Gallery 21

New Asian galleries display

Galleries 17, 19, 20 and 21

FREE LUNCHTIME TALK
The Gallery's Curator of Asian Art, James Bennett gives an introduction to the new display on Tuesday 29 May at 12.45 pm.

The Asian Art galleries, recently re-opened after a month long refurbishment, present a new and exciting view of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s collections and testify to its growing reputation as one of the leading collections of Asian art in Australia. Even the regular visitor to the Art Gallery is certain to be astonished by the range of works of art from the permanent Asian collection, first established just over one hundred years ago, now on display in galleries 17, 19, 20 and 21.

The conversion of gallery 17 into the new South Asia display ensures that the Indian sculpture can now be viewed as a visual unity, documenting more than one thousand years of aesthetic practice. As well as familiar iconic images, such as Siva nataraja, the display features the newly installed late nineteenth-century Chettinad door and Pair of temple pillars as reminders of the architectural context of much Indian sculpture. Gallery 17, with the skylight providing natural illumination, is a very appropriate setting for the tenth-century Architectural relief depicting two celestial dancers. This stone relief, like the contemporary Celestial warrior displayed on the stairwell wall, originally ornamented a towering temple façade, its deeply carved forms being lit by sunlight.

Gallery 19 continues to be the only permanent dedicated space to Islamic art in an Australian public gallery and now features a collection of recently gifted Indian Mughal era silverware. Like the rest of the Asian collection, such magnificent acquisitions are only made possible through the generous and ongoing support of Art Gallery donors.

The East Asian collection, encompassing Japan, Korea and China, has been re-located to gallery 20. In celebration of the Art Gallery’s outstanding and growing Japanese collection, Japan has become the major focus of the East Asian display. Although some visitors may regret the loss of the Gallery window that once looked onto a small bamboo garden, the refurbished room presents an intimate contemplative space for viewing Japan’s rich artistic heritage. The popular Allegory III (1988) is placed in the context of early wood sculpture epitomised by the eloquent simplicity of Pair of Shinto deities from the Kamakura era. A major highlight in the new gallery is the recently gifted Edo period pair of screens, Famous views in and around the capital, whose panoramic depiction of seventeenth-century life in Kyoto is on public display for the first time.

Gallery 21 features the astonishing variety of art produced in Southeast Asia, a region with arguably the most culturally diverse history on the globe. The display documents Indonesian stone and wood sculpture, including the recently acquired Early Classic period Ancestral Figure and Tara, as well as the impressive Pair of doors, lawon kori (c.1560) and Throne rest, sesako (1650–1750). The Art Gallery’s exceptional collection of Southeast Asian ceramics and textiles is represented by outstanding examples from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. The biggest surprise of the display is probably the Philippino Baroque image of St Joseph. This statue is a reminder of the long presence of Christianity, alongside Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and ancient indigenous beliefs, expressed through art, in that region of Asia closest to Australia’s shores.