Photo by Drake Baer.

On Thursday, August 28th, the Krannert Art Museum has a quintuple opening: the annual faculty show as well as four East Asian exhibitions. As usual, buzz has the scoop, so keep reading to get the low down on the artistic smorgasbord, and we’re not the only ones excited. “It’s a little microcosm of the kinds of people we work with,” says Kathleen Harleman, the museum’s director. “With outside artists and inside students and faculty members, we try [to] balance attention to our own collection and work beyond our own holdings.”

The World of Yugen: Japanese Paper Artworks by Kyoko Ibe

Prepared with a solely paper palette, The World of Yugen is that which is profound or remote, a state realized rather than described; arrived at rather than sought. Instillations include dangling fibrous spiderwebs, hovering in the air, spirits protecting a long-forgotten holy place, the capillaries of the soul. Avian sculptures ride the aesthetic thermals in the same space, fragile and playful creatures near hanging extended stacks, seagulls flying through the sails of ethereal ships. A bouquet of abstracted red balloons rises nearby, ready to be let go into the sky. Massive black barriers punctuate the space, beautiful and immense, the combination of dark chocolate and steel. Opening night will also feature a dance performance by assistant professor of dance Kirstie Simson. Two-dimensional works neighbor the scene, paper stretched and scratched, calligraphy floats — a mischievous spirit’s graffiti.

The Rise of Abstraction in Post-War Japan: Sosaku Hanga Woodblock Prints

Whether playful or bold, contemporary Japanese woodblocks are profoundly individual, a break away from the collaborative ukiyo-e tradition. Modernizing and increasingly influenced by the West — Picasso and Kandinsky come to mind — works exhibited in The Rise of Abstraction in Post-War Japan: Sosaku Hanga Woodblock Prints display strong emotion, the visual weight of Haku Maki’s “Symbol,” the orange psychedelic of Fumiaki Fukita’s “Machine,” or the curious cubism of Tsuneo Tamagami’s “Woman Want Hold Moon.” Curator Kathryn Koca has put together a stunning show, one which illustrates the incredible and varied output of Japan’s creative class from the past 50 years, prints that can expertly emphasize the weight of the medium and technique as well as create a sort of lightness, a flattering reflection of a cosmopolitan nation.

Collecting East Asia: The Lee Wonsik Collection

Sampling from a collection spanning centuries, with an emphasis on Edo (or early modern) Japan, the Lee Wonsik collection provides beautifully illustrative samples of Japanese traditions. Scrolls, fans and panels feature serene landscapes and poignant portraits. Yi Hai’s 18th century “Landscape” calls out to the viewer, achingly beautiful and masterfully painted without a single superfluous stroke, an image of a fisher resting in a river, underneath mountain ridges and full trees. A lone traveler walks staff in hand through another “Landscape,” Xu Schichang’s 19th century hanging scroll, a sparse yet peaceful setting, with a prominent rock formation yawning in the rear. With well over 300 individual works, the Wonsik collection can only be sampled in this exhibit, but more works will rotate through in the future.

New Installation of the Asian Gallery

After receiving a gentle face-lift, the Asian gallery is again home to beautiful work from all over the continent, from India to China to Japan. The pieces on exhibit exist very much in dialogue with the Lee Wonsik collection, providing a coherent view of China and the nation’s sometimes contentious artistic relationship with its island neighbor. Ceramics on display date back as far as the 5th and 6th centuries, and Chinese funerary horses preside over the collection.

Faculty Art Exhibition

One of the longest-running faculty exhibitions in the country, this year’s annual exhibition features an incredibly wide range of work, from video to painting to sculpture to instillations to ceramics and more, the artistic hunger displayed by faculty is as compelling as it is voracious. “The faculty show provides an opportunity for students to see what the faculty is doing,” says Harleman, the museum’s director. “It creates opportunities for dialogue.” Tonight’s opening reception, with a cash bar courtesy of Corkscrew, will serve to illustrate the prodigious production of faculty, showing that those who teach can indeed do.