Phantoms of Asia Tour, Part 3: Asian Cosmologies

Cosmological painting, approx. 1750–1850. India; Rajasthan. Opaque watercolors on cloth. From the Collection of William K. Ehrenfeld, M.D., 2005.64.54.

Recently staff were treated to an exclusive tour of Phantoms of Asia led by Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Allison Harding. While Allison can’t personally escort every visitor around the galleries, we wanted to share the experience. We’ll be presenting a series of posts based on the tour, with Allison’s insights into the works and the artists who created them. In our third episode, we explore Asian cosmologies through some very different works.

As you enter Hambrecht Gallery, you’ll see a large Indian cosmological painting. Many people, including guest curator Mami Kataoka, name it as one of their favorite pieces in the exhibition. If you’re like many of us, you’ll be surprised to learn that the painting is not one of the contemporary works in the show; it dates from some time between 1750 and 1850. It has been in our collection for some time but has never been on view before; the video below gives a glimpse into the painstaking conservation effort that made it ready for this exhibition.

The painting uses a common geometry of interconnected spheres to represent the cosmos. It’s a convention that you also see in Tibetan thangkas, including an example that hangs opposite the painting. The work begs to be decoded—as with contemporary art, there is no single established reading of this painting, and the viewer is forced to let go of any expectation that they can have all the facts.

The connection between this painting and Poklong Anading‘s series Anonymity might not be immediately apparent, but these images also explore cosmological themes. In an earlier post we shared Mami Kataoka’s thoughts on the relationship between the Chinese bronze mirrors and Poklong’s work, a series of nine lightboxes. On her tour, Allison spoke about how these images turn traditional ideas of portraiture on their head by deliberately obscuring the subject’s face. She also pointed out the connections to other traditions in art history, where reflections of light can suggest a connection to the spiritual realm. The individual subjects are depersonalized and placed within a larger universe. The images are always shown in groups of nine, and were reduced in size for Phantoms so that they could be displayed together in this space. An interesting fact: Originally, the curators believed that all these photographs were taken in metro Manila, but in fact some were taken in Zurich.

Developing the exhibition has not only helped us make connections between different artistic traditions, it has also led us to artists we didn’t previously know. Allison had not encountered Poklong before planning this show—they were introduced by another Filipino artist whose work is also included in Phantoms, Ringo Bunoan. The show has given us a wonderful opportunity to tap into smaller art scenes where the community of artists is more important than the gallery system, and it’s these human connections that have enabled us to bring you such a diverse selection of works. If you want to learn more about contemporary art in the Philippines, join Ringo and Poklong In Conversation on August 18.

Tour Part 1: Heman Chong
Tour Part 2: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Tour Part 4: Hidden Energies
Tour Part 5: The Afterlife
Tour Part 6: Myth, Ritual, Meditation
Tour Part 7: Art from Home 

Phantoms of Asia Tour, Part 2: Hiroshi Sugimoto

A visitor contemplating Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “Five Elements”.

In easy-to-miss Lee Gallery, visitors to Phantoms of Asia will find a row of tiny pagodas on plinths. These are Hiroshi Sugimoto’s vision of the cosmos, rendered in optical quality glass and photographs.

Sugimoto has been creating seascapes since the early 1980s. These seascapes have a personal connection for the artist because he uses the series, which is ongoing, to place events in his own life. It also has a larger meaning; the five-part Japanese pagoda represents the five elements of the cosmos, while the ocean is seen as the source of all life.

In displaying these objects, Sugimoto wants to create a sense of theater. He visited the museum a few times before Phantoms opened and determined every aspect of the room. The yellow didactic panel that explains the work is deliberately outside the room, and the fact that there is no seating was part of the artist’s design. The experience of seeing the piece is part of the work; in the intimacy of close looking the viewer can contemplate their relationship to these objects and to the universe itself.

Tour Part 1: Heman Chong
Tour Part 3: Asian Cosmologies
Tour Part 4: Hidden Energies
Tour Part 5: The Afterlife
Tour Part 6: Myth, Ritual, Meditation
Tour Part 7: Art from Home 

Phantoms of Asia Tour, Part 1: Heman Chong

Heman Chong, Calendars (2020-2096), 2004-2010, Offset prints on paper. 1001 sheets, each H: 11 3/4 in x W: 11 3/4 in. Installation view. Photo by Jay Jao.

Recently staff were treated to an exclusive tour of Phantoms of Asia led by Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Allison Harding. While Allison can’t personally escort every visitor around the galleries, we wanted to share the experience. We’ll be presenting a series of posts based on the tour, with Allison’s insights into the works and the artists who created them. First up, Heman Chong‘s Calendars (2020–2096).

In this work, Chong presents an imagined vision of the future through 1001 calendar pages starting in the year 2020. Chong started with that year because he felt that it was a kind of fulcrum: many of the big goals we hear about—around health, climate change, economic stability—take 2020 as their target date. It’s a year that could be a promise or an ultimatum.

