Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Museums are full of small-scale changes of exhibition that are worth seeing but easily missed because they don’t get any publicity. Sometimes it’s as simple as replacing one of our usual displays with a rarely-seen object because the better-known piece is being loaned to another institution. Other times it’s a matter of repainting a wall so the objects displayed there look completely different. I think many of us are guilty of believing that we don’t need to visit the permanent collection galleries of our local museums because we’ve already seen them, but in truth most of those galleries are in constant flux. It’s worth revisiting even the most familiar collection because you never know what new discoveries you might make.

Xie Shichen (Chinese, 1487 - c. 1567), Landscape. Fan, now mounted flat: ink on gold dusted paper. Overall: 7 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (19.1 x 49.5 cm). The Brooklyn Museum: Gift of H. Christopher Luce, 1993.193.

A great example of a big change that takes place in Brooklyn’s permanent collection galleries without even a whisper of P.R. is the Museum’s annual rotation of Asian paintings. Every January we change out all the paintings in the Asian galleries, usually selecting the new group to represent a single theme that runs through several different cultures. It amounts to a mini-exhibition, but one that appears interspersed with the rest of the Asian objects on permanent view.

This year the theme of the rotation is landscape. We put up 19 paintings in January and they look absolutely gorgeous.

Great tomes can and have been written about the significance of landscape in East Asian art and culture. I’m not going to try to cover it all here. Suffice it to say that the landscape painting tradition has its roots in the belief that time spent in a natural setting is therapeutic and enlightening, offering benefits and lessons that no amount of culture or scholarship could. This is an idea that lots of Westerners share, but the Western world came to it much later. (Think about how “new” Thoreau’s Walden seemed in its time.) Chinese, Japanese, and Korean landscape paintings are mostly not the antique equivalent of Sierra Club calendar photos, however, because most of their artists weren’t recording the actual appearance of mountains and shorelines. Most of the paintings were created indoors, and first-hand knowledge of the wilderness was not always a prerequisite for a successful painting.

Like much great art, East Asian landscape painting is a means of communicating many levels of meaning in a reasonably compact way. The viewer of a landscape painting can approach it from several directions at once:

Noro Kaiseki (Japanese, 1747-1828), Landscape. Hanging scroll: ink and light color on silk. Image only: 50 x 19 1/2 in. (127 x 49.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of Dr. Richard and Ruth Dickes, 84.134.1

- First, one must make sense of the scene. This isn’t always easy, since often much is obscured by bands of clouds or general haziness. Twisting rock forms that “should” read as far-away peaks often seem to be impossibly top heavy, leaning in from above with no discernable base. In figuring out the spatial progression of the scene (or lack thereof), one starts realizing that this isn’t a real place. This isn’t a window onto a landscape but rather a landscape used as a window onto other concerns.

- After one is oriented, one can try to place oneself in the scene, to imagine what it would be like to be there. Artists often provide winding footpaths and little pavilions so the viewer can wander around and settle into parts of the landscape. Having entered it, one can discern the moisture in the air, the loose rubble under foot, the vast distance that lies between shores or mountain peaks. For all the abstraction of a landscape, it should still offer the viewer a familiar feel or experience.

- A knowledgeable viewer might recognize certain features that identify the scene with a specific site (although most paintings represent a fantastic landscape, imagined by the artist) and then remember that that site was mentioned in a celebrated poem. The landscape then brings to mind the emotional content or “lesson” of the poem. The viewer can assess the artist’s presentation of the scene with reference both to the poem and to other paintings that allude to the same verse: does this painting capture the same emotions as the words? Does it add anything to our interpretation of those words? Does it do so differently than other paintings of the same subject?

Kim U-beom (Korean, 19th century), Landscape with Bare Plum Trees. Hanging scroll now mounted flat: ink and light color on paper. 30 5/16 x 13 in. (77 x 33 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of John M. Lyden, 84.197.3.

- Similarly, one might recognize certain features in the landscape that are highly symbolic, for instance gnarled pines (representing longevity) or blossoming plum trees (hope for new beginnings) or bamboo (resilience). This symbolism adds flavor to the overall effect of the painting. Again, some of these elements, singly or in combination, might bring to mind famous passages of literature.

