January–December 2024
January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
The following is an archive of past Japanese Art Society of America lectures and special events. Go to JASA-Sponsored Events for our most current schedule.
December
Wednesday, December 11, 2–3 p.m. EST
Onishi Gallery
16 E. 79th St., Ground Floor
New York, NY
Onishi Gallery: An In-Person Visit
Onishi Gallery specializes in Kogei (contemporary craft art from Japan). The term was originally coined to translate the word “craft.” Today Kogei has a higher significance, denoting works that, even at their most innovative, use materials and methods that have stood the test of time and reflect an unrivaled dedication to technical perfection and refinement, from generation to generation over many centuries.
The gallery’s new 1,200-square-foot gallery is located in the historic Sidney Ripley mansion, built in 1905 and designed by Warren and Wetmore in neo-Georgian style. The gallery is currently featuring an exhibition of works by six leading artists working in a range of traditional media.
Part of a new initiative, Kogei USA will feature contemporary works by Living National Treasures. At this visit, we will see works by urushi artists of Wajima, a historic center of high-quality lacquer production, and selected metalwork artists of special note.
Tuesday, December 17, 5 p.m. EST
New Horizons for Japanese Art at the Princeton University Art Museum
JASA’s annual holiday program will be a live Zoom webinar New Horizons for Japanese Art at the Princeton University Art Museum. Reopening in fall 2025 after a multi-year closure, the new Princeton University Art Museum will feature a suite of galleries devoted to the display of Asian Art. As guest speaker Dr. Kit Brooks notes, “The new Museum—double the size of its previous incarnation—will include over 60,000 square feet of gallery space. One of the seven ‘pavilions’ will be devoted to Asian Art, drawing from a collection well known for its Chinese paintings and calligraphy. The Japanese collection has been growing since the establishment of the Museum in the 1880s, ranging from Neolithic to contemporary, and includes sculpture, paintings, prints, and ceramics.”
Dr. Brooks is Curator of Asian Art at the Princeton University Art Museum. Earning their PhD from Harvard University (2017), they previously held positions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the British Museum. Their recent projects include the exhibitions Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints (2024) and Ay-Ō’s Happy Rainbow Hell (2023), the first U.S. museum exhibition dedicated to the psychedelic Japanese Fluxus artist Ay-Ō (b. 1931).
Webinar posted: View the December 17 webinar New Horizons for Japanese Art at the Princeton University Art Museum.
October
Tuesday, October 8, 2 p.m.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY
(Meet at Great Hall Groups Desk)
Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co.
Dr. Monika Bincsik, Diane and Arthur Abbey Curator for Japanese Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. will lead JASA members on a in-person tour of the museum’s exhibition Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co.
Edward C. Moore was the creative force behind the magnificent and inventive silver produced at Tiffany & Co. during the second half of the 19th century. In his drive to study and create beauty, Moore sought inspiration in diverse cultures and geographies and amassed a collection of artworks from ancient Greece and Rome, East Asia (including Japan), Europe, and the Islamic world. Moore and his team carefully studied materials, techniques, decorative vocabularies and compositions in Japanese art. He owned about 800 Japanese works of art, including metalwork, textiles, lacquerware, ceramics, bamboo basketry and sword fittings.
This exhibition reunites more than 60 Japanese decorative arts from Moore’s collection with a wide selection of works representing diverse cultures, presenting them alongside Tiffany silver created under his direction. The exhibition, on view through October 20, is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog and was curated by Medill Harvey Higgins, Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts, and Dr. Bincsik.
Tuesday, October 22, 5 p.m.
An Introduction to Bunraku: The Puppet Theater of Japan
Claudia Orenstein, Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, will present this live Zoom webinar on bunraku, also known as ningyō jōruri, a multidimensional art that marries exquisitely carved puppet figures, operated by teams of performers, with dramatic narration to shamisen accompaniment. Drawing from early ritual practices and the work of medieval itinerant bards, in the Edo period, bunraku became a popular entertainment appealing to restless urban audiences with tales of love, war and personal sacrifice. Contributions of great dramatic writers like Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and novelties in puppet construction, not only supported the form’s past success, but have continued to make it a unique art form admired throughout the world.
Professor Orenstein offers insights into various aspects of the tradition and the history and development of this art that is both an Important Intangible Cultural Property of Japan and listed as a UNESCO Intangible Culture Heritage of Humanity.
