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Coordinates: 40°46′12″N 73°57′51″W / 40.769983°N 73.96427°W / 40.769983; -73.96427

Asia Society and Museum
Asia Society's New York City Headquarters and Museum
Location within {{{pushpin_map}}}
Established	1956
Location	725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), Manhattan, New York, USA
Director	Vishakha N. Desai
Public transit access	M1, M2, M3, M4, M101, M102, M30, M66, 6 or F trains
Website	AsiaSociety.org

The Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, DC) and around the world Hong Kong, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Melbourne (see AustralAsia). All of these centers are overseen by the Society’s headquarters in New York, which includes a museum that exhibits the Rockefeller collection of Asian art and rotating exhibits with pieces from many Asian countries including China, Japan, India, and Korea.

Mission[link]

The Asia Society defines the region of Asia as the area from Japan to Iran, from central Asia to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The Asia Society is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose aim is to build awareness about Asian politics, business, education, arts, and culture through education. The organization sponsors the exhibitions of art, performance, film, lectures, and programs for students and teachers. The programs are aimed at increasing knowledge of society with a focus on human rights, environment, global health and the position of women.

The Asia Society's original focus was explaining aspects about Asia to Americans, and Robin Pogrebin of The New York Times said that it was "[l]ong regarded as a New York institution with regional branches".^[1] Around 2011 the society was refocusing efforts on augmenting partnerships amongst Asians and between Asians and Americans in business, culture, education, and public policy. In 2011 Pogrebin said "over the last few years has aimed to recast itself as an international organization, partly through the construction of the two major centers in cities where it previously had only offices."^[1]

History[link]

The Asia Society was founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller III. Initially established to promote greater knowledge of Asia in the US, today the Society is a global institution - with offices throughout the US and Asia — that fulfills its educational mandate through a wide range of cross-disciplinary programming. As economies and cultures have become more interconnected, the Society's programs have expanded to address Asian American issues, the effects of globalization, and pressing concerns in Asia including human rights, the status of women, and environmental and global health issues such as HIV/AIDS.^[2]

Headquarters[link]

The Society's Manhattan headquarters, at Park Avenue and East 70th Street on the Upper East Side, is an nine-story building faced in smooth red Oklahoma granite designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes in 1980. Since it replaced some old brownstones on one of the city's most prestigious streets, Barnes gave the building a strong facade to continue the line along Park, and set it back from East 70th with a terraced garden buffering it between the street and the older houses on that block. The semicircular window on the upper story and variations in the color and finish of the granite are intended to evoke Asian cultures. Paul Goldberger, architecture critic at The New York Times, called it "an ambitious building, full of civilized intentions, some of which succeed and others that do not". In the former category he put the interiors and the overall shape; in the latter he included the facade.^[3]

In 1999, it was closed for 18 months so that new interiors, designed by Bartholomew Voorsanger, could be built. During that time the society used the former Christie's Manhattan offices on 59th Street as a temporary home. The completed renovation included a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) atrium and cafe. The expansion doubled the museum's exhibition space, allowing the society to put the entire Rockefeller Asian art collection on display.^[4]

Robin Pogrebin of The New York Times said in 2011 that the Asia Society is "perhaps best known for the elegance of its headquarters and galleries on Park Avenue at 70th Street."^[1]

Global centers[link]

Along with its New York headquarters, the Asia Society has centers throughout the United States and Asia. The other American centers are located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington, DC. The Asian centers are located in Hong Kong, Seoul, Manila, Shanghai and Mumbai. There is also a center located in Melbourne, Australia.

Business[link]

The Asia Society annually presents a Corporate Conference in Asia, which functions as a fundraiser, to examine the implications of macroeconomic trends and geopolitical developments for the region and the world. Heads of Asian governments are often featured, as well as roundtable discussions with business and policy leaders from around the world.^[5]

Education[link]

The Asia Society's Education department has two primary objectives: one focusing on teaching and learning about Asia in the United States and the other on the expansion of US investments in international studies at the elementary and secondary school levels.[5]

International education generally encompasses the knowledge of other world regions, cultures and global issues; skills in communicating in languages other than English, working in global or cross-cultural environments and using information from different sources around the world; and values of respect and concern for other cultures and peoples.

