Latest news with #AsianArtMuseum
The Star
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
Asian Art Museum eyes expanded global partnerships
NEW YORK, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Art Museum in U.S. San Francisco is looking to deepen international collaboration and contribute to global cultural exchanges. The museum is well positioned to engage in global conversations on identity, heritage, and artistic innovation, said its director and CEO Soyoung Lee at a media roundtable in New York on Monday. "Asia is not just a region, it's half the world and all of time," she said. Upcoming exhibitions will focus on shared cultural themes such as ritual, trade, and material traditions, highlighting how Asian societies are historically and culturally connected. "Instead of presenting art strictly by modern nation states, we are exploring ways to show how different Asian cultures are connected," Lee said. The museum is also addressing local and institutional challenges, including declining international tourism and generational identity gaps. To respond, it has expanded free admission days, education programs, and community partnerships across San Francisco. Lee noted that many second- and third-generation Asian Americans may not speak their heritage languages or feel strong cultural ties. The museum, she said, aims to offer multiple points of access for visitors to explore identity on their own terms. "People are looking for connection and belonging," she said. "The museum should be a space for that." Museums are also reassessing how success is measured, with growing emphasis on long-term engagement and community impact over attendance figures. "Museums must be rooted in scholarship," Lee said, "but also responsive to the questions of today."
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Time of India
Exhibition traces the story of India's first ‘fairytale palace of modernism'
In place of a turban, a safari hat crowns the Maharaja's head. As if weary of pearls and emeralds, the Maharani—seated beside him—wears a glowing smile instead. The striking black-and-white photo of Indore's royal couple in their minimalist chic—he in sunglasses and a blazer, coolly gazing out of his car; she, beautiful and jacket-shrouded, glancing shyly at the camera—was taken in 1933 by a German architect who understood their flair for understatement. By then, Berlin-based Eckart Muthesius spent over three years building the style-forward, young duo a sleek palace without a dome, a "temple of avant-garde" that was India's—perhaps Asia's—first centrally air-conditioned home. Even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar recently flew to Germany to strengthen diplomatic ties, an exhibition in Mumbai is showcasing a much older dialogue between the two nations, albeit in the realm of architecture. Sepia images on the green walls of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Gallery in Byculla's Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum trace the century-old friendship between Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore, his wife Sanyogita, and Muthesius—a bond that gave India one of its earliest modernist buildings: Manik Bagh. Commissioned amid the global economic crisis of 1930 by the slim, English-educated Maharaja who met like-minded Muthesius in Oxford in the 1920s, "Manik Bagh was far ahead of its time," says Raffael Dedo Gadebusch, head of the Asian Art Museum in Berlin who curated the showcase. Built long before Le Corbusier's Chandigarh, "the palace was a so-called Gesamtkunstwerk," says Gadebusch, the curator of the current exhibition, using the German term for a 'total work of art'. "It was a synthesis of architecture, arts, and design like hardly any other building in that period," he adds, comparing the palace—with its sleek lines and pitched roof—to The Bauhaus, the groundbreaking steel-and-glass art school designed by architect Walter Gropius in 1926. Art Deco buildings were just beginning to bloom along Mumbai's Marine Drive in 1933 when the palace—designed in the International Style—was dubbed by the media a "fairy tale palace of modernism". With just nine bedrooms and twenty-four rooms in all, "...this really was a family home rather than a Maharaja's palace," wrote Shivaji Rao 'Richard' Holkar, the Maharaja's son from his third marriage, in the run-up to the 2019 Paris exhibition on his father titled Modern Maharajah. Sent to England at the behest of the British at the age of 12, Yeshwant Holkar II returned to India at age 17 to ascend the throne. By the time he turned 22, he commissioned Muthesius to create his vision of a modernist palace—an Art Deco and Bauhaus-inspired fantasy called Manik Bagh. Muthesius, the son of renowned architect Hermann Muthesius, grew up in a country home frequented by intellectual luminaries such as Albert Einstein. His love of detail came from his mother, a singer and self-taught interior designer. Alongside little-known watercolours, drawings, and