Saturday, October 26, 2–4 p.m. EDT
The Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden
28 Deveau Road
North Salem, NY
JASA is hosting an in-person visit and panel discussion for members at the museum, where the exhibition Making a Good Impression: Contemporary Prints from China, Korea and Japan runs until November 17. This exhibition is co-curated by Elizabeth Hammer and JASA member Allison Tolman, who will be among the participants in the panel discussion. The museum is accessible by car (parking is available) or MetroNorth train to Croton Falls and then Uber service to the museum. Attendees will be served a buffet lunch; the fee is $30 per person. Click here to register and pay via check or PayPal. (If you would like to pay by Zelle, the JASA Zelle account is Japanese Art Society of America and the email is jasa@japaneseartsoc.org.) For transportation and other details please email allisontolman@gmail.com.
September
Saturday, September 14, 2 p.m.
Bonhams
580 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
An Invitation to Japanese Galleries at Bonhams
During New York Asian Art Week, Bonhams is pleased to host a connoisseurship event focusing on the appreciation of fine Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Honored to be bringing to auction an exciting and private collection of Japanese Prints and Watercolors, along with Fine Japanese and Korean Art, Bonhams will hold two live auctions on September 18.
Coinciding with the public viewings of both of these auctions, Bonhams expert consultant Gary Levine, together with Head of Department Jeff Olson and specialist Philip Hafferty, will share with event participants a fine impression of Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic masterpiece Kanazawa oki nami ura (Under the Wave of Kanazawa) and his Sanka haku-u (White Rain Below the Mountain), more commonly known as The Great Wave and Black Fuji.
Other prints in this collection come from famed ukiyo-e artists Tōshūsai Sharaku, Kitagawa Utamaro and Utagawa Hiroshige. A special feature are several watercolors by Kawase Hasui, where viewers can see similarities and differences between these original paintings and several of his famous print designs.
Wednesday, September 25, 5 p.m.
Pigments of the Imagination: Woodblock Prints by Paul Binnie
This live Zoom presentation by Scottish multidisciplinary artist Paul Binnie, who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock printing, particularly shin-hanga. Paul will speak about his early training as a painter in Scotland and then as a woodblock printmaker in Japan in the 1990s. He will discuss the influences on his work, the changes that have taken place and the direction his work has followed over a career of more than thirty years. There will be illustrations of many of his woodblock prints and a number of oil paintings to show the progress of his work from the 1990s until today.
Paul Binnie was born in Scotland in 1967, and studied art history at the University of Edinburgh and painting and etching at Edinburgh College of Art from 1985 to 1990. After taking his Master’s degree (with honors) in 1990, he moved to Paris and then in 1993 went on to Tokyo to study woodblock printmaking for almost six years. In 1998, Paul moved to London, where he set up his studio and worked for twenty years. At the end of 2018 he relocated to San Diego. Paul’s work is held in many public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum, New York; The National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC; The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; The British Museum, London, and The National Library of Australia, Canberra, among others.
August
Thursday, August 22, 7–8p.m.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Caroline Wiess Law Building
1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005
(713) 639-7300
Meiji Dances
This new dance piece choreographed by Nao Kusuzaki, artistic director of Creative Minds Collaborative, was inspired by the exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, on view at MFAH until September 15. The movements intertwine traditional Japanese dance forms with contemporary vocabularies and reflect the collision and integration of Western influences. The dance is set in modern-day Japan and mirrors the spirit of the era, celebrating both the richness of Japan’s heritage and its embrace of global influences. The performance is accompanied by pianist Kana Mimaki, who draws from Japanese composers such as Rentaro Taki, with Western compositions by Camille Saint-Saëns.
July
Friday to Sunday, July 12–14
JASA Trip to Houston
Visit three extraordinary Asian art exhibitions as the city continues to celebrate Houston’s Year of Japan. Key activities will revolve around the exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, organized by JASA, that will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) from July 7 through September 15.
Our Houston visit begins on Friday at Asia Society Texas Center with a special tour at 3 p.m. of the Xu Bing exhibition with curator Susan Beningson, followed by a visit to MFAH before dinner for JASA tour members. JASA events will take place at the museum all Saturday, including a talk on the rare Japanese books in the collection with Chief Librarian of the Hirsch Library, Jon Evans; visits to the permanent collection of Japanese art with Bradley Bailey, and other Japan-related and Japan-inspired objects in the MFAH collections; and the MFAH’s public lecture by exhibition co-curators Bradley Bailey and Chelsea Foxwell at 3 p.m. with a reception following. On Sunday, we will have a private tour of the exhibition Ruth Asawa Through Line, at the Drawing Institute at The Menil, with Chief Curator Edouard Kopp, followed by a farewell luncheon.