International Studies Schools Network[link]

The Asia Society International Studies Schools Network (ISSN) comprises a select group of public elementary and secondary schools across the country with programs in "developing globally competent, college-ready high school students." ^[6] There are currently 27 schools in the network, covering both rural and urban communities and in cities throughout the U.S., from the Henry Street School for International Studies (New York, NY) and the Academy of International Studies (Charlotte, NC) to the Denver Center for International Studies (Denver, CO)to Vaughn International Studies Academy(San Fernando, CA) and the International Studies Learning Center (Los Angeles, CA). ^[7]

Fellowships[link]

The Bernard Schwartz Fellows Program at Asia Society selects fellows to pursue research on business and policy issues with an emphasis on Asia-related areas of study. Selected persons work in residence at the Asia Society headquarters in New York or in its Washington Center.

The Getty Fellowship is an Asia Society Museum program that provides cross-cultural work experience in the field of Asian art curatorship.

Museum[link]

The Asia Society Museum is host to both traditional and contemporary exhibitions, film screenings, literature, performing, and visual arts. The headquarters’ holdings includes works from more than thirty Asian-Pacific countries including Hindu and Buddhist statuary, temple carvings, Chinese ceramics, paintings, and Japanese art. Contemporary Asian art shows also take place. Exhibits change several times throughout the year. In 2001 a major renovation of the headquarters was undertaken doubling the size of the four public galleries.

The headquarters also houses a museum shop and café. Forbes has listed the Garden Court Cafe on its All-Star Eateries in New York list several times.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

	New York City portal
	Asia portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Asia Society

• The Asia Society Homepage
• South Korean Ban Ki-moon set to become UN Secretary-General Includes an interview conducted by the Asia Society's AsiaSource with the new UN Secretary-General, on September 26, 2006.
• H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea - Address to Asia Society in New York, September 25, 2006. Includes praise for the Asia Society for its work in strengthening relations between the US and Asia.
• Address by President Hu Jintao, of the People’s Republic of China His address to the Asia Society on visit to the US in April, 2006.
• Asia Society: Society’s 50th Milestone Honors Rockefellers Includes Jay Rockefeller and son Charles, Peggy Dulany, Richard Holbrooke, Henry Kissinger and Kofi Annan.
• Society Gala 50TH Anniversary Dinner Speeches
• Art Collecting, the Rockefeller Way May, 2006 New York Times article on the Asia Society's 50th celebration.
• The symbol of the Asia Society is the leogryph.
• Asia Society resources for teachers and students
• Asia Society's art collection
• Asia Society's work in educational policy
• Asia Society's schools network
• Asia Society Blog
• Yerba Buena (California) Center for the Arts tribute to the silenced Iranian director Jafar Panahi, curated by Negar Mottahedeh, Hamid Dabashi, and La Frances Hui, (February 25-March 11, 2011); see San Francisco Gate: "Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof tribute at YBCA".

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v t e

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.

A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.

More broadly, a society may be described as an economic, social, or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups. A society can be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons; a nation state, such as Bhutan; or a broader cultural group, such as a Western society. The word society may also refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A "society" may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism such as an ant colony or any cooperative aggregate such as, for example, in some formulations of artificial intelligence.

Etymology and usage[link]

A half-section of the 12th-century Song Dynasty version of Night Revels of Han Xizai, original by Gu Hongzhong. The painting portrays servants, musicians, monks, children, guests, and hosts all in a single social environment. It serves as an in-depth look into the Chinese social structure of the time.

The term "society" came from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend, ally"; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction among parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: "society in general", "society at large", etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this sense may be deemed to be "antisocial". Adam Smith wrote that a society "may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other."^[1]

Used in the sense of an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, possibly comprising characteristics such as national or cultural identity, social solidarity, language, or hierarchical organization.

Conceptions of society[link]

Society, in general, addresses the fact that an individual has rather limited means as an autonomous unit. The Great apes have always been more (Bonobo, Homo, Pan) or less (Gorilla, Pongo) social animals, so Robinson Crusoe-like situations are either fictions or unusual corner cases to the ubiquity of social context for humans, who fall between presocial and eusocial in the spectrum of animal ethology.

In anthropology[link]

Human societies are most often organized according to their primary means of subsistence. Social scientists have identified hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic pastoral societies, horticulturalist or simple farming societies, and intensive agricultural societies, also called civilizations. Some consider industrial and post-industrial societies to be qualitatively different from traditional agricultural societies.

