With the close of Poetry in Clay on January 8, the Asian Art Museum’s Korean galleries have once again become a work in progress. A collection of old friends — ceramic and metal works from the museum’s collection — are on their way back.

The reinstalled gallery will re-open this weekend, so be sure to take a moment to revisit your favorite Korean works.

But in addition to works from the collection, we have another treat on view. When the museum opened at Civic Center back in 2003, the Korean artist Cho Duk-Hyun excavated a pack of dogs on museum grounds as part of the Eureka project. Ten of these dogs were later given to the museum. As part of the Korean gallery reinstallation, we’ve let these dogs out of their storage crate for a brief romp. You can check the pups out and watch a video documenting their unearthing starting January 28.

Museum photographer Kaz Tsuruta photographs each dog on its way to the gallery.

Bonus Quiz: There are nine dogs in the gallery but ten in the pack that was given to the museum. Can you guess where doggy number ten is? Put your answer in the comments below.

Curator of Korean Art Hyonjeong Kim Han, registrar Cathy Mano, and exhibition manager Kelly Bennett wrangle Cho Duk-Hyun's dogs into the Korean gallery alcove.

Here/Not Here: Buddha Presence in Eight Recent Works

Be sure to take some time to enjoy the works of Jakkai Siributr, Sopheap Pich, and Pinaree Sanpitak before they leave the museum. Their last day on view is October 23.

"Candles" (2010) and "Buddha 2" (2009) by Sopheap Pich

Personally, I am particularly fond of Sopheap Pich’s unraveling rattan Buddha image, but you may favor Jakkai Siributr’s colorful offerings or Pinaree’s Sanpitak’s contemplative containers. But you won’t know unless you come this weekend!

Whew! Over the past month, museum exhibition staff have concentrated all their effort on getting the exhibition Maharaja installed and ready for your admiring eyes. And I have to tell you, this exhibition is full of fabulous objects with incredible stories. Be prepared for the promised bling, and for some unexpected surprises.

We kicked off the install by opening the museum up to the outside world, literally. The Maharaja object list includes a silver carriage and an enormous painting that are too large to navigate the many turns between the museum’s loading dock and the exhibition galleries. Our solution: bring them through a window instead. Check out this cool time-lapse video of the carriage crate entering the building and its subsequent unpacking.

Among the most time-consuming objects to install were the many dazzling costumes worn by maharajas and maharanis. Above, textile conservators dress a manikin in an elegant 1930s sari made for Princess Niloufer Khanum of Hyderabad.

While we often think of traditional Indian paintings as exquisite but small, Maharaja includes a number of larger format paintings. Here, an oil painting of Madhu Rao II Narayan is unpacked and prepared for hanging.

Now that we’ve finished unpacking, condition checking, and installing the artworks we can begin applying the finishing touches. Our team will work on perfecting labels and signage, lighting cases to maximize their impact, and otherwise preparing for a dazzling opening.

Learn more about the exhibition Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts, on view October 21, 2011 – April 8, 2012

In preparation for the exhibition Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, museum staff have removed all of the permanent collection artwork from the Korean galleries and tucked them away in storage.

With the empty gallery as their canvas, curators from both museums took the time to lay out Poetry in Clay, finalizing the placement and orientation of each object.  This is important because the earthquake mounts that stabilize each artwork are specific to both the artwork and its display position.

Once the layout was finalized, museum mountmakers jumped into action.  Because we are located in an active seismic zone, the museum must make sure that every artwork is able to withstand some serious shaking. For many three-dimensional works, this means creating a seismic mount that secures the object to its display case.

Each mount is  hand formed to fit the exact contours of the artwork, and crafted from conservation safe materials. It may take a skilled mountmaker an entire day to make a single mount. Once all the mounts are completed, we’ll be back upstairs installing these very special works.

Poetry in Clay opens to the public on September 16, 2011 and will remain on view until January 8, 2012.

Over the past two days I’ve heard this question from several staff and visitors who have encountered a spread of crates and precariously placed ceramics outside the doors of the Korean galleries.

"Translation Series" by Meekyoung Shin. Soap, pigment, varnish, mirrored steel plate, wooden crate. Lent by the Artist.

The answer: We’re done!

And a clarification: That’s not clay!

Meekyoung Shin’s Translation Series plays with many things: material, process, place. Those elegant vases are made of humble soap. Perched on their travel crates, they look to me like they have just arrived at the museum— or alternatively are just leaving.

Conservator Mark Fenn condition checks a soap vase from the Translation Series prior to installation.

Soap sculpture is new to museum exhibition staff. In planning the installation, our team has had deep discussion about  burning questions such as how does one secure soap in the case of an earthquake, and will it melt under the lights?

Curator of Korean Art Hyonjeong Kim Han oversees installation of Meekyoung Shin's "Ghost Series" in the Korean gallery.

Meekyoung Shin will be featured as an AsiaAlive artist in September, in conjunction with the exhibition Poetry in Clay: Korean Ceramics from the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. You can enjoy her Translation Series, along with several other contemporary Korean works that reference ceramic traditions in the museum’s Korean galleries and on the west end of the Loggia.

Here is what’s happening: we’re bringing Bali to you! Museum exhibition staff have been busy unpacking loans, condition checking objects, arranging cases, and even building a Balinese pavilion under our own roof.

We still have two weeks  until the exhibition opens to the public, but here’s a quick peek of what we’re doing between now and then.