- One might recognize segments of the painting that look like the work of other, well-known artists. If you spend some time looking at Asian painting, you discover that there are literally thousands of ways of applying ink to paper (or silk), and that each way offers different coloristic and textural effects. Certain types of brushwork came to be associated with individual masters and their schools, as did certain compositions and other features. A painting that quotes any of these features becomes a riff on Art History; by referencing earlier paintings it recalls moments in time and well-known artistic personalities. The viewer can weigh the contributions of the painting at hand against those of its predecessors, and the comparison might reveal something new.

Watanabe Shiko (Japanese, 1683-1755), Landscape. Hanging scroll: ink on paper. Image: 13 x 17 1/2 in. (33 x 44.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum: Gift of Mrs. Harold G. Henderson in memory of Professor Harold G. Henderson, 74.201.3.

So a well-made landscape painting speaks to the knowledgeable viewer on many levels: it offers an imaginary journey as well as a wealth of literary and artistic allusions to bigger issues. What’s interesting to many Western viewers, who were raised to expect landscapes to be picturesque, is that most of these paintings were not designed to elicit an “ooh, pretty” response (although many of these paintings are indeed quite pretty). Instead, an awful lot of East Asian landscape painting inspires emotions that even the most avid tree-hugger would tend to avoid in everyday life: feelings of isolation and discomfort, a sense of one’s own mortality and insignificance. So why go there? Because looking at pretty things usually doesn’t teach us as much about ourselves as looking at disturbing things does. And some of the most complex and fascinating experiences can be found in a combination of disturbing and pretty.

In any case, I invite you to come by the Museum any time before January 2010 to admire a fine selection of Asian landscape paintings in the second floor galleries. I have illustrated a few of them here, but they’re much better (and bigger!) in person.

I can’t believe that it’s been more than a year since my last posting on this topic. I guess I got distracted by other tasks. I was recently asked to “wrap it up,” so here it goes…

In my first installment, I mentioned that no curator shops alone. The official process for adding an object to a museum collection really underscores that idea. It’s that final process, known as “accessioning,” that I’m going to talk about here.

Shiva as Chandrashekhara. Southern India. Chola period, c. 970 A.D. Bronze. Height 25 in. Brooklyn Museum. Gift of the Asian Art Council and other donors in honor of Amy G. Poster, 2007.2.

After we were offered the Shiva by a well-known New York dealer, I had a few people join me on a visit to his workspace to see the object. In our group were the curator emeritus whom the object was going to honor, the co-Chairs of the group of supporters who were largely responsible for funding the purchase, the former Chair of the group (who happens to know a great deal about Indian sculpture), and our senior object conservator (Lisa Bruno, a fellow Brooklyn Museum blogger). All of us were looking for different things, especially the conservator, who wanted to make sure the Shiva wasn’t actively deteriorating and who was looking for signs of major repair or tampering that might have compromised the authenticity of the object.

Once the Shiva passed all our criteria, we told the dealer to “hold” the piece for us and we asked for photographs. I rushed back to our Director, Deputy Director, and Chief Curator and showed them the photos while also making a pitch for why the object would make such a good addition to the collection, how we could use it in various different types of exhibitions, why it was an appropriate acquisition to honor Amy, etc. They seemed impressed. Had they not been impressed, it would have been pretty difficult for me to move forward with the purchase. I have had directors reject objects that I really, really wanted, and while it seemed terribly unfair and somewhat arbitrary at the time one has to remember that the Director has broad experience and really is just looking out for the wellbeing of the Museum.

Only after I got their go-ahead did I arrange for the object to come to the Museum. We generally try not to have works of art delivered to the Museum unless we are quite sure that we want them. The Museum usually has to foot the bill for returning the objects we decide not to acquire, and packing and shipping of works of art can get pretty expensive.

