The Diaspora

Where is the line between history and mythology? In Extracted, artist Ranu Mukherjee eclipses the boundaries between the two, placing them in the same universe. Commissioned for the Asian Art Museum’s 50th anniversary, this exhibition drew inspiration from California’s Gold Rush, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the ancient text The Classic of Mountain and Seas, and the museum’s own collection.

Members of the Bay Area Filipino community discuss the importance of collecting Philippine art at the Asian Art Museum.

A conversation with artist Manuel Ocampo, moderated by assistant curator of contemporary art Dr. Karin Oen. This conversation was in conjunction with the exhibition First Look: Collecting Contemporary at the Asian at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco from Sept. 4 through Oct. 11, 2015.

In Noh theatre (classical Japanese music drama), Japanese ghosts are usually upset females. Portrayed without feet because they have lost their connection to the earth, they are so filled with love, jealousy or rage that they won’t go peacefully into the night. Japanese believe ghosts are people who have died with an unpaid on — “debt” or “obligation.” If not repaid, the debt is passed down for generations, growing with each one like a snowball into an avalanche.

GRAINS is an original audio-visual performance deals with expanding the sonic energy that resides in a single grain of sound. The performance explores the visual and sonic amplification of domestic food grains and their transformation into a collection of solid grains that flow like liquid as they multiply. Layering her vocals on top of the flowing grains, Surabhi Saraf weaves a rich tapestry of sounds, multiplied and fragmented, creating dynamic textures and immersive architectural soundscapes.

In this video, Buddhist monk artists, Seol-min (formerly known as Jae-u) and Myung Chun discuss Korean Buddhist art and paint the Guardian King of the West, which is now in the Asian Art Museum’s collection. This video also includes footage from a symbolic “eye-opening” ceremony, which took place at the museum on December 20, 2003.

Watch Shiho Sasaki, Paintings Conservator at the Asian Art Museum, handle a Japanese hanging scroll for display and storage.

MATCHA kicks off its third season with multi-sensorial offerings of healing arts from all over Asia: acupuncture, cupping, Japanese shiatsu, Thai foot massage, and more. Sample tea, check out medicinal herbs from China, Japan, India and Tibet, have your pulse diagnosed, tour the galleries, or unwind with cocktails and live music. Organized and presented in partnership with the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College, Berkeley.

Asian Art Museum Art Speak teaching Artist, Imen Yeh, discusses her woodblock printmaking workshop with Art Speak interns and its connection with the Shanghai: Art of the City exhibition.

Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto recently expanded his work to include traditional Japanese performing arts such as bunraku, or puppet theater, through film. Most recently, Sugimoto lent his vision to the arrangement, direction, and stage design of an adaptation of famed bunraku play The Love Suicide at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju), a 1703 work by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. The program begins with a screening of this monumental project, followed by a conversation between the artist and Phantoms of Asia (on view at the Asian Art Museum from May 18–September 2, 2012) guest curator Mami Kataoka.