(Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection | Asia Society

(Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

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This exhibition reintroduces key works in Asia Society Museum's Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection of pre-modern Asian art through the lenses of three leading contemporary artists: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell. Each artist has selected a number of works in the collection within which to situate their own new and existing works, approaching historic objects in the collection through their practices and from multiple cultures, heritages, and positions. Creating dialogues across multiple histories and places, these artists offer a range of new insights and entry points into the collection. 

As part of the exhibition, Yang Fudong’s seminal and visually arresting five-part video Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, held in the Asia Society Museum Collection, will be installed in a black box gallery. The work follows seven young men and women on journeys in search of their identities and ideal lives, reflecting the many urban, ideological, and economic transformations across China today.

A doll-like figure is dressed in a brown and pink fitted jacket, full skirt of red, gold, and green and a large brown hat with pink flowers and white and orange ribbon and thread. The figure appears to be a woman and is holding what looks like an elephant tusk. She stands atop dark, brassy colored beast-like feet.

Rina Banerjee. Native, migrant naturally, 2018. Vintage silk wedding sari with gold thread brocade, vintage brass claw furniture cap, steel, copper leaf, copper nails, wood, silk, cotton, sequins, gourd, polyester threads, wax, cowry shells, Victorian doll, eyelashes, silk trim, pheasant feathers on felt hat plates. 26 x 13 x 24 in (66 x 33 x 61 cm). Courtesy of artist and Pippy Houldsworth 

 

 

A terracotta-colored figure stands with legs apart atop an inverted-bowl-shaped object. He is bare chested and wears a pointy hat, a necklace, an apron-like garment, and pants. He has no feet or hands and his arms are fused at his sides.

Figure of a Man. Japan, Ibaraki Prefecture, Tumulus period, 6th-7th century. Earthenware with traces of pigment. H. 56 x W. 21 x D. 11 in. (142.2 x 53.34 x 27.94 cm). Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 1979.199