design studies by Muthesius, the show features 50 rare vintage photographs by Muthesius, German photographer Emil Leitner, and American visual artist Man Ray, who famously captured the royal couple between moments of affection. Sourced from collections loaned by art patrons Taimur Hassan and Prahlad Bubbar, the images highlight curated objects from the palace, crafted by avant-garde designers who shared Muthesius's minimalist vision. The use of already produced furniture—like the tubular steel chaise longue by Le Corbusier, red armchairs by brothers Wassili and Hans Luckhardt, and pieces by London's PEL company—reflected the jazz-music-loving Maharaja's admiration for the democratic ideals embedded in modernist design. "He was consciously moving away from colonial aesthetics," points out Gadebusch, who believes the Kamalnayan Bajaj gallery, with its original Art Deco tiles, harmonises beautifully with the abstract-patterned carpets designed by Ivan da Silva Bruhns, the French-Brazilian visionary known for his innovations in Art Deco textiles. In a picture titled The Machine Room, the palace's sophisticated air-conditioning unit, manufactured by Borsig in Berlin, looks like a grungy installation—an echo of the 1920s, when machines commanded their own aesthetic category. "Technically, it was a marvel," says Gadebusch, about the palace whose water faucets, staircase banisters, light fixtures, and retractable awnings were all produced in Germany as per Muthesius's strict specifications. Instead of wallpaper, the walls were painted with pigments mixed with glass or metal particles. Doors and windows employed steel frames and thick tinted glass—unprecedented in Asian architecture. Lighting elements, such as the lamps above the Maharani's bed and the wall fixture in the Maharaja's library, were so stark and abstract that, as Gadebusch notes, "they seem to anticipate the minimalism movement of the late 1960s." This subtle aesthetic even extended to a train Muthesius designed later for the Maharaja, standing in sharp contrast to the ostentatious railcars associated with Indian royalty. When the initial plans and furnishings were unveiled in Berlin in the early 1930s, art critics celebrated it as a "fairy tale palace of modernism". Later, the palace evolved to blend beauty and utility, featuring innovations such as clear and darkly tinted glass panes set in metal frames to regulate natural light, India's first air-conditioning system, cubist para vents, pictorial carpets, and vibrantly coloured walls. The circulatory verandas facing the inner courtyard were a thoughtful nod to India's tropical climate. "My father put his foot down on only one major design element," wrote Richard Holkar. "Muthesius wanted a flat roof, in line with the modernist idiom of Le Corbusier, but my father insisted it wouldn't withstand the monsoon. Muthesius relented, designing a sloped roof covered with custom-made green ceramic tiles. International acclaim followed its completion in 1933. The palace became a showcase for modernist masterpieces, and Muthesius was appointed 'Chief Master Builder' of Indore. In 1934, he curated an exhibition at Bombay's Town Hall (now the Asiatic Society of Mumbai), bringing Manik Bagh's bold aesthetic to the heart of India's art scene. Even Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi became involved, travelling to Indore in 1937 to design a 'Temple of Love and Peace' for the royal family. That year, after the sudden death of the young Maharani in a Swiss clinic at age 23, the temple was reimagined as a memorial. Among the standout vintage prints at the exhibition, you will find Brancusi's iconic 'Bird in Space'—a sculpture that the Maharaja bought in black marble, white marble, and bronze—soaring in the Maharaja's living room. A dedicated section showcases other unrealised projects, including a sleek lakeside villa and houseboat in Kashmir. Though Manik Bagh faded from public consciousness following World War II—when Muthesius returned to Germany and Indore merged with the Indian state in 1947—the palace briefly resurfaced in 1970, when French journalist Robert Descharnes stumbled upon it, astonished by its preservation. Some years later, the Indian govt abolished the privileges of the Maharaja families and revoked the state's obligation to pay them maintenance. As a result, furniture, carpets, and lighting fixtures from their residences found their way—often via circuitous routes—back to Europe. In 1980, Sotheby's auctioned off many of these items, including rugs and a striking aluminium and chrome bed with built-in glass bookshelves. Among the bidders was designer Yves Saint Laurent, who also sought a pair of distinctive floor lamps. Stripped of his power and forced to adjust to a new socio-political landscape after independence, the Maharaja of Indore married twice more before passing away in Mumbai at age 53. His children and heirs, Usha Devi and Richard Holkar, preserved his legacy. However, after the