Friday, July 19, 1 p.m. EDT
National Museum of Asian Art
Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art
1100 Jefferson Dr SW
Washington, DC
Imagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China, 1680-1980
Tour this special exhibition with Dr. Frank Feltens, Curator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, and collector (and JASA Member) Cheney Cowles. Imagined Neighbors presents Japanese artworks from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, given to the National Museum of Asian Art between 2018 and 2022. The Cowles Collection is one of the most comprehensive groups of Japanese literati works outside of Japan. The exhibition features 45 paintings and ceramics and represents 50 years of the Cowles’ collecting.
During the Edo period (1603–1868), feudal Japan was largely closed off from the outside world. For three hundred years, a loose movement of Japanese artists, often referred to as literati, turned to neighboring China—variably a source for emulation and a source of rivalry—for inspiration. Through painting and calligraphy, they created immersive environments in which artists and viewers alike could mentally withdraw from worldly affairs. As disparate and diverse as the literati movement was, its members were united by a common language that embraced diverse notions of “China”—a place both familiar and foreign, as much imagined as it was known. Throughout a period of modernization during the Meiji era (1868–1912) and after, when all facets of life in Japan were radically changing, China’s historic role in helping shape the fabric of Japanese history and culture remained a touchstone for Japanese artists, even in the context of imperialism and war.
June
Thursday, June 13, 5 p.m. EDT
Exceptional Japanese Houses: Residential Design From 1945 to the Present
Since the Pacific War Japanese architects have been producing some of the world’s most innovative homes. These are the subject of architect and journalist Naomi Pollock‘s new book, The Japanese House Since 1945. Spanning eight decades, this book presents the most compelling examples and highlights key developments in form, organization, material, architectural expression and family living. In this Zoom webinar, the author will share stories about the residences and the people who lived there. In the book’s Foreword, architect Tadao Ando notes: “This book … can be said to be a realistic history of post-war Japanese society, as seen through the filter of architectural design… The chain of creativity that began in the architectural world of post-war Japan remains unbroken—this book conveys that sense of hope.”
Thursday, June 20, 12 p.m. EDT
The Noguchi Museum
9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard)
Long Island City, NY
Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within
This special in-person special tour of the exhibition Toshiko Takaezu: World’s Within features approximately 200 objects from public and private collections across the country, presenting a comprehensive portrait of the life and work of clay artist Takaezu. This chronological retrospective charts the development of Takaezu’s hybrid practice over seven decades, documenting her early student work in Hawai‘i and at the Cranbrook Academy through her years teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later at Princeton University. To represent this evolution, the show presents a series of installations loosely inspired by ones that Takaezu created in her own lifetime: from a set table of functional wares from the early 1950s to an immersive constellation of monumental ceramic forms from the late 1990s to early 2000s.
May
Friday–Monday, May 3–6
Smart Museum of Art
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL
Japanese Art in Chicago
JASA will travel to Chicago to view the exhibition Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan at the Smart Museum of Art with Chelsea Foxwell, co-curator of the exhibition and Associate Professor of Art History University of Chicago. In conjunction with the exhibition, which will run from March 21 to June 9, co-curators Chelsea Foxwell and Bradley Bailey have organized a symposium at the University of Chicago, which will take place on Friday and Saturday and will include these speakers:
- Bradley Bailey, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Michael Bourdaghs, University of Chicago
- Chelsea Foxwell, University of Chicago
- Mami Hatayama, Roger L. Weston Foundation
- Meghen Jones, Alfred University
- Andreas Marks, Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Alison Miller, University of the South
- Rhiannon Paget, Ringling Museum of Art
- Doshin Sato, Tokyo University of the Arts
- Eriko Tomizawa-Kay, University of Michigan
- Alice Tseng, Boston University
- Takurō Tsunoda, Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Art
JASA’s group members will have private visits on Sunday and Monday including a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Frederick C. Robie House, a visit to The Mann Collection of ukiyo-e, followed by lunch in Highland Park and a presentation on sosaku hanga by Elias Martin on Sunday. Monday begins with a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, with curator Janice Katz, lunch together, and a visit to the Weston Foundation.icipants are responsible for airfare, local transportation unless otherwise noted, and hotel.