Senior Registrar Sharon Steckline checks up on a set of gold earrings, held secure with their new custom mounts.

While the galleries are being prepared, borrowed objects are carefully unpacked.

After unpacking, objects such as this spectacular barong mask must be condition checked before installation.

Because of its large size, the pavilion in Vinson gallery was transported disassembled. Here it is being put back together.

Exhibition Designer Stephen Penkowsky supervises the placement of carved statues in Osher gallery.

The galleries begin to take shape as the objects move into place.

One of Jiro Okura's Mountain Lake screens is packed. Because of their great weight and the delicately affixed gold leaf surface, these screens present unique handling and transportation challenges.

Museum conservator Shiho Sasaki closely examines the condition of each screen before packing.

Museum preparation staff pack each screen in a custom travel crate. Before crating, the screens are protectively wrapped.

What’s next for our exhibition staff? We’re busy rebuilding the galleries for Bali: Art, Performance, Ritual. Where Beyond Golden Clouds was a spare and spacious gallery experience, Bali promises to be full of a different sort of energy. Keep tuned for sneak peeks as construction commences!

Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art at San Francisco International Airport (photo courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums).

Beginning this week, more than one hundred objects from the museum’s collection will be featured in the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) exhibition Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art. Based on the work of Asian Art Museum curator emeritus Terese Tse Bartholomew, this exhibition explores auspicious symbols and wish-granting motifs found in Chinese art.

Artwork ready to be packed for transportation to SFO. Some objects, such as this plate, have never been on view.

It’s a pretty cool show featuring incredible works of art and a full serving of puns and general cleverness. While some of the featured objects were on view at the museum in 2006, others are being displayed here for the first time.

Carefully packed objects are loaded onto trucks for the trip to the airport.

Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art is the second in a series of airport exhibitions highlighting objects from the Asian Art Museum. The first exhibition in this group — Later Chinese Jades — will continue to be on view  in SFO’s International Terminal through the weekend of June 5 – 6 (you can listen to some great NPR coverage about this exhibition and others at the airport here).

Museum Senior Registrar Sharon Steckline supervises installation of the artwork in SFO's United Terminal (photo courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums).

Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art will be on view to ticketed passengers only in SFO’s United Terminal until January 2011. For more information about this exhibition, including previews of selected artwork, visit the website of the San Francisco Airport Museums.

(If you’re not traveling, the airport museum website also lists a number of exhibitions that are open to non-ticketed visitors. Especially cool is the show Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World. It’s just the thing to get you in the mood for Shanghai at the Asian Art Museum!)

We blogged about this upcoming addition to the neighborhood some months ago, and are now thrilled to actually see it going up right outside our doors!

The fifteen ton copper sculpture will officially debut next week, but first it needs to be put together. Because of its size, the sculpture was created and shipped in multiple sections, to be assembled on site.

One of six arms pulls up in front of the museum

Each section must be carefully fitted onto the sculpture’s torso. The bright orange interior armature of the statue is clearly visible in these image, but will be hidden once the sculpture is fully put together.

Moving an arm into alignment

The completed sculpture will be dedicated on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 10 a.m. That same evening, the San Francisco Arts Commission and the the Asian Art Museum will present a public program featuring Zhang Huan in conversation with museum director Jay Xu.

Three Heads Six Arms (2008) will be on view through 2011.

First, newly on view in the South Asian galleries is a recently acquired silver bowl featuring scenes of Zoroastrian rulers. Made in a Burmese silver shop for a well-to-do Parsi family, this impressive bowl measures more than a foot in diameter and was meant for use in an annual ceremony honoring deceased relatives.

Ceremonial bowl with Zoroastrian themes, approx. 1875. Burma. Silver. Acquisition made possible by the Zarthosti Anjuman of Northern California, Rati Forbes, Betty N. Alberts, and members of the board of the Society for Asian Art in honor of Past President Nazneen Spliedt, AAM# 2009.25

The events depicted on this bowl are well known in ancient Persian sculptures. Perhaps most notably, compare this bowl against the famous relief and inscription of Darius I located at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bisitun.

Inscription and relief of Darius I at Behistun

Also newly on view in the South Asian galleries is a metal plate displaying an elaborate floral decoration. This is an example of the “bidri ware” produced in south-central India using a complex casting, engraving, inlay, and chemical process.

Plate, approx. 1700. India; perhaps Andhra Pradesh state. Zinc alloy with silver and brass inlay. Gift of Martha Davidson in memory of J. LeRoy Davidson, AAM# B86M12

Finally, In the Chinese galleries we just installed a ritual food vessel (gui) dating to the Western Zhou dynasty (1050-771 BCE). This particular vessel has a curious connection to Shanghai. According to curator Michael Knight:

“The inscription on this vessel tells us it was cast for someone named Zhui. A vessel of similar shape and also cast for Zhui appears in the 1892 hand scroll Illustrations of the Antique Collection of Kezhai, on display in the Shanghai special exhibition galleries on the first floor. There are at least four other vessels of the same shape with the same inscription, making it impossible to determine if the piece illustrated in the scroll and this one are the same.”

Ritual food vessel, approx. 900-850 BCE. China. Bronze. The Avery Brundage Collection, AAM# B60B1056

We’ve got lots more objects lined up! Keep an eye on this blog for news of additional gallery changes over the coming months.