abolition of privy purses and royal titles in 1976, they were required to hand over Manik Bagh Palace to the govt. Its eclectic European furnishings were sold at auctions and replaced with utilitarian Godrej cupboards now filled with bureaucratic files. Unironically, the former home of a couple who once enjoyed tax-free govt stipends now serves as the headquarters of the central GST and excise commissioner. When the Maharaja's Mumbai-based grandson, Yeshwant Holkar, visited Manik Bagh last year to invite the commissioner to an exhibition, he found the palace in a state "not befitting of its history or importance." "It's important that govt officials are made aware of its heritage so that any renovations are sensitive to its legacy," says Holkar, who believes the palace could thrive as a museum or a design institute. "Given its global reputation as a modernist icon, the govt could do far more with it." According to Gadebusch, Manik Bagh remains largely unknown to the Indian public outside design and architecture circles. Yet, it is a remarkable example of Indian patronage of Western design and architecture during the Great Depression. Few are aware of Muthesius's pivotal role in creating what is arguably India's most avant-garde residence. "On one hand, it's saddening to see it fall short of its potential. On the other hand, there's real hope. Much can still be restored," says Yeshwant Holkar. "The ball is in the govt's court."
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The making of India's first ‘fairytale palace of modernism'
In place of a turban, a safari hat crowns the Maharaja's head. As if weary of pearls and emeralds, the Maharani wears a glowing smile instead. The striking black-and-white photo of Indore's royal couple in their minimalist chic—he in sunglasses and a blazer, she beautiful and jacketed—was taken in 1933 by a German architect who understood their flair for understatement. By then, Berlin-based Eckart Muthesius had spent over three years building the young couple a sleek palace without a dome, a "temple of avant-garde" that was India's first centrally air-conditioned home. Even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar recently flew to Germany to strengthen diplomatic ties, an exhibition in Mumbai is showcasing a much older dialogue between the two nations, albeit in the realm of architecture. Sepia images on the walls of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Gallery in Byculla's Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum trace the century-old friendship between Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore, his wife Sanyogita, and Muthesius—a bond that gave India one of its earliest modernist buildings: Manik Bagh. Commissioned in 1930 by the maharaja, who met Muthesius in Oxford in the 1920s, "Manik Bagh was far ahead of its time," says the show's curator Raffael Dedo Gadebusch, who heads the Asian Art Museum in Berlin. "The palace was a synthesis of architecture, arts, and design like hardly any other building in that period," he adds, comparing it to The Bauhaus, the steel-and-glass art school designed by Walter Gropius in 1926. Art Deco buildings were just beginning to bloom on Marine Drive in 1933 when the palace—designed in the International Style—was dubbed a "fairytale palace of modernism". Alongside watercolours, drawings, and design studies by Muthesius, the show features 50 rare photographs by Muthesius, German photographer Emil Leitner, and American visual artist Man Ray. Sourced from collections loaned by art patrons Taimur Hassan and Prahlad Bubbar, the images highlight curated objects from the palace, crafted by avant-garde designers who shared Muthesius's minimalist vision, such as Constantin Brancusi. His iconic 'Bird in Space'—a sculpture the Maharaja bought in black marble, white marble, and bronze—are seen soaring in the maharaja's living room, in vintage prints. The palace's readymade furniture—like the tubular steel chaise longue by Le Corbusier and red armchairs by Wassili and Hans Luckhardt —reflected the jazz-loving Maharaja's admiration for the democratic ideals embedded in modernist design. "He was consciously moving away from colonial aesthetics," points out Gadebusch. "Technically, it was a marvel," says the curator about the palace, whose water faucets, staircase banisters, light fixtures, and retractable awnings were all produced in Germany as per Muthesius's strict specifications. Instead of wallpaper, the walls were painted with pigments mixed with glass or metal particles. Doors and windows employed steel frames and thick tinted glass—unprecedented in Asian architecture. Over time, the palace evolved to blend beauty and utility, featuring innovations such as clear and tinted glass panes set in metal frames, India's first air-conditioning system, pictorial carpets, and vibrantly coloured walls. "My father put his foot down on only one major design element," wrote Shivaji Rao "Richard" Holkar, the Maharaja's son from his