In the Steps of the Master. Pupils of Hokusai

August 29, 2015 – February 15, 2016
http://www.mfa.org/

Yashima Gakutei, Pangu (Banko shi), from the series A Set of Ten Famous Numerals for the Katsushika Circle (Katsushikaren meisu juban), about 1821

The amazing versatility of the great Katsushika Hokusai is reflected in the work of his many pupils, who were inspired by their master to produce outstanding prints and paintings of many different subjects: beautiful women, historical warriors, landscapes, still lifes, and fabulous monsters. This exhibition examines the first wave of Hokusai’s impact on the Japanese art world, during his own lifetime and shortly thereafter, as seen in the work of the artists who studied with him in person.

Hokusai’s influence was especially strong in the area of surimono, privately commissioned prints made with the finest materials and techniques that were often exchanged as gifts by the affluent members of amateur poetry clubs. Three of the most important and prolific designers of surimono—Shinsai, Hokkei, and Gakutei—were all pupils of Hokusai. The combination of skill and ingenuity that these artists shared with their teacher made their work extremely attractive to the surimono patrons.

Von Bildern. Strategien der Aneignung

29.8.2015 – 17.01.2016
http://www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch/

John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Harun Farocki, Andrea Fraser, Nina Könnemann, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Hilary Lloyd, Michaela Meise, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman.

Von Bildern presents art based on the appropriation of existing pictures and genres. Such processes often entail transfers from one medium into another: a photograph is filmed, a painting is photographed, or a scene in a film is tapped as the source for a staged photograph. Appropriation adds a new perspective on the content of the material being appropriated and calls its authenticity and authorship in question. It may articulate a critical study of visual models and blueprints from mass and entertainment media and the templates of identity they transmit. Or it may point up the forever fluid borders and commerce between the visual arts and the culture industry. Appropriation can tell stories of the media trajectories along which patterns and forms migrate between the genres and apparatuses of distribution. Or it scrutinizes practices that evolve in the interplay between the publicity generated by institutions and private marketing.

The exhibition considers strategies of appropriation as a form of discourse in and about pictures. It widens the scope of reflection beyond the formal qualities of pictures to examine the various institutional and social settings and channels in which they originate and circulate.

A Golden Age

28 August – 29 November 2015
http://www.kunsthaus.ch/

The Kunsthaus already possesses important holdings of 17thcentury Dutch art, in the form of the Koetser and Ruzicka collections. For this exhibition, these are joined by 40 precious Dutch paintings from a private collection in Zurich that have rarely been shown before. Most are small-format cabinet pieces of exquisite quality, their remarkable compositions and spectacular detail as captivating to present-day audiences as they have ever been. They include cheerful genre scenes, magnificent still lifes and landscapes by outstanding representatives of Dutch painting such as Hendrick Avercamp, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Adriaen Coorte, Jan van Goyen and Aert van der Neer.

The collection’s exacting standards are also reflected in the fact that almost all of the pictures are signed, an indication of the way in which Dutch artists of the time saw themselves: they were the first to produce works to this extent for a broad market and develop a high degree of specialization in a variety of genres outside religious art.

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND PHOTOGRAPHY

28.08.2015 – 13.12.2015
http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/

For the first time ever, the Kunstmuseum Bern will be juxtaposing the work of the world-famous French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) with the photography of his time. It will be confronting his paintings, drawings, lithographs, and posters with contemporary photographs that contain the same or very similar motifs, often having in fact served the artist as models for his work.

None of the photographs were made by Toulouse-Lautrec. In fact he never took pictures himself, but did often commission his friends to do it for him.  Sometimes he would use these pictures as models or templates for his art, or sometimes he desired stage performances to be visually documented. Indeed, Toulouse-Lautrec had a profoundly photographic eye like hardly another artist of his epoch. Whatever he depicted and how he did so would have been inconceivable without photography. This is not only evidenced in his ingenious compositions with their cropped figures, but also his sketchy style is intrinsically linked to it: just as modern photography had as its goal, Toulouse-Lautrec, too, sought greatest spontaneity in capturing the fleeting moment. And who could have painted the artificial world of Paris’s red-light district Montmartre, its seductive delights and the downfalls or the ruin lurking behind its bright facades, as truthfully and matter-of-factly—as photographically—as Toulouse-Lautrec?

Kesa: Japanese Buddhist Monks’ Vestments

August 21, 2015– January 2016
http://www.artic.edu/

The Art Institute’s Department of Textiles is fortunate to own a large collection, some 200 in all, of kesa, the rectangular or trapezoidal outer garment traditionally worn by Buddhist monks and priests in Japan. The textiles have been mostly acquired over the years by donations from various private collectors, but the largest group and many of the most significant pieces came from the collection of Ralph and Mary Hays in 2004. Although a few examples of our kesa have been displayed in the past, this is the first exhibition at the Art Institute to present an overview of this distinctive group of textiles.

Often described as a mantle or robe, the kesa is worn draped diagonally over the left shoulder and under the right armpit. The Japanese term kesa derives from the Sanskrit word kasaya (or turbulence, an allusion to the dyeing process) and indicates the garment’s Indian origin. Indeed, as a reminder of this origin and the historical Buddha’s own simple patched garment, kesa are formed from many fragments of the same cloth. Within each garment, the fragments are typically organized in a series of columns framed by a border with mitered corners. The number of columns, ranging from five to 25 but most often seven, indicates both the specific function of that garment and also the rank of the wearer within the religious hierarchy. Many examples are adorned with six added squares, usually from a different fabric, that reinforced points of stress from wear but have assumed symbolic value as well. Attached rinds, loops, and cords helped hold the garments in place when worn.

Although there are earlier examples, particularly in Japanese temple collections, most surviving kesa date from the Edo period (1615–1868) and the Meiji period (1868–1912). The fabrics used during these periods are often highly patterned and made of sumptuous materials, in aristocratic defiance of the garments’ humble beginnings. Some of the fabrics are reused garments—Noh theatrical robes, kimonos, even Chinese robes—donated to temples by wealthy devotees. This selection of 23 kesa shows both the range and exquisite intricacy of this beautiful and historically rich garment.

Hokan shu, Volume 2

August 4 - September 6, 2015
http://www.tnm.jp/

This room is specially designed for the comfortable viewing of masterpieces in a tranquil setting. With each rotation, one exceptional work of painting or calligraphy designated as National Treasure will be presented. The selections come from the Museum's collection or works that are on loan to the Museum.

On Exhibit: Hokan shu, Volume 2, Heian-Nanbokucho period, 12th - 14th century (National Treasure, Lent by Kongobuji, Wakayama)