Exhibition

Fantastical Creatures of Asia

Tiger and Magpie (detail), Early 20th century, Artist/Maker unknown (Korea), 2017-136-1

When

Ongoing

Where

Main Building, Galleries 320 and 321

Tickets

Free with museum admission

Buy Tickets

Membership

Members are always free

Membership

About

Fantastical Creatures of Asia brings together works that explore how artists across time and region have imagined the supernatural to express cultural values, spiritual beliefs, and contemporary concerns.

Godawari Dutta’s vibrant Madhubani painting of Vishnu’s ten incarnations and Son Man Jin’s creature-like characters inspired by ancient Chinese seal script show myth and philosophy in visual form. Korean traditions appear in the protective yet satirical pairing of the Tiger and Magpie—an image that has recently inspired globally popular animations – while Ai Weiwei’s heluo fish with ten bodies, reimagined in plastic bricks and bearing the artist’s own face, brings humor and provocation while questioning assumptions about materials and meaning.

Together, these works reveal Asia’s enduring imagination of fantastical beings and the stories they can tell.

Curators

Hiromi Kinoshita, The Hannah L. and J. Welles Henderson Curator of Chinese Art

Hyunsoo Woo, The Maxine and Howard Lewis Curator of Korean Art and Head of Asian Art Department

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei leads a diverse and prolific practice that encompasses sculptural installation, filmmaking, photography, ceramics, painting, writing and social media. A conceptual artist who fuses traditional craftsmanship and his Chinese heritage, he moves freely between a variety of formal languages to reflect on the contemporary geopolitical and sociopolitical condition. Since 2007, Ai Weiwei has been experimenting with toy bricks, which are mass produced in infinite quantities, reflecting the type of assembly made possible by the Information Age and globalization.

Ai Weiwei has exhibited extensively at institutions and biennials worldwide. He lives and works in Beijing (China), Berlin (Germany), Cambridge (UK) and Lisbon (Portugal). Ai Weiwei’s work and life regularly interact and inform one another, often extending to his activism and advocacy for international human rights.