On View

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art highlights its latest acquisitions of works by Native American artists in a new exhibition celebrating the intergenerational expressions of Indigenous artists through historical and contemporary art.
Artist-curator Jordan Poorman Cocker co-curated “American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges” with Ashley Holland, director of curatorial affairs at the Art Bridges Foundation. The latest acquisitions came from direct talks with the artists as well as from Native American markets and through art galleries, said  Cocker, who also serves as the museum’s officer for compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRPA).
Ryan RedCorn, Raymond RedCorn (2018-2023). Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Among the new acquisitions is a photograph by the Osage artist Ryan RedCorn which depicts the late fashion designer Ardina Revard Moore, who founded the Indian apparel business Buffalo Sun. Moore, who was also one of the last remaining speakers of the Quapaw language, is pictured holding a young baby named Hikele Byrd.
“In Redcorn’s portrait, generations, legacy, resilience, and the importance of family is highlighted in monumental scale,” Cocker said, highlighting the RedCorn work as one in the exhibition that best represents the thematic aspect of kinship.
Cocker herself is an Indigenous artist from the Kiowa Tribe and from the Kingdom of Tonga in the Polynesia region of the Pacific. Her artistic and scholarly work seeks to promote Indigenous knowledge and creativity.
Frank Buffalo Hyde, Big Hat Energy (2023). Courtesy of Frank Buffalo Hyde/Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
“Misrepresentation and underrepresentation of Indigenous-led stories and narratives has historically led to an over-representation of stereotypical imagery and propaganda within museums due to settler colonialism,” Cocker said. “When museums support Indigenous curators to work closely with artists and communities to tell our own stories in our own ways, museums move closer toward best practice.”
The new acquisitions also include, among other pieces, a characteristic punching-bag sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson, a mixed media work by Ojibwe artist Andrea Carlson, a painting by Onondaga and Niimíipuu artist Frank Buffalo Hyde inspired by a 1962 advertisement for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes cereal, and a beaded necklace by the artist Bobby Dues called IHS Dental Plan (2024) that Cocker described as “fabulous.”
Bobby “Dues” Wilson, IHS Dental Plan (2024). Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
That work is accompanied by a projection of a video titled Smiling Indians by Redcorn and Sterlin Harjo.
“The throughline between both works is Indigenous joy, happiness, and imagery of smiling Indigenous people which is rarely shown in the museums and the media,” Cocker said. “This pairing and other works in the exhibit upend negative and inaccurate stereotypes of Native American people.”
Cocker also praised the work The Zenith by artist Cara Romero, who is slated to have her first solo show at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, in January. That work, a photograph, features a person with a spaceflight helmet on in outer space while surrounded by floating cobs of corn. To Cocker, it highlights the show’s theme of Indigenous Futurism. Meanwhile, Kelly Church’s Sustaining Traditions into the Future was selected by Cocker as the best example of the theme of place.
Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Home of the Brave (2013). Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
The exhibition features six new commissions by Church, Jeri RedCorn, Jane Osti, and Roy Boney that have never been seen by the public. In total, more than 30 artists spanning more than 150 years of artmaking are featured.
“American Sunrise: Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges” is on view through March 23, 2025 at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas. More

To exhibition-goers and culture lovers, “Life is Architecture” at M+ in Hong Kong has been nothing but a treat since it opened in late June. The show, billed as the first major retrospective of Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei (1917–2019), offers a rare opportunity to revisit the iconic buildings and high-profile projects he built around the world that made him one of the most influential architects of the 20th and 21st centuries.
To architects, the exhibition on Pei carries an extra layer of meaning. It is not just about one big name, but it offers the audience a glimpse of what the practice of architecture is about, according to architect Betty Ng.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Wilson LamImage courtesy of M+, Hong Kong.
“Despite that the exhibition is billed as a retrospective of Pei, his work is exhibited and curated as a body of work that involves a vast amount of collaborators, ranging from his clients to glass manufacturers and artists. Among my favorites are the illustrations by Helmut Jacoby, who also collaborated with Norman Foster,” noted Ng, who is the founder and director of the Hong Kong headquartered firm Collective, which has worked on architecture and exhibition design projects across the region and beyond, including Christie’s new Asia headquarters.
The “refreshing” approach shows “how architecture is done through a coherent understanding across various parties, which is a reality in practice but not well understood by outsiders,” she said.
Peter Rosen,First Person Singular: I. M. Pei (1997). Image courtesy of the director.
The Pritzker Prize-winning architect I.M. Pei, whose full name is leoh Ming Pei, may be best remembered for the National Gallery of Art East Building in Washington, D.C., as well as the Louvre Pyramid, which went from being one of the most hated proposals during the museum’s renovation to an iconic piece of contemporary architecture in Paris. Other major projects are the Bank of China Tower, which challenged the public’s perception of architecture in Hong Kong and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the latter of which he built at the age of 91. Despite his institutional might, Pei did not get a museum retrospective until now.
Curated by Shirley Surya, design and architecture curator at M+, and Aric Chen, general and artistic director of Nieuwe Instituut (New Institute) in Rotterdam and formerly M+’s founding lead curator for design and architecture, the show was organized with the support of the Estate of I. M. Pei and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners has been seven years in the making.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Dan Leung. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
The exhibition tells the story of Pei’s life and practice through six chapters and it features more than 400 objects, with many being shown for the first time.
