Curated by Iris Moon, “Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art interrogates the aestheticization and commodification of porcelain—and how these attitudes were (and are) co-constructive to conceptions of Asian femininity. On through August 17, 2025, the eclectic exhibition contains nearly 200 works that range from 16th-century European chinoiserie to contemporary works by Asian and Asian American women artists, creating a discourse that spans across oceans and time.

Moon’s revisionary approach enables us to reframe the style of Chinoiserie as capacious rather than reductive, and the renewed context invigorates boundless potential for Asian femininity in the many, infinite ways that it may be.