Join us for the Japanese-English Reading Circle!
Mission: to promote language learning through reading and language exchange. We aim to keep positivity and motivation high while developing reading fluency, vocabulary, content discussion, and reading strategies in a fun, collaborative environment.
Meetings: will consist of icebreaker language games, discussions about book topics, questions about language, formation of reading goals, and reading strategy sharing/reflection
Who can join: Japanese learners of English or English-speaking learners of Japanese. Any proficiency level is okay, although it would help to have at least beginner level knowledge of the second language you are studying. You can also sign up for the Facebook group or Google group for reminders.
Please join us for a special presentation of Japanese art as part of the Richard J. Wood Art Curators Series. The series brings attention to major collections of Japanese art in the U.S. and their role in the U.S.-Japan grassroots relationship.
Dr. Frank Feltens, Associate Curator of Japanese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, will explore how the Freer Gallery’s Japanese art collection evolved over the hundred years since the museum’s founding and how the most recent additions stay true to the original intentions and aesthetics of Charles Lang Freer. The talk will conclude with a journey through the exhibition Meeting Tessai: Modern Japanese Art from the Cowles Collection that highlights the Cowles gift and showcases how Freer conversed with contemporary Japanese artists like the famous literatus Tomioka Tessai.
The talk will be held in the Carnegie Museum of Art Theater and will be followed by refreshments and a networking reception. Registration is free but donations are encouraged.
Industrialist Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) founded the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923, the first art museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The most notable mention from Freer when he pledged his collection to the Smithsonian Institution was the explicit wish that it may never leave the building. The original pieces of the Freer gallery have not left the exhibit. Generous donations from generations of curators have expanded the number of pieces in the exhibit, significantly continuing the legacy and history of Charles Lang Freer. For example, the recent addition of the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection is such a milestone. The Cowles Collection adds more than 250 works of mainly early modern and modern paintings and calligraphy to Freer’s collection. Additions such as paintings by early 20th-century Nihonga grandees like Takeuchi Seihō and Murakami Kagaku, alongside postwar artists like Munaka Shikō and Suda Kokuta, allow the Freer collection to tell the story of Japanese art from its beginnings to our own time.
After receiving his PhD in Japanese art history from Columbia University in 2016, Dr. Frank Feltens joined the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, as an Anne van Biema fellow in Japanese art. The following year, Dr. Feltens became the Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art. Feltens specializes in Japanese art during the late medieval and early modern periods and holds additional interests in Japanese photography and the intersections between painting and ceramics.
Dr. Feltens has published and lectured on a range of topics related to Japanese art. Recent articles examine the painters Ogata Kōrin and Sakai Hōitsu, and the photographer Domon Ken. Prior to coming to the Freer and Sackler, he worked at the Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of Asian Art in Berlin and the Nezu Museum and the temple Sensōji in Tokyo. At the Freer and Sackler, Feltens has organized a number of exhibitions, including Meeting Tessai: Japanese Art from the Cowles Collection (upcoming) and Hokusai: Mad About Painting (2019-2020), as well as Japan Modern: Prints in the Age of Photography (2018-19), Painting the Classics (2019), and Shinto: The Way of the Kami (2019). Feltens is a longtime practitioner of the Japanese tea ceremony in the Urasenke tradition and carries the honorary tea name Sōchoku.
Thank you to the Carnegie Museum of Art for their partnership and the National Association of Japan-America Societies and the Japan~United States Friendship Commission for their support of this series at Japan-America Societies nationwide.
Please join us at the Duquesne Club on November 11 for an evening of networking with colleagues that have an interest in business, culture and life in Japan! Elliott Group is the Title Sponsor of the event.
Your ticket or sponsorship will give you access to fabulous silent auction prizes, delicious food, and a keynote presentation by Eric Shiner. We will also be honoring the late Dr. Stephen Guinn, long-time JASP board member, with the Three Rivers Award.
Sponsorship Information
Unable to attend the event and want to make a donation?
Consider our ‘Sponsor a Student Table’ program where companies purchase tables and JASP matches the seats with student members. Please contact us for more information.
Delta Airlines is sponsoring the Grand Prize, two tickets anywhere in the lower 48 states!
Friend Sponsors
Eric Shiner was most recently the executive director of Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. He was formerly artistic director of White Cube, New York and senior vice president of contemporary art at Sotheby’s. Prior to this, Shiner was the director of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh from 2010 to 2016, and was the Milton Fine Curator of Art at The Warhol from 2008 to 2010. A leading scholar on Andy Warhol and Asian contemporary art, Shiner lived and worked in Japan for a total of six years and was assistant curator on the inaugural Yokohama Triennale in 2001. Shiner has curated dozens of contemporary art exhibitions in cities around the globe and was the team leader on The Warhol Museum’s major Warhol retrospective that traveled to Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo between 2012 and 2014. Notable exhibitions include Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei in 2015/16, Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever After in 2012, Armory Focus: USA at the Armory Show in 2013 and Armory Platform in 2017. He is the President of the board of Visual AIDS, a NYC-based nonprofit promoting the artistic legacy of those artists lost to and living with AIDS and a board member of The Romare Bearden Foundation. He lives in Lansing, Michigan and upstate New York with his partner, Dr. Ishaan Kumar, and their long-haired dachshund, Juno.
The JASP Three Rivers Award is given to a Western Pennsylvania individual who has made a significant contribution to the JASP mission by increasing the general understanding of Japan-US relations, strengthening the business environment in Western Pennsylvania for Japanese related business, or promoting and enhancing the study of Japanese language or culture. Dr. Stephen Guinn, long-time board member of the Society and former owner of PSP Metrics, was a dedicated proponent of strong business ties between our region and Japan. He enjoyed the JASP's cultural programs and served as a member of the Golf Committee.
TEL: 412-856-8608 E-MAIL: jasp@us-japan.orgAddress: 2735 Mosside Blvd, Suite 402 Monroeville, PA 15146
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