“It’s hard to pick ‘favorites’ as each exhibit—be it a video, a letter, model, or drawing—is key in revealing certain aspects within each thematic section of the exhibition,” said exhibition curator Surya. While attention is likely drawn to some of Pei’s landmark designs, Surya noted that as a historian, she was grateful to have found several lesser-known exhibits that demonstrated Pei’s versatility not just as an architect but also for his transcultural vision.
Installation view of I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, 2024. Photo: Lok Cheng. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
Among them is a series of short documentaries about Pei from 1970 that were kept at Pei Cobb Freed’s archive. It “revealed Pei’s articulate and reflective stance on his practice and presented him as an important public figure even before accomplishing other projects later,” the curator pointed out.
The other is the model of Taiwan Pavilion at Expo 1970 in Osaka. The model on view was built in collaboration with master’s students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Architecture, which also served as the exhibition’s dedicated model maker.
I.M. Pei’s Bankers’ club drawing from undergrad project at MIT. Photo: M+.
“As a temporary structure, few knew of Pei’s involvement in this project. But its design for a circuitous exhibition path—through two multi-story triangular volumes with multiple bridges—akin to the unfolding sequence of spaces experienced while walking through a Chinese garden really demonstrated Pei’s ability to reinterpret culturally specific historical archetypes for the design of a contemporary and modern structure,” said Surya.
The I.M. Pei designed Suzhou Museum opened in 2006. Photo: M+.
Architect Ng, who also teaches architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong with her Collective directors Juan Minguez and Chi Yan Chan as a collective teaching cohort, was the team behind this education engagement. Students were asked to conduct in-depth research of two of Pei’s culture-related projects: a Museum of Chinese Art for Shanghai in 1948, an unrealized proposal that was originally Pei’s Harvard Graduate School of Design thesis, and Taiwan pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka. These aspiring architects were asked to reflect on the idea of “Chineseness” through Pei’s work. Ng and her teammates found this exercise inspiring.
“To us, as architects from different places practising in the context of Asia, we have always been asked to create ‘a design with Asianess’. There is no straight forward answer to this delicate matter, but the collaboration was a great exercise to explore various design methodologies through the understanding of characters instead of motifs,” said Ng.
Liu Heung Shing, I. M. Pei with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and guests at Fragrant Hill Hotel’s opening (1982). Photo: © Liu Heung Shing
The show also highlights the backdrop of important historical moments throughout the decades of Pei’s career that saw key cultural and geopolitical transformations across the world. Important archival images on view include those depicting Pei’s interaction with important figures such as French-Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and scenes representing the modernization of China.
To Ng, projects that Pei had worked on with real estate tycoon William Zeckendorf being showcased alongside other arts and cultural projects was moving. The collaboration gave Pei a reputation of being “an architect for a developer.” Reflecting on this, Ng noted that private developers play a more dominant role in the architecture ecology in Hong Kong and the region, compared to Europe, where she had worked before. By putting these commercial projects on view, it helped to clarify the basis of architecture design, which is about methodology, rather than genres and styles. “We do not believe in being a particular type of architect. We believe in architecture,” she said.
Marc Riboud, I. M. Pei and Zao Wou-Ki in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris ca.1990 © Marc Riboud/Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG/Magnum Photos
The exhibition will run until January 5, 2025. But in case one isn’t able to make a trip to Hong Kong for the show, don’t fret. There may be a chance to see the show elsewhere afterwards. “We are currently in various discussions to bring this exhibition to a wider audience in different parts of the world,” Surya noted. More

Every fall, Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art hosts blockbuster exhibitions to assert its position as a leading institution in the region, and this year is no exception. Two major shows, a solo presentation of Anicka Yi and the group exhibition “Dream Screen,” are running through the end of the year.
Yi’s “There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” is certainly the headline attraction as the first and most expansive museum exhibition of the renowned Korean-American artist in Asia. Yet many visitors would agree that “Dream Screen,” organized by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, has stolen some of the spotlight.
Infused with horror-genre themes, the show features a dynamic group of artists millennial-aged or younger whose practices explore and negotiate cultural encounters experienced through screens, whether via the internet, video games, or films within local and regional contexts. After its opening in September, the show quickly became one of the most talked-about exhibitions of the fall.
Installation view of 2024 Art Spectrum “Dream Screen.” Photo: Yeonje Kim. Image courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art.
The exhibition is part of the museum’s Art Spectrum program, a biennial initiative launched in 2001. Originally established as a platform to showcase emerging Korean artists amid the country’s growing contemporary art scene, this edition has been revamped. The previous award system was removed, and the program expanded its scope to feature artists from across the region. “Dream Screen” presents the work of 26 artists and collectives from various parts of Asia, organized by Tiravanija, who served as artistic director and co-curated the show with Leeum’s curator Hyo Gyoung Jean and guest curator Jiwon Yu.
Installation view of 2024 Art Spectrum Dream Screen. Photo: Yeonje Kim. Image courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art.
