Asia Society renovates

The Asia Society in New York City was founded by John D. Rockefeller 3rd in 1956, at what was then called Asia House on East Sixty-fourth Street It was Rockefeller's idea that the society should be a center in North America where Asian art, economics, politics, and society would be discussed and debated, thereby improving understanding and promoting interchange between East and West At his death in 1978 he bequeathed the building and his collection of Asian art to the society. The collection went on view in a building on Park Avenue designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and completed in in 1981.

New York City is the society's world headquarters. Regional centers are located in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Melbourne, Australia, Seattle, Shanghai, San Francisco, and Manila. Over the years the exhibition program in New York City has expanded along with the number of visitors. The society's administrators and the board decided to close the Park Avenue building in 2000 for a complete renovation. The New York architect Bartholomew Voorsanger of Voorsanger and Associates Architects created the master plan and oversaw the renovation of the building, using materials evocative of Asia--bamboo floors, for example.

When the renewed building opens on October 13, the most obvious change for former visitors will be the lobby, which has been opened up, enclosed in glass, and lit by a skylight. In addition, the museum store has doubled in size; a curving staircase now connects all of the floors open to the public, from the auditorium to the three floors of gallery space; and a permanent gallery created to house selections from the Rockefeller Collection can be found on the third floor. In all, four thousand square feet have been added to the public space.

Three exhibitions mark the reopening of the galleries. The first, entitled Monks and Merchants: Sill Road Treasures from Northwest China; 4th-7th Century, comprises more than 120 objects, including pieces made or found along the stretch of the silk road that crossed ancient China in what are today Gansu province and the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, in northwestern China. The works, some only recently excavated, include metalwork, textiles, glass, funerary furniture, and ceramics that were made or used during the tumultuous time between the fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Tang Empire. This was also the period in which Buddhism spread throughout China, arriving by way of India. Among the recently excavated pieces are a silver-gilt ewer with classical scenes, a Sassanian glass bowl, and Byzantine coins--all of which indicate how far-reaching trade3 was at the time and how cultures intersected through trade.

The catalogue of the exhibition, written by the guest curators by ocholars Annette. L. Juliano and Judith A. Lerner contributions by other Scholars from China, Russia, and the United States, is published by Harry N. Abrams. It maybe obtained by telephoning 800-759-0190.

The two other exhibitions have a contemporary focus. One, Conversations with Traditions: Shahzja Sikander and Nilima Sheikh, concems two women artists, one of whom lives and works in India and the other of whom is now based in New York City. The second exhibition, The Creative Eye: New Perspectives on the Asia Society's Rockefeller Collection, features the work of living artists, writers, musicians, and performing artists who were invited to select pieces of art from the Rockefeller Collection that they found intriguing and design an exhibition around them.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning