fluktor -|||- study - office - newsletter July 2, 2005

SF Chronicle, June 17, 2005
Show forces exciting treasures from Tibet to stand on their own
Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic

"Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco will probably disappoint only visitors who remember too well the Asian's 1991 exhibition "Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet."

"Wisdom and Compassion" set a nearly unsurpassable standard. The 1991 show, at the museum's former site in Golden Gate Park, drew extensively on public and private collections in Europe, Russia and the United States.

The current exhibition comes entirely from institutions in Tibet: the Potala Palace, the Tibet Museum and the Norbulingka Collection. Surprisingly, to judge by the contrast between the two shows, the finer material, in artistic terms, resides in the West.

"Wisdom and Compassion," as its title hints, gave an almost proselytizing emphasis to the tenets of Buddhist belief and their manifestation in the iconography of Tibetan painting and sculpture. The show's catalog instantly became a valued resource for anyone wishing to delve deeply into the aesthetics, history and meaning of Tibetan art.

"Tibet," true to its title, is a "treasures" exhibition, an array of startling rarities, light on information, that will take its forgettable place in the seemingly endless parade of museum events that seek a mass audience. Besides paintings and sculpture, it includes ritual implements, costumes and remarkable items such as a set of antique surgical instruments and a giant lock from the Potala Palace, the winter home of every Dalai Lama from the mid- 17th to the mid-20th centuries.

"Wisdom and Compassion" had a certain snob appeal. Its ambition went beyond education to the cultivation of connoisseurship, which may have intimidated as many visitors as it rewarded.

"Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" puts up no intellectual hurdles. People will find its catalog and wall text thin by comparison to those of the earlier exhibition, but far more accessible.

As a book, though, the catalog to "Tibet" is an inexcusably crude product: confusing in design, marred throughout by a jumpy imbalance between thumbnail reproductions and in-your-face, out-of-focus details.

A final and disquieting point of comparison: "Wisdom and Compassion," which the Asian organized, tacitly championed the cause of Tibetan autonomy, 40 years after the country's annexation by the China. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's nominal spiritual and political leader, has held sway in exile since 1959. He inaugurated the 1991 show with an appearance and wrote a message for the catalog.

If "Wisdom and Compassion" had as a subtext a plea for solidarity with the cause of Tibetan autonomy, "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" faintly suggests that the issue has faded away.

Apart from acknowledgment of China's invasion and the present Dalai Lama's exile in the final paragraphs of Robert W. Clark's catalog essay, the indigenous Tibetans' unsettled fate goes almost unmentioned. The exhibition's content happens to emphasize the luxurious diplomatic gifts between Chinese (and Manchu and Mongol) rulers and Dalai Lamas of the distant past.

Should a museum take an implicit or explicit political stand on a fraught matter such as Tibetan independence? Probably not. It could lead to controversies dangerous to the very survival of such institutions, which struggle hard enough in the post-culture-war era.

But neither the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, which originated the present exhibition, nor the Asian, whose curator Terese Tse Bartholomew contributed heavily to it, has made clear enough the shadow that recent history casts on the subject under study.

All that said, "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" naturally stirs curiosity by the mere fact that the present Dalai Lama, in common with his predecessors -- or his previous incarnations, as Buddhist belief has it -- once owned a number of the things on view.

Wall text explains well such matters as the various Tibetan Buddhist orders and the entwining of Tibet's history with the iconography and lore of Buddhism.

Labels and catalog text also provide interpretive points of entry into the maze of a bewilderingly complex image such as the 18th century textile "Chakrasamvara."

Although Tibetan Buddhist iconography endured almost unchanged for many centuries, visitors may feel a subtle loss of profound feeling in the objects made outside Tibet and closer in time to our own era.

Does this loss, or modulation, reflect some remote pressure of modernity on the isolated Himalayan realm or on Buddhist belief?

Does it correlate with the disparate origins of objects in monasteries, or temple or imperial workshops?

"Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" leaves such questions to us.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/17/DDGD2D8ELF29.DTL

****************************

The San Francisco Examiner, June 12, 2005
‘Treasure' trove
Tibetan works makes debut at Asian Art Museum
By Bill Picture

The Asian Art Museum's latest exhibition, "Treasures from the Roof of the World," showcases breathtaking, one-of-a-kind works of art, ranging from the sacred to the practical, created by skilled artisans for use in this isolated and little-traveled mountaintop region's opulent temples and palaces.

Many of the nearly 200 pieces featured in the exhibition, which was organized by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, with the cooperation of the government of the People's Republic of China, have never before been displayed in the West.

