Posted inArt

The Unnatural Wonders of Japan’s Influential Rinpa Aesthetic

I always consider it fortunate that at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum, exhibitions continue to argue eloquently that art has evolved along manifold trajectories before postmodern discourses recognized it as so. In that vein, one of the highlights of the fall museum season, Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art, which explores a distinctive style that originated in early 17th century Kyoto and thrived well into the 20th century with far-reaching resonance in Post-Impressionism and Art Nouveau, promises more than an optical feast or a comprehensive academic survey.

Posted inArt

Occupying Minds, Not Streets

Mounting an exhibition anywhere in the neighborhood of occupation aesthetics can be precarious nowadays, for people are increasingly fed up with the same reiterations of ideological conceptualism and the ultra–politically correct, derivative works that skim the surface of real world problems precipitated by global capitalism, government incompetence, dictatorship and injustice. But Beijing-based artist Chen Shaoxiong had a rather pragmatic impetus for reconsidering — through art — global phenomena from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to democratic elections that have sprung up in remote Chinese villages.