Today, anthropologists and many social scientists vigorously oppose the notion of cultural evolution and rigid "stages" such as these. In fact, much anthropological data has suggested that complexity (civilization, population growth and density, specialization, etc.) does not always take the form of hierarchical social organization or stratification.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural relativism as a widespread approach or ethic has largely replaced notions of "primitive", better/worse, or "progress" in relation to cultures (including their material culture/technology and social organization).

According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier, one critical novelty in human society, in contrast to humanity's closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobo), is the parental role assumed by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is not generally determinable.^[2][3]

In political science[link]

Societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies. These structures may have varying degrees of political power, depending on the cultural, geographical, and historical environments that these societies must contend with. Thus, a more isolated society with the same level of technology and culture as other societies is more likely to survive than one in closer proximity to others that may encroach on their resources. A society that is unable to offer an effective response to other societies it competes with will usually be subsumed into the culture of the competing society.

In sociology[link]

The social group enables its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis. Both individual and social (common) goals can thus be distinguished and considered. Ant (formicidae) social ethology.

Canis lupus social ethology

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication, and economy: (1) hunters and gatherers, (2) simple agricultural, (3) advanced agricultural, (4) industrial, and (5) special (e.g. fishing societies or maritime societies).^[4] This is similar to the system earlier developed by anthropologists Morton H. Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, who have produced a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:

• Hunter-gatherer bands (categorization of duties and responsibilities).
• Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
• Stratified structures led by chieftains.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

In addition to this there are:

• Humanity, mankind, upon which rest all the elements of society, including society's beliefs.
• Virtual society, a society based on online identity, which is evolving in the information age.

Over time, some cultures have progressed toward more complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes settled around seasonal food stocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states.^[5]

Many societies distribute largess at the behest of some individual or some larger group of people. This type of generosity can be seen in all known cultures; typically, prestige accrues to the generous individual or group. Conversely, members of a society may also shun or scapegoat members of the society who violate its norms. Mechanisms such as gift-giving, joking relationships and scapegoating, which may be seen in various types of human groupings, tend to be institutionalized within a society. Social evolution as a phenomenon carries with it certain elements that could be detrimental to the population it serves.

Some societies bestow status on an individual or group of people when that individual or group performs an admired or desired action. This type of recognition is bestowed in the form of a name, title, manner of dress, or monetary reward. In many societies, adult male or female status is subject to a ritual or process of this type. Altruistic action in the interests of the larger group is seen in virtually all societies. The phenomena of community action, shunning, scapegoating, generosity, shared risk, and reward are common to many forms of society.

Types of societies[link]

Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies, the ways that humans use technology to provide needs for themselves. Although humans have established many types of societies throughout history, anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as resources, prestige, or power. Virtually all societies have developed some degree of inequality among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of a society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, or power. Sociologists place societies in three broad categories: pre-industrial, industrial, and postindustrial.

Pre-industrial societies[link]

In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural, and feudal.

Starting fire by hand. Bushmen in Botswana.

Hunting and gathering societies[link]

The main form of food production in such societies is the daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food. As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts, and usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes. However, some hunting and gathering societies in areas with abundant resources (such as the Tlingit) lived in larger groups and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdoms. The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies. They generally consist of fewer than 60 people and rarely exceed 100. Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is personal—charismatic—and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no political offices containing real power, and a chief is merely a person of influence, a sort of adviser; therefore, tribal consolidations for collective action are not governmental. The family forms the main social unit, with most societal members being related by birth or marriage. This type of organization requires the family to carry out most social functions, including production and education.

Pastoral societies[link]

Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another. Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger populations. Since there are food surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result, the division of labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic activities) becomes more complex. For example, some people become craftworkers, producing tools, weapons, and jewelry. The production of goods encourages trade. This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than others do. These families often gain power through their increased wealth. The passing on of property from one generation to another helps to centralize wealth and power. Over time emerge hereditary chieftainships, the typical form of government in pastoral societies.

Horticultural societies[link]

Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level of technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-burn method to raise crops. The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as fertilizers. Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one or more seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a fairly long period of time. This allows them to build semipermanent or permanent villages. The size of a village's population depends on the amount of land available for farming; thus villages can range from as few as 30 people to as many as 2000.

