Sadness in the SF Asian Art Museum

[fearn]

Hi All,

I just went to the Asian Art Museum. There's a great exhibition of "The Art of the Samurai" which would be really off-topic to discuss here.

What got me sad was the keris display. Not that I'm a keris collector, but the display saddened me. It's two cases mounted on the wall, near the restrooms, between displays of south-east Asian statuary and art.

Where to start?
--the keris were labeled "daggers." The case included a few other blades, but only the island of origin and age (to the nearest century) were given. All were labeled "daggers." In the Japanese galleries, the blades were given their Japanese names (i.e., they weren't "swords" they were tachi, katana, wakizashi, etc).

--The case was flat plexiglass, about 10 cm deep, and the blades were flat against the wall. where the hilts would have hit the plexiglas, they were twisted until they were flat against the wall.

--On all the keris and most of the blades, the pamor was invisible unless you could catch the light properly. They haven't been stained in years.

--There was active rust on a couple of the blades.

Understand why I didn't take any pictures? I'll bet many of you have seen similar examples from other art museums.

In any case, the museum appears to take good care of artifacts where they have an interested population and help from collectors. The Chinese and Japanese exhibits showed far greater sophistication than the Korean and Indonesian sections, something I expected given San Francisco's demographics.

That said, I have a question. Do any of you know any keris experts in the Bay Area who would be willing to work with the museum to fix that exhibit?

In my inexpert opinion, they have some decent (and old) blades, and I'd much rather see them displayed in their full beauty, rather than sitting on the wall as a display of rusting curiosities. Even getting the labels right would be a great start.

Daggers. Bah.

Best,

F

[David]

I understand your sadness Fearn. Unfortunately, while there are many good museums out there, sometimes the words museum and knowledgeable cannot be used in the same sentence. Many museums also have an incredible back stock of artifacts that never see the light of day or the care they deserve. It's a shame really.
I am not sure if anyone here is from that area, but maybe Rick knows more about whereabouts. If i were to see this i would probably ask to see the curator and try to help them out...or offer to buy out their abused and neglected collection.

[Rick]

This is a shame, fearn .
Hopefully someone in the area can help; if the museum will accept help .

I understand that there are a great many krisses and keris also other Indonesian edged weapons at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA; you never get to see them unfortunately .

I'd love to get in their 'stacks' so to speak .
But .....
I fear their drawers are filled with horror stories

[A. G. Maisey]

Fearn, you've opened a subject here that causes my gut to turn over. Yes, you're talking about a museum in the USA, but from my observations things are not much different anywhere in the world.

Let me tell you about Sydney, Australia.

We used to have a magnificent old Victorian style Museum; it was called the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. It was housed in an old Victorian era building that was a museum piece in itself --- beautiful brickwork, internal staircases and timber fittings that were worth a visit , even forgetting the exhibits. This museum had display cases crammed with exquisite examples of applied art, including two good sized sections of weaponry.

In this display of weaponry was a small section of Javanese bladed weaponry that had been collected during the Java Wars.It was out of stain and slowly turning to rust. This was in about 1968. I contacted the curator for this section of exhibits and offered to train him or his staff in how to conserve or restore the blades. My offer was accepted, I spent a number of hours over several days in dictating notes and overseeing a conservator work on a blade. When the exercise was completed I was assured that the entire collection of these Javanese weapons would be conserved over the next year or so.

Up until the time this museum was replaced by the Power House Museum nothing was done with these items of Javanese weaponry.

The Power House Museum was built as an updated version of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. It is a wonderful facility to entertain children for an afternoon. Its exhibits in my opinion, and the opinion of many people of my generation, are pitiful. There is virtually no weaponry on display, and the wonderful Javanese pieces have disappeared altogether.

In about 1994 I was given access to the Museum's storerooms, and was able to view the weaponry that they still had and that was in store. There was very little, and what they did have was very, very inferior. The S.E. Asian bladed weaponry was in appalling condition.

Once again I offered to train a conservator in the traditional Javanese restoration and conservation techniques. I spent a number of hours over a number of days demonstrating how to clean and stain a keris blade. The conservator I trained had a good understanding of how to do the job, but she herself did not work on a blade under my supervision.

Until the time this conservator left employment with this Museum no other blades were touched.

In about 1985 the curator in charge of the relevant section in the Australian Museum in Sydney became aware of some of my abilities. She asked if I would be interested in assisting museum staff to go through the museum's collection of S.E. Asian weaponry and identifying it. None of this collection was on display, it was all in store. I agreed to this proposal. Over the next several years I had a couple of further contacts with this curator, until the time she left employment with this museum. I never ever got to look at the collections in store, let alone work with staff to identify the items.

This situation relating to weaponry in museums is caused by two factors:-

lack of funds and current societal attitudes.

All weaponry of whatever type is now considered to be politically incorrect, and is most certainly not the sort of thing that you place on display for little children to view on Sunday afternoons.

The funding problem is tied to the political perception that dollars spent should generate votes:- dollars spent on museums do not generate the quantity of votes that dollars spent on roads and hospitals do.

This is a world-wide phenomenon.

