Making an Exhibition

December 02, 2011 | Howard Kaplan

A light shines against a white gallery wall behind an empty but open glass case. To the left of a case is a rolling cart with ancient circular jade objects sitting on it
Installation shot of the Ancient Chinese Jades exhibition in the Freer Gallery

The National Museum of Asian Art’s Freer Gallery recently renovated four of its suite of Chinese galleries, beginning with Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes, most of which had been in storage for more than ten years. A lot of prep work goes on behind the scenes that involves curators, designers, art handlers, expert mount makers to name a few. Here, you can see a few of the jade bi on the blue cart at left, and the new cases that had been specially built to “float” them.