YOAP – The Year of Arabic Poetry
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Arabic poetry has been and remains an essential component of the Arab culture, as it’s still blazingly present in the daily life of Saudi and Arab culture. Therefore, the Ministry of Culture in Saudi Arabia has designated 2023 as the “Year of Arabic Poetry”, as part of the kingdom’s efforts celebrating national heritage and culture. The “Year of Arabic Poetry 2023” came to boost the position of Arabic poetry in the individual’s culture, enriching poetic creativity, and highlighting deeply rooted heritage of poetry in the Arabian history. Celebrating the year through events, activities, and initiatives held throughout the year with the active partnership of members of society and concerned parties.
The Met — “Learning to Paint in Premodern China”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Galleries 210-216, New York, USA
This exhibition considers the underexplored question of how painters learned their craft in premodern China. Some painters learned at home from family members, others learned from friends. Still others turned to painting manuals, treatises that expanded knowledge of painting to anyone who could buy a woodblock-printed book. The exhibition aims to illuminate these and other pathways to becoming a painter in premodern China.
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art — “Anyang: China’s Ancient City of Kings”
1050 Independence Ave, Washington, DC, USA
This exhibition spotlights Anyang, China’s ancient capital, the source of China’s earliest surviving written records and the birthplace of Chinese archaeology. It utilises more than 200 artifacts from nearly 100 years of formal Anyang archaeology to examine the evolution of Chinese archaeological practice and the Shang (1250 BC–1050 BC) capital’s material, social and economic culture.
MFA Boston — “Weng Family Collection of Chinese Painting: Art Rocks”
465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
In China, rocks in their natural form are objects of great aesthetic appreciation. Serious art collectors and critics acquired and competed for rocks with the same passion they afforded great works of painting and calligraphy. This exhibition explores how rock aesthetics have permeated architecture, landscape design, and painting styles in China for a millennium. Visitors can envision themselves in paintings of gardens where colossal rocks loom over a scholar’s studio, or scenes of fantastical caves where artists gaze in awe at mysterious rock formations.
The Met — “Anxiety and Hope in Japanese Art”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Galleries 223-232, New York, USA
This exhibition explores the themes of anxiety and hope, with a focus on the human stories in and around art and art making. It begins with sacred images from early Japan about death, dying, and the afterlife or that were created in response to other uncertainties, such as war and natural disaster. It 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. Finally, underlying themes are explored via modern woodblock prints, garments, and photographs.
“Kaleidoscope in Clay (II): Life in Ceramics during the Song and Yuan Dynasties”
The Gallery@ L3 Fort Canning Centre, Fort Canning Park, 5 Cox Terrace, Singapore
The Society for Chinese Ceramics Studies presents the significant roles of utilitarian art in the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties. The Song Dynasty witnessed a vibrant economy and a flowering of the arts, and major kilns were active in many regions, which continued almost seamlessly into the Yuan Dynasty. Visitors can explore the rich history and artistry of wares from the kilns of Ding, Jun, Yaozhou, Longquan, Qingbai, Cizhou, Jian, Jizhou, among others.
HKMoA — “Love Letters: Everlasting Sentiments from the Xubaizhai Collection”
10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Over the centuries, Chinese artists have often suffused their painting, calligraphy and poetry with sentiments. Like love letters, their works of art are intimate whispers of affection murmuring eternal emotions. With love letter as the theme, the exhibition features 29 sets of selected collections from the Xubaizhai Collection, inviting the audience to discover the reserved and implicit emotions encapsulated in Chinese painting and calligraphy.
HKMoA—”A Tale of Three Cities: Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Export of Silk Products in the Ming and Qing Dynasties”
10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Jointly organised by the Guangdong Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and the Macao Museum, this exhibition explores the connections between the three places and the story of cultural exchange between East and West through export silk.
