cataclysmic political and social upheaval of the country’s recent history including the Islamic Revolution of 1979, astonishingly… Continue reading