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.
Artwork ready to be packed for transportation to SFO. Some objects, such as this plate, have never been on view.
It’s a pretty cool show featuring incredible works of art and a full serving of puns and general cleverness. While some of the featured objects were on view at the museum in 2006, others are being displayed here for the first time.
Carefully packed objects are loaded onto trucks for the trip to the airport.
Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art is the second in a series of airport exhibitions highlighting objects from the Asian Art Museum. The first exhibition in this group — Later Chinese Jades — will continue to be on view in SFO’s International Terminal through the weekend of June 5 – 6 (you can listen to some great NPR coverage about this exhibition and others at the airport here).
Museum Senior Registrar Sharon Steckline supervises installation of the artwork in SFO's United Terminal (photo courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums).
Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art will be on view to ticketed passengers only in SFO’s United Terminal until January 2011. For more information about this exhibition, including previews of selected artwork, visit the website of the San Francisco Airport Museums.
(If you’re not traveling, the airport museum website also lists a number of exhibitions that are open to non-ticketed visitors. Especially cool is the show Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World. It’s just the thing to get you in the mood for Shanghai at the Asian Art Museum!)
