Events

This exhibition provides a rare glimpse into the ordinary lives of people long ago through the remarkable contents of the ‘Library Cave,’ part of the Buddhist cave complex of Mogao, where a wealth of manuscripts, documents and artworks remained sealed for nearly 900 years. Detailing life in and around Dunhuang during the first millennium CE, the documents include personal letters and wills encompassing multiple languages, faiths and cultures including Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Christianity; and span topics as diverse as literature, astronomy, medicine, politics and art.

26th September 2024 to 23rd February 2025 

This continent-spanning exposition unravels how the journey of people, objects and ideas formed an expansive web of trade routes that shaped cultures and histories.

Working with 29 national and international partners to present objects from many regions and cultures alongside those from the British Museum, the exhibition offers a unique chance to see objects from the length and breadth of the Silk Roads. From Indian garments found in Suffolk to Iranian glass unearthed in Japan, they reveal the astonishing reach of these networks. 

November 10, 2023–May 6, 2024 

Six Dynasties of Chinese Painting presents a selection of the museum’s most important paintings that cover six different dynasties, including the modern era. These paintings represent various subject matter, from figures, landscapes, animals, birds, and flowers to religious and historic themes; their dates of acquisition range from the museum’s founding years to the most recent additions, demonstrating a continuous commitment to Chinese painting, a field that has always been the strongest asset of the Chinese collection.  

27 January 2024, Saturday (2:00pm-5:00pm GMT+8)

Alisan Fine Arts

Alisan Aberdeen, Hong Kong

RSVP: assistant@alisan.com.hk

Hung Keung, renowned digital media installation artist from Hong Kong, has been practicing mindfulness meditation for twelve years. In the closing event, Hung will share the methods of mindfulness meditation and guide participants to enter the world of “awareness” through the practices of “art viewing” and “contemplation”. Visitors can engage in meditation with the artist, and immerse in the poetic realm of purifying the mind and harmonising with nature, while personally experiencing the fusion of technology and mindfulness.

Kindly RSVP.

Six spectacular kimonos belonging to the kabuki actor Bandō Tamasaburō V will be on display in the Textiles Gallery for a year. Tamasaburō is the most popular and celebrated onnagata (male actor who performs female roles) currently on stage.

The costumes selected reflect the wide variety of roles in this actor’s long and celebrated theatre career, from court ladies and courtesans to geisha and demons.  

You’ll see beautifully crafted costumes that showcase a range of elaborate textile techniques, including weaving, dyeing, embroidery and hand-painting. 

The over-robe for the courtesan Agemaki in the play Sukeroku, Flower of Edo (助六由縁江⼾桜), shown below, was worn at a performance in June 2004 at the Kabukiza Theatre, Tokyo. It features New Year’s decorations on black satin and the courtesan’s sash has a carp ascending a waterfall embroidered on a pale blue-green satin ground.  

This exhibition celebrates more than 100 artworks by the contemporary Chinese artist Fang Lijun, on loan from his studios in Beijing and Jingdezhen and from private collections. It showcases Fang’s paintings and drawings, and also ceramics produced in the last five years.

Fang Lijun was one of the leading protagonists of the early 1990s Cynical Realist movement, a major art movement in China post-1989. His works captured the disillusionment of his generation and reflected the feeling of helplessness in Chinese society in the early 1990s.

Some of these seminal paintings he became famous for – the large anonymous, shaven heads and blank faces – are in our exhibition, alongside early pencil drawings from his student days and newer ink paintings and a series of intriguing porcelain pieces.

Japanese artist Takahashi Hiromitsu creates dynamic, colourful prints showing exciting moments in kabuki, Japan’s traditional dance-drama.

Hiromitsu’s striking designs are not portraits of actual actors, but visualisations of famous kabuki roles.

In kabuki, performers wearing elaborate costumes and make-up use stylised movement and song to enact melodramatic stories about love, loyalty and the clash between duty and emotion.

Alisan Fine Arts is pleased to announce the new exhibition “Hung Keung: Digital Media Art Installation” at our Aberdeen Gallery. Hung Keung, a renowned digital media installation artist from Hong Kong and grantee of Asian Cultural Council Award (2005), is known for his interactive installations that combine film, video, and digital new media with themes from Chinese classical philosophy, art, and literature.

Alisan Fine Arts is proud to announce the opening of a new gallery location in New York City’s Upper East Side in November, 2023. The inaugural exhibition at the New York location pays homage to Walasse Ting (1928-2010 and this exhibition in New York coincided with Walasse Ting’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, “Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle”, which is now opening at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.

Alisan Fine Arts is excited to present an exhibition of Wang Mengsha, an artist who gracefully navigates through the realms of traditional and contemporary art, where the ancient ‘xieyi’ style of painting is reborn through her innovative approach. She harmoniously blends aspects of traditional paintings of daily objects, court maidens and natural elements, all while employing a sense of humour and a vibrant palette that reminds viewers of the natural sceneries in the south-eastern part of China.

The Brunei Gallery, SOAS, and the Royal Asiatic Society are pleased to present an exhibition celebrating the Society’s bicentenary and its involvement in the study of science, literature, religion, and the arts of Asia since 1823.

The exhibition includes rare books, manuscripts, paintings, photographs, and maps from the collections and reveals how Asian works of literature, art, and religion made a lasting impression on British culture. This ranges from popular games such as chess illustrated by a 16th-century Persian manuscript and the original game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ (RAS 051.001) painted by a Maharashtran artist, ca. 1800 CE to celebrated works of literature including the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Arabian Nights. The exhibition reflects the extraordinary diversity of the collections donated to the Society by its members and other institutions.