Witnessing a Miracle

There are a number of great art shows right now in San Francisco, including Martin Puryear at SFMOMA, but it's hard to beat "Afghanistan; Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul" at the Asian Art Museum. Not only is the work on display breathtakingly beautiful and deeply fascinating as an intimate glimpse of the long ago and far away, but the show itself is a true miracle out of a battered world. The pieces on display are from four sites in Afghanistan and date for the most part from the early centuries of the common era, soon after Alexander made his mark there, when the Silk Road was at the height of vigorous trade among widespread nations, including China, Egypt, India, Rome, and the West. For countless centuries Afghanistan was a rich and important land (evidence of trade with Mesopotamia dates to about 4000 bce) - elaborately worked gold testifies to a wealthy, sophisticated culture whose Nomadic strains helped insure a splendid display of jewelry and burial goods. The heroes behind this exhibition are ordinary Afghans who risked their lives during the Soviet and Taliban years, keeping goods hidden where they could not be stolen or destroyed. In 2003, with the removal of the Taliban, priceless examples of a heritage that belongs to all humankind were discovered intact in a bank vault in Kabul. This amazing show is at the Asian Art Museum until January 25.

A local favorite

Richard Diebenkorn was one of those artists, all too rare, who simply was not capable of making a mistake. His paintings and drawings are full of smudges, paint-overs, and changes; his process of trial and error is always on full display but inevitably, the more he did the better it always got. Diebenkorn died in Berkeley in 1993. He was well known in California but less so with the rest of the country until a major retrospective in the late 90's raised his profile, including a very well-received showing at the Whitney Museum in New York. I saw a small show of his works this weekend at his alma mater Stanford University and, as always, was knocked out by everything I saw, even the tossed-off birthday card sketches he made for his son. The works on display belong to his lifelong friend Cary Stanton (they met as fellow Stanford freshmen), and reflect a lot of lovely, personal moments on Santa Cruz Island off the coast near Santa Barbara, a place which is or was largely owned by the Stanton family. Diebenkorn was as at home with abstraction as figuration, with black and white value as with rich color, and with watercolor, pencil, charcoal, ink, and oils.

Nature wins the art prize again

San Francisco's Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, designed by Renzo Piano and built as about as green as is currently possible, (for example, the insulation is old denim and it has a living roof) merits all the rave reviews it's gotten since the opening on September 27, and then some! I was fortunate to be there last night with a smaller crowd than during normal hours, so had a wonderful chance to see everything from the tiniest frog to the albino alligator. We spiraled up the levels of the rain forest, dodged the butterflies, puzzled out shy lizards and reptiles in their habitats, walked under and among fish in the Amazon, peered at the living roof in the dark and the fog - and every minute I was marveling at the incredible art skills of Nature. Nature never, ever misses - not with color, or form, or proportion, or texture - and she has an inexhaustible sense of humor and whimsy. There are always surprises and so many ways to learn, just by paying attention. Among my favorites - tiny tree frogs with bright red bodies and deep blue toes, set like jewels in the folds of green leaves - a zippy little turtle who was having a wonderful time zooming around his tank - a soulful chameleon in the Madagascar exhibit who let us know that the human species was the one to be stared at.