In about 1995 a world famous curator from a world famous museum visited me specifically to discuss keris. While he was with me he saw some of the newly carved Javanese keris hilts I had and asked if he might buy half a dozen or so for addition to the museum's collections. He selected what he wanted, and asked me to hold them until he returned to his museum and obtained permission for the purchase. A few weeks later I received a letter from him apologising for the fact that he could not go ahead with the purchase because there was no money left in the budget to cover the cost.

We are talking about one of the major European museums here, and the amount of money involved was about the cost of dinner at a good restaurant.

Museums have no money.

The broad community cannot see value for money in the funds eaten up by museums.

Politicians provide the funding for museums from funds collected from the broad community, ie, taxpayers.

Politicians will not allocate more than the barest of minimum funds to any museum whilst there are identifiable deficiencies of funding in other areas.

It is politically unpopular to raise taxes.

This whole problem of inadequate care of items housed in museums is symptomatic of community values as they apply at this point in time.

We cannot blame the museums:- the politicians will not give them sufficient money.

We cannot blame the politicians:- the community demands expenditure in areas other than museums.

I suggest that we should all treasure whatever little we have now, because in the future our children's children will have nothing.

[fearn]

Hi Alan,

I agree with most of what you said, as I could find other examples myself.

Except....

At the Asian Art Museum, there was a line three blocks long before opening time. It was a "free" Sunday, and there was a $5 charge to see their Art of the Samurai exhibit. Even when I came back in the mid-afternoon, there was a block-long line that went straight in the entrance, paid their $5, and went straight into the "Samurai" galleries. We were in that group.

They even had a teenage volunteer dressed up in mock samurai armor (right down to the high-top sneakers and fake katana) answering questions out front.

Inside the Art of the Samurai, there were exhibits that I couldn't get within 10 feet of. They were the tachi blades. Just blades, no hardware. All these guys (and a few women) were studying the blades, and some were explaining, in hushed and reverent tones, about the hamon line and all that to girlfriends who were trying not to roll their eyes.

When I went to the permanent gallery, there was a similar clot around the two katanas on permanent display.

Lots of people stopped to look at the keris displays, but most didn't stop very long. The keris were weird, the labels were small and uninformative, and the blades were obviously not cared for.

Even though I don't collect keris, I read this board is because the blades you guys have are gorgeous. This is what I'm hoping someone will convey to these conservators; that they could, fairly cheaply, turn a bare-bones display into one of the hidden treasures of their museum.

This is why I decided to say something. Yes, I agree that the conservators tend to be politically correct. On the other hand, this is San Francisco, and there's a large audience of martial artists and fanboys who love blades. Trouble is, they don't know how gorgeous a properly cared-for keris is.

Wouldn't it be good to enlighten them a bit?

Best,

F

[David]

Well i check out the on-line collections and this museum has a fair amount of keris, most of which are not, of course, currently on display.
http://67.52.109.59/code/emuseum.asp...icksearch=kris
Here's just a few from their collection. Most look like they need attention.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, we can see similar attendances at the special exhibitions staged by museums and art galleries here in Australia.

We even see such attendances when people have to pay substantial entry fees.

But you need to convince the general public, ie, the tax payers, that XXXX amount of dollars is better spent on a museum than on hospitals, roads, education, child care facilities, or on "saving the trees".

Try telling Johnny Average who works 50 hours a week in an un-airconditioned factory that he needs to pay 75 cents extra tax every week to look after a bunch of old daggers, or old china, or native wood carvings.

There's not a single politician out there anywhere who is either so brave, or so stupid.

Its not the museum staff that need convincing.

They only operate in accordance with the advice received from departmental bureaucrats, who in turn get their direction from politicians.

The pollies get their ideas from the people who elect them to office.

If we want change there is only one way to do it, and that is to educate an entire community in the value of artifacts from bygone ages.

Regretably most of that community anywhere in the world is more concerned with keeping food on the table, or when they can replace the ten year old clunker that's standing in the driveway.

[David]

I am not so sure that major museums receive all that much of there money from the good graces of politicians votes or tax levies, at least not in the USA. Sure, there is some government support, but a good deal of museum money comes from rich supporters, membership, grants, admission prices, etc. Here's a little something on the Met. I don't think that it's collections are competing with roads, child care and tree conservation.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art ("The Met") is the non-profit organization that is responsible for the operation of one of the world's largest and most comprehensive art museums, visited by approximately five million people each year. Located in Central Park, the Met's two-million-square-foot main building is owned by the city of New York, while the collections are held for the benefit of the public by the corporation's trustees. In addition, the city pays for the museum's heat, light, and power, as well as funding a portion of the costs of maintenance and security. The corporation is responsible for its share of maintenance and security, plus the costs of acquisitions, conservation, special exhibitions, scholarly publications, and educational programs. The Met also receives an annual grant for basic operating expenses from the New York State Council on the Arts. Moreover, it receives funding through gifts and grants, endowment support, paid admissions, the selling of memberships, as well as ancillary income derived from merchandising, parking garage fees, auditorium admissions, and the museum's restaurants. Aside from its Central Park location, the Met owns and operates a branch museum, The Cloisters, located in northern Manhattan, one of the sites of the museum's Department of Medieval Art. Supplementing the Met's gift shop income are 13 satellite retail operations in the United States (with sales from the shop at Rockefeller Center ranking second to the museum itself) and 11 licensed shops around the world. Aside from the usual souvenirs of tee-shirts and postcards, Met merchandise includes expensive reproductions of the artwork found in the museum.