As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders. This role specialization allows people to create a wide variety of artifacts. As in pastoral societies, surplus food can lead to inequalities in wealth and power within horticultural political systems are developed because of the settled nature of horticultural life.

Ploughing with oxen in the 15th century.

Agrarian societies[link]

Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over a large area. Sociologists use the phrase Agricultural Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 8,500 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals. Increases in food supplies then led to larger populations than in earlier communities. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.

Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agrarian societies. For example, women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. However, as food stores improved and women took on lesser roles in providing food for the family, they increasingly became subordinate to men. As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from “lesser” members of society.

Cleric, knight and Peasant; an example of feudal societies

Feudal societies[link]

Feudalism was a form of society based on ownership of land. Unlike today's farmers, vassals under feudalism were bound to cultivating their lord's land. In exchange for military protection, the lords exploited the peasants into providing food, crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the landowner. The caste system of feudalism was often multigenerational; the families of peasants may have cultivated their lord's land for generations.

Industrial societies[link]

Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged that began to replace feudalism. Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned. Europe's exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in European societies.

Industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the production of goods. This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than before. Now the surplus was not just agricultural goods, but also manufactured goods. This larger surplus caused all of the changes discussed earlier in the domestication revolution to become even more pronounced.

Once again, the population boomed. Increased productivity made more goods available to everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before. The breakup of agricultural-based feudal societies caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in cities. This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers who could be hired for extremely low wages.

Post-industrial societies[link]

Postindustrial societies are societies dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods. Advanced industrial societies are now seeing a shift toward an increase in service sectors over manufacturing and production. The U.S. is the first country to have over half of its work force employed in service industries. Service industries include government, research, education, health, sales, law, banking, and so on. It is still too early to identify and understand all the ramifications this new kind of society will have for social life. In fact, even the phrase "postindustrial" belies the fact that we don't yet quite know what will follow industrial societies or the forms they will take.

Contemporary usage[link]

The term "society" is currently used to cover both a number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations.

Western society[link]

The development of the Western world has brought with it the emerging concepts of Western culture, politics, and ideas, often referred to simply as "Western society. Geographically, it covers at the very least the countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. It sometimes also includes Eastern Europe, South America, and Israel.

The cultures and lifestyles of all of these stem from Western Europe. They all enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, allow freedom of religion, have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and international trade, are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation.^[6]

Information society[link]

World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva

Although the concept of information society has been under discussion since the 1930s, in the modern world it is almost always applied to the manner in which information technologies have impacted society and culture. It therefore covers the effects of computers and telecommunications on the home, the workplace, schools, government, and various communities and organizations, as well as the emergence of new social forms in cyberspace.^[7]

One of the European Union's areas of interest is the information society. Here policies are directed towards promoting an open and competitive digital economy, research into information and communication technologies, as well as their application to improve social inclusion, public services, and quality of life.^[8]

The International Telecommunications Union's World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva and Tunis (2003 and 2005) has led to a number of policy and application areas where action is required.^[9] These include:

• promotion of ICTs for development;
• information and communication infrastructure;
• access to information and knowledge;
• capacity building;
• building confidence and security in the use of ICTs;
• enabling environment;
• ICT applications in the areas of government, business, learning, health, employment, environment, agriculture and science;
• cultural and linguistic diversity and local content;
• media;
• ethical dimensions of the information society; and
• international and regional cooperation.

Knowledge society[link]

The Seoul Cyworld control room

As access to electronic information resources increased at the beginning of the 21st century, special attention was extended from the information society to the knowledge society. An analysis by the Irish government stated, "The capacity to manipulate, store and transmit large quantities of information cheaply has increased at a staggering rate over recent years. The digitisation of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. As much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is now said to be due to new and better knowledge."^[10]

The Second World Summit on the Knowledge Society, held in Chania, Crete, in September 2009, gave special attention to the following topics:^[11]

• business and enterprise computing;
• technology-enhanced learning;
• social and humanistic computing;
• culture, tourism and technology;
• e-government and e-democracy;
• innovation, sustainable development, and strategic management;
• service science, management, and engineering;
• intellectual and human capital development;
• ICTs for ecology and the green economy;
• future prospects for the knowledge society; and
• technologies and business models for the creative industries.

Other uses[link]

People of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to form a society (such as Judeo-Christian, Eastern, and Western). When used in this context, the term is employed as a means of contrasting two or more "societies" whose members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.

Some academic, professional, and scientific associations describe themselves as societies (for example, the American Mathematical Society, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or the Royal Society).

In some countries, e.g. the United States, France, and Latin America, the term "society' is used in commerce to denote a partnership between investors or the start of a business. In the United Kingdom, partnerships are not called societies, but co-operatives or mutuals are often known as societies (such as friendly societies and building societies).

See also[link]

Society portal

	Book: Society
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Effland, R. 1998. The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations Mesa Community College.
• Jenkins, R. 2002. Foundations of Sociology. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-96050-5.
• Lenski, G. 1974. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw- Hill, Inc.
• Raymond Williams, "www.flpmihai.blogspot.com", in: Williams, Key Words: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Fontana, 1976.

External links[link]

Look up Society in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Society

• Society at the Open Directory Project
• Definition of Society from the OED.
• Lecture notes on "Defining Society" from East Carolina University.
• Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Industrial Revolution
• "The Day the World Took Off" Six part video series from the University of Cambridge tracing the question "Why did the Industrial Revolution begin when and where it did."
• BBC History Home Page: Industrial Revolution
• National Museum of Science and Industry website: machines and personalities
• Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living by Clark Nardinelli - the debate over whether standards of living rose or fell.
• Cliff Notes on Types of Societies
• Perceptions of Knowledge, Knowledge Society, and Knowledge Management

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2010)

U-Ram Choe (born 1970) is an artist based in Seoul, South Korea.

Biography [link]

Choe was born in Seoul, South Korea. He is a contemporary artist who works with kinetic sculpture.^[1] His grandfather was a scientist who designed early automobiles, and his parents were sculptors. As a child he began exploring art with clay. He graduated from Chungang University in Seoul, where he earned B.F.A. in 1992 and M.F.A. in 1999.^[2]

Exhibitions [link]

November 2006 marked U-Ram Choe's United States debut, as he opened a solo exhibition at bitforms gallery in New York.^[3] Since then he has exhibited at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville;^[4] the Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas;^[5] the 2008 Liverpool Biennial at FACT, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool;^[6] Shanghai Biennial; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo;^[7] NTT Intercommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo; Art Basel; Seoul Museum of Art; Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul; Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan; Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna; Beijing Expocenter; Seoul Olympic Art Museum;^[8] Asian Art Triennial;^[9] and Manchester Art Gallery.^[10]

See also [link]

• Kinetic Art
• New Media
• Theo Jansen

References[link]

External links[link]

• Choe's website
• bitforms gallery
• Wired article on Choe's work
• 2009 Interview
• Tokyo Art Beat on Choe's work
• The Japan Times on Choe's work

This artist-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2008)

Yoshitomo Nara (奈良 美智, Nara Yoshitomo^?, born 4 January 1959 in Hirosaki, Japan) is a Japanese artist. He lives and works in Tokyo, though his artwork has been exhibited worldwide. Nara received his B.F.A. (1985) and an M.F.A. (1987) from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. Between 1988 and 1993, Nara studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, in Germany. Nara has had nearly 40 solo exhibitions since 1984. He is represented in New York City by Marianne Boesky Gallery, in Los Angeles by Blum & Poe and in London by Stephen Friedman Gallery^[1]

Artwork [link]

Nara first came to the fore of the art world during Japan’s Pop art movement in the 1990s. The subject matter of his sculptures and paintings is deceptively simple: most works depict one seemingly innocuous subject (often pastel-hued children and animals drawn with confident, cartoonish lines) with little or no background. But these children, who appear at first to be cute and even vulnerable, sometimes brandish weapons like knives and saws. Their wide eyes often hold accusatory looks that could be sleepy-eyed irritation at being awoken from a nap—or that could be undiluted expressions of hate.

Nara, however, does not see his weapon-wielding subjects as aggressors. "Look at them, they [the weapons] are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those?" he says. "I don’t think so. Rather, I kind of see the children among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives…"^[2]

Lauded by art critics, Nara’s bizarrely intriguing works have gained him a cult following around the world.

Nara's artwork was featured in the album titled 'Suspended Animation' by experimental band Fantômas (Made up of Mike Patton, Buzz Osbourne, Trevor Dunn and Dave Lombardo) in June, 2005.

