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.

In particular I would call out one object on the list: a screen titled Sun and Autumn Plants. I think that this is a wonderful example of a recent gift because not only did the donor give us, in the name of her family, this beloved screen that had been in her home for many decades (she was downsizing to a senior community) but she also donated funds to pay for a complete conservation treatment and remounting of the screen. Next year we will send it to a traditional Japanese mounter located in New York who will conserve and entirely remount it – a process that will take about 18 months. Because of the specialist labor and materials involved, remounting is quite expensive and something we cannot frequently do. Once remounted, this work will be ready for display and will also be in better condition to survive many more decades.

We want to acknowledge all who have contributed in some way, large or small, to our community. If you are a member, don’t forget to take advantage of our special offer for members through November 27. It’s our small way of saying thanks.

Objects from Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance are deinstalled following the close of the exhibition.

Most of the objects in Bali were borrowed from lenders in the Netherlands. Returning these works was therefore quite a journey.
On a Sunday evening I watched as a semi-truck was loaded with the crated artwork at the museum. We then hit the rode for an all night drive to Los Angeles International Airport, arriving at 4:00 AM for a flight several hours later. We waited in the truck until it was time to load the cargo.

It is my responsibility to make sure that all the crates make it safely on the plane. This can be one of the most stressful parts of the journey because I cannot board the plane until all the crates are inside the aircraft.  I have a security supervisor down on the tarmac who will call me to tell me that it is okay to board.  For this flight I can also see the loading from the window of the boarding area. Only half the crates have made it onto the plane when the flight crew calls for final boarding.  I have to pull out my best negotiating skills to explain why I am not able to get on the plane.  Fortunately, the crew allows me to check in and I only board after I receive that crucial phone call giving me the okay.

The journey doesn’t end at the airport in Amsterdam. I must next accompany the crates back to the many lenders all over the Netherlands.  Here is a photo from inside the truck while on the road.

Our objects conservator, Mark Fenn, flew directly to Amsterdam to assist with final condition checking. As each crate is returned to its owner, we must unpack them and condition check the objects to make sure that they traveled safely. In the picture below  Mark is working with Fiona MacKinnon, registrar from the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden. They are looking over the golden throne chairs that were featured in the exhibition.  The chairs are safely back in the storage area in Leiden.

I am pleased to report that all the objects from the Bali exhibition traveled safely back to the lenders in the Netherlands and in the United States. I finally get to close these files and begin concentrating on my next exhibition project, Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past, opening in May 2012.

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.

This exhibition is presented in a different manner than an exhibition at the Asian would. The exhibition at the AMNH takes you along the world’s oldest international highway, on a voyage that spans six centuries (AD 600-1200). It showcases four representative cities: Xi’an, China’s Tang Dynasty capital; Turfan, a bustling oasis; Samarkand, home of prosperous merchants; and Baghdad, a meeting place for scholars, scientists, and philosophers.

The exhibition at the AMNH is now closed, but will be traveling to four additional museums outside the United States. The Art Science Museum, Singapore, December 20, 2010 – April 3, 2011 The National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan, June 11 – September 11, 2011 The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan, October 29, 2011 – January 29, 2012 and The National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia, March 31- September 1, 2012 We are also adding one additional object to the exhibition which is being packed right now.

AMNH loan being packed

This piece is a three-footed plate of glazed earthenware from China and is Tang dynasty (618-906).

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!

"The Silk Road" at AMNH (image courtesy American Museum of Natural History)

Since this is a natural history museum, the show was presented in a very different manner than an exhibition at the Asian would be.

The AMNH exhibition took the visitor along the world’s oldest international highway, on a voyage that spans six centuries (AD 600-1200). It showcased four representative cities: Xi’an, China’s Tang Dynasty capital; Turfan, a bustling oasis; Samarkand, home of prosperous merchants; and Baghdad, a meeting place for scholars, scientists, and philosophers.

While the AMNH presentation of The Silk Road ended in August, the show has hit the road (or airways) and will now travel to four additional museums outside of the United States:

• The Art Science Museum, Singapore, December 20, 2010 – April 3, 2011.
• The National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan, June 11 – September 11, 2011.
• The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan, October 29, 2011 – January 29, 2012
• The National Museum of Australia, Canberra, Australia, March 31- September 1, 2012.

