ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO Golden Gate Park San Francisco, California 94118 tel: (415) 379-8801 (exhibitions), 379-8880 (membership), 379-8879 (public programs) e-mail: asianart@well.com internet: www.asianart.org
		•Between the Thunder and the Rain: Chinese Paintings from the Opium War to the Cultural Revolution (1840-1979) October 25, 2000 - January 14, 2001
			This exhibition of 121 handscrolls, hanging scrolls, albums, and fans from a private collection represents one of the first major efforts to document Chinese painting in traditional styles during the period from the Opium War to the Cultural Revolution. With paintings by some ninety artists, including Chen Hengque, Chen Shuren, Gao Jianfu, Huang Binhong, Qi Baishi, Ren Yi, Wang Zhen, and Wu Changshi, seach of the regional art centers of modern China is represented. Together they show Chinese artists reexamining their tradition as they respond to the influence of Japanese and Western artistic trends.
		•Taoism and the Arts of China February 21 - May 13, 2001
			The exhibit displays approximately 150 works of art that will be used to explore conceptual and artistic achievements inthe history of Taoism, including paintings, sculpture, calligraphy, textiles, ritual objects and rare books borrowed from nearly seventy lenders in over ten countries. Significantly, thirty-three works will be borrowed from institutions in the People's republic of China, only two of which have been previously exhibited in the West.
		•Zen: Painting and Calligraphy, 1600 - 1900 June 27 - October 7, 2001
			Comprising 60 masterworks from the 17th through the 20th centuries, the exhibitionwill appeal to the general public as a manifestation of the Zen teaching of internal discipline and external unity, expressed in the dramatic ink brushwork created by famous Zen monks. Among the artists included are Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), Fugai Ekun (1568-1654), Sengai Gibon (1750-1837), and Nakahara Nantenbo (1839-1925). The exhibition is planned to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of hte Signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty, which took place on September 8, 1951, at the Opera House War Memorial in San Francisco.
		• Jade: Stone of Immortality ***NO LONGER ON VIEW***
			Jade has been in continuous use in China for nearly 7000 years. It is difficult to find a material in the West that has a similar cultural significance. Like gold, jade was admired and coveted for its pure physical beauty. However, its importance to the Chinese went far beyond such mundane uses. It is above all the most treasured and admired material in Chinese culture, appears in every major Chinese philosophy, and is used to describe the qualities of the ideal person. This exhibition will explore the technical aspects of jade production and the Chinese love for the material from the Neolithic period to the 20th century through approximately 500 jades selected from the more than 1500 pieces in the Avery Brundage collection.
		• The Southeast Asian Galleries Continuing indefinitely
			Paintings, sculpture, textiles, and dozens of other artworks are featured in the Asian's refurbished Southeast Asian galleries, made possible by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Foundation. The reopened galleries feature new acquisitions--including Indonesian and Cambodian bronzes--as well as old favorites from both mainland and island Southeast Asia.
		• Chinese Bronze and Buddhist Arts from the Permanent Collection ***NO LONGER ON VIEW***
			This exhibition showcases over 100 of the museum's most exceptional bronzes and sculpture dating from the early Bronze Age to the 1700s. The exhibition will allow visitors their first opportunity to view the museum's newly acquired money tree, a rare, intricately designed bronze funerary object dated 25 - 220. Other notable examples in bronze include a rhinoceros-shaped vessel from the late Shang dynasty (approximately early 1000s B.C.E.) and a square vessel with a long inscription dating it to the first years of the Western Zhou dynasty (approximately mid-1000s B.C.E.). Not to be missed among the sculpture is the earliest known dated Chinese Buddhist sculpture, a gilt bronze Buddha dated 338.
		•GODS, DEMON SLAYERS, AND PRINCES: SCENES FROM THE LIVES OF KRISHNA AND BALARAMA January 9 - October 7, 2001
			A new selection of paintings is currently on view in the Indian Galleries at the Asian Art Museum's Chong-Moon Lee Center. The 17 paintings, all drawn from the museum's permanent collection, depict scenes from the lives of Krishna and Balarama, two brothers who are each a form of the Hindu god Vishnu. The collection gives viewers a sense of the artistic expression that was, and continues to be, inspired by devotion to Krishna and his older brother. The object labels include excerpts from several well-known religious texts, indicating the close relationship that existed between paintings and literature. The exhibit will be on view through October 7, 2001, when the museum will close in Golden Gate Park in preparation from its move to a new, expanded facility at San Francisco's Civic Center in the fall of 2002.
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