Publications Praise Asia Society's 'Spellbinding' Kamakura Exhibition
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal became the latest publication to print a glowing review of Kamakura: Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan, Asia Society's new exhibition:
"The exhibition makes us feel the world would have been the poorer without such pieces," Lee Lawrence, the paper's Asian and Islamic art writer, wrote. "With the help of additional materials, the curators take us — sometimes literally — inside the Kamakura phenomenon, in which technical innovations dovetailed with shifting religious practices and a devastation that spelled opportunity," she said, adding that one piece "bursts with fierceness."
Last week, the New York Times published their own review:
"Kamakura: Realism and Spirituality in the Sculpture of Japan, a spellbinding exhibition at Asia Society, features wonderfully vivid representations of Buddhist divinities,” Ken Johnson, the paper's art critic, wrote.
Johnson described the guardian king head sculpture, one of the first pieces visitors see upon entering the exhibition, as “more than realism, this is visionary realism,” adding that the spiritual realism of the entire collection of ancient sculptures “still captivates.”
The Kamakura exhibition launched Asia Society’s Season of Japan and has earned acclaim in reviews by the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.
The exhibition was co-curated by Ive Covaci, guest curator, and Adriana Proser, John H Foster Senior Curator for Traditional Asian Art at Asia Society, and is currently on display at the Asia Society Museum in New York through May 8.