Resources

Asian Art Museum Storyteller, Jeff Byers, tells the legend of Bokuden, a famous samurai.

Artist Joanna Swan discusses India and her work during the during the PechaKucha Night at the Asian Art Museum.

Along with the more traditional jeweled sword and scabbard, this impressive gun served as a ceremonial object, held by one of Sultan Mahmud I’s attendants during state ceremonies. While the flamboyant decoration of the gun lent itself to public spectacle, the experience of extracting its treasures from the gun’s stock is a more personal act. This video reveals the various components of this ornate gun. View this gun in the exhibition, Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts (on view at the Asian Art Museum from Feb. 26 to May 8, 2016).

The annual Bell-Ringing Ceremony follows the Japanese custom in which the end-of-the-year bell (joya no kane) is struck 108 times before midnight on New Year’s Eve, symbolically welcoming the New Year and curbing the 108 mortal desires (bonno), which according to Buddhist belief torment humankind.

The interdisciplinary performance features artists Tatsu Aoki, Kioko Aoki, Francis Wong, Megan Lee, Wesley Hitomo Yee and Melody Takata, as well as master artists Chizuru Kineya and Michikaoru Hanayagi.

European art and culture had a significant impact in Japan, both before and during the period of self-imposed isolation.

Dr. Andrea Horbinski of the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, discusses Japan and an interconnected world at the Medieval Japan Teacher Institute, held at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

New Delhi-based artist Jagannath Panda lives in the burgeoning city of Gurgaon, which is one of India’s major outsourcing hubs and bases of operation for global corporations. His works illustrate the city’s tensions, as overdevelopment threatens natural habitats and infrastructures collapse before they are completed. Panda’s mix of mythology and realism points to the evolving nature of Indian identity and experience today.

Hear Art Speak Interns discuss a work of art in the Shanghai exhibition on view at the Asian Art Museum (February 12-September 5, 2010).

Watch a timelapse video of Asian Art Museum and the Rubell Family Collection staff installing Boat by artist Zhu Jinshi. Experience Boat at the Asian Art Museum during the exhibition, 28 Chinese (June 5–August 16, 2015).