After the object arrived at the Museum, it received further inspections by conservators and administrators while I generated the official paperwork to present it to our Collections Committee. Most art museums have a Collections Committee, comprised of members of the Board of Trustees and sometimes other high-ranking constituents. The Committee is tasked with keeping the Museum on track with the kind, quality, and number of objects it acquires (and disposes — more on that later). The Committee looks at gifts as well as purchases.

The curators and Director wouldn’t present anything to the Collections Committee without a strong sense that it should be added to the collection, but the Committee is there as a final check on the Museum staff, to make sure that we haven’t overlooked a serious problem with the object or the terms of its acquisition. They meet several times a year to look at, and vote on, the latest batch of acquisitions. Only after the Committee has voted can an object be added officially to the collection.

After the Collections Committee meeting, and only after the meeting, the Museum cuts a check for the vendor. Sometimes—often—many months pass between the day the curator first expresses interest in a work of art and the day the dealer receives any money for it. Dealers are willing to put up with the delay because of the prestige of having sold an object to a museum. But there are certainly situations in which a Museum loses out on an object because a private collector can pay for it on the spot and the dealer really needs the cash.

Designer Lance Singletary works with Brooklyn Museum Art Handlers to install Shiva as Chandrashekhara.

After the object has been approved by the Committee, it is assigned an accession number (you’ll notice these associated with all of Brooklyn’s objects; they start with a 2-digit or 4-digit date) and a location in storage. In an ideal world we would put all our new acquisitions out on view immediately after they arrive, but installing works of art in a public gallery costs quite a bit of money. Sculptures often need mounts made, pedestals built, etc. It seems kind of tacky, but sometimes we have to tell a potential donor that we can’t accept their work of art as a gift unless they also give us the cash to pay for its installation. Museum casework has to ensure proper climate and security, and an apparently simple pedestal with a Plexiglas bonnet can cost several thousand dollars. Luckily, we already had a pedestal in the Indian gallery that was just right for our Shiva, and he didn’t need any fancy mount because his base sits flat and steady. So we moved him into the gallery shortly after we acquired him and we don’t have any plans to move him in the future, so he’s probably there right now.

A final word on the accessioning process: it is slow, involves a lot of paperwork, and requires the efforts of dozens of individuals, but it is designed to make sure that we are serious, cautious, and deliberate in our intake of art objects. Every art museum (there may be one or two exceptions) has junk in storage. The majority of it was given, rather than purchased. Often the curator knew or suspected it was junk but accepted it anyway because they didn’t want to offend the donor. There’s something to be said for cultivating long-term relationships with donors, but storage space is finite and we’re supposed to treat all objects with a very high level of care that can be a burden on the budget and staff time. So nowadays we are pretty hardcore about what we accept. And like most museums, we do some deaccessioning, or removal of objects from the collection.

Probably most of you have read news stories criticizing museums for selling off great works of art from their collections. Even when deaccessioning is handled properly (with proceeds used only to support future acquisitions of works of art), it can be newsworthy because a community experiences a loss of “cultural heritage” when a beloved masterpiece leaves the area or leaves the public domain. What you don’t hear about in the press is the far greater number of not-so-great works of art that leave museum collections on a pretty regular basis. And you also don’t hear just how much work museums have to put into the process of releasing objects, many of which will fetch three figures on a good day. We have numerous people from several sectors sign off on the release (including the Collections Committee), we put considerable effort into finding appropriate homes for the objects in other public institutions, and then if we do sell we prefer to do so at auction so the transaction can be as public as possible even though an auction might not be the most lucrative venue for sale. In short, deaccessioning is a laborious and mostly unrewarding process and the aim of the curator is to take in as few future deaccessions as possible.

Let’s not end this long series on a grim note! Instead, please let me encourage you to visit the Asian Art galleries, on the second floor of the Brooklyn Museum. We’re gradually getting more and more of the collection out onto the web, but really nothing beats seeing the objects in person. One of the great things about an in-person visit to a museum is the happy accidents—you go to see a specific show or work of art but you catch sight of something you’ve never seen or heard of before and it becomes the thing you remember, the object that changes your outlook in some way. So come visit our Shiva, and maybe you’ll find some other works of art that are even more exciting.

