Asian Art Museum has ‘Transformation’

Natty in his well-tailored mechanics’ jumpsuit — perhaps a garment that has replaced round specs as the signature wearable for creative types — architect Kulapat Yantrasast was the man of the hour at “Transformation,” the Asian Art Museum gala on Thursday, March 1. Kulapat, whose first name serves as an identifier, has designed the $90 million transformation and expansion of the museum.

When I entered the party, Kulapat was talking with The Chronicle’s Tony Bravo, who’d written a few weeks before about a night on the town with him. They were standing in the midst of the architect’s posse of some 20 or 30 people from New York who’d come to support him and the museum.

Before he started work on the project, said Kulapat, he’d come to San Francisco as a tourist, enjoying its food, fashion and art. Nowadays, his understanding of the Civic Center neighborhood has deepened. “We want to be its cultural anchor,” he said, “to make the museum more visible and more connected to the city. When people walk around the Civic Center, they should see art before they go into the museum.”

Also in the crowd: Anita Lee, widow of Mayor Ed Lee, greeted warmly by a swarm of well-wishers offering sympathy; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Director Neal Benezra; Fine Arts Museums Director Max Hollein; and San Francisco Opera Director Matthew Shilvock, just back from New York, where he saw his Brunhilde, soprano Evelyn Herlitzius, singing in “Parsifal.”

This didn’t escape the notice of an elated Asian Art Museum Director Jay Xu, because his after-dinner remarks welcomed those “fellow museum directors.” It was a stormy night, and the roof of the tent flapped and crackled with the wind, as brightly colored projections moved over the heads of the audience. “Together,” said Xu, “this group brings art to life for the citizens of San Francisco.”

“This project is a chance of a lifetime for any architect,” said Kulapat, invited to the stage, “The transformation is already happening.” At that carefully calibrated moment, the overhead projections — stars and abstracts before that — changed mood completely, showing lively pictures of people moving. The transformed museum will be interactive and immersive, said the architect, and open to the Civic Center.

Akiko Yamazaki placed a winning bid of $50,000 for a trip to Moscow sponsored by Bulgari (the only auction item, hallelujah!), and four Hiplet Ballerinas in multicolored skirts performed their mashup of hip-hop and ballet en pointe.

And then, as the after-party began, most dinner guests, duly transformed and ducking under a canopy to avoid the raindrops, pranced home.

Around the corner from the San Rafael public library, the resident of the house with the topiary elephants in front has changed their outfits. Pussy hat has been replaced: One elephant spots a square dark toupee-like arrangement (a la Kim Jung Un), the other is topped with a yellow yolk-like patch (Ivanka’s dad).

The work of Bay Area photographer Linda Connor and Beijing sculptor Zhan Wang is side by side in “Speak to the Stones, and the Stars Answer,” a single exhibition at the Haines Gallery. The show opened on Thursday, March 1, and continues until June 2.

I stopped by a few hours before the official reception as the last works were being placed. Although there were still ladders around, and a couple of drills lying on the floor, the photographs and the sculptures have a kind of serene dignity; the gallery felt almost like a chapel.

Connor’s prints — some made of 19th century glass plates of photos of night skies, others landscapes, still others ancient holy places — are printed on aluminum, with matte surfaces that gently shimmer. The sculptures are metal, too, but made out of shiny stainless steel that reflects sparkling rays of light.

So both artists are concerned with light, and the works, said Cheryl Haines, walking around the gallery. They reflect “a dialogue between two artists who have disparate materiality and approach the subject in a different way.” Both, added Haines, explore “ancient and contemporary notions of time.”

A twisting Wang version of a “scholar’s rock,” a natural rock traditionally treasured by Chinese thinkers, is placed next to Connor’s photograph of a passageway but into stone in Petra. “They are both memorials to the past,” said Haines, “both about beauty.”

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