My trip to San Francisco in January brought me to the Asian Art Museum for the Afghanistan exhibit, the last weekend it was open. The exhibition would have been fascinating, if not for the museum's lack of crowd control. The light within the exhibit was low, the walls were painted a dark gray and perhaps is an attempt to recreate the darkened dirt filled atmosphere of the Middle East desert, and the catacombs in which some of these pieces were found. From a distance I saw a great deal of clothing annointed with many coins, which I imagine shone nicely in the desert sun. Beyond that, it was clear that Afghanistan had adopted many influences within their art styles, specifically Greek and Roman.
I spent most of the day being shoved aside by octogenarians so I was unable to get up to where the labeling was, and any discussion of what the pieces were. I did know that this exhibit was removed from the art museum in Kabul after it was bombed. Beyond that, the Asian Art museum has a great collection of other works, mostly Chinese scrollwork and landscape paintings.