Stepping out of the Eastern Parkway subway station this morning, I was greeted by the most amazing sight: the cherry trees in front of the Museum were bursting with big, puffy pink blossoms. On Friday they had been all brown twigs, but over the weekend they just exploded. It had a dramatic effect on my mood: I went from tired and gloomy to bouncy and optimistic in a split second. And I’m not really the kind of person who oohs and aahs over pretty flowers.

This year, the incredible display of cherry blossoms found around the Brooklyn Museum (especially in the Botanic Garden next door) gains an additional dimension because inside we’re featuring a couple of great exhibitions of Japanese art. Obviously, you don’t need to be Japanese to appreciate the coming of Spring, but the rest of us can learn a thing or two from the Japanese approach to seasonal change. There’s a very ancient tradition in Japan, first practiced by the aristocracy and then later by the whole population, of watching very closely for the changes in nature that mark the transition between seasons and celebrating those changes with poetry and festivals. None of these festivals are as overtly nature-based or as broadly celebrated as Hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing, an occasion for picnics and strolling in groves of trees that were planted for the purpose. Picture an entire country sharing the giddy experience that I just had coming out of the subway, add quite a bit of alcohol and a day spent away from the office, and you have a sense of what Hanami is like.

In Japanese poetry and philosophy, cherry blossom viewing delivers two somewhat contradictory lessons. The sad truth is that cherry trees bloom for only about a week, then they shed their flowers in a wonderful blizzard of petals. The fleeting quality of their beauty is a large part of what’s so thrilling and meaningful about it all. In East Asian Buddhism, the flowering of the trees was used as a metaphor for human life in general: a gorgeous, exciting pageant, but woefully short. Buddhists argue that we should seek something deeper and more meaningful, something — described as “truth” — that surpasses such temporary, earthly thrills. However, as is often the case, popular tradition takes the Buddhist interpretation of the cherry blossoms and turns it on its head: instead of dismissing the power of ephemeral beauty, the Hanami festival embraces it and suggests that we all enjoy ourselves now because we cannot know what tomorrow brings.

When you see cherry blossoms in Japanese art — and you can find them in several prints in the exhibition, Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900, open through June 15, 2008 — they can represent all the youth and optimism of Spring, but they can also represent the fleeting nature of life, a more pessimistic view. This kind of complex symbolism might seem like a bit of a downer to those of us who are just out to enjoy the view, but it’s what makes for great art. So the next time you see a Japanese image that pairs an image of a beautiful young woman with a branch of blossoming cherry, think about what the hidden message may be. But there’s also no harm in enjoying the beauty while we’ve got it.

The search for an object to purchase in honor of the soon-to-be-retired Curator of Asian Art began more than eight months before I arrived at the Brooklyn Museum, so I’m a little foggy on all the details of the earliest phases, but basically, the Curator and her supporters started contacting all the most respected dealers and auction houses they knew to see if they had anything really special available that might suit our purposes. Of course, no one said no. The local dealers said, “come on over, I have some wonderful things to show you.” The dealers in other countries sent images of their best holdings. The team was shown a wonderful array of objects, but as in any shopping experience, there were lots of pieces that weren’t quite right for the collection, some wonderful things we couldn’t afford, and a fair number of things that weren’t up to par.

Had we made these inquiries only fifteen years ago, we would have been offered a much richer variety of objects. Everybody knows that the supply of Asian antiquities has largely dried up, and dealers have been very hard pressed to find good material. That is, of course, kind of a good thing: it means that not as much material is being looted and/or exported illegally from Asia. And it means that a lot of the best material has already made its way into museum collections, where it is shared with the general public. But it also means that if one wants to buy something beautiful, one has to look a lot harder, and one has to sift through more B-level objects than one used to. And the A-level things are getting more expensive.

