Exhibitions and Publications: Autumn 2024

Kabuki-Actor Portraits by Tōshūsai Sharaku, Art Institute of Chicago, Jul 18–Oct 14, 2024

This exhibition contains prints from all stages of Sharaku’s short but generative career. Many were given to the museum by brother and sister Clarence and Kate Buckingham between 1925 and 1934. The Buckinghams’ early collecting efforts have made the Art Institute home to one of the largest and finest collections of Sharaku’s work. Some of the finest surviving examples of Sharaku’s rare, yet famous designs are on display here.

Bonnard et le Japon Caumont Centre d’Art, Aix-en-Provence, Apr 30–Oct 6, 2024

This exhibition is dedicated to the impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) and his relationship to Japanese art. This will be the first exhibition on the subject, showing how Bonnard – once known as “Nabi très japonard” (very Japanese Nabi) – assimilated the aesthetics of Japanese art into his treatment of space, time and movement, creating works that renounced naturalism and impressionism. Works by the French painter will be exhibited alongside Japanese prints to illustrate the similarities and formal affinities between them, and the importance for Bonnard of this source of inspiration.

Asian Bronze – 4000 Years of Beauty, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Sept 27 2024–Jan 12 2025

This exhibition is a unique celebration of 4000 years of Asian bronze, with masterpieces from India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal and Korea. Ranging from prehistoric objects to contemporary artworks, and from everyday items to depictions of gods, each one is a display of astonishing skill and dazzling imagination. Describing bronze art as merely ‘beautiful’ does not do it full justice. Bronze is so much more than a visual experience. What does bronze sound like, for instance? Come and immerse yourself in the magic of these shimmering metal objects, the almost 75 tangible memories of the cultures that produced them.

Joy and Sorrow in Autumn in Japanese Art (& Mio Okido: Remembered Images, Imagined (Hi)Stories – Japan, East Asia and I), Humboldt Forum, Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Berlin, Sept 11 2024–Dec 9 2024 & Sept 14 2024–Feb 3 2025

In Japan, it is not uncommon for the daytime heat of the summer months to extend well into the autumn. But as the nights grow cooler and the leaves change their colour, there is already a sense that the end of the year is approaching. The splendorous blaze of colour that characterises the autumnal landscape is imbued with a sense of the finite nature of all things, which lends the beauty of the season a certain bitter-sweet quality. This exhibition of artworks from the museum collection traces these conflicting dimensions and ambivalent aesthetic sensibilities in Japanese art.

In the gallery space stand as a reminder of historical tragedies a memento mori made of concrete and what at first glance appears to be a series of beautiful landscape photographs by the artist Reijiro Wada (b. 1977). A seascape by Leiko Ikemura (b. 1951) reveals itself upon closer inspection to depict the scene of a naval battle, and in the photographs by Muga Miyahara (b. 1971) a bomb and fighter aircrafts can be seen in a tokonoma niche that would otherwise be reserved for the quiet contemplation of art. Also featured in the exhibiton are Nihonga (‘Japanese painting’) style works by renowned painters like Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958) and Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878–1972). The artworks in question were first shown in Berlin in 1931 in an exhibition titled Japanese Painting of Today and subsequently gifted to the museum. In the very same year, the Japanese military provoked an incident in Manchuria that would herald the onset of tensions on the mainland, ultimately culminating in the Pacific War. This synchronicity serves as a point of departure for the exhibition Mio Okido: Remembered Images, Imagined (Hi)Stories – Japan, East Asia and I.

Kimono. Mirror of Modernity & Hokusai. The Great Wave, Japan Museum SieboldHuis, Leiden, July 19–Dec 8 2024 & Aug 24–Sept 29 2024

Kimono

Discover the unique fusion of Japanese tradition and Western modernity in the extraordinary Manavello collection, which highlights the transition from the 19th to the 20th century. These kimonos reflect the new era of modernity that Japan embraced during this period. Be enchanted by the striking patterns, vibrant colours, and unique details in this exhibition.

The Great Wave

The most iconic artwork from Japan is undoubtedly Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa, created in around 1831. The colossal wave with Mount Fuji in the distance can be seen virtually everywhere: from t-shirts and coffee mugs to street art and advertisements. It is the most famous and the most frequently reproduced print in the history of Japanese art.

In the pop-up exhibition Hokusai. The Great Wave, two copies of this woodcut, one of them among the earliest and best preserved examples, will be on display in an intimate setting for your viewing pleasure. Experience the energy and contrast in Hokusai’s work and discover his influence on both his Japanese contemporaries and Western artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. See for yourself how his wave has flooded today’s collective consciousness.

