Roombas scattering hot pink glitter take stage at Asian Art Museum

Eight spinning robot vacuums near the beginning of the Asian Art Museum’s latest exhibition end up spraying around more of the hot pink glitter than they clean up. That’s the point of the piece “Puff Out” by :MentalKLINIK. 

“If they want to rest, they rest,” said Naz Cuguoğlu, the museum’s assistant curator of contemporary art. “And if they want to party, they party.” 

The same might be said for visitors to the dance-centric “Rave into the Future: Art in Motion,” opening Friday, October 24. The exhibition, which Cuguoğlu curated and called a “love letter to the dance floor,” is constructed around nine stages that mimic the experience of going to a rave (the Roombas are part of the after-party). 

“Everything that happens in a night out happens in this exhibition space,” she said. The curation was a deeply personal journey for Turkish-born Cuguoğlu, who chose to feature exclusively women and queer artists from West Asia and included playlists from her personal music collection. It’s the first major pavilion exhibition under new director and CEO, Dr. Soyoung Lee, who joined the museum in April from Harvard Art Museums. 

An actual 100-foot dance stage, “Disguise as Dancefloor” by Joe Namy, anchors the exhibition space with a copper floor that takes the scuffs and imprints of the visitors who dance on it,  creating a living exhibition that collects memory and changes with time. (Wireless headphones are provided.) The choice of material is significant, too. 

Disguise as Dancefloor, by Joe Namy (b. 1978, Detroit). Performance, Somerset House, London, 2023. Photograph by Anne Tetzlaff.

“Copper is known as a material to heal,” Cuguoğlu said, “just as Joe is really interested in the dance floor’s capacity to heal.” 

Cuguoğlu wants to redefine the museum experience through her curation, imagining art as something to be both experienced and used. There are multiple spaces for resting, with oversized bean bags where viewers can take in the video piece “Spiral” offering a queer take on the often-orientalized form of belly dance, and white Adirondack chairs for gazing out color-filmed windows while reflecting on one’s own connection to dance and movement. 

The entire exhibition is intimate, darkly lit and atmospheric. Perhaps no piece captures that aura better than Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s “For Your Eyes Only,” in which museumgoers peer into — inhabit, even — a bedroom space glowing with a television set showing women-led protests, a disco ball, a loop of selfie dance videos and a hamper with a “Free Palestine” shirt peeking out.

Bay Area artists take to the floor with a working DJ deck by Oakland-based artist Sahar Khoury and an oversized cassette tape sculpture by San Francisco-based artist Maryam Yousif. The former piece will play a role in the exhibition’s robust event schedule, which includes Baby Raves and an open call to local DJs. 

Moreshin Allahyari’s highly reflective and playful “She Who Sees the Unknown: The Queer Withdrawings” uses Islamic mythology and ancient manuscripts to create a wall of silvery female and queer figures that float, disappear and refract — while also mirroring the person gazing upon them. 

She Who Sees The Unknown_ The Queer Withdrawings, 2023, by Morehshin Allahyari. Reflective vinyl and mirrors on wall, photo by Gina Clyne courtesy of the artist and OXY ArtsShe Who Sees The Unknown_ The Queer Withdrawings, Qareen I, 2022, by Morehshin Allahyari. 3D printed sculpture, PLA, paint, talismatic blessings in ink, 2022.