The show explores the proliferation of digital technologies and the sense of the uncanny that is created as our lives become overloaded with information, sensory stimuli, and narratives all shared through screens.
Perhaps there is no better way than presenting this in the form of a haunted house. The exhibition’s entrance is the façade of a house, which is inspired by the Winchester Mystery House, dubbed “the creepiest mansion” in the U.S. Built by Sarah Pardee Winchester, who received a massive inheritance from her late husband, William Winchester, a firearms mogul, the 110-room 19th-century mansion located in San Jose, California, was said to be built to house the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle so she could be spared by the ghosts of these victims.
Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran, The Spinning Shadows (2024) Commissioned by Leeum Museum of Art. Image courtesy the artist.
What connects an American haunted house to Asian horror? The exhibition offers no explicit explanation, but its format speaks volumes. Featuring 26 artists and collectives, each occupying a room, courtyard, or hallway within a labyrinthine structure inspired by the Winchester House, the show balances individual expression with a unified narrative. Given Asia’s legacy of iconic horror films like Ring (1998), The Eye (2002), and A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), it’s a fitting setting for exploring the genre’s global resonance.
Installation view of Bo Wang’s Asian Ghost Story (2023). Photo: Vivienne Chow.
As visitors enter the house, they are greeted by music from a live jam session at a bar—an installation by the international collective Sparkling Tap Water, whose members performed throughout the opening night. Deeper inside, a room features the haunting video installation Asian Ghost Story (2023) by Amsterdam-based, Chongqing-born artist Bo Wang. This powerful work reflects on the late 20th-century hair trade, set against Asia’s economic rise, industrialization, Cold War tensions, and migration.
Inspiration from Shan State and Chiang Rai (2023) by the Yangon-based artist Soe Yu Nwe. Photo: Vivienne Chow
Among the 60 works on show, 23 of them were commissioned by the museum and exhibited for the first time. One keeps making discoveries in this maze-like structure wandering from one room to the next, not knowing what to expect.
One room features Inspiration from Shan State and Chiang Rai (2023) by Yangon-based artist Soe Yu Nwe, an installation of delicate glass and ceramic sculptures resembling mysterious plants sprouting from bodily forms. The work draws inspiration from her family history and regional folklore. Meanwhile, a corridor showcases Forms of Perfect Love (2024) by Seoul- and Amsterdam-based artist Eunsae Lee, a whimsical mural depicting various forms of human connection.
Kaeru (2024) by Jihyun Jung. Photo: Yeonje Kim. Courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art
Ghost in the Machine (2024) by the Cebu-based Kolown is an installation of what appears to be a farm for internet trolls, consisting of 40 smartphones; it offers a critical take on how the ease of communication with digital devices can be a double-edged sword.
For those whose nightmares involve public scrutiny, Seoul-based Jihyun Jung’s Kaeru (2024) might be the most unsettling work in the exhibition. This large-scale installation invites visitors to attempt indoor wall climbing in front of an audience, forcing them to confront fears of failure and embarrassment.
While international blockbuster names are inevitable to draw audiences and sell tickets, platforming emerging talent from the region is equally important, especially when the global art community is becoming more receptive of artists of Asian roots. Leeum would do well to  maintain this balance in its future programming.
“Anicka Yi: There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One” and “Dream Screen” run through December 29 at Leeum Museum of Art, 60-16 Itaewon-ro 55-gil, Seoul, South Korea. More

More than four decades into painting, Kenny Scharf, a visionary of Pop Surrealism and a fixture of New York’s downtown art scene, is at the pinnacle of his career. The artist’s top 30 auction sales have all transpired since 2020 and this past May, an aerosol artwork sprayed on-site for a benefit auction sold for a record $1.1 million. Now, with three major exhibitions currently on view in New York City, Scharf’s dynamic, colorful works are being celebrated like never before.
After enrolling in New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1978, Scharf became pals with street artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The rest is history, as they say. Throughout the 1980s, he spent his time orbiting Warhol, painting the streets, and getting freaky at Manhattan’s nightclubs. He became known for his vibrant, distorted faces that are usually laughing or smiling, which are exemplified in a recently unveiled show at Lio Malca’s 60 White gallery. Meanwhile, a suite of new works joyfully commemorating the year of the dragon, are on view at the Lower East Side gallery TOTAH.
A survey at New York’s Brant Foundation, however, emphasizes the angst that has been brewing just beneath his jocular figures all along.
A view of the exhibition’s final, bottom floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
Brant co-curated the three-floor extravaganza alongside dealer Tony Shafrazi. Together, they supplemented their collections with Scharf’s holdings, plus loans from museums and other collectors, like Larry Warsh and Robert De Niro. Scharf hasn’t done anything this big since his exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey in 1995.
“I’ve been wanting this, obviously, for many, many years,” he said over Zoom.
“I think some people might dismiss the art as just fun and light,” Scharf continued. “I can’t control what people think—and if they choose not to look further. But I think when you see it together in this mass, it might change your mind.”
