Installation views of our exhibition Conversations: Past and Present in Asia and America on view thr

Installation views of our exhibition Conversations: Past and Present in Asia and America on view through May 21, 2017.

Inspired  by the AMAM’s 2016–17 theme of “Time,” this exhibition bridges wide temporal  and cultural distances, linking the works of artists from China, Japan, Korea,  the United States, and Canada, both well-known and anonymous, living and long  gone. In the fall of 2016, the exhibition will feature paintings and  calligraphy that reflect the lasting legacy of the Chinese literati tradition.

For  the spring 2017 semester, a fresh rotation of works highlights adaptations by  contemporary East Asian and Asian-American artists of the graphic sensibilities  of Pop Art and Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, along with the creative  reworking of imagery from historical photographs. On view throughout the year  will be contemporary ceramics that respond to various East Asian ceramic styles.

These  “conversations” do not simply mimic the past, but engage it in a dialogue that  references earlier subjects, styles, mediums, and techniques and infuses them  with the artist’s contemporary reality. They may take the form of respectful imitation,  creative reinterpretation, bitter critique, ironic send-up, and sometimes all of these at once.
 
The exhibition is organized by Kevin R.E. Greenwood, Joan L. Danforth   Curator of Asian Art.