Summer of Love

摘要

What does a person think when hearing the term flower power? The Summer of Love and San Francisco may come to mind, but probably not poetry, nor the arts of Japan and Iran. Published to honor the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in the Asian Art Museum's hometown of San Francisco, this catalog's intent is to build cultural connections and empathy and encourage all to work "together toward a more tolerant and peaceful world." Just as flowers are ephemeral, so, too, is the installation art of Lee Mingwei-freshly cut flowers in a water channel set into the museum's floor. Visitors are invited to take a flower, then go out of their way to give it to a stranger, a metaphor for art as gift and not commodity. From the transformation of Buddha's enemies into lotus blossoms to Takashi Murakami's Andy Warhol-. esque, neosurrealist smiling daisies, the iconography of flowers has been used to send messages for millennia. VERDICT A quick and engaging read, filled with full-page images worthy of framing, this exhibition catalog will be of interest to students and general readers of symbolism in religion, flowers, and the graphic arts.