9.11.2008

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - Logan Collection

If you live in a world class city, what would you do on a sunny weekend? What does that have to do with your fine art collection? Who wants to know and why...? I visited the Logan Collection exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Wow. I grew up in the Philippines, and during my childhood visited important museums in Manila, Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong, so I tend to have a blase attitude when it comes to Asian art, particularly when collected by non-Asians. Please don't misunderstand, I love Asian art, I love the aesthetic, but I'm Eurasian and grew up around non-Asian collectors who professed a love of all things Asian, only to be disappointed by their so-called collections.

The Logan Collection is a wonderful surprise. Tasteful (well, I guess that depends on one's taste, huh?), thoughtful and carefully selected, the SFMOMA wrote that the works reveal "a spectrum of individual responses to the utopian dreams that have been driving Chinese society since 1949. Approximately 50 paintings, sculptures, and installations spanning 1988 to 2008 convey a sense of the shadows, masks, and monsters that have haunted the China's collective psyche during its process of modernization. The exhibition offers insight into the post-Tiananmen Square art and cultural scene, and features a diverse range of artists, including Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Li Songsong, Liu Hung, Liu Xiaodong, Yu Youhan, Zhang Huan, and Zhang Xiaogang." The exhibition is ongoing now through Sunday, October 5, 2008.

Please GO.

No comments: