My Favorite Artifacts in Phoebe A. Hearst Anthropology Museum, UC Berkeley

Phoebe A.  Hearst Museum of Anthropology of University of California, Berkeley has a huge trove of wonderful and sometimes strange artefeacts from all over the world and many of its prized collections are those from the ancient civilizations.

The most amazing pieces are a group of Egyptian mummy portraits. These ancient works astonished with their verisimilitude. Perhaps, there were some customary beautification, but these portraits really strove to capture the likeliness of the deceased, and their living spirits and personalities. Another interesting aspect of these portraits was that the deceased were all portrayed as quite at peace, and devoid of any traces of sadness, often seen in latter-day cemetery monuments.

Egyptian Mummy Portrait

Another amazing piece was also from ancient Egypt — an Egyptian iconography relief found at Tebtunis, a town or city located in the present-day village of Tell Umm el-Baragat, in the Al Fayyum Governorate, Lower Egypt. This stone carving fragment featured some commonly seen, fantastic ancient Egyptian deities in the shape of wondrous beasts and humans, or maybe simply princes. These beautifully rendered relief profiles dazzled with fluid lines, and economic yet rich details, and they immediately evoked the world full of grace, mystery and spirituality beyond our feeble comprehension.

Egyptian iconography at Tebtunis - Hearst Anthropology Museum

My Favorite Museum Collection Series
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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- New Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive Opened
- In Berkeley Art Museum, California
- Il Ghetto di Venezia and Museo Ebraico (Jewish Museum) in Venice
- Art from Ancient Worlds at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- My Favorite Sculptures at Museo Nazionale Romano, Roma
- My Favorite Sculptures from The British Museum

Taking Full Responsibility at UC Davis - Chancellor Katehi Must Go!

Following up the police brutality against peaceful protesting students at University of California, Davis (UC Davis) (see video below), Chancellor Linda Katehi did some PR dance, took full responsibility and tried to apologize.  The police chief at UC Davis had been put on paid administrative leave.  But demand for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi continued.


Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis

People are devided at how much blame Katehi should shoulder.  However, if she fails to resign or if the Regents fail to fire her, it is not convince to say that she has taken full responsibility.  Hiding behind her subordinates would not do.

Remember, Chancellor Katehi was hired in 2009 with great controversy.  Her $400,000 annual salary, approved by the UC Board of Regents, equated to a 27 percent hike from her predecessor and a 12.4 percent increase from her previous position at the University of Illinois.  That happened during the time when the funding to the University from the state had been cut year after year, after staff and faculty were forced to take unpaid furloughs, and endless tuition hikes threatened the quality of the university system.  It was an obscene amount of money thrown at a civil servant, a public university administrator.

I sincerely don't believe that she had ordered the spraying or green-lighted it. But, that fact hardly matters.  If she had the aduacity to demand such exorbitant amount of salary, she must be held responsible for every action on campus during her watch.  Otherwise, she should not have taken in such salary from the public university.  It cannot be that achivements were hers but blames were others.

In a way, Katehi is the embodiment of what is wrong with our country and what people are protesting against.  For too long, it has been profits for the rich and the finacial misery for the poor.  That must change.

People have been frustrated by the lack of clear and tangible goals and demands from the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Now, in UC Davis, there is a clear and tangible goal.  It is holding Chancellor Linda Katehi responsible and have her replaced.

Chancellor Katehi must go!

Student Exhibits at Worth Ryder Gallery, University of California, Berkeley

Last week, I attended the opening of two simultaneous student exhibits at Worth Ryder Gallery, University of California, Berkeley.  The gallery was affiliated with Art Practice Department and it showcased the many young talents, yearning to make marks on the art scenes.

The first show was a sculpture (aka installation) exhibit.  The topic for each artists were written on a piece of paper and put into the "oracle" bucket (see picture below) for drawings.  The often deceptively simple labels were to inspire and challenge the students to come up with their own take on these themes.


"Oracle" Bucket

The below installation/photography were dictated by the label of "Domesticate". The photos showed the little fence in different locations:


Fence


Fence


Domesticate

Other visceral installations are the tree trunk below and some nets and deconstruction of different objects, such as a backpack.


Tree


Tree


Net (Theme: Gender)


Net (Theme: Gender)


Deconstructed Single Backpack


Birdcage


Bubbles

The second exhibit was called "Falling Below" which featured some smaller scaled, but no less forceful, installations (or multimedia projects).  They were very intriguing and even pretty to behold (artists might hate this but it was true). 


Eagle

 
Birds


Rooster


Bird Curtain


Money Bills

Kroeber Hall, University of California, Berkeley

MVI_1970
Originally uploaded by Matthew Felix Sun

Every time I went to Kroeber Hall for life drawing session, I walked through this eerie stairwell. The echoing effect was haunting and startlingly beautiful.

I have posted a few still pictures of this particular spot before and now I'm sharing this brief video I shot last weekend: