For Toby
Monday, June 9, 2003
For Toby
Well, he's here. Toby Milliken Mankita, an 8lb 14oz, 20 inches long baby boy, was born this morning at 3:22am at Summit Hospital. Everybody is just fine.
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Grove out the kitchen door of the Little House, near Occidental, CA
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Sunday: we finally made it to the new Asian Art Museum yesterday. Was looking forward to it very much but just hadn't had much time these last couple of months. Instead of looking at houses yesterday, our usual and increasingly irritating Sunday ritual these days, we went to the museum because tomorrow is my birthday, and I like to take excursions on my birthday, and this year, because we hadn't made it yet, we went to the Asian because walking around and sitting in museums is my idea of fun.
The Asian collection is spectacular, there's no denying that. Despite the old place being attached to another building, there were some big open galleries there that I really liked. I was really looking forward to seeing the collection in new spaces. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Not with the collection, but with the galleries.
This is a first take based on one three hour visit on a dark, cloudy Sunday.
The old library in which the museum is now housed is a beautiful building, but it doesn't make for a very good museum. The old staircase is beautiful. The atriums, in which no art is displayed, have gorgeous light. The first floor area feels exciting. But then one goes up the escalator, and the building more or less disappears, except for the third floor where the old beautiful pattern-painted ceiling and beams have been restored.
The galleries feel small, cramped, and dark (I understand that for conservation purposes lots of natural light is not good for some objects, but that's not the kind of dark I'm talking about). The ceilings are way too low, a legacy of the old museum. The flow of spaces from one to other just doesn't, well, flow. There are very few long views from one gallery to the next or through series of galleries, and the galleries are so cramped and full that comparative looking is difficult.
Moving through the museum feels driven, kind of like walking through Ikea, like you're really supposed to go in one direction. I found myself walking around people a lot. It feels like a warren of rooms, boxy, very much like SFMOMA, but not as nice; if you know the third floor photo galleries at SFMOMA you'll know what I mean.
In some galleries the spaces between objects is small enough that if one pauses to really look at something you're often going to impede someone else's movement. Sure, it was Sunday and a little more crowded, but still, that's not a good thing. It does not induce relaxed, contemplative looking and quiet conversation.
I just don't feel that as a museum it's a very successful building. It's serviceable, it'll work, but for such a gigantic building why aren't the galleries larger? And here's something I was wondering: unless somehow I overlooked some additional huge galleries that aren't open yet, except for a side gallery on the first floor with a wonderful show of Javanese puppets, what's going to happen when a special exhibit comes to the museum? Are they going to have to empty out the galleries for that show? Is the museum really that small?
The collection, again, is fantastic. I was disappointed that more paintings weren't on display. They had some fine examples out- the room of Chinese paintings and scrolls, for example, is wonderful. But I expected better more and better. (BTW, students and staff can get into BAMPFA anytime with ID; the are some really splendid Asian paintings at this museum.)
On another note, the installation just isn't very stimulating. I understand the need to separate the objects by culture, but the feeling of, "Now let's leave China and go to India, and then after that we'll go to Japan" feels drily pedantic, a kind of overly neat and tidy didacticism. Now, this is probably necessary, and could be kind of a good thing in some cases, but there is something about the smaller and hallway galleries that did not invite, even discouraged, close looking. This feeling made me feel I was visiting a department store or theme park. There is a feeling of compartmentalization. And I think I felt this way because the entire museum was installed geographically, and then chronologically.
I have a suggestion, just one example, to bring objects alive, to encourage closer looking, to breakdown a bit the experience of discrete cultural sampling. Because, as the many wall labels keep pointing out, these many cultures did have various influences on each over over the years, especially through Buddhism, I would've loved, for example, to see a display of Buddhas from many regions and periods. What if one could explore Buddhas from India, Thailand, and Japan in the same room, and to note the similiarities and differences, rather than reading and trying to remember wall labels and history from galleries on different floors? How about comparative studies of pottery or textiles? How about some way of stimulating some critical thinking and close looking by not treating objects that they have only one context - the specific culture in which they're created - and then treating each object that within that specific culture the object stands on its own, too? I had this feeling during some very difficult parts of the museum, for example in the Tibetan galleries.
Again, this is my take, and I'll have to see how I feel next time I go. It's not the building that will bring me back, I think, it's the collection, which is now so much more accessible being right near Civic Center BART and not far at all from downtown SF. The Asian collection is quite impressive, and something we are quite privileged to have access to.
I know the Asian is fortunate to have a new building, and I am very happy that a grand old building in a great location has been put to good use. But as a viewer I'd hoped for, if not more space, the feeling of being in and looking through more space. In the galleries one can sometimes look through windows out into the sun-drenched atriums, and that's where all the space is, out in the empty space atriumbs, not where the art is. It feels a little backwards.
And one more thing, as long as I'm being critical- the Asian's website appears to be just a visitor's brochure. Click on "Collection" and there are no images, just a long text describing the collection. What, no images. Well yes, there are. Mouse-over Home>About the Museum>Collection, then you have to click on the 2nd or 3rd Floor, then you have to mouse-over images to see the region, click, and then there is a description and some more images to click on. Come on- why doesn't one click on "Collection" on the main menu get me here? Bad design.
BTW, yes, since you asked, I am so glad that I am so perfect and error free, and that everything my genius touches reaches the height of human accomplishments, which entitles me to be so critical.
Taming the Ox
Sekkakushi (active 1400–1450)
Japan; Muromachi period (1392–1573).
Hanging scroll, ink on paper
The Avery Brundage Collection, B69 D46
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