Extracted: A Trilogy by Ranu Mukherjee

Where is the line between history and mythology?

In Extracted, artist Ranu Mukherjee eclipses the boundaries between the two, placing them in the same universe. Commissioned for the Asian Art Museum’s 50th anniversary, this new exhibition draws inspiration from California’s Gold Rush, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the ancient text The Classic of Mountain and Seas, and the museum’s own collection.

Through colorful, collage-like video, textiles and works on paper, Mukherjee invites you into otherworldly landscapes inhabited by miners, a shape-shifting alligator, a Chinese goddess with a leopard tail and tiger teeth, and other fantastical beings.

By adding video and artworks to Extracted, located within the museum’s Chinese galleries, Mukherjee will create an evolving experience that invites multiple visits. Through its countless layers — image over image, fact mingled with fiction — Extracted creates tension between history and myth.

Main image: Still from Elixir, 2016, by Ranu Mukherjee (American, b.1966). Single-channel video. Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco. © Ranu Mukherjee.