Reminders about Fall 2024 Arts of Asia Lectures and Sign Up Now for October Programs

Reminders about Fall 2024 Arts of Asia Lectures
Please note that there is no Arts of Asia lecture this Friday, October 4. Please do not come to the museum! The next lecture will be on Friday, October 11 on Women Artists in the AAM Contemporary Collection with Abby Chen, Contemporary Art Department Head at the Asian Art Museum. In addition, the October 25 Arts of Asia lecture will be held in Koret Education Center instead of Samsung Hall. Check out the latest schedule of speakers and topics on the Fall 2024 Arts of Asia webpage.

If you haven't yet, sign up now for these upcoming October programs!

Member Event
Against Time: Isamu Noguchi's Museum Experiment with Matthew Kirsch
Thursday, October 17, 2024 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Zoom Webinar
$15 per person Society members; $20 per person non-members
Advance registration must be received by SAA by October 10, 2024.

In 1985, American-born artist Isamu Noguchi opened his namesake museum in a renovated photoengraving factory across the street from his longtime studio in Long Island City. The experimental move was Noguchi’s rebuttal to the art museum environment he had grown critical of during his career, and a counter to the numerous museums that had asked him to consider making gifts. The museum’s origins will be discussed in the context of Against Time: The Noguchi Museum 40th Anniversary Reinstallation, an adapted reinstallation of the second floor galleries, which opens on September 10, 2024. Within these galleries, Noguchi paired a selection of sculptures from the 1920s through the early 1970s with project models related to his various completed and unrealized public commissions for gardens, plazas, playgrounds, fountains and monuments, an area of his practice that was relatively unsung in 1985. Through the lens of the reinstallation, we can explore Noguchi’s art, the choices he made about its display and the museum’s ongoing work in ensuring his legacy.

Matthew Kirsch is Curator and Director of Research at The Noguchi Museum, where he is involved with exhibitions, public programs, publications, and editorial projects. He has been a major contributor to internationally renowned exhibitions and monographs. In addition, he has written, edited, and overseen articles exploring various facets of Noguchi's work and life for the Digital Features online journal on The Noguchi Museum's webstie, noguchi.org.
Click here to read more and sign up.

Study Group
Indonesia's Indigenous Textiles with Jean Howe & William Ingram
Saturday, October 19, 2024 10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Koret Education Center, Asian Art Museum
$25 per person Society members; $30 per person non-members after museum admission

Come explore and enjoy a presentation by Jean Howe and William Ingram, co-founders of Threads of Life, an Indonesian social enterprise since 1998, on how to sustain Indonesia's indigenous textile traditions in the 21st century. Threads of Life works directly with over 1000 women weavers in more than 35 groups on 12 Indonesian islands to build livelihoods, empower women, revitalize indigenous culture, and conserve dye plant ecologies. Their textile and basket products can be seen on their website and in retail galleries in Bali.

After meeting in Tokyo and living in Japan for 5 years, Jean Howe and William Ingram moved to Bali in 1993 and started leading cultural tours to weaving communities through the 1990s. During the Southeast Asian economic crisis of 1998, they started Threads of Life to support textile culture, address the poverty caused by the economic crisis, and to faciliate the continuation of natural dye traditions. The organization has grown to employ 40 people, with Jean developing a deep knowledge of Indonesia's textile heritage and William exploring the natural dye arts and dye plant cultivation.
Click here to read more and sign up.