Asian Art Renovation
Upper Level gallery closed for renovation beginning December 7, 2008. Gallery due to reopen May 2009.
SBMA’s Upper Level gallery renovation will deliver a broad and rich interpretive approach to artworks of diverse Asian origins from China, Japan, India, Tibet, and Southeast Asian cultures. Featuring more than 320 objects which span from the Neolithic period to early 20th century, the installation will include significant Buddhist sculptures made of wood and stone, hanging and hand scroll paintings on silk and paper, Japanese woodblock prints, Chinese ceramic vessels and sculptures, archaic bronze vessels and other decorative arts.
Yinka Shonibare, MBE: A Flying Machine for Every Man, Woman and Child and Other Astonishing Works
March 14 – June 21, 2009
Born in Britain to Nigerian parents, Yinka Shonibare, MBE is recognized internationally for his provocative sculptural installations, photographs and films that contrast African and European imagery and convention. Best known is the artist’s sculptural work, which presents headless mannequins clothed in Victorian era dress made from atypical fabrics: brightly colored, wax-printed cloths commonly identified as African batiks. Essential to the work’s meaning is the use of textiles strongly associated with Africa yet originally produced in Europe and sold to Africans by Dutch traders in the 19th century.
This, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the western United States, features an idyllic family riding human-powered flying machines modeled after 19th century drawings, alluding to the continual freedom sought by emigrants and tourists alike. Also included is a selection of works from prominent West Coast collections, as well as several recent works that speak to cultural myths and misinterpretations of colonialism.
Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow
May 2 - August 16, 2009
This exhibition is the largest retrospective of Brett Weston’s art in over 30 years. Co-organized by the Phillips Collection and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and curated by Stephen Bennett Phillips, the presentation surveys Weston’s nearly 70-year career presenting 136 photographs that range from early vintage prints made in Mexico and California in the 1920s and 1930s; East Coast images from the 1940s; to later landscape and nature photographs as well as prints made shortly before his death in Hawaii in 1993.
Examining both the familial and artistic relationship between Brett and his father, Edward, this exhibition illuminates their influence on each other, simultaneously freeing Brett from his father’s shadow and allowing him to take his own place in the pantheon of American photography.
Corot in California
July 4 - October 11, 2009
Jean-Baptists-Camille Corot (1796-1875) was the most brilliant and interesting landscape painter in France in the generation before Impressionism. He was much beloved by American collectors, and remains an important figure whose exploration of the light and poetry of the French and Italian landscape still resonates today. This exhibition celebrates the presence of Corot's paintings in California, with a dozen paintings drawn from private and public collections, including the SBMA, the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and the Getty Museum.
Noble Tombs of Mawangdui
September 19 - December 13, 2009