Image: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is presenting a fall program that spans contemporary abstraction, wood sculpture, video, watercolor and historic Asian art. The museum’s exhibition listings include the opening of ‘Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective’ on September 25, alongside ongoing and upcoming displays at its building at 200 Larkin Street.
‘Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective’ is described by the museum as a sensory journey through sixty years of innovative abstraction. The exhibition is scheduled to open September 25, although the museum’s current listing does not provide a closing date. Its arrival forms the central new-season announcement in the museum’s fall promotion.
The galleries also include ‘Kim Minwook: On Carving, Bending, and Binding Wood,’ which is listed as running through March 29. The museum does not provide further details on the exhibition page, but its title identifies the project’s focus on carving, bending and binding as processes in wood-based work. Other contemporary presentations include FX Harsono’s ‘Writing in the Rain,’ on view through September 7. The museum describes the video installation as an act of writing the artist’s own name and a reclamation of erased identity.
Al-An deSouza’s ‘Table Settings’ is scheduled through November 2. The museum characterizes the project as an ambitious watercolor undertaking that connects its collection to moments of beauty in overlooked places, beginning with the ground beneath visitors’ feet. ‘This Asian American Life,’ also listed through November 2, uses a child’s perspective to present moments of beauty and wonder amid daily life in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
The fall listings further include exhibitions and installations focused on historical and cultural traditions. ‘One Hundred Plays of the Noh Theater by Tsukioka Kogyo’ is ongoing and presents colorful woodblock prints featuring characters from Noh, described by the museum as the world’s longest-running theatrical art form. ‘Mountains of the Mind: A Chinese Landscape Journey’ is also ongoing, offering a presentation of rivers and mountains framed as a spiritual encounter with nature.
The museum’s upcoming schedule extends beyond the September program. ‘Art from Contemporary Cambodia’ is listed to open August 27 and features two leading Cambodian artists whose mixed-media works draw on memory, history and the environmental crisis. ‘Garuda in Bali’ opens September 18 with Balinese sculptures and paintings focused on the epic story of the bird-warrior who became Indonesia’s national symbol. ‘Vishnu’s Cosmic Ocean,’ opening October 23, will feature what the museum describes as Southeast Asia’s largest ancient bronze on a temporary visit to San Francisco.
A further sound-based installation, ‘A Sound Work by Lala Rukh: Subh-e-Umeed,’ is listed through September 7. According to the museum, sounds of daybreak and protest fill Samsung Hall, creating an atmosphere of awakening and possibility. The Asian Art Museum is open Thursdays from 1 to 8 p.m. and Fridays through Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; it is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