Calendars (2020–2096) is presented with the pages attached directly to the gallery walls. Chong personally oversaw much of the installation, ensuring that the spaces between pages were absolutely uniform throughout the room. Allison commented that this uniformity put her in mind of the use of the grid in postwar art. Rosalind Krauss wrote in the Summer 1979 issue of October 9 that the “grid announces modern art’s will to silence, its hostility to literature, to narrative, to discourse.” For others, the grid is about creating complexity from the simplest of formal structures. It’s an interesting context to use when thinking about Chong’s work, which deliberately shows scenes devoid of people, haunted spaces, suggesting that what we have created might outlive us. Although I’m guessing that an artist who considers social media to be part of his art practice is not entirely hostile to discourse.

The images that make up the work were all taken in Singapore. Chong wanted to use public spaces for this work, but he also never asked people to leave. He simply waited in the space until no one was around. It’s hardly surprising, then, that these images were captured over a seven-year span—including an entire year in Ikea. He did not seek permission for any of these photographs, which is significant in Singapore where the use pf public space is highly regulated.

Walking into the room that contains this work, I was at first overwhelmed. Then slowly I started to see patterns, repetition of the same location, similar locations across a single column. These are just a couple of ways you could think about it; spend some time with it and you’ll find plenty more.

Tour Part 2: Hiroshi Sugimoto
Tour Part 3: Asian Cosmologies
Tour Part 4: Hidden Energies
Tour Part 5: The Afterlife
Tour Part 6: Myth, Ritual, Meditation
Tour Part 7: Art from Home 

Related: Heman Chong on Sci Fi

Ancient Modern

Two-handled vessel in the shape of a water skin, approx. 1200-800 BCE. Northern Iran; probably Amlash. Earthenware. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P2015.

What old objects in the Asian Art Museum strike you as modern (or contemporary) in some way? With the exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past opening, now is the time to think about this.

We’ve created a page on Tumblr with a few of my picks, including the vase pictured. You can also submit your own candidates, with a short statement for each saying what you find modern about it—see what others have added here. Take a look through our online collection; you may be surprised by what you find.

Light and Space: Reading Phantoms

Last week, staff at the museum were fortunate to have guest curator of Phantoms of Asia Mami Kataoka present to us on the themes of the exhibition.

While spirituality is a core part of this show, Mami invited us to approach it from another perspective, saying that we could think of Phantoms as being all about light and space.

Bronze hand mirror, China, Western Han dynasty, (206 BCE - 9 CE)

Mami showed us some examples of works from the Light and Space movement that resonate with works in this show. But the most fascinating part for me was a more literal example. Filipino artist Poklong Anading creates arresting photographs by having people hold a small hand mirror in front of their face; a flash of light, reflected by the mirror, obscures the face and transforms the image.  In a piece of curation that strikes me as both whimsical and utterly inspired, also included in the exhibition are some Chinese hand mirrors from the museum’s collection, polished to regain their reflective properties. While the creator of the bronze mirror pictured probably wasn’t thinking about identity and transformation, it is such an object that enabled Anading to create compelling works exploring those themes.

Mami’s reference to light and space has given me a new entry point for thinking about these works. I know next to nothing of Asian contemporary art, but she reminded me that we are free to make our own connections: through time and space, across cultures, and between art and everyday objects. We hope you have the opportunity to do the same.

© Poklong Anading, 2011; Courtesy Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria.

Inspiration, Installation

Sun K. Kwak at work on the installation.

What happens when an artist is suddenly inspired? She gets to work, of course. Artist Sun K. Kwak was scheduled to begin her installation on the first floor of the museum next week, but a flash of inspiration has brought her in today.

We don’t know how long she will be working this week and we don’t know when she’ll be done. As our exhibition manager Kelly put it, “This is kinda like whale watching—things just happen.” We are watching art performed and made in real time. If you’re able, you should join us.

Artists from Phantoms of Asia will be installing their work in our galleries over the next couple of weeks.

Check back here for updates about who is coming when. We promise you’ll know as soon as we do.

Cambodia and the Asian Art Museum Collection

Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia.

Recently Cambodia (along with its neighbors Thailand and Laos) celebrated new year. This seemed like a good time to report on one or two interesting outcomes of a study trip to Cambodia last year.

Four hours of dusty, bumpy dirt road northwest of Angkor lies the 800-year-old temple complex of Banteay Chhmar. The complex is so spread out and so ruinous that no picture can suggest its extent and importance. The site is so remote that until 2008 it had not been cleared of landmines. It has also been a target of looters; entire sections of wall have been stolen by well-organized, well-armed raiding parties.

Reconstruction begins in Banteay Chhmar.

Now, though, Cambodian and Western archeologists are working together on the clearing and restoration of Banteay Chhmar—a process that will take decades.

While I was there, a Cambodian archeological team discovered a large demon head and were able to reunite it with its body. They were eager to record their latest accomplishment. They clustered around the restored figure for photos—insisting that my hosts and I join in—and passed cameras so that everyone got a photo with themselves in it. (I’m the second from the right).