Installation view, with The Days of Our Lives (1984) at center. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
At the show’s VIP preview, Scharf said it was emotional to encounter so many works he hadn’t seen in decades. “Some of this stuff goes on auction over the years, and then you don’t know who owns it,” he said. Brant located Scharf’s scattered treasures. Some, like The Days of Our Lives (1984), proved even wilder than Scharf remembered.
“I was just going nuts,” he said. “It’s so liberating to be able to make a painting and not care at all what a painting is supposed to be, or how you’re supposed to be.”
Guests are advised to start on the show’s top floor, and descend from there. Each level explores a running theme in Scharf’s practice, starting with the cartoon family the Jetsons before moving through portals, jungles, and portraits. Works from the 1970s through the ’90s appear on each floor. Casual fans, however, would have a hard time attributing some of the earliest paintings on offer to Scharf.
A view of the Jetsons floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
“I was just thinking about the painting Barbara Simpson’s New Kitchen,” he said regarding one 1978 work. He read the Guardian‘s recent interpretation that the titular character has tamed the dragon in her kitchen. “That’s not it at all,” Scharf said. “She’s just happy about her new kitchen and showing it off, despite the fact that there is a dragon right in your face. She’s ignoring it.”
Scharf was raised in California’s San Fernando Valley during the environmentalist movement’s advent, in the 1960s. “I made up my mind very early [that] we need to harness solar and wind, and we have to get off petroleum,” he said. The dinosaurs that appear throughout his work reference fossil fuels. Growing up, Scharf found the Valley’s air barely breathable. “I remember talking to my parents and going, ‘God, my lungs hurt today,’” he said. His suburban family, however, mostly cared about keeping up with the Joneses.
Kenny Scharf, Barbara Simpson’s New Kitchen (1978). Courtesy of the Brant Foundation.
“It made a strong impression on me, the hypocrisy of how you can just live and ignore stuff that’s right in your face,” he said. That message has only intensified 45 years on. “But if we got our brand new kitchen, we’re cool with that.”
Scharf has also famously upcycled the now-obsolete appliances that powered the 1980s and 1990s. This part of his practice, he said, is “like my fantasy idea of what an artist is and how an artist lives.” If you’ve ever ridden in one of his cars, then you understand how Scharf’s hand can elevate even the simple experience of sitting in traffic.
The Dino Phone. Photo: Vittoria Benzine.
Several answering machines appear among the show’s maximalist boomboxes, TVs, and calculators. One still holds a taped message from Haring, though Scharf can’t remember which. But, he definitely had regular conversations on the Dino Phone while living one block north of the Brant Foundation throughout the mid-’80s.
The Brant survey’s second floor features its banner image, and largest artwork, When the Worlds Collide (1983–84). The Whitney loaned the foundation this oil and aerosol painting, which appeared in the museum’s 1985 Biennial. Brant and Shafrazi received fellow downtown royalty like Charlie Ahearn in front of this piece during the VIP opening. But, amidst all the artwork’s excitement, Scharf pointed out one tiny detail—a Keith Haring “Radiant Baby” in its lower right corner.
The middle floor. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
“I had no studio,” he recalled of the moment in which he executed this tableaux. Haring, traveling in Europe, let Scharf use his SoHo space. Scharf added the baby glyph as a thank you.
One year prior, on a flight to join his Brazilian artist Bruno Schmidt for the country’s Carnival, Scharf met his wife Tereza Goncalves. He soon moved to a stretch of Brazil’s coastal rainforest. He painted there prolifically, living alongside fisherman who asked him if there was a moon in New York, too.
“I was just getting this notoriety—hanging out with Warhol and going to parties, blah, blah, blah,” he said. “Then all of a sudden, I was there in a place that had no electricity.” Scharf, who went to high school in Beverly Hills with celebrity offspring, felt leery around fame. He wanted to be taken seriously, and wasn’t sure his rockstardom helped. Neither did his authentic artist antics, though. When he and Goncalves showed up to the 1985 Whitney Biennial in a fringed outfit joined at the leg, the guests in black tie all rolled their eyes.
Kenny Scharf, Juicy Jungle (1983-84). Photo: Tom Powel Imaging
Fortunately, Scharf maintained his ties to New York while living in Brazil. Haring visited frequently. Scharf had copied Rousseau paintings extensively as a kid, dreaming of lush landscapes beyond arid SoCal. But jungle iconography entered his oeuvre afresh in the rainforest, as Scharf doubled down on environmentalism by partnering with the World Wildlife Fund. “I wish I could say we made a big difference,” he said, but matters have only worsened. Of all his tropical artworks from this era, Scharf considers Juicy Jungle (1984) the most iconic.
He moved back to L.A. in 1999. In an effort to establish community, he invited friends to sit for Old Hollywood–style portraits in his studio. Selections from this vast series round out his survey’s final floor—including the only one not painted from an original photo. Scharf pilfered his Patti Smith source image from Newsweek as a teen. At long last, he thinks, these portraits—like his early paintings—are getting their due.
One wall in the final floor’s portrait gallery, featuring Patti Smith at top. Photo: Vittoria Benzine.
“You can’t do anything about the time,” Scharf said. “Artists usually are ahead of their time.” Sure, he’s enjoyed Brant and Shafrazi’s longstanding support, but he always felt alienated by the art world’s more academic bigwigs. Based on the attendees at this survey’s dinner, this show may change that.
