Lost at Sea: Art Recovered from Shipwrecks at Asian Art Museum + Interview with Dr. Natasha Reichle
Lost at Sea: Art Recovered from Shipwrecks
November 26, 2019 — March 22, 2020
Asian Art Museum | San Francisco, California
Explore how centuries of art lost at sea travels the globe to find a new home.
A fierce three-headed serpent and a mysterious female deity were among the nearly two dozen 12th-century stone sculptures from Central Vietnam that lay unseen at the bottom of the Arabian Sea for nearly 120 years. Almost 5,000 miles away in the South China Sea, blue-and-white ceramic bowls, plates and jars rested in the hold of a sunken ship off the coast of Vietnam for more than five centuries. Preserved like time capsules under the seas, these shipwrecks contained artworks that were excavated in the 1990s by marine archaeologists, sold at auction, purchased by individual collectors and then donated to the museum.
From Nov. 26 2019-Mar. 22, 2020, Lost at Sea: Art Recovered from Shipwrecks offers visitors a chance to go behind the scenes and trace the pathways of these objects, from Vietnam to the ocean floor to San Francisco. “We want our audiences to ask questions about how artworks enter museum collections,” says Natasha Reichle, exhibition organizer and Asian Art Museum assistant curator of Southeast Asian art.
“What does the provenance of an object reveal? What can art salvaged from the sea tell us about trade and the colonial enterprise? Who is entitled to centuries-old artworks recovered from shipwrecks? Should they even be excavated, or should vessels and their contents be left in situ for future generations?”
Ceramics on display are from a trading vessel that sank in the 15th century off Vietnam’s Hoi An coast with a cargo of more than 250,000 objects originally made for export. After fishermen began to find porcelain shards in their nets in the 1990s, a government- sanctioned commercial salvage operation brought up the cache, dubbed the Hoi An Hoard.
The stone sculptures, relics of the Cham culture that thrived along the coast of Central Vietnam from the 5th to the 15th century, had been carted off from a ruined temple by a French colonial officer in the 19th century. The two works in the museum collection are from a group of 21 that were on their way to France when the steamer they were on sank off the coast of Somalia in 1877. The passengers and crew were saved, but the stone sculptures, apparently too heavy to transport to shore, were left in the wreckage. They were finally retrieved in 1995.
The exhibition brings together artifacts from these two shipwrecks, including a slowly disintegrating concretion of objects from the Hoi An Hoard, along with maps and other materials that invite consideration of how artworks travel across time and cultures.
“Shipwrecks open portals to the past and offer us new ways to encounter and think about amazing art from centuries ago,” says Jay Xu, director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum. “The art we find underwater showcases all sides of what our museum does best—from collecting, to contextualizing, to conserving. Lost at Sea is a uniquely layered experience that connects us to an unexpectedly broad story, a story only we can tell.”
Exhibition Highlights
In Conversation with Dr. Natasha Reichle
Associate Curator of Southeast Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum
Please describe the genesis of this project and the research that led up to this exhibition. How does marine archeology contribute to our understanding of history?
This is a small exhibition — 14 objects — that uses the case studies of two sets of artworks found in shipwrecks to look at the ways that objects come into museum collections. It introduces blue-and-white northern Vietnamese ceramics and Cham sculpture but does not attempt to provide a comprehensive look at either subject.
This exhibition started with the idea of another curator, who was interested in exhibiting the ceramics in the museum that are known to have come from shipwrecks. When the project came to me, I was more interested in stories of provenance. Shipwrecks capture a moment in time, but that moment was just one long stop in the journey of these objects across the globe.
There were many narratives that could be told with this material, but with limited space, we could only tell a few. In our discussion of the Hoi An shipwreck, we display a concretion that was excavated and discuss what it and other finds from the excavation can tell us about the people on board and the trade they were conducting. The discussion of the Cham material both traces the journeys of these sculptures to the museum, but also discusses current questions about the ethics of marine archaeology, and the laws of the seas.
What are the particular challenges of presenting artistic materials brought to light from the ocean floor?
A particular challenge we have had is displaying the concretion found in the Hoi An shipwreck. Overtime, underwater, conglomerations of material can form around objects in shipwrecks. When these objects are exposed to oxygen, internal materials made of iron can oxidize, and the concretion can begin to fall apart. This is not something that we expect of objects in museum collections but was somewhat inevitable in this case. The object today looks quite different than it did when it came into the museum. But, as the concretion slowly falls apart, we are discovering more about what it once contained. Besides remnants of Vietnamese ceramics, we can see animal horn, metal chain, a large stone brick, and a bronze object. X-rays of other material found in the shipwreck show a Chinese coin and the handle of a knife.
