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Friends for the Arts of East Asia in Berlin
Marks 100 years of the Society for East Asian Art with museum holdings and loans, including an 18th-century Japanese Buddhist painting.
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In Edo in 1783, Kōda Ryōkō Suenobu painted a set of five Buddhist Wisdom Kings in ink, gold and colour on silk. A fragment of one, Gōzanze Myōō, a protector of Buddhism, is on show here for the first time, back beside two scrolls from its old set.
The occasion is a centenary. In 1926 a friends' circle formed to back Berlin's East Asian art collection. It funded purchases, staged a 1929 show of Chinese art on Pariser Platz, and took over the museum's journal when co-editor William Cohn's name could no longer be printed because he was Jewish. Its successor society, founded in 1990, lent most of what you see.
You find it in Room 318, among the museum's Japanese art. Next to the scrolls are 108 bowls by Essen ceramicist Young-Jae Lee, woodblock prints given by members and publications on the society's history. It's one room, covered by the €9 collection ticket, step-free, with texts in German and English. From 16 December, new acquisitions take over.
Look for
The Wisdom King Gōzanze Myōō
Look for a hanging-scroll fragment in ink, gold and colours on silk, dated 1783, reunited with one scroll from a private collection and one from the museum.
Young-Jae Lee's 108 Bowls
An installation of 108 ceramic bowls by the Essen-based ceramicist, shown for the first time, near Kim Heryun's work Hunminjeongeum No. 19.
The members' gifts
Japanese woodblock prints given by society members, shown with publications tracing the friends' circle founded in 1926.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want a big special exhibition: this is a one-room rotation inside the Asian art galleries.
Free in the same building
- Flashbacks36 objects placed throughout the building in unconventional settings, each recalling a moment from the site's history.
- History of the SiteFree displays covering 800 years of Schlossplatz, from medieval cellars and palace sculptures to the Palace of the Republic, with original objects and media stations.
- Impressions. The Humboldt BrothersFree display on Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt's lives, curiosity and cosmopolitan worldview, in the ground-floor stairwell hall.
- Palace CellarFree walk through the archaeological remains of a medieval monastery and the original palace foundations beneath the building.
- The Gate of SanchiFree full-scale replica of the East Gate of the Great Stupa of Sanchi, a UNESCO World Heritage site in India, installed outside on the Lustgarten side.
Also at Humboldt Forum
On now nearby
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Image credits
9
- Friends for the Arts of East Asia in BerlinCourtesy of Humboldt Forum
- A Country in a Container – The Disposal of East German State SymbolsCourtesy of DDR Museum
- Founded on Antiquity: Berlin's First MuseumPhoto: Johannes Laurentius
- Nature and German History. Faith – Biology – PowerCourtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum
- Humboldt ForumMike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- DDR MuseumAndreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Deutsches Historisches MuseumAvda / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain