L'Asie Maintenant program focuses on the photographs of photojournalist Anne de Henning of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Witnessing History in the Making is curated by Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury and produced by the Samdani Art Foundation and the Center for Research and Information (CRI).

Nicolas Trembley curates the first exhibition dedicated to the Chinese-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam's ceramics, in a dialogue with the Qing porcelains of the museum, with the support of SDO Wifredo Lam.

Bae Bien-U (born 1950) has been photographing for decades. He captures the movement of trees as if they were moving towards an elsewhere that his framing does not allow to be guessed. The trunks move like a swell.

Bae Bien-U's writing evokes the tradition of ink, calligraphy, as well as the singularly strong presence of forests in Korean landscape painting, whether it takes the form of a screen or a scroll; it often includes the pilgrimage to Geumgan-San, the Diamond Mountain, with its spiky green peaks.

In 2009 he is in residence in Granada, at the invitation of the Patronato de la Alhambra. He rediscovers the alliance between mountains and trees. On the Sabika - the rocky spur that dominates the Andalusian city - the trees interact with the cubes of the defensive and palatial architecture, they spread out to let a shower of light fall; they sometimes form a soft, cottony mass of foliage. Here the trees have lost their severity. Sometimes the artist also looks through other frames for the effects of light: in the Comares Hall - the throne room - it penetrates, drawing powerful shadow effects, through the network of moucharabiehs or the superimposition of layers of foliage.

Exhibition at the Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet from 19 October to 23 January 2023

Renowned for his mastery of traditional Chinese arts, Yang Jiechang works in a multitude of media: paintings, graphic arts, installations, videos, performances and sculptures. His art is imbued with traditional Chinese calligraphy, aesthetics and thought, which are integrated into a contemporary context.

Presented in the 4th floor rotunda, Tale of the 11th Day (2011) is an 18-meter long (59-foot) painting on silk mounted on canvas, along with a set of eleven porcelain vases, the result of a four-year collaboration with the Manufacture de Sèvres. Tale of the 11th Day is a reference to the Decameron by Boccaccio (1348-1353). Imagining the 11th day, the artist depicts a primordial landscape drawn according to the classical models of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368).

Yang Jiechang's style is austere, pure and universal. He presents an allegorical vision of the Italian Renaissance masterpiece where animals and humans discover and mate: a Paradise where all divisions - religious, ethnic, ideological or political - are erased. Tale of the 11th Day is a utopia of a globalized world naturally based on equality, respect, love and compassion. However, Yang Jiechang's sensual paradise is painted in a time of armed conflict and contemporary crisis.

The installation reminds us that the harmony of relationships is still based on power relations, an unstable balance that is constantly being redefined.

Curators :

Sophie Makariou, President of the MNAAG, General Curator

Martina Köppel-Yang, art historian, Associate Curator

Claire Bettinelli, Exhibition and Contemporary Collections Production Manager

With the support of DSLCollection and AIKA

With the kind participation of the Manufacture de Sèvres

The exhibition, Ram Rahman: Street Smart opens at the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques – Guimet (MNAAG) in Paris on 19 October 2022, and continues until 23 January 2023, presenting works by artist Ram Rahman. The general curator of the exhibition is Sophie Makariou, President of Musée Guimet. The exhibition is presented by Musée Guimet and The Guild.

Ram Rahman has captured the vibrant visual culture of the Indian street in these photographs. His camera delights in the curious juxtapositions of advertising, political sloganeering, religious icons and graffiti which abound on India’s streets. His use of the black and white image flattens and compacts the frame to create images which are collage-like. He sees this as a people’s visual culture, much of which comes together by sheer chance. These chance assemblages, often on a huge scale, are the stage sets against which daily life unfolds in a theatre of the street. The images capture the chaos, irony and humour of the public culture of India. The street in India is like a visual text, a random people's art which reflects the aspirations, cinematic dreams and also comments on current political issues, on history and mythology in often unlikely combinations. The still camera is the perfect tool to capture these visual texts and Rahman creates new stories in his assemblage of images. Some hand painted images, the proliferating digital imagery, offset posters and signs are all elements of this pop culture mashup which has survived the sanitising homogeneity of global consumerism.