What are some of the core highlights of this show that you encourage visitors to experience?
There were so many different stories that could be explored through these objects, but only room to touch upon a few of them.
I would hope that visitors will think about:
The lives of art objects and how their meanings change for different audiences across space and time - export ware, utilitarian object, archaeological artifact, museum artwork, architectural element, object of worship, colonial booty, treasure...
The importance of shipwrecks as archaeological sites, which can tell us about a specific moment and time.
The fragility of marine archaeological sites and ethical considerations regarding excavations.
A great deal of precious Asian art and artifacts were collected and exported by European colonialists and now reside in both public and private collections in Europe. With regard to Cham sculptural works, where in the world beyond Vietnam and France do emblematic examples and collections of ancient Cham arts reside?
The largest collections of Cham art are in Vietnamese and French collections, and to my knowledge, there are no other public collections outside those countries that can rival them. Major American museums have isolated important pieces: Cleveland (1935.147), the MFA Boston (1986.331), the Met, the Asian Art Museum (BL77S3 and associated).
Aesthetically or stylistically, how is Cham art distinguished from other famed Southeast Asian sculptural traditions, for example, from Cambodia, Thailand, or Java? What makes the sculptures presented in this exhibition characteristically Cham?
Each region in Southeast Asia that embraced religious traditions from South Asia developed stylistically unique local characteristics. Brick was often used in Champa to build temples, with stone as ornamentation. The pedestals and figural bases of Cham sculpture are unlike those found elsewhere. Likewise, elements of jewelry and headdresses on deities and guardian figures are unique.
The two sculptures displayed in our exhibition both recall traditions known throughout the Hindu-Buddhist world, but are crafted to meets the needs of a local community. The multi-headed naga sculpture may have loomed over the headdress of a now missing Garuda figure. Sculptures like it decorated the corners of some Cham temples, presumably serving an apotropaic function. Likewise, the large demonic face of a mythic creature is similar to Kala or Kirtimuhka figures found throughout South and Southeast Asia, but the female figure seated on top seems to be a feature favored in Champa.
The Hoi An hoard is a vast treasury of ceramics. Please describe the significance of this important find. Given that these ceramics were manufactured for export, what can you tell us about the intended market and destination of these works? How did the designs found on ceramic trade goods influence the places that traded for them in island Southeast Asia?
The vast quantity of ceramics found onboard the shipwreck indicates the scale of trade in the late 15th century. Archaeologists believe that the ship was headed either to a port in Thailand or to islands in Southeast Asia, or perhaps both. The variety of types of ceramics onboard (some in smaller number and very refined others in duplicate and more quickly made) indicate that ceramics were likely intended for both a wealthier and more general clientele. Vietnamese ceramics have been found in great numbers throughout the Indonesian archipelago and incorporated into the walls of religious sites.
On the subject of marine archeology and Asian art, what are some of the most important resources and source texts for someone who wishes to explore this topic further? We know from historical accounts of a significant number of shipwrecks in Island Southeast Asia, from sunken Portuguese ships bearing plunder from the sack of Melaka, to the sinking of the Fame off Bengkulu which bore the majority of Sir Stamford Raffles collections, or the excavation of Chinese ceramics in Tuban harbor on Java's northern coast. Are there more exciting discoveries with regard to sunken treasure in Southeast Asia that you can share with us?
There are many scholars working on this subject. Most tend to specialize in a particular region. I am most familiar with those working with Southeast Asia or the Indian Ocean. Derek Heng, James Hunter, Michael Flecker, Natali Pearson, Bobby Orillandeda, Brian Fahy, Mai Tjoa-Bonatz, and Charlotte Pham are just a few. Besides wrecks of ocean-traversing ships, I believe interesting discoveries are likely to be found along major river routes like the Musi and Batang Hari in Sumatra, but only if the resources are available for scientific excavations.
Your recent lecture at the de Young Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco discussed Austroasian Origins, Oceanic and Indonesian arts. For those who were unable to attend, can you please provide a brief sense of the purview of your presentation? Can you elaborate on some of the critical points you articulated?
This lecture was a training lecture for entry-level docents with no knowledge of Southeast Asia, focusing on the Indonesian objects in the collection.
What can we anticipate next from you and the Asian Art Museum?
I am in the preliminary stages of working on an exhibition that will highlight some of the recent donations of Southeast Asian textiles to the Asian Art Museum's collection.
Lost at Sea: Art Recovered from Shipwrecks is organized by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Presentation is made possible with the generous support of Glenn Vinson and Claire Vinson.
Sustained support generously provided by the following endowed funds: Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Endowment Fund for Exhibitions.
