Museum Make up #1

Japanese American Museum - Los Angeles, California

As my second museum review I chose to attend an exhibit at the Japanese American Museum. They had two exhibits ongoing Beyond the Japanese Gardens and Common Ground: The heart of the community . Instead of writing about both I have chosen to only write about one the one that impacted me the most. Common Ground: The heart of the community this exhibit was a visual recording of the events after Pearl Harbor was bombed and the effects on the 127,000 Japanese Americans living along the west coast (Washington, Oregon & California). All Japanese & Japanese Americans were forcibly remove too “assembly centers” which in reality were concentration camps. There were forced to leave their homes, most of their belongings, businesses to sleep in animal stalls. By 1942 all cameras were confiscated from all the residents at the concentration camps in fear that they might share them with someone outside the barbed wire in the middle of the deserts. All this was rationalized by the U.S. Government as self protection because they were unsure of what the alliance with the Japanese government might be and in order to “protect” themselves they rounded them all up and relocated them to the middle of the desert far away from the coastline.

While in concentration camps they were exposed to american culture through americanization programs such as English only, American pasttime activities such as baseball and Boys Scouts. The exhibit consisted of paraphernalia from that period of time and a multitude of pictures from ceiling to floor. They also had a diorama of Manzanar as well as football sweaters that belonged to Japanese American students after they were set free from the concentration camps.

One of the most amazing pictures that I saw was one taken in December of 1968 more than 20 some years after Pearl Harbor. The picture was opf The Third World Liberation Front (coalition of 6 ethnic student organizations from San Francisco State College (now CSUSF) ) demanding a School of Ethnic Studies. Thanks to their joined efforts their requests were granted in March 1967. It impacted me because it goes to show that we all can work along together for the common good which is something we have forgotten how to do. Now days we seem too busy worrying about ourselves that we forget that other people are in the same situation as us but we seem to be awesome at ignoring that. Our students need to see this type of collaboration amongst different ethnic groups to see if we can spark the ideas and brotherhood/sisterhood again.

I missed one tuesday class Here is the make-up

I am currently in Eugene Oregon and it so happenst they have a great museuem dedicated to East Asian art at the Univerity of Oregon. The museum is called the
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

The museum had a collection of Elizabeths Keiths woodcuts that she learned while living in Japan in the 19 teens and twenties. Her woodcut prints are rare and quite expensive today.
One piece that I enjoyed by her was Country Wedding Feast. This color woodblock print shows a great scene of people getting ready for a feast after a wedding. people are bringing out dishes setting up tables and enjoying themsleves. The bride is clearly depicted with an elaborate dress and headdress as well as a pinted face. Peasant women are dressed in white some are breastfeeding and some have their breast exposed freely. The men have long white coats and hats.

Other parts of the exhibt were great. The collection itself is very accessable. For instance when one walks into the main gallery their is an imperial throne setup. It has a throne, a folding screen, two amazing vases from the qing period (fish pattern) and two others that were yellow and had branches and bird patters. These four framed the throne. At the very top was a sign with writting on it. It was quite impressive.

The korean collection was amazing also One particular piece I liked was the Diamond Mountains folding screen landscape in the Jeong Seon style or what is called true view painting. This screen shows the famous Geumgang San (diamond mountains) the art itseldf is jagged mountains that seem to reach up to the sky and demonstrate their grandeur, villages are also seen throughout. The museum plaque stated that this ind of art was part of a korean effort to create nationalist pride during this period.

Concerning cats one part of the Japanese section had a section on cats. The section was called Beckoning Cats and it had alot of woodcuts that featured cats somewhere. I taught me that cats have been very important in Japanese culture for a while. One woodcut I enjoyed was entitled Actor and Cat, it has an actor changing into costume turning over his shoulder to admire a cat that is crawling through the open window. The both have this amazing look to their faces that i interprested to a mutual undersatnding of their respective personas and beings.

Finally they had a Chinese large painting entitled God of Longevity (Shoulao) this painting had a elaborate scene of people and animals and birds all focused around Shoulao who is riding a spotted deer and has a robe that has the symbol for longevity al over it. He is surrounded by people and animals and 3 of the Daoist immortals who can be distinguished by what they are holding. They were Zhongli Quan holding a fan, Li Tieguai holding a double gourd and Hexin'gu a femal who is holding a basket of lotus blossoms.

I truly enjoyed the museum. It had so much to offer and the fact that this class has focused more on East Asia was very helpful. The museum had so much more to offer but that was just a bit of what I saw and leaerned.