“Everything will catch up,” Scharf added. “Just be alive.”
“Kenny Scharf” is on view through February 28 at the Brant Foundation, 421 East 6th Street. “MYTHOLOGEEZ “is on view through December 7 at TOTAH, 183 Stanton Street. “Space Travel” is on view through January 27 at 60 White, 60 White Street. More

A 4,000-year-old tiny figurine that bears the silhouette of an elegant woman, a wine vessel in the form of a baby elephant from the 18th to 11th century B.C., and a sculpture of a mother breast-feeding an infant from the 12th century, what do they have in common besides the fact that they are ancient?
These wonders of the world are all made of bronze and hail from different parts of Asia. Thanks to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, over 70 works are gathered together as part of “Asian Bronze: 4,000 years of beauty.” The expansive exhibition features works from India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Nepal, and Korea, many of which left home and are being exhibited abroad for the first time, as well as objects from the Dutch museum’s own collection.
Installation view of “Asian Bronze”. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
In Western institutions, ancient bronzes have often been shown as ethnographic objects. But the Rijksmuseum’s show positions them as part of art history and charts the trajectory of humanity’s eternal desire to tell stories from prehistoric days to contemporary times. The subject matter and aesthetics vary, the techniques and use of materials evolve, but the aspiration for beauty, harmony, and transcendence beyond the mortal realm is the same. Here, bronze is like canvas, and various casting techniques adopted by different cultures and makers in different periods are like brushes and colors.
Installation of Buddha Seated Under the Hood of a Seven-Headed Nāga, Thailand, 12th–13th century. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Kelly Schenk
“The beauty and breathtaking techniques, the differences and similarities, the unrivaled skills of their creators, bronze connects Asia and makers of contemporary and ancient times,” said Menno Fitski, head of Asian art at Rijksmueum. “People have been standing in front of these sculptures for centuries with their own private emotions. This makes them more than just a piece of metal.”
The result of meticulous research led by the museum’s exhibition team—including curators Anna A. Ślączka, Ching-Ling Wang, and William Southworth, as well as Sara Creange, the museum’s metals conservator—the show is organized by several thematic sections to tell the Asian bronze story in a more holistic way than chronologically or regionally.
Standing female, a figure from Mohenjodaro, Sindh province, Pakistan, circa 2500 to 1500 BCE. on loan from the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Courtesy of Rijksmuseum.
The technique of creating bronze from an alloy of copper and tin was discovered in Asia, which is where the exhibition’s “Materials and Beginnings” section starts. The most fascinating work here is Standing female, a figure from Mohenjodaro, Sindh province, Pakistan, on loan from the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Measuring only five inches tall, the work is dated to 2500 to 1500 BCE and is the oldest object on display. When it was created, bronze craftsmanship was still in its early stages, and very little is known about it.
Yet its depiction of an elegant female figure, standing upright with one hand on her hip and the other posing as if she were carrying something, makes a lasting impression. It raises questions about the perception and status of women in ancient times. For similar reasons, the anthropomorphic figure from India’s Ganges Valley (circa 1500 to 1000 BCE), on loan from Musée départmental des Arts Asiatiques in Nice, is equally fascinating.
Buddha under Naga’s hood, Thailand, 12th-13th century. National Museum, BangkokPhoto: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
The two-part Heaven and Earth section makes up a significant portion of the show as a lot of bronze objects tended to be made with a religious or spiritual intention. Ślączka explains in her catalogue essay that bronze was broadly used across the region especially Hinduism and Buddhism because these bronze works, which represent the images of deities and sacred characters, must be strong enough to withstand the worship rituals, as these rituals ranged from offerings of food to bathing and anointing. “Wood and clay, do not last well in the hot and humid climate that characterizes many parts of Asia,” she noted.
Guhyasamaja Aksobhya, Tibet, 15th century. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
The works on view in this section showcase the remarkable skill and craftsmanship that artisans possessed centuries ago. The more than five-foot-tall statue of the Buddha seated under the hood of a seven-headed naga from 12th to 13th century Thailand is one example. On loan from National Museum in Bangkok, the highly polished work not only tells a famous story about the Buddha, its design carries aesthetic elements from beyond Thailand, such as China, Cambodia, and India.
A Tibetan Guhyasamaja Akshobhya from the first half of the 15th century is one of the highlights of the show. It offers a vivid three-dimensional depiction of the iconic personality of Tantric Buddhism. Kept in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, the enthralling gold-gilded sculpture symbolizes the unity of opposite forces and a higher state of enlightenment. Ten years ago, researchers at the museum realized it was cast from solid bronze—a technique that Europeans artisans had not yet mastered. This discovery prompted the curatorial team to question what they knew about Asian bronzes and ultimately led to this exhibition.
Wine vessel in the form of an elephant, China, 18th –11th century BC. Musée Guimet, Paris.

Ślączka noted that further scans of the work revealed that the statue contained a scroll hidden inside. What the scroll says remains a mystery as the museum did not want to extract it to avoid damaging the work.