Newly on View: Chinese ink paintings

This is the first in an ongoing series in which our curators introduce artworks that have recently gone on display.

The strength of the Chinese painting collection in the Asian Art Museum lies in modern and contemporary ink painting. To complement the special contemporary exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past (May 18–October 14), I have selected from the collection representative ink paintings ranging in date from 1965 to 2011.

Lui Shou-kwan, Chan painting, 1974, ink and color on paper.

The group of ink paintings on view in the Chinese painting gallery represents several major trends and artists, including:

• Modern Chinese ink painting movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong from the mid-1950s to the 1970s;
• 1980s new ink painting;
• 1990s experimental ink painting in China; and
• Works by overseas Chinese ink painters in the last several decades.

Two monumental paintings are on view for the first time: Chan (1974) by Lui Shou-kwan of Hong Kong, and Ended Season by local painter Zheng Chongbin, which is the first contemporary Chinese art work commissioned by the Asian Art Museum (on display beginning mid-March).

The paintings are on view in the Chinese painting gallery on the second floor.

Why do we always have new art on display?

There’s a scientific reason: organic materials such as silks and natural dyes are extremely vulnerable to fading and damage. To protect these light-sensitive artworks, we display them under low lighting only, for a 6-month period every 5 years.

There’s also another reason: we have so many treasures in storage that sometimes it’s just fun to put them on display for our visitors. So please enjoy!

Curator Joseph Chang is the Senior Research Fellow, Chinese Painting and Calligraphy in the museum’s Research Institute.

Phantoms of Asia: Behind the Scenes

While Maharaja is still going strong in our galleries, behind the scenes we’re gearing up for our next major exhibition, Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past. I spoke to assistant curator of contemporary art Allison Harding about why preparing for this show is different.

What’s special about the way this show is being presented?

The serious business of displaying art: curators Mami Kataoka and Allison Harding with head of preparations Kelly Bennett.

To deepen visitors’ experience of contemporary art, we are incorporating traditional objects into the exhibition. This approach might seem counter-intuitive but we’ve found that blending old and new art offers more entry points for the viewer, and inspires new insights about both. For me, this exhibition shows that over thousands of years art really has not changed at its core. We make things to explore and to communicate ideas, and to access realms beyond everyday life. When artisans during China’s Han dynasty handcrafted incense burners in the shape of sacred mountains, for example, they were exploring some of the same questions as today’s artists who make work about the environment: how can we respect and protect the landscape? How does it respond to our actions?

When you visit Phantoms of Asia, you’ll find contemporary objects in many collection galleries. I look forward to hearing the connections that these old and new objects spark for you.

Adrian Wong planning his upcoming installation during a recent visit to the museum.

Which works are you the most excited about seeing installed?

I am most excited about site-specific installations by Adrian Wong, Sun K. Kwak, and Heman Chong. These works will be created by the artists just before the exhibition opening. We won’t see them until we can experience them in the space. I am eager to see how visitors engage with these installations as I expect that people will have unique, personal experiences of each work.

 Which works will be the most challenging to display?

For a museum of mostly traditional art, a project like Phantoms of Asia pushes many boundaries of display. Our team has taken on this challenge with creativity and an open mind. We will have live trees in our galleries, we will have art created by visitors, we will show large installations and videos, and we are building temporary walls in our collection galleries.

This show is a huge amount of work – are you going to treat yourself when it’s done?

First I will spend time enjoying the galleries. Seeing the work of 31 contemporary artists in our museum will be the biggest treat! Then I will fulfill an outstanding promise to visit barns and ride tractors in Vermont with my son.

The Art of Passion

A story of steamy passion turns out to be behind an Indian painting in the museum’s collection.

Painting from India's Mewar kingdom, approx. 1720, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. George Hopper Fitch.

The subject of the painting, which came to the museum in 1984, had been identified in very general terms before. We knew that it showed the Hindu deity Krishna and his beloved Radha parted and longing for each other.

But the painting’s inscription had never been read. Recently Joan Cummins, a specialist in Indian painting at the Brooklyn Museum, was here to give a lecture. During her preparations she read the inscription and found its source:

What her companion said to him:
Hearing her moan
with the burning pain
of parting
I emptied a whole bottle
of rosewater on her,
but the flames of his separation
vaporized it in mid-air
and not a drop
fell on her!

(From Bihari: The Satasai. Translated from the Hindi and with an introduction by Krishna P. Bahadur. London: Penguin Books, 1992.)

In the upper left a companion of Radha’s, who serves as an intermediary between Radha and Krishna, describes to Krishna Radha’s intense longing for him. The situation the companion describes is shown at the lower left: a bottle of rosewater is poured on Radha to cool “the burning pain of parting” to no avail.

If you want to take steamy passion beyond the art, join us for a multi-sensorial MATCHA on February 16. If you’d rather stick to the art, Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts and Sanjay Patel’s Deities, Demons and Dudes with ‘Staches offer different perspectives on Indian culture and spirituality until April 2012.