Monday, May 13, 5 p.m. EDT
Live Zoom Webinar: Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo
This is the second JASA program this spring to focus on Utagawa Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Following the Zoom webinar featuring the Brooklyn Museum’s rare set that is currently on exhibition through August 4, 2024, noted curator and author, Dr. Andreas Marks, Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and Director of the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, will discuss his newly published book of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector’s Edition. Utagawa Hiroshige’s monumental landscape series, first published in the 1850s, is among the best-known and highly coveted group of Japanese prints. In this series, Hiroshige depicts 118 locations in and around Edo (today’s Tokyo) during the four seasons, often from hitherto obscure and unique perspectives. Hiroshige’s views were so popular that each design was reprinted many times. Some have reached iconic status.
For his new study, Dr. Marks reviewed 4,700 prints from the series. Drawn from 32 different museums and private collections, the book is the first to present all deluxe versions printed that incorporate special printing features, such as like color gradation. Dr. Marks reveals that no complete set of the deluxe versions is held in a single collection today. He shows how and where Hiroshige’s ideas for each view originated with reference images, and discusses Hiroshige’s designs through the many later printed versions. With 700 images, the book is a definitive guide to understanding the complexity of Hiroshige’s great work as well as the dynamics of the Japanese print market during this period.
April
Wednesday, April 3, 5 p.m. EDT
Live Zoom Webinar: Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo
On view from April 5 through August 4, Brooklyn Museum’s upcoming exhibition of Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo will feature new versions of the original views by the iconic Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, with photographs by Ȧlex Bueno of some of the contemporary sites of Hiroshige’s designs. This panel discussion includes catalog author and historian Henry Smith, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University; Joan Cummins, Senior Curator, Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum and exhibition curator; and Ȧlex Bueno, Project Assistant and Professor, Centre for Global Education, Tokyo, who will discuss photographic images in the exhibition.
Webinar posted: View this April 3 panel discussion on Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, with historian Henry Smith, curator Joan Cummins and photographer Alex Bueno.
Thursday, April 18, 11:30 a.m. EDT
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY
Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo
In-person visit to the museum with Curator of Asian Art Joan Cummins to view exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (featuring Takashi Murakami), which runs April 5 through August 4. Registration details to come.
March
Wednesday, March 20, 5 p.m. EDT
Japan Society New York
333 East 47th St.
New York, NY
Annual JASA Meeting
As part of Asia Week 2024, JASA is presenting a special lecture, When Zen Becomes Political: Zen and Soft/Hard Power, by Frank Feltens, surator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Zen has been used to foster political agendas, as inspiration for activism, and as a way to go against common norms. This talk highlights distinctive moments and individuals that made Zen and its arts a part of the political discourse of their times. They showcase how Zen has been part of Japan’s hard and soft power for centuries and continued to be in the twentieth century.
The lecture will also will be webcast live via Zoom. Registration in advance is required. Click here to attend the lecture in person. Click here to attend the lecture via Zoom.
Following the lecture, JASA will hold its annual meeting of members in the Japan Society auditorium. New and re-elected board members will be announced at the meeting along with other business matters. If you have not yet voted your proxy ballot, please do so here. Biographical information on the nominated board members is available here.
At 4 p.m., immediately preceding Dr. Feltens’ lecture, JASA members will have the special opportunity to tour Japan Society’s new exhibition, None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, led by the new gallery director, Michele Bambling. Registration is required by March 10. Please click here to register: 4pm Gallery tour. Please contact Cheryl Gall, membership coordinator, at jasa@japaneseartsoc.org or (978) 600-8128 with any questions.
March 26, 5 p.m. EDT
Alison Bradley Projects
526 W. 26th St., Suite 814
New York, NY 10001
Please join us for a special tour of Un/ Weaving: Haji Oh with Curator Eimi Tagore-Erwin. The exhibition presents Oh’s twenty-year commitment to the concept of “post-memory,” in which the artist gives expression to the generational memories of transpacific migrants through a multimedia practice incorporating textile, sculpture, photography, audio, and projection. Oh’s research-based practice begins with key foundational works exploring her own family’s migration from Jeju Island in Korea to Japan, before expanding to other unexamined histories such as Japanese-Canadian women in WWII incarceration camps and labor movements of the Korean and Taiwanese diaspora across islands in the Pacific. She is also this year’s recipient of the prestigious Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA) and will be the subject of an upcoming two-person exhibition at Tokyo’s MOT as part of this honor.
