From the comfort of your own home, Throwback@PAM takes you back in time to our most memorable past exhibitions and our building’s history.
Thursday, July 16, 2020: Throwback@PAM – Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Ceramics from East Asia
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The USC PAM 2015 exhibition, “Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Ceramics from East Asia” presented works by seven internationally recognized artists considered to employ some of the most extraordinary developments that have reshaped ceramic practice today. One of them was Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei.
Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most acclaimed contemporary artists and an outspoken activist on human rights, is known for his controversial iconoclastic works that question existing norms and cultural values. The Colored Vases series challenges concepts of rarity, value, and preciousness by dipping earthenware vases from the Neolithic period (5,000–3,000 BCE) into buckets of industrial paint. The artist eradicates the commonly accepted cultural and financial tenets: the precious cultural relics are now covered with cheaply made paint, thus losing their authenticity and historical value—history itself is “no longer visible, but is still there.” Using the medium of ceramics, Ai creates metaphors critiquing the overpowering of history and tradition by consumer culture, as well as the prevalent cultural and historical vandalism in China driven by market demand.
To learn more about the exhibition and the other artists click link in bio!
Thursday, July 9, 2020: Throwback@PAM – Asian in America
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A symbolic exhibition that explored the complex narrative of the Asian American identity through food and drink, virtual reality, spoken word and poetry. Different ingredients, cooking techniques and plating styles are used to address specific topics per course, each pertaining to the Asian American narrative – from cultural hierarchies in the food system and the lack of the individualism granted to minorities to the internalization of the “white savior” complex. Poetry and brushstroke-by-brushstroke virtual reality recreations take guests on a multi-sensory journey both visually and viscerally, offering insight to the entire process from ideation and experimentation to final creation.
The popup exhibition opened on August 7th through 11th. The exhibition featured custom-made replicas of 6 dishes representative of the Asian American experience available for view, alongside poetry placards and afull virtual reality program.
Photos by @studioatao
Thursday, July 4, 2020: Throwback@PAM: The Other Side: Chinese and Mexican Immigration to America, spring, 2014
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The exhibition presented a collection of visual narratives about the Chinese and Mexican immigrant experiences. Through the works of five contemporary artists, it explored the recurring issues of immigration, border relations and labor practices that have persisted throughout U.S. history and remain timely today. The selection of works demonstrates a range of different styles and references, spanning different historic periods, geographic locations, cultural influences and gender perspectives, bound together by the common threads of memory, history, identity and humanity. Artists featured include Zhi Lin, Hung Liu, Andrea Bowers, Tony de Los Reyes and Margarita Cabrera.
Image1: Andrea Bowers (@radicalhospitality), Immigrantes Unidos (May Day March, Los Angeles, 2012), 2012, Single-channel video with color and sound_2:16, looped, Editor Fil Rüting, Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects © Andrea Bowers
Image 2: detail: Hung Liu, (@hingliuartist), China Mary, Wyoming 1, 2006, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist and Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles © Hung Liu
Image 3: detail: Margarita Cabrera, (@margaritacabrera.artist) Barrell Cactus #3, 2006 Border patrol uniform, thread and terra cotta pot Courtesy of the West Collection © Margarita Cabrera
Thursday, June 25, 2020: Throwback@PAM – Sand Mandala
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ln January 2019 visiting monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Tibet spent a week creating a sand mandala at USC PAM. The Buddhist tradition involves creating a “painting” made from colored sand that is meant to reference the world in its divine form, a path for the mind to reach enlightenment and balance.
Once finished, the dissolution ceremony entails the destruction of the sand mandala, a ritual that symbolizes the impermanent nature of life.
Before the creation, the monks perform a blessing ceremony with chanting and music, meant to invoke Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion.
Thursday, May 28, 2020: Throwback@PAM – Revisit our 2016 exhibition, “Royal Taste: The Art of Princely Courts in Fifteenth-Century China”
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The exhibition explored the luxurious lifestyles and religious practices of princely courts in early- and mid-Ming China (1368-1644) and featured more than 140 outstanding works including glimmering jewelry and hairpins, important devotional statues, beautiful textiles and porcelain, and painted masterpieces. Royal Taste revealed some of the lesser-known aspects of the palatial lives, religious patronage, and afterlife beliefs of Ming princes, whose world has long been a mystery.
Thursday, May 21, 2020 – Throwback@PAM🌀~ The Garden in Asia 🌸
November 23, 2012 to November 17, 2013
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The Garden in Asia featured objects from across Asia that demonstrate the role of the garden as a source of inspiration throughout the centuries. The exhibition included paintings, prints, lacquerware, sculpture and textiles from throughout East and South Asia. The exhibition focused on the idea of the garden as a creative space, both intellectually and artistically, but also the respite that nature, encapsulated in gardens, offers in daily life. The included artworks allowed visitors to experience the impact gardens have made on artists’ literal study of nature as well as its more abstract and emotional qualities. After their visit to this exhibition, visitors were encouraged to spend time in USC Pacific Asia Museum’s renowned courtyard garden for a complete experience.
Tray with stand
Japan, c. 1830 (Late Edo period)
Lacquer, metal, wood, mother-of-pearl
USC Pacific Asia Museum Collection
Gift of Elly Nordskog
1998.30.1
Thursday, May 14, 2020 – THE RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD: Fifty Years, September 26, 2014 through February 22, 2015
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2015 marked the 50th anniversary of the revolutionary landmark Chinese installation work, The Rent Collection Courtyard. In 1965, a group of sculptors from the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts created 114 life-size clay figures depicting starving peasant farmers bringing their rent to a tyrannical feudal landlord’s residence, a trenchant Communist critique of practices of serfdom and servitude in imperial China. After the groundbreaking installation at a landlord’s former residence in China, the figures were reproduced in a unique maquette (scale model) which belongs to USC Pacific Asia Museum. The Rent Collection Courtyard: Fifty Years recreated the original installation paired with a critical essay on the works and their legacy in setting the stage for later waves of Chinese contemporary art.