HK Palace Museum — “Gazing at Sanxingdui: New Archaeological Discoveries in Sichuan”
Hong Kong Palace Museum, 8 Museum Drive, Hong Kong
The special exhibition presents the astounding new archaeological discoveries at Sanxingdui in China’s Sichuan province. A significant part of the “Archaeological China” project, the excavation at Sanxingdui has enriched and transformed our understanding of the advanced ancient culture in the Chengdu Plain in particular and the upper Yangtze River valley in general. The exhibition features 120 remarkable bronze, jade, gold, and ceramic objects dating back some 2,600 to 4,500 years.
W. Shanshan — “Tang: Beauty and Beast”
Stern Pissarro Gallery, 66 St. James’s Street, London, UK
W. SHANSHAN is established by Dr Shanshan Wang. Its major focus is early Asian art, in particular ceramics and sculptures from the Neolithic period through to the Han and Tang dynasties. The gallery also performs as a platform, providing the public with lecture series, art solons and handling sessions. This exhibition focuses on the Tang dynasty, along with a gallery talk “Expressions of Colour by Tang vs Modern Art” to be held on the 22nd, 29th and 30th October.
Eskenazi — “Chinese Ceramics, Lacquer and Gold from the 12th to the 14th Century”
10 Clifford Street, Mayfair, London, UK
This exhibition features a range of eighteen outstanding objects from the 12th–14th century. The ceramics highlight classical kilns active during the Song, Yuan and Jin periods, such as Yaozhou celadons, Ding white wares and tea bowls from both north and south China. The diversity of the material—in shapes and glazes—reflects the richness of the Chinese ceramic tradition. This is complemented in the exhibition by gold and lacquer vessels from the same period.
Bowers Museum — “Beyond the Great Wave: Works by Hokusai from the British Museum”
2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California, USA
This exhibition includes a beautiful early example of The Great Wave and ventures beyond to feature a broad selection of works that Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) produced right up to his death at the age of 90. Visitors will be able to examine Hokusai’s personal beliefs through more than 100 paintings, drawings, woodblock prints, and illustrated books that speak to his early career, rise to fame, interest in the natural and supernatural worlds, personal life, and search for immortality.
Marchant — “Kangxi Biscuit and Pottery: A Private French Collection”
120 Kensington Church Street, London, UK
Presenting select biscuit ware from the Kangxi period, all from one private French collection. Pictured here as an example is a famille verte biscuit porcelain model of the god of the North, Zhenwu, wearing armoured breastplate and skirt, seated on a tortoise entwined with a snake. One of the original stories about Zhenwu, or Xuanwu, was that he was a prince of the Jingli state of Northern Hubei during the time of the yellow emperor. After becoming an immortal, he was regularly depicted with a tortoise and snake. An exhibition talk “Kangxi Biscuit & Pottery” will be given on 28 October.
Chakrabongse Antique & Culture Fair 2023
Chakrabongse Villa, Bangkok, Thailand
The 5th edition of the fair will include more than 30 stalls of antique and collectible craft items from dealers and private collections, including an exclusive exhibition of Royal Siamese decor such as antique masterpieces of textiles, silverware and porcelain. Also featured are book launches, talks, performances, exclusive house tours and more.
Brooklyn Museum — “Arts of South Asia and the Islamic World”
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, USA
The reopening of the galleries marks the completion of a ten-year project that revamped the museum’s entire floor of Asian art. The South Asia gallery features work spanning 5 millennia, from the Indus Valley to many Hindu objects . The Islamic World gallery presents the extent of Islam’s global reach with works from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America across 14 centuries.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — “Art of the Islamic Worlds”
1001 Bissonnet, Houston, USA
These 6 new, permanent galleries doubles the museum’s space for Islamic art, and presents hundreds of objects from both the MFAH and from the Hossein Afshar Collection of Iranian art, which is on extended loan. Works spanning more than 1000 years include paintings, manuscripts, ceramics, carpets, and metalwork, from present-day Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Walters Art Museum — “Across Asia: Arts of Asia and the Islamic World”
600 N. Charles St., Baltimore, USA
The new exhibition displays Asian and Islamic works of art together at the museum, drawing out the artistic connections across these different cultures with over 600 artworks spanning 5,000 years. Works include examples of architecture, calligraphy, ceramics, cloisonné, enamelwork, lacquerware, manuscripts, metalwork, painting, sculpture, and textiles.