Influences [link]

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The manga and anime of his 1960s childhood are both clear influences on Nara's stylized, large-eyed figures. Nara subverts these typically cute images, however, by infusing his works with horror-like imagery. This juxtaposition of human evil with the innocent child may be a reaction to Japan's rigid social conventions.

The punk rock music of Nara's youth has also influenced the artist's work. Recalling a similar – if more unsettling – image of rebellious, violent youth, Nara's art embraces the punk ethos. That said, Nara has also cited traditions as varied as Renaissance painting, literature, illustration, ukiyo-e and graffiti as further inspiration.

But perhaps most significantly, Nara’s upbringing in post-World War II Japan profoundly affected his mindset and, subsequently, his artwork as well. He grew up in a time when Japan was experiencing an inundation of Western pop culture; comic books, Walt Disney animation, and Western rock music are just a few examples. Additionally, Nara was raised in the isolated countryside as a latchkey child of working-class parents, so he was often left alone with little to do but explore his young imagination. The fiercely independent subjects that populate so much of his artwork may be a reaction to Nara's own largely independent childhood.

External links [link]

• Yoshitomo Nara at Stephen Friedman Gallery
• Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool at Asia Society Museum, New York
• http://www.galeriezink.de/nc/artists/artwork/artist/yoshitomo_nara/type/artwork
• Blum & Poe Gallery
• Yoshitomo Nara at Johnen Galerie
• Small gallery of Nara images
• Essay about Nara and his artwork
• Short biography of Nara and catalog of merchandise
• Yoshitomo Nara at Marianne Boesky Gallery
• Informational site with two galleries of Nara's work
• KultureFlash interview (03/2006)

References [link]

Amitav Ghosh
Born	(1956-07-11) 11 July 1956 (age 55)[1] Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	University of Delhi St Edmund Hall, Oxford
Genres	Historical fiction
Notable work(s)	The Glass Palace, Sea of Poppies,River of Smoke

Amitav Ghosh (অমিতাভ ঘোষ born July 11, 1956^[1]), is a Bengali Indian author best known for his work in the English language.

Life[link]

Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St. Stephen's College, Delhi; Delhi University; India; and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was awarded a D. Phil. in social anthropology. His first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi.^[2]

Ghosh lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Baker, author of the Laura Riding biography In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993) and a senior editor at Little, Brown and Company. They have two children, Lila and Nayan. He has been a Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. In 1999, Ghosh joined the faculty at Queens College, City University of New York, as Distinguished Professor in Comparative Literature. He has also been a visiting professor to the English department of Harvard University since 2005. Ghosh subsequently returned to India and published his Ibis Trilogy, of which two volumes have been published to date, Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 2007.^[3] In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[4]

Work[link]

Ghosh is the author of The Circle of Reason (his 1986 debut novel), The Shadow Lines (1988), The Calcutta Chromosome (1995), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2004), and Sea of Poppies (2008), the first volume of The Ibis trilogy, set in the 1830s, just before the Opium War, which encapsulates the colonial history of the East. Ghosh's latest work of fiction is River of Smoke (2011), the second volume of The Ibis trilogy.

The Circle of Reason won the Prix Médicis étranger, one of France's top literary awards.^[5] The Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award & the Ananda Puraskar.^[6][7] The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 1997.^[8] Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize.^[9] It was the co-winner of the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2009, as well as co-winner of the 2010 Dan David Prize.^[10] River of Smoke was shortlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize 2011.

Ghosh famously withdrew his novel The Glass Palace from consideration for The Commonwealth Prize where it had been awarded the Best Novel in Eurasian section, citing his objections to the term "Commonwealth" and the unfairness of the English-language requirement specified in the rules.^[11] Subsequently, he landed in controversy over his acceptance of the Israeli literary award, the $1 million dollar Dan David Prize.^[12]

Ghosh's most notable non-fiction writings are In an Antique Land (1992), Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma (1998), Countdown (1999), and The Imam and the Indian (2002, a large collection of essays on different themes such as fundamentalism, history of the novel, Egyptian culture, and literature).

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Amitav Ghosh

• Official website
• Excerpt from River of Smoke in Guernica Magazine
• Sea of Poppies at Farrar, Straus and Giroux site
• Amitav Ghosh in Emory University Site
• Interview with Amitav Ghosh on CNN-IBN/ibnlive.com on his book Sea of Poppies
• Amitav Ghosh's Blog on Indipepal

References[link]