This spring the Gallery at Japan Society draws from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection of Japanese art to present Points of Departure: Treasures of Japan from the Brooklyn Museum, a survey diverging from the conventional narrative of Japanese art by highlighting the polyglot nature of the Japanese achievement. (On view from March 7 through June 8, 2014.)

Ranging in date from prehistoric times to the present, the 71 works on view in Points of Departure encompass both the virtuosic treasures exemplifying Japan’s best-known contributions to world art—screen paintings, ceramics, sculpture, and color woodblocks—and lesser-known, but revelatory, indigenous artifacts like delicate bark fiber robes, beaded jewelry, and carved artifacts for utilitarian and ritual use.

First started from an ethnological perspective more than a century ago and since expanded to represent the scope of classic and folk forms, the Brooklyn Museum’s collection of Japanese art is one of the nation’s foremost.

“Today, some of the most exciting new research into Japanese art is expanding the canon to include art forms once considered of only ethnological interest,” says Dr. Miwako Tezuka, Director of Japan Society Gallery, who has organized the exhibition in collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum. “As the picture of Japanese culture more fully develops, it is clear that since pre-history, Japan has absorbed many ethnicities and cultures. This is one of the reasons we are delighted to partner with the Brooklyn Museum: its curators have been prescient in collecting works outside the mainstream. Many objects in this exhibition will feel like completely new material.”

Arnold L. Lehman, Director of the Brooklyn Museum, says, “We are delighted to share these exceptional works from our superb holdings of Japanese material with the Japan Society and its visitors while our galleries of Asian and Islamic art undergo a major renovation.”

To counter the usual emphasis on Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto in Japanese art scholarship, and the idea of a homogenous people, Points of Departure is organized by region—beginning in the South, traditionally the entry point for influences from China, Korea, and other areas of the continent, and then onward to the West, East and North.

LECTURE: From Brooklyn to Hokkaido: Stewart Culin and the Early Formation of the Japanese Art Collection at the Brooklyn Museum
Wednesday, March 26, 6:30 pm
In the early 20th century, Brooklyn Museum curator Stewart Culin conducted a series of expeditions to Japan which laid the groundwork for the museum’s collection of Asian art. Come hear Dr. Susan L. Beningson, Assistant Curator of Asian Art, Brooklyn Museum, explore Culin’s adventures in Tokyo, Kyoto and Hokkaido, and how many of the objects in the Japan Society exhibition came into the museum’s collection. $12/$8 members, students and seniors; includes exhibition entry and reception.

LECTURE: Kyoto in Brooklyn: The Kyoto Screens (rakuch? rakugai zu) in the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Saturday April 12, 2:00 pm
Kyoto, Japan’s old capital for over one thousand years, is a city where culture, commerce, and politics long created powerful creative energies. At the dawn of Japan’s early modern era in the early 16th century artists in Kyoto invented a genre of panoramic cityscapes called rakuch? rakugai zu (views of Kyoto). Professor Matthew McKelway, an authority on these mesmerizing screen paintings, unravels the fascinating and jewel-like details of the Kyoto screens in the Brooklyn Museum, one of the key works featured in the exhibition Points of Departure. $12/$8 members, students and seniors; includes exhibition entry.

SPECIAL COLLOQUIA: Celebration of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Japanese Art Society of America
Saturday, May 17, 10:00 am-5:00 pm
Co-hosted by Japan Society and Japanese Art Association of America
Some of the most distinguished Japanese art scholars and curators based in the United States gather together to reflect on the past 40 years of scholarly contributions to the field in this country and also present new scholarships that will further enrich the field. This event is free and open to the public.
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