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Museum Hours
Thu: 1 PM–8 PM
Fri–Mon: 10 AM–5 PM
Tue–Wed: Closed
Location
200 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.581.3500
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Exhibition

Coming Soon | East West Bank Art Terrace

Open Air, Open Mind
East West Bank Art Terrace

The East West Bank Art Terrace will open soon. Until then, you can view Don't Mess With Me from the corner of McAllister and Hyde Streets, outside the museum.

The East West Bank Art Terrace is an outdoor platform for contemporary art featuring thought-provoking works by both emerging and world-renowned artists. The Art Terrace will open soon. Until then, you can view Don’t Mess With Me from the corner of McAllister and Hyde Streets, outside the museum. Also visible from Hyde Street is Chanel Miller’s I was, I am, I will be and Jenifer K Wofford’s Pattern Recognition.

On View

Jas Charanjiva, Don’t Mess With Me

Visible from the corner of McAllister and Hyde Streets, outside the museum.

Mumbai-based street artist Jas Charanjiva, who was raised in Northern California and was influenced by San Francisco’s Mission District murals, uses her vibrant art in service of global feminist and activist movements. Don’t Mess With Me (2013/2020), aka The Pink Lady, responds to the public outcry and demand for change after a 2012 Delhi gang rape with an image of a woman brandishing brass knuckles that spell out “BOOM.”

Jas Charanjiva on Don't Mess With Me (4:30 min.)

Coming Soon…

 

Ala Ebtekar, Luminous Ground

For Luminous Ground (2018/2020), commissioned for the art terrace, Ala Ebtekar imprinted handmade clay tiles with a vast image of the cosmos. Berkeley-born Ebtekar posits Luminous Ground as a contemporary nod to the polychrome tiles used in mosque interiors 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.

 

Pinaree Sanpitak, Breast Stupa Topiary

Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak’s Breast Stupa Topiary (2013/2019) draws on the morphological similarities between the female breast and the Buddhist stupa to symbolically link life and death. Sanpitak uses curvilinear segments of polished stainless steel to outline the distinctive stupa/breast shape, reminding us that sacred forms have evolved across place and time and can have shifting meanings.

 

Image: Jas Charanjiva in front of Don’t Mess With Me. Photograph © Asian Art Museum. Don’t Mess With Me, 2013/2020, by Jas Charanjiva (Indian and American, b. United Kingdom, 1972). Acrylic and latex on marine plywood. Commissioned by the Asian Art Museum, courtesy of the artist. Photograph © Asian Art Museum.

Download our self-guided Contemporary Art audio tour to listen to artists and curators discuss contemporary works on view throughout the museum.

Organizers & Sponsors

Jas Charanjiva: Don’t Mess With Me is a part of Today’s Asian Voices, which is made possible with the generous support of Salle E. Yoo and Jeffrey P. Gray. 

Ai Weiwei: Fountain of Light is a part of Today’s Asian Voices, which is made possible with the generous support of Salle E. Yoo and Jeffrey P. Gray. 

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.

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.