Shopping for antiquities is always a bit of a minefield, with issues of authenticity and provenance at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Nowadays, prices for Asian art are high enough that it’s worth it for skilled craftsmen to take the time to make good facsimiles. Certain types of Asian art have been forged for centuries. There are a lot of fakes out there. Scientific testing is a relatively good way to get answers about an object’s age, and the best dealers will have things tested before they offer them to their clients. Testing is most reliable for ceramics and some bronzes. But certain materials, most notably stone, are very difficult to test for age (one can analyze the surface of stone for patterns of wear and patination, but it’s an inexact science), and even testable objects can be faked, by creating a mostly new object using old materials.

People who spend a lot of time looking at specific types of Asian art develop a laundry list of telltale signs of forgery, as well as a strong sense of what an authentic object should look like. But the visual cues can be misleading, especially since the best forgers have been looking, too. Not everyone has the same laundry list, so there can be lots of debate, especially surrounding flashy new “finds.” (Some of this debate is clearly a matter of sour grapes: people who missed out on the find saying that it can’t possibly be real.) I’ve seen objects that I strongly suspected were forgeries at some of the best museums and galleries in the world, but I am well aware that my opinion of what is “fake looking” and what isn’t is just that: an opinion. Sometimes an object that looks slightly wrong is simply the authentic product of a provincial workshop or a quirky artist.

The other concern nowadays is provenance, or where the object has been. This is an issue that has received a lot of press lately, but the truth is that the vast majority of museums stepped up their level of caution long before the news coverage began. Certainly, most American museums once participated in phases of happy-go-lucky acquisitiveness, and they once subscribed to imperialist notions that Western collectors were “rescuing” artifacts from developing countries. They didn’t realize that they were doing something that future generations would consider inappropriate; they simply thought that they were bringing great art to the masses (and of course, they were…). But those days have been over for quite a while. Today, museums know that they must serve as models of good collecting behavior: if there’s nothing clean on the market, then you don’t buy anything, even if it would be fun to tout a new acquisition.

The very best way to determine that an object has not been stolen, looted, or removed illegally from its country of origin is to examine its history of ownership. For European and American paintings, that history can often be traced back to the moment when the artist made the painting. For antiquities and non-Western art of all types, the history is never that complete. The very best way to acquire an antiquity is to excavate it scientifically in a government-authorized dig. This is how many of the older Western museums acquired great collections of Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern art. But today, governments rarely allow removal of excavated artifacts to another country, and properly excavated materials almost never enter the market.

As much as it pains me to admit it, most antiquities that have entered the market (ever!) were unscientifically removed from the ground or from ruins, with no documentation of a find site or of the other objects that may have accompanied them. The responsible collector’s role today is to discourage further looting by refusing to buy anything that appears to have left its country of origin in recent years. The longer an object has been out of the ground, the better. Most countries passed laws in the early 1970s that made it illegal to export any object that was more than 100 years old. Museums aim to acquire objects that were exported before the laws were passed.

For museums, the ideal objects on the market are those that we know have been residing in a living-room or gallery since the mid-20th century or earlier. Ideally, one can get written documentation of the object’s recent history: the original bill of sale, maybe, or an old exhibition catalog with an image of the piece. Unfortunately for museums, this sort of documentation adds enormously to an object’s monetary value, and sometimes one sees rather ugly works of art selling for high prices because they have really good provenance. But aside from offering the collector a rare opportunity to acquire an antiquity without too great a dose of guilt, good provenance also offers a degree of reassurance about the authenticity of the object, because people weren’t making as many forgeries in the early 20th century as they are today (they were making some, but often not very well).

So all of this brings up the question of the provenance of our new Shiva. We were definitely looking for an object with an unimpeachable history of ownership, and the Shiva image satisfied our requirements. I can’t tell you the precise details, because some of the people involved are still living and have asked to remain anonymous. But suffice it to say that Brooklyn’s Shiva has provenance back to the mid-1960s, when a very well known Asian art collector purchased the piece from a reputable New York dealer. The bronze was in his collection for a short time, and then he gave it to a friend and colleague, who kept it in her apartment for more than 30 years before a prominent dealer finally talked her into selling it to the Brooklyn Museum.

