What I did for my summer vacation

It’s a little bit of a joke with us that even when we’re not working, we’re working.  Despite traveling several thousand miles away from the museum, I still managed to get some work into my holiday.

In Berlin I visited the Pergamon Museum, which houses both the Greek Pergamon Altar and the Assyrian Ishtar Gate. While the blockbuster architectural elements were spectacular, my favorite pieces were wrought on a more intimate scale.

incensor, West Asia

Koran stand and architectural detail

a room filled with suzani, elaborately embroidered Uzbek textiles

The Islamic and Near East collections follow an Islamic narrative through Asia and Europe, much in the same manner that the Asian Art Museum’s collection spans Buddhism from South to East Asia.  The care taken in the details of the didactics was evident, and I was reminded how far museums have come from their early origins as cabinets of curiosity or depositories of diplomatic treasure.  To that end, the Pergamon Museum, which has stood largely unchanged since 1930, is undergoing a much-overdue remodel that will put it at the center of Museum Island’s complex.

Not far outside of Berlin is Potsdam’s Park Sansoucci, Frederick the Great’s summer palace.  One might call it a more intimate version of Versailles, but then again I suppose one might call New York City a charming little island.  The name of the palace comes from the French sans souci, meaning carefree, and the great lazy sprawl of the place demands a full day of wandering through the gardens and grottoes.

By the time I had made it to the park’s church, I was approaching a marble statuary O.D., but I’m grateful that I soldiered on, as I was instantly revitalized by the familiar sight of Chinese sculptor Wang Shugang’s sweeping monks.

The 2009 work, Sweeping, was organized by the Alexander Ochs Gallery (Berlin/Beijing).

What does it say about me that in one of Western Europe’s great heritage sites I felt most at home among anomalous Chinese art? Perhaps I was feeling homesick for San Francisco, which is neither too west nor too east, but that platonic third bowl of porridge: just right.  Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better about being back at work again.  Whatever the case, I think I’m done with baroque marble sculpture for at least the next little while.