February
Wednesday, February 7, 5 p.m. EST
Live Zoom Webinar
Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama
Did you know there is another JASA? The Japan-American Society of Alabama! This is only one aspect of under-known connections between Japan and the state of Alabama. Please join us for a live Zoom webinar with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul, Virginia and William Spencer III Curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. Dr. Paul will discuss the many surprises and connections with Japanese Art in Alabama, including:
- Mobile, Alabama, native, Mary McNeil Fenollosa—co-author of Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art: An Outline History of East Asiatic Design, with her husband, Ernest Fenollosa—left her collection to the Mobile History Museum.
- In 1915, the town of Satsuma, Alabama, was named after the Japanese satsuma orange, which was successfully cultivated and grown there starting in 1878, a gift from Emperor Meiji.
- Part of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, a Japanesque garden designed by Japanese-American architect Masaji “Buffy” Murai showcases a Japanese tea house called Toshinan, designed and installed by Kazunori Tago (eighth generation Miyadaiku from Maebashi, Japan).
- Of course, there is also the great work of Dr. Donald A. Wood at the Birmingham Museum of Art (Awardee of the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays) renowned for his Kamisaka Sekka: Rimpa Master—Pioneer of Modern Design exhibition and publication as well as his work with Echizen ceramics. Throughout his 30 year career Don Wood keenly acquired Japanese works for Birmingham’s collections. Many of these works, like Kasuga Shika Mandala by Rokkaku Jakusai, have fascinating Alabama histories.
Webinar posted: View this February 7 lecture Surprises in the South: Japanese Art in Alabama, with Dr. Katherine Anne Paul.
Tuesday, February 27, 11 a.m. EST
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Ave
New York, NY
www.metmuseum.org
Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art
Dr. Aaron Rio, the museum’s Associate Curator of Japanese Art, will lead us on a tour of on the third rotation of four in this year-long exhibition in the Japanese galleries. The exhibition begins with sacred images from early Japan that speak to concerns about death, dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to other uncertainties, such as war and natural disaster. The presentation then proceeds chronologically, highlighting medieval Buddhist images of paradises and hells, Zen responses to life and death, depictions of war and pilgrimage, and the role of protective and hopeful images in everyday life. In the final galleries, the exhibition’s underlying themes are explored through a selection of modern woodblock prints, garments, and photographs. The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
January
Tuesday, January 9, 2024, 2 p.m. EST
Japan Society New York
333 East 47th Street
New York, NY
Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus
Dr. Midori Yoshimoto, Professor of Art History and Gallery Director, New Jersey City University, and Danielle Johnson, Researcher and Fluxus Scholar, previously Curatorial Assistant, MoMA, will lead a tour of Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus. This exhibition is the first to fully explore the essential role of Japanese women in Fluxus, a movement instigated in the 1960s that helped contemporary artists define new modes of artistic expression. Near the 60th anniversary of the movement’s founding, it highlights the contributions of four pioneering Japanese artists—Shigeko Kubota (1937-2015), Yoko Ono (b. 1932), Takako Saito (b. 1929), and Mieko Shiomi (b. 1938)—and contextualizes their role within Fluxus and the broader artistic movements of the 1960s and beyond.
Wednesday, January 24, 5 p.m. EST
Live Zoom Webinar
Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art: An Exhibition Talk with Dr. Aaron Rio
In a time of uncertainty around the world, one singular exhibition has captured the essence of how art in Japan has marked times within its history that can offer the viewer new insights and powerful messages of hope and positive views. The show is Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art, curated by Dr. Aaron Rio, Associate Curator of Japanese Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His talk will focus on the third rotation of four in this year-long exhibition in the Japanese galleries of the museum, made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
The exhibition begins with sacred images from early Japan that speak to concerns about death, dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to other uncertainties, such as war and natural disaster. The presentation then proceeds chronologically, highlighting medieval Buddhist images of paradises and hells, Zen responses to life and death, depictions of war and pilgrimage, and the role of protective and hopeful images in everyday life. In the final galleries, the exhibition’s underlying themes are explored through a selection of modern woodblock prints, garments and photographs.
Webinar posted: View this January 24 lecture Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art: An Exhibition Talk with Dr. Aaron Rio.