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Freer-Sackler Asian Art

797 Live Views 388 In Crowd Live Street Painting by Michael Kirby at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries:

The galleries will host a live video stream of mural artist, Michael Kirby, as he recreates an image from the exhibition, “Falnama: The Book of Omens,” on view in the Sackler Gallery, Oct. 24 – Jan. 24, 2010. The Falnama are a group of unusual, illustrated manuscripts that were once used by sultans, shahs and commoners in Iran and Turkey to explore the unknown through the practice of divination.

For his painting, Kirby will use a technique called, ephemeral mural painting,” otherwise known as street painting. With mediums such as pastels, lacquers and tempura, . Kirby will recreate a detail from a painting of the sun that was originally created for a Falnama in the 1580s, during the Safavid period of Iran. The original artwork can be found in the exhibition, which is the first ever devoted to these extraordinary manuscripts.

The live feed will show Kirby at work outside the Freer Gallery from Tuesday, Oct. 20 to Sunday, Oct. 25, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day. Interviews with the artist and curator will be available on UStream. For more details visit www.ustream.tv/channel/freer-sackler-asian-art
and http://www.asia.si.edu.

Sun from a Falnama, Probably Iran, Safavid period, 1580s, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, ELS2009.5.35