That’s a whole lot of traveling! In addition to the objects included in the AMNH exhibition, we just finished packing up one addition that will be added to the traveling version of the show.

This object is a three-footed plate of glazed earthenware from China’s Tang dynasty (618-906). It’s been packed into a crate for safe transportation from San Francisco to New York to the four Pacific cities of The Silk Road tour, continuing a journey that started in China many, many, years ago.

The Beyond Golden Clouds: Five Centuries of Japanese Screens exhibition has arrived from halfway across the country — the St. Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Staff from each institution were required to accompany the shipments by riding on long-haul trucks for well over 40 hours. We are now installing the exhibition and the screens, and the galleries are really lovely. One of the most exciting pieces is contemporary, the From the Mountain Lake Screen Tachi Series by Okura Jiro; the screens in this series have gold foil pieces attached to them, and they leave some tiny pieces of gold foil in their wake. This is not normally what we like to see, but the artist created these screens with the intention of seeing them deteriorate over the years.

In a true collaboration, both lenders have portions of the screen and we have placed them together, and they are fantastic. The screens are a wonderful mixture of traditional and contemporary and I look forward to the public will be able to see them on Oct. 15.

Rear view of the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA)

The Asian has had loans from our permanent collection on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) since February 1992. At that time SAMA, which opened their doors in 1981 in the remodeled historic Lone Star Brewery complex, had a collection of Asian Art which they supplemented by borrowing additional pieces for display.

In May 2005 SAMA opened the new Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing, a 15,000 square foot suite of galleries.  Over the years,  SAMA has continued to build their Asian art collection which has have grown to include more than 1,500 works from China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam.  The collection spans nearly 6,000 years of history.

The Hindu deity Parvati, approx. 1200-1400. Southern India. Stone. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60S50+

Most of the loans from the Asian Art Museum were returned to San Francisco for the opening of the new Asian in 2003, but there are still five sculptures left on display in the SAMA permanent galleries. One of the sculptures is Chinese and the rest are South Asian and Southeast Asian.

My fellow registrars at SAMA

We recently revised the inspection trip to occur biennially. I enjoy visiting my colleagues at SAM and it is always interesting to see how the museum has evolved over the years.  This trip I was particularly pleased to discover the famous Riverwalk has been extended all the way to the museum.

"Vestiges of a Process: Shanghai Garden" during installation.

Shanghai has been up a little more than a week, long enough for a number of media reviews, blog posts, and general discussion points to emerge. One piece that seems to elicit particular comment is Zhang Jian Jun’s installation Vestiges of a Process: Shanghai Garden (2009).

Down in the shadowy basement and back halls of the museum services division, this is known affectionately as the piece with the bricks. Not just your garden variety red clay bricks, but some 3,000 antique grey bricks taken from the remains of buildings dating to the high-times of 1920s Shanghai, recently demolished to pave the way for new construction.

Bricks ready for unpacking.

Of course, bringing over 3,000 bricks from China is not as simple as dropping them off at the post office. Weighting in at over 11,000 pounds, the fifteen crates of individually packed bricks were flown from Shanghai to Los Angeles aboard a cargo plane, and then loaded onto a truck to San Francisco, accompanied by a museum registrar the entire way.

Museum preparators clean the surface of bricks to be stacked.

Because of earthquake concerns, the bricks stacked around the rock platforms needed to be secured against movement. With bricks fresh from a demolition site, this meant carefully cleaning the surfaces of loose debris so that adhesives could bond. As a result, the museum’s preparation team vacuumed a lot of bricks.

Zhang Jian Jun constructs his garden.

Each brick was carefully placed by the artist, who took advantage of the wide expanse of North Court to extend his installation in all directions. The completed work combines all those bricks with two pink silicone rubber scholar’s rocks (taihu), a silicone rubber vase, and tiny bits of artificial greenery emerging from the cracks. It’s an evocative statement about the transition between the city old and new, a theme our visitors will find woven throughout Shanghai.