Bamboo Grove

Bamboo Grove presents 28 lots of exquisite Chinese huanghuali furniture and scholar’s objects from Piper Tseng’s collection. Prominent pieces in the collection were acquired from the famous Museum of Chinese Classical Furniture in Renaissance, California, whose collection was sold at Christie’s New York in September 1996. The scholar, Curtis Evarts, served as curator for the Museum of Chinese Classical Furniture and also as an adviser to Piper Tseng in forming this collection. Highlights from the Tseng Collection have been exhibited at important museums around the world in the last 20 years, including the National Museum of History, Taipei; the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas; and the Los Angeles County Museum, California.

Inspired by the collector’s fascination with Suzhou Classical Gardens, the design fuses the undulating exhibition walls and various pedestals into four sets of exhibition platforms. With the shadows of the bamboo, the installation highlights the materiality and exquisite craftsmanship of the huanghuali furniture and reflects upon the collector’s fascination with the Ming literati – the pursuit and appreciation of classical aesthetic preferences, which are represented in the works of art of the period.