East West Bank Art Terrace - Exhibitions

Enjoy a breath of fresh air and step into an outdoor gallery with eye-popping works by local and global artists. Our new East West Bank Art Terrace is the city’s largest rooftop art experience — an inviting 7,500 sq. ft. venue for special live performances and evening events, featuring a rotating selection of large-scale contemporary sculptures and commissioned installations. The opening of the Art Terrace in August of 2023 caps our multiyear expansion project, transforming the museum into one of San Francisco’s foremost community hubs for inspiring art experiences.

Ala Ebtekar, Luminous Ground

For Luminous Ground (2018/2020), commissioned by the Asian Art Museum, Ala Ebtekar (b. 1978, active San Francisco and Tehran) imprinted handmade clay tiles with a vast image of the cosmos. Luminous Ground  suggests a contemporary nod to the polychrome tiles used in traditional Persian architecture to represent the heavens. Instead of abstract geometric shapes, Ebtekar’s tiles display a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, giving us a glimpse not just of the far-off heavens, but back billions of years into the history of the universe.
Kongkee, Taotie

Taotie (2022), a neon sculpture by Kongkee (b. 1977, active Hong Kong and Vancouver), was a much-photographed crowd favorite in the artist’s 2022 Warring States Cyberpunk exhibition. The work’s title refers to aphorisms warning against vanity, pride, and other follies; such pictographic messages were often inscribed on the faces of ancient Chinese bronze vessels. Rendered in electric pink neon, Kongkee’s sculpture reimagines these motifs at a dramatic scale and updates them to include contemporary references, illuminating their continued relevance in the age of social media.
Pinaree Sanpitak, Breast Stupa Topiary

Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak’s (b. 1961) Breast Stupa Topiary (2013/2019) explores the morphology of the stupa — the Buddhist commemorative monument that, like Buddhism itself, has taken different forms throughout Asia and around the world. Sanpitak uses curvilinear lines executed in the industrial material of polished stainless steel to define the space of the stupa as a form that also echoes the female breast. The breast is a signature recurring theme in her work and a means of investigating the human body’s “tangible and intangible context.” For her, the coexistence of body and soul is well expressed in the Thai concept of rang-gai, in which the body is a compound of the physical and the spiritual.

Curated by Naz Cuguoglu, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art & Programs.

Organizers & Sponsors

Ala Ebtekar: Luminous Ground is made possible with the generous support of lead sponsors Tina and Hamid Moghadam. This installation is a part of the Asian American Experience, which is made possible with the generous support of Glen S. and Sakie T. Fukushima, an anonymous donor in memory of Ambassador and Mrs. Sampson Shen, and Claudine Cheng.

Kongkee: Taotie was commissioned by the Asian Art Museum, courtesy of the artist.

Pinaree Sanpitak: Breast Stupa Topiary is made possible with the generous support of 100 Tonson Foundation. This installation is a part of Today’s Asian Voices, which is made possible with the generous support of Salle E. Yoo and Jeffrey P. Gray.