Armed with the “wish list” and approximate budget I described in my previous entries, the team of curators and trustees who were interested in finding a suitable object to acquire in honor of Amy Poster went out into the market. Every field of art has a slightly different market, so here’s a brief run-down of what it looks like for Asian art (I’m mostly talking about antiquities here, although the market for contemporary Asian art is remarkably similar).

First, there are auction houses, mostly holding sales in New York, London, and Hong Kong, although there are some regional houses in Europe and other American cities that also get good things. These are pretty straight-forward selling venues, with prices made public and almost everything trading hands out in the open. One doesn’t need to be in the “in crowd” to buy at an auction, but there are some vaguely secretive elements, such as the reserve (or minimum acceptable price) for any given object and the fact that many buyers choose to bid by phone or through agents, so you don’t always know who’s buying what.

Museums often have trouble buying at auction because lots of people have to sign off on a museum purchase ahead of time and of course when you head into an auction you don’t know what the final price will be. Auction houses publish catalogs listing the objects in an upcoming sale about a month in advance, and then those objects are on display for about a week before the sale. That’s barely enough time for most curators to secure the permission they need before buying something. Savvy curators will often arrange to preview select objects from a sale long before the catalog is available. Really savvy curators will take a conservator along with them to see a potential purchase so he or she can assess its condition and look for tell-tale signs of reconstruction or forgery. Of course, if the auction is in a distant city, then going to see things in person is either costly or impossible. Sometimes, curators will ask someone they trust to check out the object for them, but that’s frankly a little nerve-wracking.

On those somewhat rare occasions when a museum pursues an object through auction, they often send an outside agent (maybe a dealer, maybe just a friend) to do the bidding. There are several reasons why they might want to do this, but the main concern is that if everyone sees a curator bidding on something, they might think “it must be a really good object because a museum wants it; maybe I should bid on it, too” and of course one doesn’t want too much competition. But whoever is doing the bidding on the museum’s behalf, they have been given strict instructions about the absolutely highest amount they can bid. I have lost objects by one bid because of these limits, but of course they’re necessary so the museum stays within its budget.

The other major source for Asian art is the many galleries and private dealers who are located all over the world, with particular concentrations in New York and London. Galleries have regular business hours when you can walk in for a casual browse. Private dealers are open by appointment only and are often located in less obvious places, like apartments. A particularly handy way for a novice to get to know these businesses is the pair of Asian art fairs that take place in New York in March, because the fairs attract dealers from all over the world. But there are plenty of galleries that are not represented at the fairs, so discovering them (and figuring out which ones are trustworthy) is often a matter of word of mouth.

Buying from a dealer or gallery can be much less stressful for curators because there is no set deadline for purchase and because one can negotiate and then set a price before presenting the potential acquisition to the administration for approval. It’s often possible to bring an object from a dealer into the Museum for in-depth examination by the curator and conservators prior to purchasing it, which is another luxury that auction houses cannot offer. Museums are famous for moving at a glacial pace in almost everything they do, and making acquisitions is no exception, but I do try to be considerate by pushing the decision process along: dealers have bills to pay like everyone else.

Whether you visit a gallery or a private dealer, there is a good chance that what you see when you visit is only a fraction of what they have in their inventory. And this is one of the major ways that these businesses differ from auction houses: dealers will often save special objects for their best clients. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen a fabulous object in a collector’s home and wondered “where did they find THAT?” only to be told that they got it recently from a well-known dealer who never showed it to anyone else.

The bad news for curators is that most of us can’t afford to be regular or top-dollar customers, so we are often shown things after they’ve been passed by private collectors. The good news for curators is that dealers like to see their objects go to museums. And this is another way that a wish list can help a curator. If you tell a dealer that your museum is looking for a really nice Chinese Buddhist sculpture, then there’s a much better chance that they will contact you as soon as they have one. Sometimes they even contact you before they have it, saying “I think I can get a collector to part with this, if you think the Museum might be interested.” And this is where dealers can be your greatest allies when searching for an acquisition: they have seen more objects than any of us, and they’ve made careful note of where those objects were, how much they sold for, and how willing the current owners might be to sell.

It turns out that we found our Shiva through just such assistance from a dealer, but more on that front later…