third marriage. "Muthesius wanted a flat roof, in line with the modernist idiom of Le Corbusier, but my father insisted it wouldn't withstand the monsoon. Muthesius relented, designing a sloped roof with custom-made green ceramic tiles. International acclaim followed its completion in 1933. The palace became a showcase for modernist masterpieces, and Muthesius was appointed 'Chief Master Builder' of Indore. However, after the abolition of the privy purse, Manik Bagh found several of its furnishings auctioned off by Sotheby's. These included an aluminium-and-chrome bed with built-in glass bookshelves, for which designer Yves Saint Laurent made a bid. Stripped of his power and forced to adjust to a new socio-political landscape after independence, the Maharaja of Indore married twice more before passing away in Mumbai at age 53. Some years later, Manik Bagh Palace passed over to the govt, and its once eclectic European furnishings were replaced with Godrej cupboards filled with bureaucratic files. The former home of a couple who once enjoyed tax-free govt stipends now serves as the headquarters of the central GST and excise commissioner. When the Maharaja's Mumbai-based grandson, Yeshwant Holkar, visited Manik Bagh last year to invite the commissioner to an exhibition, he found the palace in a state "not befitting of its history or importance." "It's important that govt officials are made aware of its heritage so that any renovations are sensitive to its legacy," says Holkar, who believes the palace could thrive as a museum or a design institute. "Given its global reputation as a modernist icon, the govt could do far more with it. The ball is in its court."
Al Jazeera
24-05-2025
- Al Jazeera
Thailand readies homecoming for stolen ancient statues located in US museum
Bangkok, Thailand – Over several years in the mid-1960s, the crumbling ruins of an ancient temple in northeast Thailand were picked clean by local looters. Possibly hundreds of centuries-old statues that were long buried beneath the soft, verdant grounds around the temple were stolen. To this day, all the known artefacts from the pillaging spree, collectively known as the Prakhon Chai hoard, sit scattered thousands of miles away in museums and collections across the United States, Europe and Australia. In a matter of weeks, though, the first of those statues will begin their journey home to Thailand. The acquisitions committee of San Francisco's Asian Art Museum recommended the release last year of four bronze statues from the hoard, which had been held in its collection since the late 1960s. San Francisco city's Asian Art Commission, which manages the museum, then approved the proposal on April 22, officially setting the pieces free. Some six decades after the late British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford is suspected of spiriting the statues out of the country, they are expected to arrive back in Thailand within a month or two. 'We are the righteous owners,' Disapong Netlomwong, senior curator for the Office of National Museums at Thailand's Fine Arts Department, told Al Jazeera. 'It is something that our ancestors … have made, and it should be exhibited here to show the civilisation and the belief of the people,' said Disapong, who also serves on Thailand's Committee for the Repatriation of Stolen Artefacts. The imminent return of the statues is the latest victory in Thailand's quest to reclaim its pilfered heritage. Their homecoming also exemplifies the efforts of countries across the world to retrieve pieces of their own stolen history that still sit in display cases and in the vaults of some of the West's top museums. Latchford, a high-profile Asian art dealer who came to settle in Bangkok and lived there until his death in 2020 at 88 years of age, is believed to have earned a fortune from auction houses, private collectors and museums around the world who acquired his smuggled ancient artefacts from Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia. In 2021, Latchford's daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, agreed to return her late father's private collection of more than 100 artefacts, valued at more than $50m, to Cambodia. Though never convicted during his lifetime, Latchford was charged with falsifying shipping records, wire fraud and a host of other crimes related to antiquities smuggling by a US federal grand jury in 2019. He died the following year, before the case against him could go to trial. In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York agreed to return 16 pieces tied to Latchford's smuggling network to Cambodia and Thailand. San Francisco's Asian Art Museum has also previously returned pieces to Thailand – two intricately carved stone lintels taken from a pair of temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, in 2021. While Thailand and Cambodia have recently fared relatively well in efforts to reclaim their looted heritage from US museum collections, Greece has not had such luck