Travel through Kolkata and Hong Kong with contemporary works from the collection that explore the modern city as both a personal and political landscape.
The Sarah and William Hambrecht Contemporary Gallery, formerly used for special exhibitions, has been transformed into a dedicated space for a rotating selection of modern and contemporary works from the collection.
The inaugural Hambrecht Contemporary Gallery installation, Memento, includes two works that speak to contemporary global issues of urbanization and political uncertainty.
Personal Space (2001), a layered, dreamlike painting by Kolkata-based artist Jayashree Chakravarty (b. 1956), is an imaginary map built up from painted strips of paper. At eight feet tall and more than 30 feet wide, the colossal scroll furls and unfurls, establishing an architectural presence in the gallery. As you circle the work in an attempt to chart a course through the chaos of streets, signs, and natural landmarks, you experience the disorientation the artist felt as the rapidly expanding city swallowed the countryside of her youth.
The immersive video installation A day of two Suns (2019) by Hong Kong–based artist Lam Tung Pang (b. 1978) captures a changing Hong Kong. On both sides of a suspended diaphanous paper screen, unsynchronized images from four projectors combine with shadows of museum visitors, inviting us into an emotional landscape. “This work is prophetic and nostalgic,” notes Head of Contemporary Art Abby Chen about the newly acquired work. “It documents a city, and a system, in the process of fading and awakening.”
Museums Without Borders
Drawing from the relationship between humans and nature, Jayashree Chakravarty’s works trace the anxieties of rapid urbanisation. In collaboration with the Museum of Art and Photography – India, this Museum without Borders episode explores monumental paper scroll from the Asian Art Museum’s collection and a painting from the MAP collection, providing a glimpse into Chakravarty’s evolving practice:
Museums Without Borders I Jayashree Chakravarty (6:32 min.)
Jayashree Chakravarty on Personal Space (4:23 min.)
Lam Tung Pang on A day of two Suns (2019) (6:05 min.)
Curated by Abby Chen, Senior Associate Curator and Head of Contemporary Art.
Memento: Jayashree Chakravarty and Lam Tung Pang is organized by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. This exhibition is a part of Today’s Asian Voices, which is made possible with the generous support of Salle E. Yoo and Jeffrey P. Gray.
Sustained support generously provided by the following endowed funds: Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Endowment Fund for Exhibitions Kao/Williams Contemporary Art Exhibitions Fund