After San Francisco, the last stop on the exhibition's four-city American tour, all of the pieces will be returned to their respective homes at three of Tibet's most important cultural institutions, the Potala Palace and Norbulingka Summer Palace — former residences of the Dalai Lamas from the 17th century to the mid-20th century — and the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, which the Chinese government's Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics of the Tibet Autonomous Region established in 1999.

As a whole, the exhibition demonstrates the inextricable link between the people of Tibet's faith and their everyday lives. Since the early 600s, when Buddhism was first introduced in the Himalayas, religion has dominated Tibet's cultural landscape, from politics to society to art.

While Buddhism's powerful influence is most evident in ritual objects and the elaborate bronze sculptures and Thangka paintings (painted, embroidered and appliquéd wall hangings) of Buddhist deities, it can also be seen and felt in everyday items created for Tibetan nobility.

For instance, a robe-like garment handmade for a member of Tibet's ruling class from the iridescent fibers of peacock feathers represents humans' quest for Buddhahood. For Buddhists, the unusual but beautiful fowl, which lives on a diet of snakes and poisonous plants, symbolizes the Buddha's ability to transform "the poison of worldly passion into enlightened qualities of body, speech and mind."

But the exhibition's organizers are hoping to do more than simply shed light on the still-little-understood Buddhist faith or the role it played in Tibetan culture. Their ultimate goal is to promote Asian culture as a whole by showcasing its immense diversity through the diversity of its art.

"And I believe that this exhibition will contribute to a new understanding between the people of China and the United States," said Rinchen Tsering from China's Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics.

Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World
When: Tuesday-Sunday, through Sept. 11
Where: Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., San Francisco

http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/06/13/entertainment/20050613_en01_asianart.txt

****************************

artdaily.com, June 14, 2005
Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World
[image] Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara, 19th–20th century, Tibet. Gilt copper. Norbulingka Collection. © Asian Art Museum of

San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Tibet’s Potala Palace sits atop a breathtaking mountainous hilltop at the roof of the world. This architectural marvel features two mammoth castle palaces, the “Red Palace,” which served a religious function, and the “White Palace,” which served a political function. Construction of the Potala Palace was begun in the seventeenth century under the Fifth Dalai Lama. Some 7,000 workers were assigned to the vast project, together with 1,500 artists and artisans. Two hundred artists from Nepal, along with others from China and Manchuria, were also brought in to help realize the Dalai Lama’s ambitious vision. Over the centuries the Dalai Lamas poured into this immense structure an almost unimaginable artistic bounty, including about 20,000 statues and stupas (commemorative monuments), 25,000 Tibetan historical documents, 3,000 square yards of murals, countless thangkas (devotional paintings on cloth), and thousands of ritual implements. While many of these treasures remain hidden away, others have been displayed in Tibetan museums. Now, for the first time, some of the most spectacular works in these collections are being exhibited in the United States.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco presents Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World—a landmark exhibition showcasing nearly 200 rare treasures never before seen in the Western world. Drawn from the Potala Palace and the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, these works offer an unprecedented glimpse into the legendary winter and summer palaces of the Dalai Lamas. For the first time, museum visitors will see the finest examples of Tibetan sculpture, painting, textiles and Buddhist ritual objects, as well as beautifully crafted objects made for nobility. The artifacts reveal both the religious underpinnings of this culture and the exceptional nature of the arts used in its service. They were used by the Dalai Lamas and their courts in lavish ceremonies and daily rituals in Lhasa, the fabled city of the “roof of the world” and a spiritual center of Tibetan Buddhism. Organized by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in collaboration with the Bureau of Cultural Relics, Tibet Autonomous Region; the Potala Palace; and the Tibet Museum, Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World will be on view at the Asian Art Museum through September 11, 2005. Leading support for the museum's presentation of the exhibition was generously provided by Wells Fargo.

Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World is curated by Terese Tse Bartholomew, Curator of Himalayan Art and Chinese Decorative Art at the Asian Art Museum; Patricia Berger, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Berkeley; and Robert Warren Clark, independent scholar, consultant to the Himalayan Department at the Asian Art Museum, Tibetan language interpreter, and former interpreter at the private office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated 250-page catalogue. The exhibition made its debut at the Bowers Museum before embarking on a national tour including presentations at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

The Asian Art Museum will serve as the exhibition’s final venue, where it will be on view in the Hambrecht, Lee, and Osher Galleries on the museum’s first floor. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: History and Culture of Tibet; Ritual Objects; Paintings, Sculptures, and Textiles; and Daily Life of the Tibetan Nobility.

http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=13982

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

__________________________________________

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available at:
http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html
For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to:
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	July 2, 2005: [achtung! kunst] reviews of "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World"

