Asian Art hires logo 15/8/05 8:34 am Page 1 ASIAN ART The newspaper for collectors, dealers, museums and galleries june 2005 £5.00/US$8/€10 THE LOUVRE’S BIG MOVE Te Louvre has got a march on the history of the museum swung climate change. Te museum is into action. Te cost of the project is located by the Seine, in Paris, in a covered by the Louvre Endowment zone prone to fooding – and, since Fund, with the total price projected 2002, the Paris Prefecture, within to be about Euro 60 million. Te the framework of the food risk answer to the problem was Te protection plan (PPRI), has warned Louvre Conservation Centre, located the Louvre of the risks centennial in Liévin, near Lens, in northern fooding could pose to the museum’s France. Completed in 2019, the collections. Around a quarter of a semi-submerged building stands million works are currently stored in next to the Louvre-Lens Museum, more than 60 diferent locations, which itself was completed in 2012. both within the Louvre palace Te conservation centre makes it (mainly in food-risk zones), and possible to store the reserve elsewhere in temporary storage collections together in a single, spaces – all waiting to be moved to functional, space and allows for the new storage location. optimal conservation conditions. It In 2016, this risk was emphasised also improves access for the scientifc when the Seine fooded its banks, community, researchers, and and the rise in water levels was so conservationists. Te project gave the severe that museum staf had to museum freedom not only to plan, trigger the emergency plan: a 24- but also to have the opportunity to The Musée du Louvre, in Paris, is in the middle of moving its reserve collections to northern France, away from the flood plain hour operation to wrap, pack and modernise the conservation, study, take thousands of objects out of the and work conditions, as well as Lens Museum, a special interpretation at any one time. Tere are around that year to transport the 250,000 risk areas and up to higher ground reconsider how the reserve collections programme that allows visitors to 35,000 works housed in other objects in the reserve collections to away from the potentially damaging are organised. visit the storage space and artwork institutions and about 3,000 are on the new space. Work on the project is fooding. Around 250,000 works Te project runs parallel to the plan treatment workshops. Te new loan for temporary exhibitions. Te still continuing – currently over were stored in more than 60 diferent to create food-proof storerooms for research and study facility, one of the bulk of the works of art are part of 100,000 works of art having been locations, both within the Louvre each department in the Louvre itself biggest in Europe, will support and the ongoing project and are currently moved, including paintings, carpets, palace, mainly in food-risk zones, (for works in transit, loan replacement help broaden the scientifc reach of in the process of being moved to the tapestries, sculpture, objets d’art, and elsewhere in temporary storage works, etc), as well as study galleries France, regionally and locally. centre in Liévin. furniture and other decorative spaces until a permanent solution in the permanent collections. Currently, Te Louvre houses Te new conservation building was objects. Te transfer of all the works was found. Additionally, this will give the public 620,000 works of art, of which completed in the summer of 2019 is hoped to be completed by early So, the most ambitious move in access by ofering, via the Louvre- 35,000 are on display in the museum and work began in the second half of 2024. NEWS IN BRIEF Inside 2 Profile: the artist WORLD RECORDS FOR INDIAN Vivien Zhang PAINTINGS AT AUCTION 5 Diversity in Edo-period Mallams Te online auction on 13 March, at Safronarts in kabuki prints 1788 Mumbai, achieved two world auction records for 6 Abstraction and calligraphy, Indian artists. VS Gaitonde achieved INR 39.98 on show in Abu Dhabi crore (US$ 5.5 million) for an untitled oil on canvas 8 Epic Iran is the latest from 1961. In the early 1960s, Indian modernist V S blockbuster exhibition due to Gaitonde was working out of a small studio at the open soon in London Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute in then Bombay 10 Chinese Art from the Florence - a multi-faceted institution that encouraged the and Herbert Irving Collection, interaction of various visual and performing arts, and in New York where the present lot was frst acquired from the 12 A history of the luxurious artist. It was at this time that the reclusive Gaitonde, Chinese export wallpapers known for his