PUBLIC ART
Map No. 33, 1992
"Map No. 33," 1992 (since destroyed), Esplanade Ballroom Lobby, Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California.
The inspiration for “Map No. 33,” Hung Liu’s ambitious, multifaceted artwork in the Esplanade Ballroom Lobby of the Moscone Convention Center (now destroyed and rebuilt), was the first map of San Francisco, drawn by Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839 after the city’s name was changed from Yerba Buena.
Liu was initially fascinated with the map’s oddly skewed geometry, its eccentric drawing style, and its 19th century quill-penned script. Thus, she designed and painted forty-one shaped canvases that represent, among other things, the property lines, cardinal points, trees, bodies of water, and original coastline that were parts of the little settlement of San Francisco.
In the early stages of researching and designing her work, Liu also noticed - on an engineer’s desk - several small, dirty artifacts, including a Chinese bowl, that had been dug up from the site during the construction of the Moscone Center.
Like Vioget’s map of San Francisco, these artifacts inspired her, and she decided to use them as elements in her work. “I wanted to combine a big scale reference to the civic history of San Francisco,” Liu wrote, “with a more intimate experience of the particular historical artifacts that came from beneath the actual Moscone site - from beneath one's feet, so to speak.”
Thus, with the help of archaeologist Alan Pastron, who’d excavated the site in 1978, the artist identified various bottles, dishes, cups, smoking pipes, toys, a cork-screw, and even items of jewelry that had literally been recovered from beneath the Moscone Convention Center.
Displayed in cases below the lobby “map,” these objects of playing, eating and drinking, smoking, dressing-up and telling time date from between 1855 and 1906 (the San Francisco Earthquake and fire), and represent the everyday activities of those who once lived and worked on this block. Coming as they do from such places as Ireland, Scotland, Italy, China, Japan, and from around the United States, they also testify to the divergent cultures that compose us, underscoring the richness and complexity of San Francisco's immigrant history.
Liu also set into the display cases a series of glazed ceramic tiles on which are drawn various Ohlone grave offerings that were recovered in 1988-89 from a pre-historic burial ground across Howard street, where the Yerba Buena Gardens is now. Dating from between the years 0 and 940 AD, these offerings remind us that the story of this continent - and of this city - is indeed an ancient one.
Perhaps the central “meaning” of Hung Liu’s “Map No. 33” is that, no matter how remote in time, history is made of things that happened right here, in the places we still inhabit. The reclamation of culturally diverse objects excavated from this particular civic siteis a metaphor of remembering the social and cultural diversity that informs our shared identities.
Of special poignancy for the artist is the fact that she, like many of those to whom she pays tribute in her artwork, is an immigrant, having come from China to the United States through the port (in this case the airport) of San Francisco in 1984. What’s more, while researching “Map No. 33” she realized that what was once the civic center of San Francisco (that 19th century cluster of buildings and streets around Portsmouth Square) is today the heart of Chinatown.
In 2016 the Moscone Convention Center was torn down and replaced by a dazzling 21st century structure, and Map 33 was deinstalled and placed in storage until a future site in San Francisco can be located.
The inspiration for “Map No. 33,” Hung Liu’s ambitious, multifaceted artwork in the Esplanade Ballroom Lobby of the Moscone Convention Center (now destroyed and rebuilt), was the first map of San Francisco, drawn by Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839 after the city’s name was changed from Yerba Buena.
Liu was initially fascinated with the map’s oddly skewed geometry, its eccentric drawing style, and its 19th century quill-penned script. Thus, she designed and painted forty-one shaped canvases that represent, among other things, the property lines, cardinal points, trees, bodies of water, and original coastline that were parts of the little settlement of San Francisco.
In the early stages of researching and designing her work, Liu also noticed - on an engineer’s desk - several small, dirty artifacts, including a Chinese bowl, that had been dug up from the site during the construction of the Moscone Center.
Like Vioget’s map of San Francisco, these artifacts inspired her, and she decided to use them as elements in her work. “I wanted to combine a big scale reference to the civic history of San Francisco,” Liu wrote, “with a more intimate experience of the particular historical artifacts that came from beneath the actual Moscone site - from beneath one's feet, so to speak.”
Thus, with the help of archaeologist Alan Pastron, who’d excavated the site in 1978, the artist identified various bottles, dishes, cups, smoking pipes, toys, a cork-screw, and even items of jewelry that had literally been recovered from beneath the Moscone Convention Center.
Displayed in cases below the lobby “map,” these objects of playing, eating and drinking, smoking, dressing-up and telling time date from between 1855 and 1906 (the San Francisco Earthquake and fire), and represent the everyday activities of those who once lived and worked on this block. Coming as they do from such places as Ireland, Scotland, Italy, China, Japan, and from around the United States, they also testify to the divergent cultures that compose us, underscoring the richness and complexity of San Francisco's immigrant history.
Liu also set into the display cases a series of glazed ceramic tiles on which are drawn various Ohlone grave offerings that were recovered in 1988-89 from a pre-historic burial ground across Howard street, where the Yerba Buena Gardens is now. Dating from between the years 0 and 940 AD, these offerings remind us that the story of this continent - and of this city - is indeed an ancient one.
Perhaps the central “meaning” of Hung Liu’s “Map No. 33” is that, no matter how remote in time, history is made of things that happened right here, in the places we still inhabit. The reclamation of culturally diverse objects excavated from this particular civic siteis a metaphor of remembering the social and cultural diversity that informs our shared identities.
Of special poignancy for the artist is the fact that she, like many of those to whom she pays tribute in her artwork, is an immigrant, having come from China to the United States through the port (in this case the airport) of San Francisco in 1984. What’s more, while researching “Map No. 33” she realized that what was once the civic center of San Francisco (that 19th century cluster of buildings and streets around Portsmouth Square) is today the heart of Chinatown.
In 2016 the Moscone Convention Center was torn down and replaced by a dazzling 21st century structure, and Map 33 was deinstalled and placed in storage until a future site in San Francisco can be located.