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.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, in respect of this particular museum, and perhaps other public museums in the USA, you are correct.

Here is a link to the the Met's balance sheet,. It is a very superficial balance sheet and we do not have access to how it was compiled, but even so, we can see that the bulk of funding is not coming from any government base.

http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsRep...e&npoId=390161

However, wherever that funding is coming from there is one thing that is still true, and that is that any museum will only function in accordance with the wishes of the community in which it exists.

In a community that funds its museums from public money, those funds are inextricably linked to public perception of political endeavour.

Perhaps the Met and other museums in the USA do not have this same political agenda with which to comply, but they must still satisfy public demands. If they do not, it is inevitable that they become irrelevant to the community and they gradually spiral down into non-existance.

Here with the Met we can see my second reason for non display and non maintenance of weaponry taking a dominant role in the decisions made by the museum's administrators:- current societal attitudes.

Those attitudes dictate the way in which any organisation will function, be it an organisation formed to collect garbage, or an organisation formed to conserve heritage.

Ultimately society itself makes the decisions on what is important to society at any given time in its existence. As a body, society can make its wishes felt in many ways, and those wishes are reflected in the nature of a society's organisations.

With the Met, it may not be as simple as an insufficiency of funds linked directly to taxation, but the money trail will be there somewhere, even if it is not immediately obvious, and that money trail will be linked to the attitudes, standards and desires of the community that permits the Met to exist.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

With the Met, it may not be as simple as an insufficiency of funds linked directly to taxation, but the money trail will be there somewhere, even if it is not immediately obvious, and that money trail will be linked to the attitudes, standards and desires of the community that permits the Met to exist.

You are no doubt correct in this, though it still must be pointed out that attitudes and political correctness aside, the Met has a seriously nice and large arms and armor section. Strangely enough, they don't seem to have any keris. http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_ar...1=4&dd2=0&vw=1

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes indeed, seriously nice stuff.

Which might indicate that the community that supports the Met is OK with things that kill, provided that those things are also art of a form and standard that is in compliance with that community's ideas of art.

[fearn]

Hi Alan,

I think there's a slippery slope when one talks about weapons that are also art, and it's one that plays into the hands of people who focus on ridding the world of weapons as a cure for violence.

The museums of the world have many objects that are, by the standards of their makers, mishandled. Let's ignore the literal skeletons in the closet and focus instead on the SF Asian Art Museum.

Many of the oldest pieces obviously came from tombs, and much of the Southeast Asian religious art was obviously torn from temples and temple walls, some time in the last 50-100 years.

What saddens me about all of this is the lack of respect. It's really as sad to see a deities' statue quietly corroding away in a corner as it is to see an unplayed drum rotting to silence, or an unstained, rusting keris, depending on where your sympathies lie.

In the particular case of the Asian Art Museum, they appear to be taking good care of their Japanese weapons and largely ignoring their keris. To me, this says that the curators can be educated, and that if someone is willing to take the time to work with them, the curators might be willing to care for their keris collection better.

As for other museums, it depends on the staff and funding, as you've rightfully noted. Many museums don't seem to know or particularly care about weapons. That is sad, but it isn't universal.

Best,

F

[Emanuel]

Hello,

I'll chime in on the education aspect of museum curating. My experience here in Toronto has been that pre-industrial revolution weapons are essentially disregarded in academia. I have a specialist degree in fine art history and not one of the many courses available even remotely touched on the art of weapons. Yes these were tools for killing, but we consistently see accross most cultures around the world that weaponry has been the recipient of most of a culture's creative and technological knowledge and ability. If this were taught in our schools, the appreciation for these objects would persist and establishments would recognize public interest.

Re: the samurai exhibits...people (read families with kids and teenagers) flock to them due to the media hype surrounding nihonto. What with anime portraying blind "samurai" and effeminate boys with ~10 ft swords cutting through concrete walls...

The Royal Ontario Museum here in Toronto has recently invested a lot of money to essentially rebuild half the museum to the design of a +/- famous architect and thereby attract tourists. The exhibits are reduced to only the most costly/valuable pieces, sacrificing variety. The museum itself looks unfinished, with dry-wall screwed into the temporary frames. The ROM is now in crazy debt due to construction costs going over budget/projections. Some of the weapons I've seen have active rust. Few people bother looking at them closely.

So much for preserving culture

Emanuel

[A. G. Maisey]

Fearn, once we remove any cultural object from its natural surroundings we have interfered with the order of the world as the maker and original owner of that object imagined it to be.

However, we could probably quote numerous examples of the removal of objects from their original cultures, and where the people of those cultures now want those objects returned to place of origin. Perhaps the best known example of this is the Elgin Marbles. But then we are able to ask the question:-

if these objects had not been removed from their original cultures, would they still exist today?

