| 'The Art of Rice: Spirit
and Sustenance in Asia’<
Opens at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Oct. 5, 2003
Rice is a staple food for more than three billion people, mostly in
Asia, but this staggering statistic only hints at the immense cultural
significance this grain has for Asian peoples. In many Asian languages,
when inquiring if a guest is hungry, the literal translation is, “Have
you eaten rice?” In fact, the growing and eating of rice have become intimately
bound to aspects of personal identity; notions of family, community, and
state; systems of religious belief and ritual activity; and forms of expression
ranging from the courtly to the popular, from the past to the present.
‘The Art of Rice: Spirit and Sustenance in Asia’ — on view at the UCLA
Fowler Museum of Cultural History from Oct. 5, 2003 until April 25, 2004
— is a wide-ranging, traveling exhibition that examines the interplay
between rice and culture in Asian society through a study of the visual
arts, including works from China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea, Thailand,
the Philippines, and other Asian countries.
More than 200 objects on view range from Japanese Zen paintings to intricate
Indonesian textiles to modern works created for popular festivals of the
agricultural cycle, and include ceramics, sculptures, puppets, paintings,
prints, textiles, furnishings, architectural elements, and ritual paraphernalia.
The exhibition includes a "festival theater" showing video footage of
many Asian rice festivals, such as the offering of the first grains of
the new harvest to Buddha in a northern Thai monastery.
Visitors to ‘The Art of Rice’ are greeted with a scene from a shadow puppet
play that depicts a key moment from Javanese mythology, when the beloved
rice goddess Dewi Sri creates the sacred grain. In Javanese agricultural
communities, this play was traditionally performed annually at harvest
time. These puppets, commissioned for the exhibition from puppet master
Kik Soleh Adi Promono and made by Daniel Mulyana, cast a striking landscape
in black and white in the exhibition entry, and their fine craftsmanship
is displayed in the final gallery of the exhibition, where visitors are
treated to the puppet-master’s view.
The opening gallery features two displays in rotation; the first is a
Japanese screen dating from the Edo period (1603–1868), depicting rice
plants heavy with grain in the autumn. The screen epitomizes the concept
of seasonality in Japanese art and the Japanese reverence for rice agriculture
as an idealized landscape. It is so delicate that it can be exhibited
for only six weeks. In December it will be replaced with another exceptional
work: ten Chinese woodblock prints (c. 1723–1735) made during the early
Qing dynasty.
These famous scenes of rice agriculture, known as the Gengzhi tu,
were first painted by Lou Chou during the Song dynasty, but his original
paintings no longer exist. During the Qing dynasty, the Gengzhi tu
was reproduced in many forms, most notably as a series of woodblock prints
like the ones on display. So important was the Gengzhi tu — both
practically as a farming reference and symbolically as a metaphor for
a well-ordered Confucian society — that each successive emperor produced
new editions of these illustrations more than five hundred years after
the scenes were first painted.
Over a vast region stretching from India to Japan, rice agriculture regulates
the rhythms of rural life. In many cultures, the “months” are named for
agricultural activities or rituals that take place during that period
of time. A Balinese calendar painting illustrates that the 210-day cycle
of the rice plant defines the human calendar in Bali, as well. (Ironically,
new fast-growing grains created by modern agricultural science have now
played havoc with this traditional growing cycle.)
The consideration that goes into the making of functional objects on display
— like harvesting tools, such as delicate knives once used to reap rice
one stalk at a time, and an exquisitely carved wooden mortar from Borneo
— further attests to the tremendous significance of rice.
Vessels, from humble ceramic pots to wooden rice chests and granaries
that look like miniature homes, also play an integral role as containers
of the precious grain. Exhibited are numerous examples of granaries from
across Asia, including a full-size, beautifully carved and painted wood
granary facade made by the Toraja peoples from Sulawesi, Indonesia. A
gallery that explores rice as a sacred food displays a delightful, seldom-seen
collection of Japanese sake bottles from the 17th-19th centuries.
In many Asian countries, the origin of rice is attributed to a goddess
who bestows the sacred grain to humans. Though details of the stories
of the rice goddess differ from culture to culture, she is generally considered
the personification of the spirit of rice. Throughout India, Lakshmi is
known as the goddess of prosperity, but she is also associated with rice.
Inari, a Japanese deity for rice, has also morphed into a deity for corporate
success in modern times. A gallery in ‘The Art of Rice’ features numerous
representations of Asian rice goddesses as well as figures made as receptacles
for them, and includes popular commercial prints, figures made of coins,
and commissioned life-size sculptures depicting a scene of Bengali deity
Annapurna giving rice to Shiva.
The pervasiveness of rice culture is underscored by examining lifecycle
and domestic objects like an early 20th-century Japanese bridal robe decorated
with sake imps (shojo) sipping from giant cups, and a pair of
Chinese Han dynasty funerary jars that would sometimes be filled with
rice and placed in the tombs of the wealthy. Even a 40-ft-long partition
wall from a large Javanese house, elaborately carved and painted, mimics
the recessed “bridal chamber” in the rear of a central Javanese farmhouse,
where bundles of rice representing rice deities would be installed after
the harvest.
Contemporary pieces — like the mixed media work Golf Plan by
Alfredo Esquillo, Jr. of the Philippines and the painting Mr. Rhu
in Eunhang Dong by Korean artist Jonggu Lee — comment on the role
of rice agriculture in modern society to complete this comprehensive exploration
of Asian art, food, culture, philosophy, religion, history, and economics.
‘The Art of Rice’ is the result of six years of research by an international
group of twenty-four anthropologists, arts and museum specialists, and
artists, under the direction of the curator of this exhibition, Roy Hamilton,
curator of Asian and Pacific Collections, the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural
History. After its Fowler debut, this exhibition is scheduled to travel
to other venues, including Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food &
the Arts in Napa, California and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. A same-titled
book (ISBN 0-930741-98-6, $60) by Hamilton will be published by the Fowler
in November 2003, and distributed by the University of Washington Press.
This exhibition is made possible by major funding from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, dedicated to promoting excellence in the humanities,
the Rockefeller Foundation, the Getty Grant Program, the Henry Luce Foundation,
and the UC Pacific Rim Research Program. Educational programs and outreach
are made possible by the Yvonne Lenart Public Programs Fund and UCLArts.
‘The Art of Rice’ will be on view Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to
5 p.m.; and on Thursdays, noon until 8 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays
and Tuesdays. The Fowler Museum, part of UCLA’s School of the Arts and
Architecture, is located in the north part of the UCLA campus. Admission
is free. Parking is available for $7 in Lot 4. For more information, the
public may call 310/825-4361.
Related Events:
October 19, 2003 12-5pm
Rice Fest!
An afternoon of rice-related culture and creativity, featuring:
Chinese erhu virtuoso Chi Li, art-making workshops, classical
Indian dance (kuchipudi) by Sumathy Kaushal, Korean farmer’s
band music directed by ethnomusicologist DongSuk Kim, rice candy sculptures
with Chan the Candy Man, your name on a grain of rice!, and rice tastings.
Free; no reservations required. For Rice Fest! information, the public
may call 310/825-8655.
November 9, 2003 2 pm
Slide Lecture: Who is the Goddess of Rice?
Murder! Incest! Immolation! Join ‘The Art of Rice’ curator Roy Hamilton
at this slide lecture presentation as he tells the stories of Asia's rice
goddesses and explores their origins in the spirit beliefs and rituals
of rice farming communities. Free; no reservations required.
-UCLA-
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