Bronze was also used to create weapons, tools, utensils, and containers for food and drink, many of which are featured in other parts of the exhibition. A standout piece is a wine vessel shaped like a baby elephant, dating back to 12th to 11th century BCE China. Its charming depiction resembles modern toy store designs, but as Wang pointed out, it also reveals the Chinese invention of using clay molds to cast intricate abstract patterns on the vessel’s surface.

Magic mirrors by Yamamoto Akihisa. Photo: Rijksmuseum/Erik and Petra Hesmerg
The exhibition concludes with a display of mirrors set in bronze, including two works by a contemporary Kyoto craftsman, Yamamoto Akihisa, who has carried on the ancient Japanese tradition of “secret mirrors,” which were mystical objects used to project a hidden image only when light hits them at the right angle. These works were originally created in the 17th century, at a time when Christianity was forbidden by the shogunate; many contained images of the crucifix and the Virgin Mary, as well as depictions of Buddha and tree scenery.
“The Asian world is not just one thing,” said Fitski. “It’s incredibly diverse through the eye of one material, but the human element is exactly the same.”
“Asian Bronze. 4,000 years of beauty,” runs through January 12 at the Rijksmuseum, Museumstraat 1, 1071 XX, Amsterdam, Netherlands. More

A groundbreaking traveling exhibition that redefines the narrative of Native American representation through photography and lens-based art has arrived at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. “Native America: In Translation,” curated by celebrated Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star, explores themes of memory, identity, and cultural preservation through the works of intergenerational Native and Indigenous artists. The show offers a vivid dialogue on the evolving role of photographic mediums in capturing Native histories and futures.
The exhibition grew from the Fall 2020 issue of Aperture magazine, which was guest-edited by Red Star and explored how photographic mediums historically have contributed to the representation of Native cultures. The artist then curated the traveling show, which was organized by Aperture and received funding from the National Endowment of the Arts.
“I was thinking about young Native artists and what would be inspirational and important for them as a road map,” Red Star said in a statement. “The people included here have all played an important part in forging pathways, in opening up space in the art world for new ways of seeing and thinking.”
Rebecca Belmore, matriarch (2018), from the series nindinawemaganidog (all of my relations), Photo: Henri Robidea. Courtesy of the artist.
The show includes works by Omaskêko Ininiwak artist Duane Linklater; Mohawk artist Alan Michelson; Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw artist Marianne Nicolson; Martine Gutierrez, an American artist of Mayan heritage; the late Cree artist Kimowan Metchewais; Rebecca Belmore of the Lac Seul First Nation; Yup’ik artist Nalikutaar Jacqueline Cleveland; American-Ecuadorian artist Koyoltzintli; and Salvadoran artist Guadalupe Maravilla.
“There has been a gap in our transmission of our knowledge, and we used photography as a memory device,” Nicolson said of how the Native artists use lens-based mediums. The artist and land rights activist’s monumental installation projects light through etched glass boxes that reference Kwakwaka’wakw songs, stories, and spiritual connection to the land.
Installation view of Marianne Nicolson’s Widzotłants gwayułalatł? Where Are We Going…What Is to Become of Us? at the Blanton Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art
Among the works in the show is a 23-image installation by Linklater that is sourced from a 1995 issue of Aperture that also spotlighted Native American photographers and an installation by Michelson that features historic maps projected onto busts of George Washington referencing his 1779 military campaign against Iroquois villages.
“My audience is the people of the villages I shoot and students of ethnobotany. I identify myself as a subsistence hunter-fisher-gatherer,” Cleveland said about her series of work “Ethnobotany” that is included in the exhibit. “That includes foraging, first and foremost. And next, as a documentary filmmaker and photographer.”
Nalikutaar Jacqueline Cleveland. Molly Alexie and her children after a harvest of beach greens in Quinhagak, Alaska (2018). Photo courtesy of Nalikutaar Jacqueline Cleveland
Altogether, the artists and their more than 60 works were chosen to present an intergenerational sample of contemporary art from various Native nations and affiliations across the Americas who use photography, video, and mixed media in their works.
“The artists and artworks Wendy Red Star has selected delve into universal themes like memory and identity with remarkable depth and creativity,” said Blanton’s director Simone Wicha. “The exhibition’s photography and other powerful visuals will no doubt be deeply moving for our visitors and foster insight and understanding of our rich American heritage.”
Koyoltzintli. Spider Woman Embrace, Abiquiu, New Mexico (2019). Photo courtesy of Koyoltzintli
It was first exhibited at the Princeton University Art Museum in 2022 and has since traveled to Haverford College in Pennsylvania, the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin, the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago.
Hannah Klemm, the Blanton’s curator of modern and contemporary art, organized the Blanton’s presentation of the show, which boasts the special including of an additional work by Maravilla from the Blanton’s collection.
Kimowan Metchewais. Cold Lake Fishing (Undated). Photo courtesy of the Kimowan Metchewais [McLain] Collection, National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian InstitutionWhile speaking about the importance of having the show travel to the American Southwest, Red Star told the Texas Standard: “Texas is a really strong place, conceptually, to have the audience walk into the Blanton and think about these issues.”