serene, ‘non-objective’ paintings, began 14 The Way We Eat: looking at experimenting with the layering of pigment and the how East Asia has engaged manipulation of light and texture. Infuenced by Zen with food over the centuries philosophy and the principles of minimalism, 16 From the Archive: Gaitonde’s works from this period pulsate with an Encompassing the Globe, innate lyricism as well as a sense of mystery. Te Portugal and the World in the second artist to achieve a world record was a 1991 16th and 17th Centuries work by NS Bendre, Untitled (Krishna on Kaliya) 18 Burmese modern art, depicting a mythological story about an eponymous Bagyi Aung Soe, in Paris deity, which sold for INR 1.98 crore (US$ 175,000). 20 Exhibitions in Japan, France, S H Raza’s Jaipur (1976), an acrylic on canvas work, Monaco and the US sold for INR 5.62 crores (US$ 780,000), and F N 22 Auction previews in London Chinese, Japanese and Hong Kong; gallery show, Souza’s Figure on Red and Green Background (1957) sold for INR 2.76 crores (US$ 384,000). Hiroshi Sugimoto in Paris & Islamic Art 23 Islamic Arts Diary LOS ANGELES COUNTY 23rd & 24th June 2021 MUSEUM OF ART REOPENS Next issue CHELTENHAM Te Los Angeles County Museum of Art reopens on 1 April after a year-long closure. Te museum is May 2021 allowed to reopen, as it has moved into the state’s red CONSIGNMENTS INVITED tier, which means all museums are allowed to reopen indoor spaces at 25% capacity with safety protocols in Scan me place. Out of the six new exhibitions on view, one is To visit our home Asian: a retrospective of the Japanese artist page. For contact Yoshitomo Nara. Exhibitions that have been details see page 2 Continued on page 2 A pair of Yongzheng (1723 – 1735) mark and period Enquiries – Robin Fisher jardinières. Provenance – Acquired in Peking in the 01242 235712 1930s by the vendor’s grandfather whilst working as robin.fi[email protected] a junior diplomat. Estimate £20,000 – 30,000 www.mallams.co.uk asianartnewspaper.com #AsianArtPaper | asianartnewspaper | asianartnewspaper | Asian Art Newspaper 2 People People 3 CONTACT US and that, in essence, is what the studio on a daily basis, but there are The Asian Art Newspaper manifesto is about. two elements in the motives that I Vol 24 Issue 4 pick and concentrate on. Te frst Published by AAN: How does the second Manifesto one is that the motives not only have Asian Art Newspaper Ltd, VIVIEN ZHANG differ from the first? a duality within themselves, but have London VZ: In 2019, I launched a second and also traversed through diferent EDITOR/PUBLISHER longer version of the Manifesto. contexts. One example is the kilim, Sarah Callaghan I added more thoughts, verses, and the Central-Asian rug. I feel there is The Asian Art Newspaper causes to it, while keeping half of a duality in this object as the kilim PO Box 22521, the original text. Over time, it will has many patterns, but they are never London W8 4GT, UK by Olivia Sand sarah.callaghan@ be interesting to see how it develops named according to national asianartnewspaper.com and to archive diferent stages of boundaries. In Afghanistan and tel +44 (0)20 7229 6040 Vivien Zhang (b 1990) is part of it, putting them next to each other. Pakistan, for example, they do not a generation of artists, who is I want to make a point, so the have diferent names for a particular ADVERTISING exploring new avenues for the Manifesto needs to refect the pattern, because the pattern is used Kelvin McManus immediate, the ‘now’. In the course by nomadic tribes, who just travel Commerical Manager medium of painting, without of diferent exhibitions, maybe a and the patterns evolve within the Echo Complex (2020), tel +44 (0)7877 866692 being reluctant to integrate acrylic and oil on canvas, [email protected] new policy, or a new way of looking tribe. In a way, the kilim presents a elements refecting our 220 x 190 cm. Courtesy of the artist, technological age. Finding at the world’s latest technological boundary-breaking element, which SEND ADVERTISING TO gadgets, will have come up which I also look for in my work. As a Long March Space and Asian Art Newspaper herself at a challenging Pilar Corrias Gallery crossroads, she is drawing her afects our way of understanding third-culture individual, I feel it PO Box 22521 and reacting to the world. I refects my own identity, an identity London W8 4GT inspiration from a variety of emphasised these aspects in the of many people today. Te other [email protected] sources, presenting in her work an tel +44 (0)20 7229 6040 Manifesto, as I want people to see example is the spiral pillar in baroque assemblage of references and that it evolves with our time.