GAINESVILLE, FLA.- The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida welcomes the new year with an innovative exhibition in the David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing titled Inside Outside: Outside Inside—A Century of East Asian Landscapes 1900s–2000s. Artists from China, Japan and Korea illustrate more than thirty landscapes using formats clearly rooted in tradition but reflect the rapid transformation of urban and natural environments. Inside Outside: Outside Inside is on view from December 18, 2018 to December 1, 2019.

The exhibition includes paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture, ceramic and video works that highlight how East Asian landscape traditions remain vibrant in our contemporary world. By employing new media and methods of interpretation, artists, in dialogue with earlier conventions, often simultaneously echo and contradict artistic traditions. Tensions between the natural world and the transition to modernity offer us an avenue to explore how urbanization affects and complements nature.

“For millennia, the subject of landscape has occupied a special place in East Asian artistic traditions,” said Harn Museum of Art Director Dr. Lee Anne Chesterfield. “Providing a look into how artists capture a new modern world while still honoring those traditions is fascinating and an interesting comparison to provide to our visitors.”

Groupings of objects suggest variations on themes within the genre of landscape, including real and imagined landscapes, the body as medium, cityscapes, seasons of change, and political histories centered on the specifics of geography and place. Inside Outside can also refer to the artist’s own reality: a depiction of a landscape can be a means of describing an inner world, not just the visible one.

“We are very excited about the exhibition as the New Year marks seasons of change and echoes the themes evident in the show,” said Harn Cofrin Curator of Asian Art Jason Steuber. “East Asian landscapes since the 1900s dealt with the four seasons as well as the advent of modernity and a much more interconnected world.”

Inside Outside: Outside Inside—A Century of East Asian Landscapes 1900s–2000s is generously supported by the Quinn Family Charitable Foundation with additional funding by the Cofrin Curator of Asian Art Endowment. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition, as well as an educational gallery guide offering ways for families to connect with the art on view.