To celebrate the close of Modern Art Asia's first year, we are pleased to announce the inauguration of the first annual review issue. In advance of autumn sales, exhibitions, and the new academic year, the relative quiet of the summer art world offers opportunities for reflection. Each August issue will be dedicated to reviewing the latest books, exhibitions, and events in modern Asian art, art history, and art criticism. Our other issues will continue to present full-length papers and commentaries that represent cutting-edge thought by new scholars and critics on modern and contemporary Asian art.
In honor of Expo 2010 Shanghai, Mark Frank's double contributions interrogate the Expo through the lens of urbanisation, and consider an exhibition of Taiwanese artist KEA (Tsai Mengda) at the Shanghai MOCA. Jacqueline Chao offers an artist profile of Taiwanese-Canadian artist Chan Shengyao and his position in the continuing trajectory of ink painting. Roshna Kapadia presents an exhibition of art produced in the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. The executive editors also contribute to this issue on topics related to their own research specializations: Kristina Kleutghen considers the periodization of modern Chinese art, and Majella Munro reflects on commercial spaces in the Tokyo art world.
This issue also marks a new feature for Modern Art Asia: the Editors' Reviews, in which members of the editorial team present a book, exhibition or event that they feel is of particular importance to the study and criticism of modern and contemporary Asian art. In this first installment of the series, the executive editors review a book and an exhibition that demonstrate how the study and exhibition of modern Asian art have progressed over time.
In honor of Expo 2010 Shanghai, Mark Frank's double contributions interrogate the Expo through the lens of urbanisation, and consider an exhibition of Taiwanese artist KEA (Tsai Mengda) at the Shanghai MOCA. Jacqueline Chao offers an artist profile of Taiwanese-Canadian artist Chan Shengyao and his position in the continuing trajectory of ink painting. Roshna Kapadia presents an exhibition of art produced in the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. The executive editors also contribute to this issue on topics related to their own research specializations: Kristina Kleutghen considers the periodization of modern Chinese art, and Majella Munro reflects on commercial spaces in the Tokyo art world.
This issue also marks a new feature for Modern Art Asia: the Editors' Reviews, in which members of the editorial team present a book, exhibition or event that they feel is of particular importance to the study and criticism of modern and contemporary Asian art. In this first installment of the series, the executive editors review a book and an exhibition that demonstrate how the study and exhibition of modern Asian art have progressed over time.
Vertiginous Metamorphosis: The Shanghai Expo and China’s Love Affair with the City
Mark Frank
China fetishizes cities. That much is evident in the motto of the Shanghai Expo—not the English language motto, which reads “Better City, Better Life,” but in the subtly different Chinese motto “chengshi, rang shenghuo geng meihao,” which would more accurately translate into “Cities make life better.” What has been lost in translation is the essence of the Chinese urban-rural paradigm in which the aspirational compass points almost unwaveringly towards the metropole.
Mark Frank
China fetishizes cities. That much is evident in the motto of the Shanghai Expo—not the English language motto, which reads “Better City, Better Life,” but in the subtly different Chinese motto “chengshi, rang shenghuo geng meihao,” which would more accurately translate into “Cities make life better.” What has been lost in translation is the essence of the Chinese urban-rural paradigm in which the aspirational compass points almost unwaveringly towards the metropole.
Future Pavillion, Shanghai Expo. Photograph © Mark Frank
Artist's Portfolio: Chan Shengyao
Jacqueline Chao
Chan Shengyao’s intention behind The Creator of All Beings, as with many of his works, is to make us simultaneously question ourselves together with the world that we see, and to position each of us as this 'creator of all beings.' He says: "The creator is an indescribable condition. All beings have enlightenment power to create infinite beings and universes. Every universe and every being is filled with eternal life power and is immortal."
Jacqueline Chao
Chan Shengyao’s intention behind The Creator of All Beings, as with many of his works, is to make us simultaneously question ourselves together with the world that we see, and to position each of us as this 'creator of all beings.' He says: "The creator is an indescribable condition. All beings have enlightenment power to create infinite beings and universes. Every universe and every being is filled with eternal life power and is immortal."
