The Asian Art Museum Blog has the news about the big new piece that’s just been installed in Civic Center. It’s all a part of Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past, which starts May 18th, 2012 at the Asian Art Museum.

Here’s the video of them installing it yesterday afternoon:

And here’s what it looked like yesterday evening:

Click to expand

The HuffPo has the story:

“Timed to coincide with the Asian Art Museum‘s Phantoms of Asia exhibition, Civic Center Plaza will soon play host to Korean artist Choi Jeon Hwa’s Breathing Flower sculpture–a 24-foot tall, bright red recreation of a lotus flower with motorized petals set up to open and close throughout the course of the day.

A curatorial statement from the Asian Art Museum details some of the meaning behind the work:

“Looking closely at this large lotus by artist Choi Jeong Hwa one notices that it appears to be full of life, its petals slowly inhaling and exhaling. This is typical of the work of Choi, who takes pleasure in giving new life and meaning to otherwise inanimate and disregarded materials. Long a familiar flower in Asia and associated with both Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the lotus is remarkable for its ability to emerge from murky waters and mud, and blossom into an elegant flower. Choi created his lotus from everyday materials that, unlike a real lotus, will never disintegrate and die, and ultimately urge the viewer to meditate on the beauty and fragility of the natural world around us.”

Tags: 2012, American, art, artist, asian art museum, bay area, breathing, Breathing Flower, california, Choi Jeon Hwa, City Hall, civic center, Contemporary Awakens the Past, flower, fulton, Kinetic, Kinetic Red Lotus, korea, korean, larkin, lotus, motor, noisy, petals, Phantoms of Asia, plaza, red, San Francisco, statue, street, ststue