with the British Museum in London. Perhaps no case of looted antiquities has grabbed more news headlines than that of the so-called 'Elgin Marbles'. The 2,500-year-old friezes, known also as the Parthenon Marbles, were hacked off the iconic Acropolis in Athens in the early 1800s by agents of Lord Elgin, Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece at that time. Elgin claimed he took the marbles with the permission of the Ottomans and then sold them in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they remain. Greece has been demanding the return of the artefacts since the country's declaration of independence in 1832 and sent an official request to the museum in 1983, according to the nongovernmental Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy. 'Despite all these efforts, the British government has not deviated from its positions over the years, legally considering the Parthenon marbles to belong to Britain. They have even passed laws to prevent the return of cultural artefacts,' the institute said. Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit campaigning against the illicit trade of ancient art and artefacts, said that 'colonialism is still alive and well in parts of the art world'. 'There is a mistaken assumption by some institutions that they are better carers, owners, custodians of these cultural objects,' Davis told Al Jazeera. But Davis, who has worked on Cambodia's repatriation claims with US museums, says the 'custodians' defence has long been debunked. 'These antiquities were cared for by [their] communities for centuries, in some cases for millennia, before there was … a market demand for them, leading to their looting and trafficking, but we still do see resistance,' she said. Brad Gordon, a lawyer representing the Cambodian government in its ongoing repatriation of stolen artefacts, has heard museums make all sorts of claims to defend retaining pieces that should be returned to their rightful homelands. Excuses from museums include claiming that they are not sure where pieces originated from; that contested items were acquired before laws banned their smuggling; that domestic laws block their repatriation, or that the ancient pieces deserve a more global audience than they would receive in their home country. Still, none of those arguments should keep a stolen piece from coming home, Gordon said. 'If we believe the object is stolen and the country of origin wishes for it to come home, then the artefact should be returned,' he said. Old attitudes have started breaking down though, and more looted artefacts are starting to find their way back to their origins. 'There's definitely a growing trend toward doing the right thing in this area, and … I hope that more museums follow the Asian Art Museum's example. We've come a long way, but there's still a long way to go,' Davis said. Much of the progress, Davis believes, is down to growing media coverage of stolen antiquities and public awareness of the problem in the West, which has placed mounting pressure on museums to do the right thing. In 2022, the popular US comedy show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver dedicated a whole episode to the topic. As Oliver said, if you go to Greece and visit the Acropolis you might notice 'some odd details', such as sections missing from sculptures – which are now in Britain. 'Honestly, if you are ever looking for a missing artefact, nine times out of 10 it's in the British Museum,' Oliver quips. Gordon also believes a generational shift in thinking is at play among those who once trafficked in the cultural heritage of other countries. 'For example, the children of many collectors, once they are aware of the facts of how the artefacts were removed from the country of origin, want their parents to return them,' he said. The four bronze statues the San Francisco museum will soon be returning to Thailand date back to the 7th and 9th centuries. Thai archaeologist Tanongsak Hanwong said that period places them squarely in the Dvaravati civilisation, which dominated northeast Thailand, before the height of the Khmer empire that would build the towering spires of Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia and come to conquer much of the surrounding region centuries later. Three of the slender, mottled figures, one nearly a metre tall (3.2 feet), depict Bodhisattva – Buddhist adherents on the path to nirvana – and the other the Buddha himself in a wide, flowing robe. Tanongsak, who brought the four pieces in the San Francisco collection to the attention of Thailand's stolen artefacts repatriation committee in 2017, said they and the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard are priceless proof of Thailand's Buddhist roots at a time when much of the region was still Hindu. 