My homework this week is scanning old Chinese movies for interesting clips of Shanghai for possible screening in the exhibition. The exhibition curator Michael Knight was given a stack of DVDs from a Chinese contact with permission to use. (I think they are all in the public domain).
乌鸦与麻雀 / Crows and Sparrows poster (1949)
During the Afghanistan exhibition last year, we hosted a lecture by Rory Stewart (available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube and iTunesU), who is perhaps best known around the museum for his book about his walk across Afghanistan called The Places in Between.
Rory Stewart views the Afghan exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in 2008
I was surprised to learn he is running as a Tory to serve as Member of Parliament to represent the English district of Penrith and The Border, a beautiful, remote, and recently flood-plagued region along the England/Scotland border. He has written an amusing yet thoughtful account of his campagning, done, you guessed it, by walking the district and meeting people along the route, including “a lurcher called Prospero.” Those of you who read The Places in Between may be reminded of another great dog, Babur. If elected he hopes to narrow the “gap between government rhetoric and reality from Britain to Baghdad. . . . and help change the culture of government.” Good luck Rory.
Asian Art Museum director Jay Xu (center) with his wife Jennifer (left) actress Joan Chen (right). Photo by Catherine Bigelow
It’s one of those pinch-me-is-this-for-real? moments: today I was sending an email to Joan Chen, yes THAT Joan Chen–the super talented and gorgeous film star and director. I think the first movie I saw her in was The Last Emperor and the most recent was Lust, Caution, much of which was set in Shanghai. Those two mega movies bookend an incredibly interesting career that still has lots of surprises in store. Checking out her filmography on Wikipedia I was delighted to note she starred in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, set in the lovely (no sarcasm intended) city of Baltimore (”Ball-more” for many natives), near where I grew up. Homicide used to be my favorite TV show so now I will be hunting this episode down. Did you know she also played Josie Packard in David Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks?
One of my favorite memories from childhood is about a clay project my family and I did after a memorable visit to a local museum’s Picasso ceramics exhibition (this was when I had no idea who PICASSO was). We (mostly my mom) carefully extracted whole skeleton from a fish and made impression on a slab of clay and made it into a shallow dish. My mother’s colleague fired it in a kiln for us, and she inaugurated it by having a fish dish in it that night. I soon graduated to making ashtrays by myself, and those simple art projects with my mother set me on the path of enjoying making art (and now I know who Picasso was).
Here are some of the samples of art activities from the museum’s awesome Education team. My current favorites are Japanese Teahouse and Thai Spirit House making, since they appeal to my sense of accomplishment. For more fun activities, please see the museum’s family program page.
Enjoy!
One of the challenges in planning and implementing public programs is making sure we have appropriate images to represent our programs, sometimes a frustrating and time-consuming process. The image being used to promote our upcoming tea program is not correct.
What’s wrong with this picture? The tea programs on Nov. 14 feature presentations by members of the Omotesenke tradition of tea. In the Omotesenke tradition, tea is prepared using many of the same utensils as any other Japanese tea lineage, but the tea is not whisked quite so vigorously as others might (for example the image above, which shows an Urasenke-style bowl of tea). Rather, Omotesenke style tea is blended more gently and has less froth on the top. I searched Google images for a more appropriate picture and I found only a few, such as this one in ceramic artist Cory Lum’s Flickr stream. I will need to be sure to take our own picture of an Omotesenke bowl of tea next week so we can have one readily available for future programs. Or if there are any Omotesenke practitioners out there who have rights to a good image you are willing to let us use, please let me know.
Want to know how to prepare a bowl of tea at home? Come to our workshop on November 14. On that same day you may also attend a tea gathering where you will be served a sweet and bowl of tea at the museum’s tearoom. This is our last tea of 2009 and thus is special in the annual tea calendar. It is a time to reflect on the past year and consider all the things you might like to complete before the new year, people you want to see, and make preparations to ensure that the coming year is a good one.
