In case you were wondering,

THIS is what is going on in Shanghai right now.  And this.  But my favorite has to be this. These days I’m just as likely to click on Shanghaiist as I am SFist.  It isn’t enough that I have to keep up with what’s going on in San Francisco; I have to take our sister city arrangement very seriously.

While there’s plenty of excitement in all this potential energy, I’m actually more interested in what will remain after the Shanghai Expo.  We seemed to make out alright, didn’t we?

PS good job Shanghaiist!  We look forward to your reportage over the coming months.

The Other Shanghai: JG Ballard

I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that’s my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again… the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.

–JG Ballard

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Field Trip to the Asian Art Museum

“Hey so you know Mr. C, the history teacher? He is actually pretty cool for a teacher I guess. He set up this field trip to go to the Asian Art Museum next month.”

“Yeah? That place is hecka cool man. I went there a couple times in elementary school and we did some Chinese painting class and another time had a samurai thing.”

“Neat! You know my cousin, she’s really into art, she is doing a program there where they’re talking to a high school in China.

“That’s cool. Yo, I heard that this one time, they even had some kung-fu guys breaking bricks and stuff!”

“No way! That’s awesome. This will actually be kinda fun. Go Mr. C!”

The Bund in 360

Always wanted to go to Shanghai? Here’s a 360 degree view of The Bund. Set to full screen and it’s almost like you’re there.

Shanghai Film Series: Chinese Cinema Legend Ruan Lingyu

This Sunday the Asian Art Museum will be screening two films in a tribute to Ruan Lingyu, the legendary Shanghai film star. Although Ruan was not the most popular star of her day (that honor went to Butterfly Wu, who was elected “Empress of Film” by the city’s fervent moviegoers), her suicide on March 8, 1935 at the age of 25 bestowed Ruan with an immortality that has made her the undisputed icon of Chinese silent cinema. Since her life is well documented elsewhere, and also the subject of Sunday’s second feature, I won’t repeat it here. But I will encourage you to check out the biography written by Richard J. Meyer, Ruan Ling-Yu: The Goddess of Shanghai, which comes packaged with a DVD of The Goddess (1935), her best and most famous film. You can order it from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
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The award goes to …

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the architectural firm, SANAA, are the 2010 Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor.

Here’s a sample of their projects:

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Contributing to Treasures

Would you like to write for the museum’s magazine, Treasures? We are currently soliciting contributions for our summer issue. Following are details:

What’s going on?

We are interested in hearing about visitor reactions to Shanghai. We will publish the results in the July issue of our members magazine, Treasures.

What kind of commentaries are acceptable?

There are no restrictions on content, except that the Shanghai exhibition must be the subject, and we cannot publish material that is plagiarized, offensive, or libelous. What we would like are thoughtful commentaries that relate to the art on view and visitors’ responses to it. Personal connections to the topic are especially welcome.

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Spring rotations

Have you been in the galleries recently? If so, you may have noticed that we are in the midst of rotation season right now. Each week, we remove another group of light sensitive objects from view and replace them with works from storage. Attentive visitors can track these changes by looking for the blue “newly on view” dots in the galleries.

Japanese baskets, newly on view

Most recently we’ve made changes to our Chinese painting display, Japanese basket area, and the second floor Korean gallery. So what might you see on your next visit?

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A Curator’s Notes – Why Shanghai?

Within the first day of the opening of the Shanghai exhibition on February 12, 2010, a public engagement of unexpected proportions with the art on display began.  Individuals have been writing up a storm on comment cards, comment books, news articles, and online blog postings that expressed their emotional responses to the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of the exhibition material.  Added to the writings are lots of verbal feedback in various conversations with visitors, stimulating interesting buzz around the museum.  I do not want to miss out on this exciting community discussion!  This blog series, A Curator’s Notes, is where I will contribute my two cents on, and inside knowledge of, the controversial issues and hot topics presented in Shanghai at the Asian Art Museum.

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Cherry Blossom Festival

The cherry blossom festival just started in Japan. This annual event takes place in the parks, shrines, and gardens in the Tokyo area where millions of Japanese come out to view the blossoms. So I have this great idea: why not replace the trees surrounding the museum with cherry trees? I can just imagine how spectacular that might look when they start blooming this time of the year.