Image from the 1965 installation in the courtyard of Liu Wencai’s residence in Dayi County, China.
Thursday, May 7, 2020 – Unveiling of Park Soo-Keun’s, Homeward Bound
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“I have a humble belief that an artist should express the goodness in people. Therefore, what I express on canvas is not complex, but simple. I find a great joy in depicting grandparents, children and ordinary people that we find in our homes.” – Park Soo-Keun
Donated by longtime Museum & USC Athletics patron, Mr. Herb Nootbaar, the USC PAM is amongst the few institutions outside of Korea to own Park’s work.
About the artist:
One of the most influential modernist painters in Korea, Park Soo-Keun, was a largely self- taught artist. Park is known for depictions of rural Korean men, women and children in intimate scales with thickly-built textured surfaces. His interest in depicting ordinary people was initially kindled by quiet images of peasants by the French painter Jean-François Millet (1814–1875). People engaged in mundane activities on his canvas seem to suggest the perseverance of the Koreans who lived through the difficulties of Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) and then the ensuing devastations of the Korean War (1950–53). Park’s work was widely appreciated by Americans stationed in Seoul during the 1960s, and the artist maintained close relationship with Western patrons even after they went back to their country.
Because he did not receive a formal art education, some critics say Park’s style is somewhat naïve, but his quote below indicates that he consciously deployed the style to resonate with his subject matter. Due to his short career that was shortened by his premature death, his body of work is quite small, no more than 400 paintings. He depicted unique beauty of Korean people through the characterization of simple shapes and lines with rough texture: although the rough surface texture, created by repeatedly layering and scraping the paint, delivers the sentiment of Korean people who went through tough times in the first half of the 20th century, there is a sense of warmth in his portrayal and palette that touches the viewer.
Thursday, April 23, 2020 – Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Ceramics from East Asia, September 11, 2015 through January 31, 2016
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Many over the course of millennia have appreciated the diversity and depth of ceramic traditions in East Asia. The featured artists continue this exploration of clay, creating stunningly diverse works that touch upon personal, global, political, and aesthetic issues. Juxtaposed with examples from the Museum’s permanent collection representing significant ceramics traditions in East Asia, the contemporary works in this exhibition illustrate how artists today employ their traditions as springboards for countless innovations, creating works that speak to today’s audiences.
Reshaping Tradition: Contemporary Ceramics from East Asia presented works by the following internationally recognized artists to consider some of the most extraordinary developments that are reshaping ceramic practice today:
* Ai Weiwei (China)
* Ik-joong Kang (Korea)
* Liu Jianhua (China)
* Ah Xian (China)
* Yeesookyung (Korea)
* Harumi Nakashima (Japan)
* Bui Cong Khanh (Vietnam)
Image Credit: Ah Xian China, China-Bust 35 1999 Porcelain in underglaze cobalt-blue with flower and bird design Courtesy and collection of the artist © Ah Xian Bui Cong KHANH Same Script, Different Cast 2011 Porcelain, hand-painted Courtesy of the artist and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery © Bui Cong Khanh
Thursday, April 9, 2020: Tsuruya Kōkei: Modern Kabuki Prints Revised & Revisited | February 8, 2019 to July 14, 2019
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of this contemporary artist’s first solo show—held at PAM in spring 1989—it displays 77 prints by this artist widely celebrated as one of Japan’s leading contemporary print artists. The British Museum lauded Kōkei for producing Japan’s “most notable Kabuki prints” in the post-war era.
Known for his bold, even disturbing, portraits of Japan’s leading actors in a dynamic theatrical form, Kōkei responds to the idiosyncratic late-18th century kabuki prints by the great Sharaku. A master in his own right, Kōkei captures the intense color, movement and emotion of kabuki. Yet Kōkei diverges from tradition by designing, carving and printing his own work. Because he uses extremely delicate paper, his works juxtapose emotionally dynamic images with fragile materials to create objects of extraordinary power.
The exhibition presents all of Kōkei’s actor prints from 1984-1993. Because the artist limited his editions, such a complete collection is unprecedented. To explore the broader contours of Kabuki actor prints, Kōkei’s work contextualized by actor prints by Sharaku as well as two-dozen by contemporary Japanese and western artists. This comparative material is loaned from a leading private collection of modern Kabuki portraits.
The exhibition utilizes the complex issues of identity in Kabuki—where actors take on multiple roles and males take on female roles—to explore broader questions of self definition and its representation. It includes several Kōkei’s emotionally torqued self-portraits produced after he gave up actor prints in 2000. It concludes by examining how kabuki actor imagery has inspired pop images over the last 20 years, demonstrating the productive link between Japan’s historic ukiyo (floating world) and our own culture. Click here to learn more about this exhibition
Thursday, April 2, 2020: Ralli Quilts: Contemporary Textiles from Pakistan | December 20, 2013 – March 2, 2014
Ralli Quilts: Contemporary Textiles from Pakistan featured quilts made by women in the areas of Sindh, Pakistan, Western India, and surrounding areas. This exhibition helped expand the conception of ‘contemporary art’ by looking at their form, color and pattern rather than solely how they are made, what they are for and the meaning of each color and pattern. To learn more about the exhibition, click here