	SF Chronicle, June 17, 2005 Show forces exciting treasures from Tibet to stand on their own Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco will probably disappoint only visitors who remember too well the Asian's 1991 exhibition "Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet." "Wisdom and Compassion" set a nearly unsurpassable standard. The 1991 show, at the museum's former site in Golden Gate Park, drew extensively on public and private collections in Europe, Russia and the United States. The current exhibition comes entirely from institutions in Tibet: the Potala Palace, the Tibet Museum and the Norbulingka Collection. Surprisingly, to judge by the contrast between the two shows, the finer material, in artistic terms, resides in the West. "Wisdom and Compassion," as its title hints, gave an almost proselytizing emphasis to the tenets of Buddhist belief and their manifestation in the iconography of Tibetan painting and sculpture. The show's catalog instantly became a valued resource for anyone wishing to delve deeply into the aesthetics, history and meaning of Tibetan art. "Tibet," true to its title, is a "treasures" exhibition, an array of startling rarities, light on information, that will take its forgettable place in the seemingly endless parade of museum events that seek a mass audience. Besides paintings and sculpture, it includes ritual implements, costumes and remarkable items such as a set of antique surgical instruments and a giant lock from the Potala Palace, the winter home of every Dalai Lama from the mid- 17th to the mid-20th centuries. "Wisdom and Compassion" had a certain snob appeal. Its ambition went beyond education to the cultivation of connoisseurship, which may have intimidated as many visitors as it rewarded. "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" puts up no intellectual hurdles. People will find its catalog and wall text thin by comparison to those of the earlier exhibition, but far more accessible. As a book, though, the catalog to "Tibet" is an inexcusably crude product: confusing in design, marred throughout by a jumpy imbalance between thumbnail reproductions and in-your-face, out-of-focus details. A final and disquieting point of comparison: "Wisdom and Compassion," which the Asian organized, tacitly championed the cause of Tibetan autonomy, 40 years after the country's annexation by the China. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's nominal spiritual and political leader, has held sway in exile since 1959. He inaugurated the 1991 show with an appearance and wrote a message for the catalog. If "Wisdom and Compassion" had as a subtext a plea for solidarity with the cause of Tibetan autonomy, "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" faintly suggests that the issue has faded away. Apart from acknowledgment of China's invasion and the present Dalai Lama's exile in the final paragraphs of Robert W. Clark's catalog essay, the indigenous Tibetans' unsettled fate goes almost unmentioned. The exhibition's content happens to emphasize the luxurious diplomatic gifts between Chinese (and Manchu and Mongol) rulers and Dalai Lamas of the distant past. Should a museum take an implicit or explicit political stand on a fraught matter such as Tibetan independence? Probably not. It could lead to controversies dangerous to the very survival of such institutions, which struggle hard enough in the post-culture-war era. But neither the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, which originated the present exhibition, nor the Asian, whose curator Terese Tse Bartholomew contributed heavily to it, has made clear enough the shadow that recent history casts on the subject under study. All that said, "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" naturally stirs curiosity by the mere fact that the present Dalai Lama, in common with his predecessors -- or his previous incarnations, as Buddhist belief has it -- once owned a number of the things on view. Wall text explains well such matters as the various Tibetan Buddhist orders and the entwining of Tibet's history with the iconography and lore of Buddhism. Labels and catalog text also provide interpretive points of entry into the maze of a bewilderingly complex image such as the 18th century textile "Chakrasamvara." Although Tibetan Buddhist iconography endured almost unchanged for many centuries, visitors may feel a subtle loss of profound feeling in the objects made outside Tibet and closer in time to our own era. Does this loss, or modulation, reflect some remote pressure of modernity on the isolated Himalayan realm or on Buddhist belief? Does it correlate with the disparate origins of objects in monasteries, or temple or imperial workshops? "Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World" leaves such questions to us. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/17/DDGD2D8ELF29.DTL ************************** The San Francisco Examiner, June 12, 2005 ‘Treasure' trove Tibetan works makes debut at Asian Art Museum By Bill Picture The Asian Art Museum's latest exhibition, "Treasures from the Roof of the World," showcases breathtaking, one-of-a-kind works of art, ranging from the sacred to the practical, created by skilled artisans for use in this isolated and little-traveled mountaintop region's opulent temples and palaces. Many of the nearly 200 pieces featured in the exhibition, which was organized by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, with the cooperation of the government of the People's Republic of China, have never before been displayed in the West. After San Francisco, the last stop on the exhibition's four-city American tour, all of the pieces will be returned to their respective homes at three of Tibet's most important cultural institutions, the Potala Palace and Norbulingka Summer Palace — former residences of the Dalai Lamas from the 17th century to the mid-20th century — and the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, which the Chinese government's Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics of the Tibet Autonomous Region established in 1999. As a whole, the exhibition demonstrates the inextricable link between the people of Tibet's faith and their everyday lives. Since the early 600s, when Buddhism was first introduced in the Himalayas, religion has dominated Tibet's cultural landscape, from politics to society to art. While Buddhism's powerful influence is most evident in ritual objects and the elaborate bronze sculptures and Thangka paintings (painted, embroidered and appliquéd wall hangings) of Buddhist deities, it can also be seen and felt in everyday items created for Tibetan nobility. For instance, a robe-like garment handmade for a member of Tibet's ruling class from the iridescent fibers of peacock feathers represents humans' quest for Buddhahood. For Buddhists, the unusual but beautiful fowl, which lives on a diet of snakes and poisonous plants, symbolizes the Buddha's ability to transform "the poison of worldly passion into enlightened qualities of body, speech and mind." But the exhibition's organizers are hoping to do more than simply shed light on the still-little-understood Buddhist faith or the role it played in Tibetan culture. Their ultimate goal is to promote Asian culture as a whole by showcasing its immense diversity through the diversity of its art. "And I believe that this exhibition will contribute to a new understanding between the people of China and the United States," said Rinchen Tsering from China's Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics. Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World When: Tuesday-Sunday, through Sept. 11 Where: Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., San Francisco http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/06/13/entertainment/20050613_en01_asianart.txt ************************** artdaily.com, June 14, 2005 Tibet: Treasures From the Roof of the World [image] Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara, 19th–20th century, Tibet. Gilt copper. Norbulingka Collection. © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Tibet’s Potala Palace sits atop a breathtaking mountainous hilltop at the roof of the world. This architectural marvel features two mammoth castle palaces, the “Red Palace,” which served a religious function, and the “White Palace,” which served a political function. Construction of the Potala Palace was begun in the seventeenth century under the Fifth Dalai Lama. Some 7,000 workers were assigned to the vast project, together with 1,500 artists and artisans. Two hundred artists from Nepal, along with others from China and Manchuria, were also brought in to help realize the Dalai Lama’s ambitious vision. Over the centuries the Dalai Lamas poured into this immense structure an almost unimaginable artistic bounty, including about 20,000 statues and stupas (commemorative monuments), 25,000 Tibetan historical documents, 3,000 square yards of murals, countless thangkas (devotional paintings on cloth), and thousands of ritual implements. While many of these treasures remain hidden away, others have been displayed in Tibetan museums. Now, for the first time, some of the most spectacular works in these collections are being exhibited in the United States. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco presents Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World—a landmark exhibition showcasing nearly 200 rare treasures never before seen in the Western world. Drawn from the Potala Palace and the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, these works offer an unprecedented glimpse into the legendary winter and summer palaces of the Dalai Lamas. For the first time, museum visitors will see the finest examples of Tibetan sculpture, painting, textiles and Buddhist ritual objects, as well as beautifully crafted objects made for nobility. The artifacts reveal both the religious underpinnings of this culture and the exceptional nature of the arts used in its service. They were used by the Dalai Lamas and their courts in lavish ceremonies and daily rituals in Lhasa, the fabled city of the “roof of the world” and a spiritual center of Tibetan Buddhism. Organized by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in collaboration with the Bureau of Cultural Relics, Tibet Autonomous Region; the Potala Palace; and the Tibet Museum, Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World will be on view at the Asian Art Museum through September 11, 2005. Leading support for the museum's presentation of the exhibition was generously provided by Wells Fargo. Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World is curated by Terese Tse Bartholomew, Curator of Himalayan Art and Chinese Decorative Art at the Asian Art Museum; Patricia Berger, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Berkeley; and Robert Warren Clark, independent scholar, consultant to the Himalayan Department at the Asian Art Museum, Tibetan language interpreter, and former interpreter at the private office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated 250-page catalogue. The exhibition made its debut at the Bowers Museum before embarking on a national tour including presentations at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. The Asian Art Museum will serve as the exhibition’s final venue, where it will be on view in the Hambrecht, Lee, and Osher Galleries on the museum’s first floor. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: History and Culture of Tibet; Ritual Objects; Paintings, Sculptures, and Textiles; and Daily Life of the Tibetan Nobility. http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=13982 __________________ with kind regards, Matthias Arnold (Art-Eastasia list) http://www.chinaresource.org http://www.fluktor.de __________________________________________ An archive of this list as well as an subscribe/unsubscribe facility is available at: http://listserv.uni-heidelberg.de/archives/art-eastasia.html For postings earlier than 2005-02-23 please go to: http://www.fluktor.de/study/office/newsletter.htm