Commerical Spaces in the Tokyo Art World
Majella Munro
Though exhibitions dedicated exclusively to contemporary Japanese art are seemingly rare in the larger museums of Tokyo, a plethora of smaller, commercial spaces present a diverse array of current Japanese practice. Majella Munro gives an overview of leading galleries and privately-financed museums, analysing their role in the exhibition of Japanese contemporary art.
Majella Munro
Though exhibitions dedicated exclusively to contemporary Japanese art are seemingly rare in the larger museums of Tokyo, a plethora of smaller, commercial spaces present a diverse array of current Japanese practice. Majella Munro gives an overview of leading galleries and privately-financed museums, analysing their role in the exhibition of Japanese contemporary art.
Ine Izumi, I was not a dress (fourth sister’s dress as a motif). Image courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery.
Editors' Reviews
Kristina Kleutghen reviews Jennifer Purtle and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, eds. Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from Treaty Ports to World War II.
Majella Munro reviews Hashimoto Heihachi and Kitasono Katue, Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu, 7th August - 11th October, and Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, 23rd October - 12th December, 2010.
Kristina Kleutghen reviews Jennifer Purtle and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, eds. Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from Treaty Ports to World War II.
Majella Munro reviews Hashimoto Heihachi and Kitasono Katue, Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu, 7th August - 11th October, and Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, 23rd October - 12th December, 2010.
STAY REAL Forever, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, 10th June-12th July, 2010 Mark Frank
KEA bills himself as Taiwan’s most famous graffiti artist, but he lacks the street-cred of true masters like Banksy. His modest reknown comes more from hanging his work on walls than defacing them. His work is a celebration of pop-consumerism that embraces everything the international millennial generation really drools over—sex, pirates, dinosaurs and name brands.
KEA bills himself as Taiwan’s most famous graffiti artist, but he lacks the street-cred of true masters like Banksy. His modest reknown comes more from hanging his work on walls than defacing them. His work is a celebration of pop-consumerism that embraces everything the international millennial generation really drools over—sex, pirates, dinosaurs and name brands.
Chan Shengyao, The Creator of All Beings, ink and mixed media on cloth, 213.36 x 152.4 cm, 2006. Image courtesy © Chan Shengyao.
Himeko Fukuhara, Kazuko Matsumoto, Interned at Amache, Colorado, and Gila River, Arizona, Bird and animal pins, scrap wood, paint, metal. Collection of Jewel Nishi Okawachi and James Yasutome, Collections of the National Japanese American Historical Society and the Japanese America Citizens League, San Francisco Chapter. Reprinted from “Art of Gaman” by Delphine Hirasuna, ©2005, Ten Speed. Terry Heffernan photo.
The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 Renwick Gallery, Washington, until January 30th, 2011.
Roshna Kapadia
Soon after America entered the Second World War, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing 120,000 ethnic Japanese living on the west coast (two-thirds of which were American citizens) into internment camps. The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery currently hosts a show guest curated by Delphine Hirasuna, comprising 120 works of art produced in internment camps.
Roshna Kapadia
Soon after America entered the Second World War, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing 120,000 ethnic Japanese living on the west coast (two-thirds of which were American citizens) into internment camps. The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery currently hosts a show guest curated by Delphine Hirasuna, comprising 120 works of art produced in internment camps.
Modern Art Asia encourages academic freedom and does not impose an editorial stance. The views expressed by authors are entirely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Modern Art Asia or its editorial board. Modern Art Asia is unable to vouch for the contents of third party sites.
When is Modern Chinese Art?
Kristina Kleutghen
What is the definition of modern Chinese art? What does it mean for a Chinese work of art to be considered “modern,” rather than “ancient,” “classical,” or “contemporary”? Considering the temporal connotations of these qualifiers, we can therefore refine the question: when is modern Chinese art?
Kristina Kleutghen
What is the definition of modern Chinese art? What does it mean for a Chinese work of art to be considered “modern,” rather than “ancient,” “classical,” or “contemporary”? Considering the temporal connotations of these qualifiers, we can therefore refine the question: when is modern Chinese art?
KEA, Mona Lisa So Hot, photograph © Mark Frank
