FEBRUARY 2008

ASIAN & TRIBAL ART
Festival Pavilion

Asian and ethnic art lovers take note. The San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia and the San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Shows return to Fort Mason Center (FMC) this month. Both shows rank in the forefront of Bay Area ethnic art shows.

On February 1, it’s the San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia Show that fills FMC’s Festival Pavilion. One of the most anticipated Bay Area celebrations of Asian art, history, and culture, the show features art, ceramics, antiques, textiles, and jewelry from more than 80 top dealers from around the world. There is also a special retail exhibition of oil paintings by contemporary German artist Marta Resende.

Again this year the Opening Night Preview is a gala fundraiser for the Asian Art Museum’s Chong-Moon Lee Center. This much-anticipated fixture on the social calendar features colorful lanterns, Chinese stilt-walkers, lion dancers, and sumptuous food and beverages. The preview also offers the first opportunity to view and purchase works on display.

The following weekend, more than 100 international dealers fill the pavilion with art and museum-quality artifacts of American Indian, Eskimo, Mayan, Incan, and Himalayan peoples at the Tribal & Textile Arts Show. Also on display and for sale are Anatolian kilims, Aymara textiles, bark cloth, batik, and sculpture, masks, beads, and more from Africa, Oceania, Central and South America, Mexico, New Guinea, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia.

A special “outerwear” exhibition is the featured exhibit this year. Curated by Vichai and Lee Chinalai of Chinalai Tribal Antiques, the exhibit explores the layers of meaning and purpose behind ethnographic outerwear.

The Opening Night Preview benefits the galleries for Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, and the Textiles galleries at the de Young Museum.

The shows’ producer, Caskey & Lees, has presented high-end antiques and fine arts shows since 1985. They are widely recognized for refining and expanding the concept of theme antiques shows to a new level in this country. They currently produce ten shows annually in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

For more information about these two major FMC events, see February 1 and 7 in the calendar and visit www.caskeylees.com.

— Jovanne Reilly

Images:
San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia Show: Acupuncture Portraits from Litang courtesy of Jon Eric Riis, Persian Tile courtesy of Anavian Gallery, N. Chi Camel courtesy of Marc Richards Galleries

Tribal & Textile Arts Show: Bamileke Buffalo Mask courtesy of Joel Cooner Gallery, Gold Ring from Bali courtesy of Indoarts, Mother Goddess from East Java or Bali courtesy of Thomas Murray Asiatica Ethnographica