“Native America: In Translation” is on view through January 5 at the Blanton Museum of Art, 200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd in Austin, Texas. More

Fans of Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck can brace for a visual feast at his latest solo show, “Whispered Tales,” in which he has taken over the entirety of Galerie Templon’s New York branch in West Chelsea. It’s his first show with Templon since the gallery announced US representation of the multidisciplinary artist late last year.
Installation view of “Hans Op De Beeck: Whispered Tales,” at Galerie Templon, New York. ©Charles Roussel
Along with dozens of new, life-size figurative sculptures and tableaux that blend storytelling and mystery, the entire gallery has been taken over by Op de Beeck’s signature monochrome gray, including the walls, painted a dark gray with custom-installed gray carpet, which creates an immersive effect that virtually envelops the viewer. The show sprawls across two floors and includes less familiar elements such as animatronic sculptures and elements, such as a string of gray birds that flap their wings up and down while a seaside ferris wheel turns slowly nearby. There is also a 20-minute animated black and white film with a compelling original score, and watercolors that are mesmerizing despite their use of a single color on white paper.
We spoke to the artist during a recent walkthrough of the show after the packed opening night on November 7.
Hans Op De Beeck, The Horseman ©Courtesy of the artist and TEMPLON, Paris —Brussels — New York.
Asked about the title of the show, “Whispered Tales,” Op de Beeck explained that it was inspired by the idea of tales passed on verbally from one generation to another. But it’s also a reference to the idea of staying up late with friends at childhood sleepovers and speaking in conspiratorial hushed tones, so as not to draw the attention or ire of adults.
He also explained that all of the large-scale watercolors are actully the most personal, as he creates them alone late at night in his studio—a stark contrast to the work that takes place during the daytime with a team of about half a dozen studio assistants on hand.
Installation view of “Hans Op de Beeck: Whispered Tales” at Galerie Templon, New York. ©Charles Roussel. Image courtesy the artist and Galerie Templon.
As for the artist’s incredibly detailed sculptures, it was somewhat surprising to hear that the elements often come to his mind quite spontaneously. Take one of the show’s largest sculptural installations, The Horseman, in which a shirtless, bearded man on a horse appears in a moment of pause, gazing behind him. A monkey with a curious expression perches on his shoulder, holding an umbrella and looking the other way.
“All of the sculptures are in a sort of a silent moment. There is something quite unspectacular about them as well,” said Op de Beeck. “They’re not in a dramatic pose. Even this horseman—which in art history are often depicting emperors or kings in a heroic perspective—is unspectacular.”
As for the monkey, “it was a very last minute addition,” he said. “By putting that little monkey on his shoulder you make him a bit more human, because you understand that he is the owner of that little pet and has to take care of that little creature.”
Op de Beeck is also fond of adding anachronistic touches he says, like the contemporary little boy, clad in underpants, who strikes a pose, seemingly playing dress up with a sword and dons a 17th-century ruffled collar and buckled shoes, or a woman in a classical-style full-length gown with a partially shaved head on whose hand perches an owl.
Installation view of “Hans Op de Beeck: Whispered Tales” at Galerie Templon. Photo by Eileen Kinsella
The mix of references “achieves a sort of timeless” effect said Op de Beeck, who says he views the characters as somewhat “frozen in time.” He emphasizes that he is a huge fan of color such as in the work of contemporary artist Peter Doig, but that for his own work, he prefers the ash grey and the sort of “petrified appearance,” it gives, “as though covered in ashes. It’s the effect you have when you wake up in the morning to a blanket of snow. Grey is not as pure as white. It’s more friendly to the eye.”
In one of the large black watercolor paintings, a house is on fire with smoke and flame billowing from the windows. Op de Beeck noted that on opening night, one viewer told him she could see the bright orange of the flames despite there being no color other than black in the work.
Installation view of “Hans Op de Beeck: Whispered Tales,” at Galerie Templon. Photo by Eileen Kinsella.
And he describes the sort of reverse engineering in painting these works that take place when the white of the untreated paper is the main light source. “You kill the light if you work on the watercolor too long.”
“Hans Op de Beeck: Whispered Tales” is on view at Galerie Templon, 239 Tenth Avenue, New York, through Saturday, December 21, 2024 More

It’s both ironic and bittersweet that broad interest in and admiration for Shaker art and culture—which marks its 250th anniversary in the US this year—has been steadily growing over the years and is at a high, even as the population of the group has dwindled close to zero.
According to a recent report in the New York Times, only two Shakers remain; they reside at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine. The community, described as the longest-running Utopian experiment in the US, embraced communal living, simplicity, and celibacy (the latter because they didn’t believe in procreation and sought to emulate Jesus).
For years design aficionados and others have admired and sought their famously minimalistic and well-crafted furniture, remarkable for its clean lines. Now two well-received New York museum shows that opened almost simultaneously last month, are delving further into the art and culture to shine a light on lesser-known practices and aspects of Shaker life.
The first is “Anything But Simple: Gift Drawings and the Shaker Aesthetic,” a show of elaborate and intricate “gift drawings” at the American Folk Art Museum near Lincoln Square, that was years in the planning and originated at the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 2022.  Gift drawings, made by mainly untrained Shaker artists, record spiritual visions,  referred to as “gifts” in Shaker culture.

