The Creative Eye: Artists View the Rockefeller Collection of Asian Art

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd gave their superb collection of Asian art to the Asia Society in 1978.

In late 2001, the Asia Society created an exhibition of selected masterworks from the collection, chosen and with commentaries by a number of artists in a wide variety of disciplines.

Among the 25 artists: Bill T. Jones, Laurie Anderson, Ping Chong, Francesco Clemente, Milton Glaser, Pico Iyer, Maya Lin, Mary McFadden, Gita Mehta, Joel Shapiro, Tan Dun, Bill Viola, and Xu Bing.

You click on an artist or a particular work on the homepage, and take it from there.

A nice place to while away a few hours while you wait for the festivities to resume Friday night.

Of particular interest to me is when two or more different artists chose one piece: their tremendously different takes can be hugely amusing.

For example, Milton Glaser and Xu Bing had decidedly different reactions to this

ancient Chinese painted earthenware storage jar (3,000-2,000 B.C).

Glaser wrote:

When we see objects of such primal power and expressiveness, we are forced to question any notion that art improves in quality as we progress historically.

Quite the contrary, this dynamic prehistoric storage jar puts most of the ceramics created in our time to shame.

The painting of the swirling forms at the top of the jar are executed with a virtuosos skill and daring.

Although there is a functional reason for the bottom of the vessel to be left unpainted, the compression and activity at the top is enhanced by the contrast of the unadorned base.

In a time of technological obsession, this piece reminds us of the fact that astonishing objects can be created out of the most fundamental means.

Clay, water, fire, and the human imagination.

Xu Bing was not nearly as impressed:

In the past, there were many ceramic jars of this type buried in the loess of northern Shaanxi.

Most of them had been used for funerary purposes.

Therefore, there was a custom among the local farmers to smash the jars immediately upon discovering them.

If they did not, it was considered unlucky.

It was only when outsiders began to come to look for the jars that the local people started valuing them.

However, most of the jars in the fields had been discovered by that time.

Oh well, museums are already full of them anyway.

I noticed, as I chose works to illustrate this post, that it didn't really matter which ones I selected; nor did the order I put them in affect how they looked as a (vertical) group.

The works are of such excellence and self-sufficiency that each creates its own ordered - and orderly - space around itself, even reproduced in cyberspace.

Harmony is not sought but, rather, inherent.