**Trailer: “Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie”**

Step into *Monstrous Beauty*, The Met’s provocative new exhibition that shatters the delicate facade of chinoiserie—the 17th and 18th-century decorative style inspired by imagined visions of the East. Far from polite ornamentation, this show exposes the unsettling undercurrents of exoticism, gender, and power woven into porcelain and gilt.

Witness contemporary artists like Yeesookyung, whose fractured vessels, mended with gold, defy perfection, and Patty Chang’s raw performance art challenging femininity. Confront the grotesque—sirens with pendulous breasts, bloodthirsty mermaids, and lavish bridal gifts that fetishized female submission.

Curator Iris Moon reexamines chinoiserie through a feminist lens, linking its legacy to modern anti-Asian violence and the objectification of women. From a haunting 18th-century mirror to Queen Mary II’s faux dairy, the exhibition asks: *What if these decorative fantasies were never just about objects, but about the people trapped within them?*

Prepare to see chinoiserie—and its monstrous beauty—in a radical new light.

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**Digest (English Summary):**
The Met’s *Monstrous Beauty* reinterprets chinoiserie, exposing its ties to exoticism, gender roles, and anti-Asian stereotypes. Featuring 200 works, the show contrasts historical porcelain (like eroticized ewers and aristocratic “trad wife” cosplay) with contemporary art (Yeesookyung’s kintsugi vessels, Patty Chang’s *Melons*). Curator Iris Moon connects the dots between colonial fantasies and modern violence, sparked by the 2021 Atlanta shootings. A standout 1760 mirror—depicting a pipe-smoking Asian woman dominating the frame—symbolizes the exhibition’s core question: How has chinoiserie’s legacy shaped perceptions of women and the East? The answer is as dazzling as it is disturbing.### **Trailer: “Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Reimagining of Chinoiserie”**

Chinoiserie—often dismissed as whimsical, ornamental, and feminine—is reexamined in *”Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie”* at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This groundbreaking exhibition challenges long-held stereotypes by juxtaposing 18th-century European porcelain with contemporary works by Asian and Asian American women artists.

From LA-based Patty Chang’s haunting porcelain massage table—a meditation on unseen labor—to Lee Bul’s mesmerizing *Monster: Black*, a sequined sculpture pulsing with eerie energy, the show reveals how chinoiserie’s legacy is far more complex than mere decoration. Seoul artist Yeesookyung describes encountering historical ceramics as a spiritual homecoming, “like finding a missing mother.”

By confronting the past through a feminist lens, *Monstrous Beauty* uncovers hidden narratives of power, exploitation, and cultural exchange. As curator Moon reflects, the monstrous—once a term of derision—becomes a lens to see what history has long ignored.

**On view at The Met through August 17, 2025.**