Tea bowl by Nonomura Ninsei (1615-1700) Stoneware with polychrome enamel decoration. Gift of the Connoisseurs' Council and Bruce and Betty Alberts, 1991.230.
It is also a time when people use utensils with images of the twelve animals from the Chinese zodiac, such as this bowl with a dragon image. We are in the year of the Ox and are coming up to the year of the Tiger on February 14, 2010. People will have lots of fun bringing out their utensils with tiger motifs in particular since that is the year ahead. Although Japan has adopted the Western calendar and celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1, there are still many traditions that are linked to the Chinese calendar system which is based on the lunar cycle. Here is an article about the tea calendar.
School Programs are a large and crucial part of the museum’s Education department’s work that may be less visible to the general visitor than other types of programming. School Programs staff have varied backgrounds, often as classroom teachers and artists, in museum studies, education, fine arts, art history, and Asian studies. We work closely with volunteer docents and storytellers, Education department colleagues, other museum departments, and teachers, administrators, artists, and arts providers in the community.
iTunes U is a portal in Apple’s iTunes Store wherein educational institutions can provide FREE, high-quality downloadable content for you to enjoy on your Mac, PC, iPod or iPhone. Important! You will need Apple’s iTunes application to access iTunes U. To download a free version of iTunes for Mac or PC, please visit: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ .
The Asian Art Museum’s exciting new site on iTunes U enables the museum to extend its educational mission by reaching further beyond the museums’ walls. The content featured on the site includes a diverse range of multimedia resources on Asian art and culture such as audio guides and videos on the museum’s acclaimed collection and special exhibitions; public lectures by renowned scholars; educator resource packets and art activities; footage from museum performances, events and demonstrations; short documentaries; and much more!
To begin exploring the Asian Art Museum’s new iTunes U site, please visit: http://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/asianart.org
For an excellent tutorial on how to use iTunes U, see: http://www.apple.com/education/guidedtours/itunesu.html
People are serious about their swords. I was trying to show the swords and sword guards (tsuba) on view in Hambrecht to a friend the other day, but couldn’t quite reach the cases housing these finely crafted beauties. A group of hungry-eyed gentlemen hovered over them like vultures waiting for lunch—mouths open, staring. Although I tried, even my most effective derby moves weren’t enough to get the two of us close enough to see the displays. We ended up looking at the campaign coat until the men moved on to the next gallery and my friend and I were alone (at last) with the swords.
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Samurai wore elaborate suits of armor to protect themselves in battle. Four distinct styles were worn—the showier, fancy armor generally saved for ceremonies –oyoroi and domaru-gusoku — and the two that were more often actually worn in battle, haramaki and tosei-gusoku (in case you haven’t already, you can see samurai armor on view at the museum through September 20). Armor was made of materials such as iron, bronze, metal, leather, lacquer and braided silk, and constructed in pieces so the samurai could move easily when fighting their enemies. Among other pieces, samurai armor consisted of the breastplate (dō), which protected the samurai’s heart and guts, and the tassets (kusazuri), which protected the hips. Like the helmets samurai wore, breastplates were often decorated with elaborate designs that distinguished them from the other samurai, guardian figures that protected them and creepy imagery that frightened their opponents. Ever wondered what it’s like to wear samurai armor? Make your own and find out!
Kyogen is a form of traditional Japanese theater and performance art. Kyogen can be literally translated as “mad words” or “wild speech”. This art form grew out of folk and Imperial court song and dance. Later the art form gradually divided into two branches. The more serious forms and elements further evolved into the masked no drama, the more comic forms and elements evolving into kyogen. Eventually lineages or schools of kyogen came into prominence and codified many of the traditions. I could go on and on about the history of kyogen and the intricacies of the art form, but that type of discourse is best left to my far more eloquent and expert colleagues.
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Welcome to the blog of the Asian Art Museum–Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture. Located in San Francisco's historic Civic Center, we are one of the world's largest museums devoted to Asian art and culture. For more information see the "about" tab or visit our main website by clicking the image of our building.
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