You have stated your prime concern as being that in the case of the museum you visited,a number of objects from varying cultures are not treated with respect, and these objects include some keris.

This is perhaps a valid concern, but personally I have more than a little difficulty with the concept of "respect".

In some cultures, and one that comes readily to mind is the culture of Bali, objects of art are not intended to be preserved. The creation of the object is a tribute to God, and what happens to that object after its creation is of no great moment. Thus, if we consider objects from such cultures, and we measure our attitude towards those objects within the framework of the originating cultures' values, how much respect should we show to the object?

In other cases, once the object has been removed from its original environment, such as would be the case with funerary offerings, what relevance does that object have either within or without its originating culture?

If our concern is to demonstrate respect, then perhaps we should not remove anything from its original environment.

But over time, all dominant cultures have removed objects from the cultures which they dominate.

These objects that have been removed serve the purpose for the dominant culture of demonstrating dominance, educating members of the dominant culture about the culture dominated, and as items of value.

The importance to the dominant culture of these objects can be seen in the great museums of the age of global expansion, when European nations swallowed up great lumps of the globe. During that age the objects brought back from the lands and peoples which had been dominated served a very real purpose for the internal government of the those dominating cultures. The presence of the objects from foriegn cultures helped to demonstrate the power of that dominating culture, country and government, and assisted in maintenance of a regulated society.

This political need has long passed, and what we now have are warehouses full of these memories of the past. These things are almost totally irrelevant to the vast bulk of people in today's societies. They no longer serve any political purpose, they cost more to store and maintain than they can generate in either income or sales, and in fact are just a continuing red figure in the books of account. That debit can be hidden by imaginary values, but when we measure all relevant costs against all relevant gains, we inevitably finish up with a balance figure that is paid for from the public purse.
I believe that we all know that once a dollar return cannot be shown for anything, that thing will gradually be disregarded and eventually disappear.

This is a harsh way of looking at the situation, but it is a sad fact of life that in modern society little grey men with calculators dictate everything.

This is the problem that faces museums:- to maintain relevance to society as it is; if a museum fails to do this, it will disappear.

The point that Fearn has made about Japanese weaponry, and that has been reinforced by Emmanuel's observations, is very valid, and we might well ask why this is so. Yes, the media hype is one thing, but another even more important thing than media hype is dollar value. The dollar value of Japanese weaponry is percieved as being high, and in many cases it is. It is seen as an asset that will probably continue to gain value, thus that value needs to be maintained. Most other weaponry is not viewed in the same light. Factor in the current societal attitudes towards weaponry of all types, and we are faced with expenditure that is very difficult to justify.

This discussion began with a reference to keris, and the fact that they were not being accorded a modicum of respect.

It disturbs me also when I see keris and other items of tosan aji being subjected to neglect. However, this neglect is not exclusive to situations within a western cultural environment. Museums in Indonesia display a similar lack of regard for items in their care, including keris, and the only keris that I have seen in Indonesia that are accorded due "respect" are those very, very few keris that are still regarded as active pusakas.

To return to the SF Asian Art Museum.

Fearn, what you have seen here may sadden you, and I understand that, but unless societal attitudes change, and I seriously doubt that they will, what you have seen will only become worse.

[pakana]

Hi everyone,

As a Greek, I'm quite sensitive in this topic, since Alan pointed out about the Elgin marbles. I would like to add here that the way that someone removes the object from it's birthplace, is also very important. Like in this case of the marbles from Parthenon, they were removed with the worst way, literarly destroying the artifacts in many ways. Not to mention that the weather condition in their "second house" is in many cases not suitable for preserving them in the first place (for example the warm weather without humidity of the meditarrannean area is of no match with the british enviroment). This of course happens with our artifacts (keris).

George

[Montino Bourbon]

I visited Thailand last year. The main royal palace and its attendant temples are incredible; basically a city, with some of the most impressive art I have ever seen.

While stopped for a moment next to a wing of the palace, I looked inside a room through a window and saw racks of swords, dha's, and spears. There were hundreds, neatly racked, without sheaths, and rusting. I (Thought I) recognized a Pattaya-era dha from it's slightly rounded point, beautiful shape, and length.

These weapons were obviously some that had served to defend the throne at some time. I noticed, even from the door, some combat nicks in a few of them. We were not allowed to go in.

These weapons were totally uncared for. They were within their historical context, in a country where the military and its tradition is strong.

