ARTS REVIEW: A SENSUOUS FEAST
Indian and Afghan Art & Culture on Display in San Francisco
San Francisco, California - I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there was not a single part of the Asian Art Museum’s latest MATCHA event that was not entertaining. Yes, from the initial press release billing it as the merging of “culture with the cocktail hour,” I knew I was in for a treat. This is not to say, of course, that the exhibit was without flaw — everyone knows there’s no such thing as a perfect show. I’m simply saying that it was conceived of very coolly. MATCHA is a series of events hosted by the museum, focusing on the art, music, and performance of various Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures. Thursday, November 6th marked the grand finale of MATCHA’s third season, presented in conjunction with the opening of a new exhibition, simply titled: “Afghanistan!”
For those who haven’t been, the Asian Art Museum itself is a tribute to opulence: colossal vaulted ceilings, colonnades, grand ballrooms, and immaculate, perfectly curated exhibits — beautiful in their lavishness, although slightly over-the-top at points, and not altogether Asian. Whil
e it generally seems to be very conservative, the art is consistently good, and there is almost always something diverting in terms of video/performance/installation. Prices are reasonable (for a museum), and after you’ve crammed into the SFMOMA between fifteen-thousand screaming children, the hushed and sacrosanct galleries of the Asian Art Museum will seem like heaven. And then there was MATCHA.
For its sixth and final event of the year, MATCHA brought together the art, food, music, and dance of traditional Afghanistan. Upon entering (a mere $5 at the door), I was confronted with a feast for the senses. The smell of leek and potato bolani wafted through the shimmering halls. Traditional Afghan music rose and fell in the air, faintly echoing through the immensity of the foyer. From beyond panes of tinted glass, two-thousand-year-old goblets, gold, jewels, and ivory beckoned me into the galleries. A few small bars ($5 beer; $7 wine; $2 water/soda) scattered throughout the museum drew long, posh lines. With only an hour to spare before the Ballet Afsaneh performance, I passed up the small jewelry-making table (or, as I call it, the stick-your-kids-here station) and headed straight for the art.
Although the galleries were fit to burst, the crowd was not the usual museum crowd. Oh, sure, you had the perennial older male/sport coat/sneakers/trophy girlfriend type, and the awkward/tight jeans/thick glasses/unwashed/art school type, and the educated/angry/feminist type, but there was also something different. Every so often, I would a catch glimpse of a beautiful woman dressed
in Afghan garb flitting through the crowd, appearing then disappearing, nymph-like. And where were the crying toddlers? Where were the screams of “Mommy!” and the distracting tugs on clothing? Well, I’ll tell you where. The jewelry-making station.
Thank you, MATCHA.
The art itself was no less satisfying. I’ll be the first to admit that I will generally tend to marginalize ancient art(ifacts) in favor of more contemporary fare. Even so, I enjoyed “Afghanistan!” tremendously. The majority of the work was excavated from four sites in Northern Afghanistan and dates from about 100 BCE – 100 CE. In addition to native Afghan decorative and funerary pieces, works from other cultures, traded through Afghanistan along the Silk Road, were on display. Among them, small jade and gold amulets from Begram, stylistically carved ivories from India, and tiny Greco-Roman bronzes glittered beneath the gallery lights — marvels of patience, intricacy, and reverence. The individual pieces were invariably small — the largest being a carved stone sundial a foot or two across — but were made monumental through their precision and beauty. I particularly enjoyed the Tillya Tepe room which held the remains of an Afghan chief’s tomb — five wives and a sea of gold, lapis lazuli and pearl — a lucky man by any standard.
The most spectacular item of the night was not the collection of ancient artifacts, nor the food, nor the building, but the very impressive Ballet Afsaneh. A performance group hailed as “the top tier of world dance” by renowned dance critic Alan Ulrich, Ballet Afsaneh has performed internationally as well as throughout the United States, presenting the dance, music, and poetry of Afghanistan, Iran, T
ajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and India. I left the downstairs gallery early in hopes of getting a good seat in the ballroom for the 7:00 show.
By the time I got upstairs, it was already a zoo. The ballroom was filled to capacity. Only those lucky enough to be in the front few rows would have a view of the dancers, and the museum had resorted to running a projection of the dance floor on the wall above the crowd. After a few minutes of pushing, I was close enough to catch a glimpse of the dancers filing in. Beautiful young women danced by as the music rose, and I knew I was about to witness something special.
Suddenly, they were off. An undulating sea of red and blue and yellow exploded in front of me. Beautiful, smiling faces bounced across the stage on top of technicolor whirlwinds of flowing dresses and swift, dainty feet. The ensemble was not altogether sexual, but it hid a thinly veiled sensuality. Whether it was a single girl twirling pensively around the stage, or the entire troupe bounding and gyrating in unison, the crowd remained entranced.
When the last chord was struck and the last dancer exhausted, the crowd erupted into an applause like I’ve never heard in a museum. The multitude filed out and began to dissipate. I made my way to one of the small bars and ordered a glass of wine, hoping to observe the reaction of the passing crowd. It occurs to me now that this was one of the few shows I’ve been to in my life where there was no visible signs of dissatisfaction — no angry ticket-buyers, no one making snide criticisms in the corner, no bored faces — and I think I’ll definitely be going to the next MATCHA event.
*MATCHA will kick off its fourth season June 4, 2009 and will host events at the Asian Art Museum on the first Thursday of the month through the following November. For more information on MATCHA and the Asian Art Museum, go here.
For more information on Ballet Afsaneh, go here.