'The fact that we do not have any Prakhon Chai bronzes on display anywhere [in Thailand], in the national museum or local museums whatsoever, it means we do not have any evidence of the Buddhist history of that period at all, and that's strange,' he said. The Fine Arts Department first wrote to San Francisco's Asian Art Museum about the statues' illicit provenance in 2019, but started to make progress on having them returned only when the US Department of Homeland Security got involved on Thailand's behalf. Robert Mintz, the museum's chief curator, said staff could find no evidence that the statues had been trafficked in their own records. But they were convinced they had been looted and smuggled out of Thailand – and of Latchford's involvement – once Homeland Security provided proof, with the help of Thai researchers. 'Once that evidence was presented and they heard it, their feeling was the appropriate place for these would be back in Thailand,' Mintz said of the museum's staff and acquisition committee. The San Francisco Asian Art Museum went a step further when it finally resolved to return the four statues to Thailand. It also staged a special exhibit around the pieces to highlight the very questions the experience had raised regarding the theft of antiquities. The exhibition – Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities – ran in San Francisco from November to March. 'One of our goals was to try to indicate to the visiting public to the museum how important it is to look historically at where works of art have come from,' Mintz said. 'To pull back the curtain a bit, to say, these things do exist within American collections and now is the time to address challenges that emerge from past collecting practice,' he said. Mintz says Homeland Security has asked the Asian Art Museum to look into the provenance of at least another 10 pieces in its collection that likely came from Thailand. Tess Davis, of the Antiquities Coalition campaign group, said the exhibition was a very unusual, and welcome, move for a museum in the process of giving up looted artefacts. In Thailand, Disapong and Tanongsak say the Asian Art Museum's decision to recognise Thailand's rightful claim to the statues could also help them start bringing the rest of the Prakhon Chai hoard home, including 14 more known pieces in other museums around the US, and at least a half-dozen scattered across Europe and Australia. 'It is indeed a good example, because once we can show the world that the Prakhon Chai bronzes were all exported from Thailand illegally, then probably, hopefully some other museums will see that all the Prakhon Chai bronzes they have must be returned to Thailand as well,' Tanongsak said. There are several other artefacts besides the Prakhon Chai hoard that Thailand is also looking to repatriate from collections around the world, he said. Davis said the repatriation of stolen antiquities is still being treated by too many with collections as an obstacle when it should be seen, as the Asian Art Museum has, as an opportunity. 'It's an opportunity to educate the public,' Davis said. 'It's an opportunity to build bridges with Southeast Asia,' she added, 'and I hope other institutions follow suit.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Asian Art Museum in SF welcomes new director
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is celebrating AAPI Heritage Month under the new leadership of Dr. Soyoung Lee, who aims to connect people through the history and future of Asian cultures. The museum, one of the few globally dedicated to all Asian cultures, offers exhibits that span 6,000 years of history, illustrating the past, present, and future. Dr. Lee, the new director, emphasizes the museum's mission to foster understanding and empathy through art. 'Asia's influence spans across time and cultures,' said Dr. Soyoung Lee, emphasizing the museum's broad focus. More Asian Pacific American Heritage Month stories Dr. Lee stated, 'At the heart of prejudice, bias, and racism against certain groups of people, classes of people is ignorance and I think art is a powerful way to learn and discover and be inspired about particular cultures and about particular individuals.' The Tanforan Memorial in San Bruno commemorates the site of a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Dr. Lee brings her Korean heritage and vision to the museum, aiming to engage its nearly 200,000 annual visitors with innovative displays and programs. The museum offers free admission on the first Sunday of each month, encouraging more people to explore its vast collection of 18,000 artworks and artifacts. The Asian Art Museum continues to be a vital cultural destination in San Francisco, offering insights into Asian heritage and its ongoing influence on American society. 'We want young people to come and see themselves, to see the world, for them to feel like this is their place,' Dr. Lee emphasized. All facts from this article were gathered by KRON4 journalists. The article was converted into this format with assistance from artificial intelligence. It has been edited and approved by KRON4 staff. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