We understand something about weapons and their importance, their esthetic qualities, and their importance both historically and as an artifact. Other people don't care. I cringe when I see a musical instrument of value and obvious utility on a wall. Other people couldn't care less. It's what one fucuses on that gets the polish, the care. My step-father was the president of the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York. I got to go and look and talk to the curators in the basement. They have MANY HUNDREDS of Nihonto in drawers that are never seen. I don't have the slightest idea what else they have, keris or others. I do know that they do take care of the collection very well. There's NO rust, and I can attest to that. Stain? probably not, but at this stage, I don't know. They have INCREDIBLE Oriental and western weapons. The sword of the Ottoman emperor Murad the fifth has big emeralds on its incredible fittings, and the blade is wonderful.

[A. G. Maisey]

Neglect and musical instruments.

In Solo, Jawa, there are two branches of the House of Mataram:- the Karaton , which is the principal branch, and a minor branch that is the Mangkunegaraan.

In the museum of the Mangkunegaraan there used to be a wonderful and totally unique vibrafone.

The tubes under the plates were made of blue glass that had been made in France. The sound was totally unlike any vibrafone I had ever heard. Unique. One of a kind. Wonderful.

It was still playable in 1978.

Sometime in the mid 1980's my wife and I were visiting the Mangkunegaraan and noted that this vibrafone was missing.

We asked where it was.

Nobody knew of it.

Then we asked one old fellow who looked like he had been around the place for ever. He remembered it and thought he knew where it was.

We followed him to a decrepit old shed stuck in a back corner of the palace grounds, and there was the magnificent, unique, vibrafone of blue glass in a pile in a corner. The frame eaten by insects, many of the blue glass cylinders broken, and other junk thrown on top of it. The roof of the shed leaked and every time it rained the things in the shed got wet.

I do not know where this vibrafone is today.

If these cultural artifacts --- including weapons --- had not been removed from their cultures of origin it is very probable that they would not exist today.

And now the governments and people of these places want the Western Barbarians to return their cultural artifacts?

Yeah --- right!!

[Rick]

Then the responsibility of preservation, conservation, and education must fall upon Us; the Students, Enthusiasts, and Collectors of these incredible iron expressions of dreams, wishes, mystical intent and the eternal search for perfection within a form .

My .02

[aerosick]

Hopefully the museums will sell these to the public, like the museum did with the Philippine Kris I purchased recently.

And hopefully they will sell these while they are in fair shape as mine was.

Billy

[Rick]

Originally Posted by aerosick

Hopefully the museums will sell these to the public, like the museum did with the Philippine Kris I purchased recently.

And hopefully they will sell these while they are in fair shape as mine was.

Billy

Lots of red tape involved in de-acessing I'll bet .

[drdavid]

Lots of red tape involved in de-acessing I'll bet

Even worse if the items were gifted to the museum.

The buzzword in many museums these days is interactive. The assumption is that people need to be entertained to be informed. The problem with that is we are told what it is we need to know, rather than allowed to decide what we are interested in knowing. Perhaps it is all down to shorter attention spans and the need for bells and whistles to capture those attention spans

On the other hand the concept of an interactive collection of edged weapons.....nahh, cant go there
drd

[fearn]

Originally Posted by drdavid

Even worse if the items were gifted to the museum.

The buzzword in many museums these days is interactive. The assumption is that people need to be entertained to be informed. The problem with that is we are told what it is we need to know, rather than allowed to decide what we are interested in knowing. Perhaps it is all down to shorter attention spans and the need for bells and whistles to capture those attention spans

On the other hand the concept of an interactive collection of edged weapons.....nahh, cant go there
drd

Interactive? Why not?

What I'd suggest for a keris and many other blades is a simple platform that can be rotated (slowly) by the viewer, so that they can see all sides of the object and its sheath. Right now, every weapon in an art museum is (sometimes tacky) wall art, and showing it in three dimensions really would help.

For a more military museum, they can do a great set of displays on shape, edge geometry and cutting for swords. Not that museum visitors would actually get to cut things, but I think a lot of blades would be appreciated more if there was a stack of cut reed mats, or a punctured target (or whatever) sitting beside it, along with a video showing how some of these things were used. Heck, even a display of how much rope (or whatever) various blades could cut when sharp would be useful. imagine a set of piles with a standard swiss army knife at one end, and some truly sharp blade at the other. Just as an example.

I don't have a problem with interactive. In fact, the reason I got angry at the SF Asian Art Museum was the lack of context. The weapons weren't properly named, properly mounted, or even stained and cared for to show how great they would look if cared for properly. The sin (read omission) of the museum in this case is that they're missing a great opportunity to introduce the public to an important facet of Indonesian culture by displaying these keris as mere curios. It's too bad.

Just a thought,

F