Polly Jane Reed, A Type of Mother Hannah’s Pocket Handkerchief New Lebanon, New York (1851). Andrews Collection, Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts.
Also on view is “Cradled,” which was jointly curated by actor Frances McDormand and conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra, who teamed up with the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, for this thoughtful show that examines the community’s lifetime approach to caring for and providing comfort to individuals right up until their death. It’s on view at the Kinderhook Knitting Mill in Kinderhook, New York. Both shows are fascinating in their revelations and have some interesting overlaps in terms of approach, and organization not to mention the obvious reverence of Shaker culture and life.
At the Folk Art Museum, the “gift” drawings on display “represent a departure from the simplicity typically associated with Shaker material culture,” according to a statement. These works, made by women in the mid-19th century, are believed to represent divine messages and are filled with intricate texts and symbols that offer a unique glimpse into their interior world.
“Most people have not encountered these drawings. It’s interesting how structured these are even though they’re meant to represent the celestial world and are representative of the heavenly sphere that is not accessible when you’re on Earth,” said Emelie Gevalt,  a curator at the Folk Art Museum and curatorial chair for collections, in a phone conversation. “They are also very controlled. You see that proclivity for structure and careful planning seen in other Shaker material,” she noted.
Polly Jane Reed, Heart-shaped Cutout for Rufus Bishop, New Lebanon, New York (1844)Andrews Collection, Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts,
Gevalt estimated that only about 200 of these drawings may still be in existence. Others may have been destroyed out of concern or apprehension about their interpretation by outsiders. The intentions of the drawings—and whether they were meant to be exhibited—remain a matter of debate.  Gevalt pointed out that the last major exhibition of gift drawings, which took place at the Drawing Center in downtown Manhattan in the early 2000s, included a photograph of one of the Shaker elder sisters, shown sitting in a living space with a framed gift drawing visible on the wall behind her.
“There’s a lot of discussion about visuality in the Shaker community,” said Gevalt, “In the way that you see these essentially all-text versions of the drawings, like leaf or heart-shaped ones, in some ways, it’s the purest or simplest manifestation of a gift drawing where its primarily text but then the shape becomes part of the gift itself.”
Gevalt also emphasized that the works were primarily executed by women, which is notable considering the works were made in the 18th and 19th centuries when women were not typically “given center stage.”
While it’s undoubtedly a spiritual show, she noted that the Shakers were also dedicated to the idea that “even the more mundane of daily activities could represent prayer, akin to what we might call mindfulness or grounding nowadays.”
Suzanne Bocanegra, Joan Jonas, Annie-B Parson at “CRADLED,” at Kinderhook Knitting Mill. Photo by Matt Borkowski, BFA
Similarly, in a phone interview with Bocanegra and McDormand, Bocanegra shared that her interest in Shaker culture dates back to at least the early aughts when she saw the aforementioned Drawing Center show.
“The way that they’re put together, and even though they’re very complicated and detailed, they’re very symmetrically laid out,” said Bocanegra. “This whole idea that the drawing is a gift and it is not owned by anyone, it has to walk this fine line with the Shaker religion.”
Along with being a longtime admirer of Shaker Furniture, McDormand developed a performance piece with the Wooster Group a few years ago titled “Early Shaker Spirituals”  based on a recording by Shaker women that had been passed down through successive generations via an oral tradition. Earlier, in 2005, McDormand acted in a Shaker-focused project that dancer Martha Clarke created.
Of the Kinderhook show focus, which was inspired in part by research of the Shaker Museum archives, McDormand said she loved “the idea that they built something that could hold an infirm or elderly person, who was bedridden, and that it was a communal act of giving to rock them and comfort them.”
“As a piece of furniture, the cradle has to involve other people,” said Bocanegra. “One person is in it, but it has to be activated by another person, otherwise it doesn’t work.”
“Bertha” Shaker dolls with custom-designed clothes at “CRADLED” at the Kinderhook Knitting Mill. Photo by Matt Borkowski/BFA
Adding another layer of fascination to this thoughtful project, the two invited 88-year-old performance artist Joan Jonas, whose acclaimed MoMA retrospective wrapped this summer, to be part of the opening night celebration. Jonas agreed to be rocked in one of the adult cradles. McDormand and Bocanegra pointed out that there are more adult cradles in existence than child cradles, given the emphasis on celibacy and not pro-creating.
After McDormand and Bocanegra came across some dolls in the archives and found that the Shakers made doll clothes for their catalogues, along with the many other products they sold, “we commissioned Angel Malerba, a seamster in Columbia County who make ‘limited edition’ ensemble and hangars.” So far they have sold seven of them, and are planning to auction another to raise funds for the Shaker Museum. The dolls are called “Bertha” dolls but they bear a striking resemblance to another iconic doll, famous for her love of pink, and whose name also begins with a “B.”
Hannah Cohoon, The Tree of Life (1854).Andrews Collection, Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts, 1963.117
The Shakers were interested in creating beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and excellent artifacts,” says McDormand. “And they were also very much selling everything. Making money was for the good of the community. They were really successful that way.”
As for “Cradled,” the show has just been extended until December 6 and there is a good chance that the show will travel to another venue. Stay tuned. More