About Town: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Here at the Asian Art Museum we are getting excited about our spring show, Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past. One of the artists featured in the show will be Hiroshi Sugimoto, who recently opened Photogenic Drawings at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (until February 25).

The works on view at the Fraenkel are very different from the pieces we will have in Phantoms, so if you’re in the Bay Area the next few months offer a great opportunity to get to know Sugimoto’s work.

And if you want to get to know the artist as well, Art21 has some great videos and other information. In this one, Sugimoto takes us on a guided tour of his “cabinet of curiosities.”

Chinese Artist Chang Dai-chien: Bigger than Picasso?

Chinese artist Chang Dai-chien (also known as Zhang Daqian) may not have the kind of name recognition that Pablo Picasso enjoys, but in 2011 he ousted the Spaniard as the biggest auction earner in recent years. Chang’s works made $506.7 million in auction sales last year, according to Artprice, and two other Chinese artists were in the top five earners.

Here at the museum, we were excited to see Chang’s name in the news because one of his paintings, Clouded Mountain, will soon go on view in our China gallery.

As a preeminent painter of twentieth-century China, Chang integrated modern sensibilities into traditional Chinese painting. In 1956 he made his first pan-European tour, at which time his eyesight began to deteriorate. During this time, he unexpectedly developed his most innovative painting technique of splashed ink and color. Clouded Mountains exemplifies the splashed ink technique. The poem, inscribed by Chang, reads:

I was in the mood to paint in the middle of night
My wife and son were awakened from their dreams
Ink overturned and running out of control
Emerging from the summer clouds a celestial mountain

Chang’s painting will go on view on January 24.

UPDATED Chinese Calligraphy Meets Haute Couture

Thanks to all who participated in this little word game. Actually, you guys are right on the mark! The characters read:

Take out the hairpin,
See the reflection of the stream.
Lie in bed with books around,
Wake up to comb hair, half drunk.
– Xu Bing

These lines are adapted from a Tang-dynasty poem by Yu Xuanji 魚玄機 (842-72) titled, “Curing Yourself of Lovesickness” 遣懷.

Contemporary art and high fashion have long been partners-in-crime. Browsing the September 2011 issue of Vogue, I was delighted to come upon contemporary artist Xu Bing 徐冰 in one of the editorials! Xu is pictured here with a modeled Calvin Klein Collection shift, which, in my opinion, is a perfect pairing of a master of line and form in fashion (Klein) with a master of line and form in calligraphy (Xu). In fact, we are hoping to have Xu participate in our upcoming Chinese calligraphy exhibition (so, fingers crossed!).

Vogue Magazine (September 2011)

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Here/Not Here – Jakkai Siributr

Dubbed “one of Southeast Asia’s leading contemporary artists,” Jakkai Siributr is noted for his detailed tapestries and installations that comment on the religious, social and political issues facing Thailand today. Asian Art Museum Art Speak interns sat down with Jakkai to discuss his three works in the exhibition Here/Not Here: Buddha Presence in Eight Recent Works (on view at the Asian Art Museum from April 1–October 23, 3011) and his perspectives on politics, art school, free time, and much more:

Jakkai on His Recent Works

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Word

In order to read a Chinese newspaper, around 4,000 characters must be committed to memory.  According to one of my favorite professors who spent time in China during the Open Door policy of the late 70s: “Give yourself about a dozen years to get a good grasp of it.”

Chinese, for anyone who has studied it, is a highly complicated language that requires a reader to quickly glean from the root (or radical) some piece of meaning.  Consider that every foreign concept that comes into China requires a new word.  The word for computer, then, is not computer, but closer to “electric brain.”  Try this link for a clearer breakdown of the process.

If this seems like a strangely digressive introduction of artist Xu Bing, who will be speaking at the Museum this Friday, maybe you don’t know Xu’s work.

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Masami Teraoka on Japanese Screens

Hear contemporary artist, Masami Teraoka, discuss how Japanese screens have inspired his work as he walks through the exhibition Beyond Golden Clouds: Five Centuries of Japanese Screens. Throughout his talk, Teraoka refers to his most recent work, The Last Supper/The Inversion of the Sacred, which was on view at the Catherine Clark Gallery in November. It’s incredible to think how traditional Japanese painting techniques could inspire works that are so seemingly disparate.

Shanghai remodeling

With Shanghai right around the corner, museum preparation staff have been busy reconfiguring the museum in ways we haven’t quite seen before.

Objects selected  for Shanghai include not only the 2-D paintings and works on paper that visitors might expect, but a wide variety of furniture, textile arts, video works, and contemporary installations by leading Shanghai artists. This variety of object types can be a challenge for our designer. In particular, the museum’s existing gallery spaces were not originally designed to fit contemporary installation art or to display video art.

As a result, various spaces around the museum have been receiving substantial Shanghai makeovers.

Windows to north court are covered with new walls to create additional display space.

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Super #1 Thursday

You’ve probably heard that we’re closed Thursday nights until the Shanghai exhibition starts up next year.  Bittersweet, considering the packed Thursday evenings of the last few months, but, this meant that I could finally drag one of my hard-working colleagues out for First Thursday.  Neither of us had been to the hive of galleries at 49 and 77 Geary in a long time, which is just as well.  I find that I quickly lose steam amidst the press of cheap wine-drinking art lovers and the awkward first dates–much better to visit galleries in quiet moments after the opening, when socializing takes a backseat to the work. 
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What I did for my summer vacation

It’s a little bit of a joke with us that even when we’re not working, we’re working.  Despite traveling several thousand miles away from the museum, I still managed to get some work into my holiday.

In Berlin I visited the Pergamon Museum, which houses both the Greek Pergamon Altar and the Assyrian Ishtar Gate. While the blockbuster architectural elements were spectacular, my favorite pieces were wrought on a more intimate scale.

Finding Sweetness in Life

Now comes the difficult part.  Although we’re halfway through the samurai exhibition, still discussing whether to prefer the films of Gosha to Shinoda, autumn approaches with the treasures of Southeast Asia.  We’re trying desperately to finish bibliographies for Burma and Thailand, re-reading Orwell’s Burmese Days and getting disgusted with imperialism.  It’s enough to make me miss the over-long samurai epics I was reading earlier this year.

Even with the knowledge of the dazzling object list that is Emerald Cities (gold sculpture! gold furniture! gold gold!), putting together a collection of books for an exhibition is about more than sourcing pretty picture books.  And sometimes, while getting distracted, tangents offer the unexpected.
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