PREVIEWAsia Week
New York

Jo Lawson-Tancred selects
her highlights of the eventT

he community of Asian art dealersand specialists in New York is feelingtentative excitement about Asia Week
New York’s return to a primarily in-person
event from 16–25 March, having relied heavily
on online viewing rooms last year. With 26
galleries taking part, only about half as manyas when membership was at its peak, theprogramme is still bolstered by a rich digitaloffering that now extends year-round in theform of a blog, monthly webinars and biweekly newsletters.
Among the in-person exhibitors this year
is London-based Francesca Galloway, whopresents ‘Court, Epic, Spirit: Indian Art 15th–
19th Century’ (26 January–24 March), hostedin Luhring Augustine’s space in Tribeca. The
gallery’s director Christine Ramphal hopes
this collaboration will introduce Indian painting and textiles to a new audience in a freshcontext. ‘We like to shake things up a bit andnot always stick to the same formula,’ she says.
Among the highlights will be a rare devotional
19th-century pichhvai temple cloth depicting
the festival Dana Lila in which Krishna andseveral female figures are rendered in opulent gold foil over an indigo cotton ground(Fig. 3). Another brightly coloured image isfrom the epic manuscript Hamzanama, commissioned by Emperor Akbar and thought tobe completed by Dasvant in c. 1565. This pageshows the dramatic moment in which Amir
Hamza is ferried over the sea by the phoenixlike Rukh bird.
Also presenting a diverse range of objects
is Kapoor Galleries, which can be relied on
for bringing considerable range both geographically – with objects from across theIndian subcontinent, Mongolia, China andTibet – and in terms of time span, from afourth-century Buddha head with Hellenistic
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1. Head of Buddha, fourth century, Gandhara, greyschist, ht 44cm. Kapoor Galleries (price on application)

influences (Fig. 1) to a collection of miniature
paintings and nature studies produced inIndia during the 19th century. Sanjay Kapoor
remembers the first decade of Asia Week New
York as a heyday of interest from Chinese collectors, which he notes has slowed in more
recent years especially with the pandemic. At
this trickier time, he finds the event provides
a crucial network. ‘All the publicity you canget is good, because there’s not too much inperson interaction,’ he says.
Special sales are expected to go ahead as
usual at the major auction houses Christie’s,
Bonhams and Sotheby’s, as well as Doyle, Heritage Auctions and iGavel. Among the highlightsof the Christie’s sale is a rare trestle-leg tablefrom the 17th century made of huanghuali rosewood. Several museums also have exhibitions
that tie in with the week, including ‘Japan: A
History of Style’ (until 24 April) and ‘Shell andResin: Korean Mother-of-Pearl and Lacquer’(until 5 July), both at the Met.
One of Asia Week New York’s organisers,
Eric Zetterquist, will focus on Chinese ceramics
dating from the Tang Dynasty (618–906; Fig. 2)
to the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368). A particularly
fine example is a Yue ware ewer in the shapeof a melon with a celadon glaze. ‘Especially inthe Western world, it is important for Asian art
enthusiasts to know that they are not collecting
F E B R UA R Y 2 0 2 2 A P O L L O2. Xing-yao bottle vase, Tang Dynasty (618–908),
China, ceramic, ht 23cm. Zetterquist Gallery(price on application)

3. Pichvai temple cloth depicting the Dana Lila festival,
19th century, cotton, gold, silver, painted pigments,
256.5 × 239.cm. Francesca Galloway (price on application)

1. Artwork title, 0000, Artist Name,medium, 00 × 00cm. Dealer Name (£00,000)

in a bubble,’ he says of the week’s importancefor participants. In some cases, it provides a
public debut for works that have spent decades
in private hands. One example is Hiroshige’s
Eight Views of the Suburbs of Edo, one of justfour known complete first editions. It is partof a show at Sebastian Izzard focused on surimono, prints of a particularly fine quality thatwere privately commissioned by Japan’s literati
during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Asia Week New York also features contemporary work, and Fu Qiumeng Fine Art,
participating for the first time, will present 20
new pieces from a collaboration between theChinese-American artist Arnold Chang, whois based in New York, and the photographer
Michael Cherney, who lives in Beijing. Cherney’s photographs are printed on xuan paperwith ink additions by Chang. One example,
Saltscape Lattice, is based on salt crystals inhomage to the old ‘salt print’ method of producing photographic images on drawing paper.
Joan B. Mirviss gallery will dedicate a solo
show to Takahiro Kondo, whose clay vessels
are decorated with his signature gintekisai, or‘silver mist’, overglaze in which ink appears
to swirl and pool over the surface. The latest
works are a reflection on the trauma of thetsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011 in Fukushima. Mirviss, who was a co-founder of Asia
Week New York in 2009, says that despite thepandemic’s setbacks business in the Asian art
market remains strong. ‘We had a shutdown inMarch 2020 but our show that year almost soldout and last year we sold all but four pieces,so the buying public has become comfortablewith virtual acquisition,’ she says. ‘However,
we’re all starving for the collegiality between
curators, collectors and dealers, so I’m hoping that will come back into effect in March.’
The return of an annual evening held at theMet should be ‘the first event where the Asian
art-loving population can again be together.
It will have great emotional impact’.
‘We always get a very warm welcome fromour colleagues in New York and the event isextremely well organised,’ Ramphal says.
‘They have a proven track record, so we felt
confident taking part this year.’ The in-person programme may be slimmed down by
ongoing uncertainty and travel regulations,but the mood in New York is one of cautious
optimism. ‘We’ve got a good, strong group ofmembers that will be participating in March,’says Dessa Goddard, chairman of the event.
‘We’re excited about it.’ oJo Lawson-Tancred is an arts writer
based in London.
Asia Week New York takes placeat various venues from 16–25 March(www.asiaweekny.com).

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