East meets West, in more ways than one

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“I ... want to point out the importance of the West Coast in this new narrative of American art history,” says Guggenheim Museum curator Alexandra Munroe. “Traditionally, modern and contemporary and avant garde art have always been discussed in their relationship to Europe. The natural bias has been New York and East Coast. In this new reading the West Coast plays a central role in the dissemination of these ideas.”

Munroe has just completed installing ‘The Third Eye: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989,’ an ambitious show about the influence that Asia -- its philosophies, its culture and so on -- has had on American artists. In Sunday Calendar, writer Scarlet Cheng takes an in-depth look at the fascinating show and the ideas behind it.