Who Let the Dogs Out?

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.

A Gallery Guide to Dragons

Snuff bottle with dragons, Qing dynasty, approx. 1800-1900.

Lunar New Year will be celebrated on Monday, January 23 this year. It is the Year of the Black Water Dragon, which many people believe will bring good fortune and prosperity. Dragons are considered good luck because they symbolize fertility and bring rain – given the weather we’re experiencing in San Francisco today it looks like the dragon has arrived a little early.

In Chinese tradition the dragon is an ancient symbol of rank and power and emperors wore dragons on their robes. Dragons with five claws represent the Emperor, and dragons with fewer claws represent other members of the royal family.

We have a lot of Chinese dragons here at the museum, so we’ve highlighted a few you can visit this weekend in anticipation of the Year of the Dragon. The snuff bottle above and the two pieces below are in our China galleries.

This glorious rug is from Qing dynasty China, approx. 1700-1800.

Detail from bottle with a dragon and a phoenix; Ming dynasty.

There are more Chinese dragons to be found in the Loggia at the top of the grand staircase. Here’s one you can look out for:

Jar with dragons amid clouds, Ming dynasty. From the Avery Brundage collection.

There are many more dragons, large and small, in the museum’s collection. Tell us about your favorite in the comments!

Bye bye Buncheong

Translated Vase, Yee Sookyung, 2007. Courtesy the artist.

This weekend our Korean ceramic exhibition, Poetry in Clay, is leaving us.

If you haven’t had a chance to explore this showcase of buncheong ceramics, you’d better hurry in. Even if you have seen it, I’ve found it’s an exhibition worthy of a second look.

While some people, like our marketing manager Jenn, immediately connect with the beauty of these pieces, for others (myself included) it’s a slower process. My co-worker Amelia came to appreciate the works through the class narrative that forms part of the context of the exhibition. For me, the way in was through the contemporary works, especially the vessels made from soap. That’s right, soap. I’m not giving you a sneak preview; you’ll have to come see them for yourself.

Luckily, some of the contemporary pieces (such as the Translated Vase, pictured) will remain on view in the loggia until April, but the juxtaposition of old and new is central to this show, so to get the full experience you’ll need to join us this weekend – perhaps on our Target First Free Sunday on January 8. Hope to see you there.

Where did all the Korean art go?

If you’ve been on the museum’s second floor lately to enjoy our new installation of contemporary Korean art, you may have noticed a corresponding sudden lack of traditional Korean art in the adjacent galleries. Where did it all go?

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.

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The Asian Art Museum travels on the Silk Road

The Asian Art Museum often provides loans from our collection to other museums for permanent gallery display (see my May 7 blog entry about lending to the San Antonio Museum of Art) and for special exhibitions.  Sometimes the borrowing institution travels these exhibitions on to other museums.  This past summer, we lent several objects to an exhibition titled The Silk Road – Ancient Pathway to the Modern World organized by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York.

"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.
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Not so hidden after all

Flying someplace fabulous this summer? If so you might just stumble across the Asian Art Museum on your way out of town.

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.
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In with the new

June 31 is the end of the museum’s official business year, so over the past few weeks staff throughout the museum have been busy going over the happenings and accomplishments of the last twelve months. For registration, part of this has included checking that the year’s new acquisitions are in order.

Every year is a little different when it comes to acquisitions. Factors such as current art trends, the economic environment, and serendipity all interact with curatorial priorities and exhibition plans. But one thing I’ve noticed this year is an increase in the number of gifts of work by living artists. With this in mind, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite such gifts from the past year.

The White Wild Kerria Rose, 2004 from the series "Ceramic Representations From Natural History", By Sugiura Yasuyoshi (Japanese, born 1949), Stoneware with white, dark brown, and gold glazes; cloth texturing and carving, Gift of Paul and Kathleen Bissinger, F2009.15

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Teabowls!

Taking a teabowl into one’s hands conveys volumes of information that cannot be gleaned by viewing them from behind glass–a sad necessity in museums. Staff, volunteers, and the public have been fortunate to have been able to handle several museum quality teabowls over the past few weeks in the context of the tea-related programming.

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What is porcelain and when was it developed?

Covered jar with fish in lotus pond, 1368-1644. China; Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt decoration and overglaze multicolor decoration. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P78+

Recently our curators of Chinese art were discussing the vexing problem of the term porcelain, which is understood differently in China and in the West. What follows summarizes some of their discussion.
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Raku with a big “R”

This humble looking tea bowl, which will be on view this summer in the Lords of the Samurai exhibition, is attributed to Raku Chojiro (died 1589) the first generation of Japan’s most famous family of ceramic artists represented today by Raku Kichizaemon (born 1949) the 15th generation in the lineage. “Raku” carries multiple meanings. It is the name of one of Japan’s most prestigious artistic families, founded by the artist who made this teabowl; and it describes teabowls fired in small kilns by generations of the Raku family. Potters around the world today use “raku” to describe a type of low-temperature firing that was inspired by Japanese Raku but which has morphed into something completely different, untethered to Japanese tradition.

Little is known about Chojiro. Popular stories about his biography say his family originated from Korean tilemakers but the official Raku family website says
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