Love Island: Japanese Weddings of the Edo Period, Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, Dec 16 2023–Oct 6 2024

This exhibition explores the exquisite artistry and craftsmanship of some of the important elements of an Edo period bridal trousseau and touches on the strategic alliances that were created between Edo Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate and daimyo (provincial feudal lords) through matrimony. This installation features a selection of elegant and luxurious bridal objects on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, including a black and gold lacquer toilette set that once belonged to a member of the Tokugawa ruling clan, an incense guessing game set, and a lavish wedding kimono.

Martials Arts, Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, May 31 2024–Aug 31 2025

The exhibition zooms in on 15 martial arts: boxing, capoeira, fighting Cholitas and lucha libre show wrestling, taekwondo, kalaripayattu, karate, kendō, kickboxing, kung fu, māu rākau, Muay Thai, Nguni stick fighting, pencak silat, and zurkhaneh wrestling. It is the first major exhibition to bring together martial arts from around the world with special items from its own collection, many loans, contemporary art and videos. Some of the most renowned martial arts originated in Japan and this exhibition is a must-see for anyone with a broader interest in Japanese culture.

Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints, John Fiorillo, Sept 2024, Ludion

Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints, authored by long-standing SJA member and Andon editor John Fiorillo, centres on one of the most intriguing artists in kabuki actor prints: Shunbaisai Hokuei (act. ca. 1828–1836). A culminating, yet enigmatic, figure in Osaka ukiyo-e prints, Hokuei produced more masterworks than any other artist of his day in the Kyoto-Osaka (Kamigata) region. The prints in this richly illustrated publication are largely drawn from the John Fiorillo collection, considered the most extensive of Hokuei’s works. The book presents a thoughtful and thorough overview of the artist’s life and career in the world of Kamigata print production. Also included is a section highlighting fifty-six meticulously researched and remarkably well-preserved prints. Through Hokuei’s prints, the world of kabuki comes alive in fascinating detail, while assessments of design and technical attributes bring into focus the achievements of Hokuei and Kamigata print designers of the period. Of particular importance for scholars and collectors is a fully illustrated and annotated catalogue raisonné of the artist’s to-date documented 270 prints, a number of which are designs unique to the Fiorillo collection. Appendices introduce aspects of Hokuei’s prints, including summary data on print formats, figure types, deluxe printings, woodblock-printed books, and the artist’s students; signatures and seals; publishers; block-cutters and printers; kabuki theaters; and the making of Japanese prints. The depth and scope of information provided in Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints makes it a singular reference for scholars, collectors, and enthusiasts of Osaka prints, of the artist Hokuei, and of the world of kabuki.

Imagined Neighbors: Visions of China in Japanese Art, 1680–1980, Frank Feltens ed., September 2024, University of Chicago Press

This book examines Japanese artistic understanding of China from the late 1600s, Japan’s period of seclusion, to its age of modernization after the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on ways Japanese painters from the late 1600s to the twentieth century pictured China, both as a real place and as an imagined promised land. It features three essays by renowned Japanese art historians in addition to more than fifty catalogue entries highlighting unusual artworks revealing Japanese artists’ complex responses to Chinese art, history, and culture. In recent years, a handful of scholarly studies have tried to push against the established narrative of an exclusively Western-inspired modern Japan. Imagined Neighbors challenges the established narrative of an exclusively Western-inspired modern Japan by offering a more nuanced approach to understanding the country’s struggle with reconciling the old with the new as it reinvented itself into a modern nation-state.

Fan Prints by Kuniyoshi – Cats, Kabuki Actors and Girls, June 2024, Ōta Memorial Museum of Art (Japanese only)

A must-have for any collector or afficionado of ukiyo-e, this catalogue was released for the exhibition of the same name displayed in the Ōta Memorial Museum of Art this summer. It contains the most comprehensive overview of fan prints (uchiwa-e) by Kuniyoshi ever published. Fan prints were made during the Edo and Meiji periods to be cut and pasted unto bamboo frames, creating rigid fans (uchiwa) with which a satisfied customer would cool themselves during the hot Japanese summers. Famous artists like Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861) created these in large numbers, but surviving examples are very rare, making this catalogue all the more valuable.

Embodied Performance: Warriors, Dancers, and the Origins of Noh Theater, Matsuoka Shinpei. (Janet Goff transl.), July 2024, Columbia University Press

In this groundbreaking book, Matsuoka Shinpei—a leading scholar of Noh theatre—provides a detailed account of the birth of one of Japan’s most celebrated art forms. Although Noh has often been associated with the elite, Embodied Performance explores its links to a wider popular culture, revealing a rich and colourful public space where courtiers and commoners mingled.