05 15 19 SF Chronicle Buddha

May 15, 2019 “Gump’s Buddha to be auc oned; the price of enlightenment” Academy of Art University announced it has moved the 2019 gradua on fashion show to California Hall on the rst oor of 625 Polk Street, which was a historically inclusiveness place. https://www.sfchronicle.com/leahgarchik/article/Gump-sBuddha-to-be-auctioned-the-price-of-13846018.php

Gump’s Buddha to be auctioned; the price of enlightenment Leah Garchik May 15, 2019 Updated: May 15, 2019 11:49 a.m.

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The Gump’s Buddha, reported to be homeless in a December story in The Chronicle, will soon have a new home. The statue is going to be on the Christie’s

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SF Chronicle

auction block on May 29 in Hong Kong. Chris Jehle did the math of converting Hong Kong dollars to U.S. dollars and says the estimate of what it will fetch is $3.9 million to $6.4 million.

“The Gump’s Buddha, property of an American family” is described by Christie’s as a “highly important and monumental imperial gilt-lacquered wood igure of the Medicine Buddha.” Medicine Buddha is a healing and serenity-making practice of Buddhism, personi ied by a Buddha said to have taken 12 great vows after having attained enlightenment.

The statue, including its pedestal, is 95 inches tall, made of wood painted bronze.

It was bought in Kyoto in 1957 by Martin Rosenblatt, an executive and buyer for the store. A previous Buddha had been donated to the Japanese Tea Garden.

The Chronicle reported that when Gump’s was sold (for $8.5 million in 2005), New Yorker John Chachas, one of the investors who bought it, paid extra for the sculpture. By the time Gump’s announced its bankruptcy, last summer, the Buddha had been removed from the store, replaced by a photograph of it. Store personnel were mysti ied about where the statue had been taken, which is why The Chronicle described it as having vanished. According to Christie’s, “Works acquired at Gump’s not only enhanced — and still enhance — wealthy homes throughout the nation,” but also have wound up “in numerous public galleries.”

(Twelve vows I’d take after attaining enlightenment: Wear leggings only with tunics, always tip a few bucks more than you want to, no french fries and onion rings at the same meal, remove nail polish the minute it begins to chip, avoid both sitcoms and rom-coms, never answer a landline during the day ... can we please make it six vows?)

As co-chair of the board of the Carleton College Alumni Admissions Program, Ben Stiegler found himself in line for a buffet dinner at the Minnesota school a few weeks ago. The menu description included “dinner rolls & assorted latbreads,” which Stiegler discovered was a description of at least 10 pounds of matzoh that had been purchased for Passover and spurned by students. When only one sheet was taken, emails Stiegler, he was informed that the rest would go to “feed pigs who receive all the food service waste.”

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Stiegler could envision a rabbi being upset about this, but I think the concept of an animal that can turn matzohs into bacon is magical.

From year to year, the Academy of Art University, which — to understate it — has many properties around town, has moved its graduation fashion show from venue to venue. On Saturday, May 11, this year’s show was in California Hall, on the irst loor at 625 Polk St., built by German immigrants in 1912 and modeled on a castle in Heidelberg.

Welcoming guests by drawing parallels between the building and the history of AAU, Academy president Elisa Stephens emphasized the hall’s history as a place of inclusiveness, noting that it was the site of a 1964 Council on Religion and the Homosexual gathering (“the beginning of gay rights”), that it was the site of Hells Angels conventions, that scenes from “Dirty Harry” had been ilmed there, and that it was the venue for concerts by Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. The fashion show — this year with live music — was a lot of fun, the models strutting the students’ stuff and everyone else wondering how they could possibly be so thin. Best of all, as always, the ledgling designers did their proud end-of-show sashay down the runway.

Inspired afterward to dip into a little research about California Hall, I came upon a 1938 resolution of the San Francisco Labor Council, cited in minutes of the American Federation of Musicians Local Six: “Whereas: There is to be held in San Francisco during Memorial Day weekend a meeting of the German-American Bund, a Nazi organization in this country ... the San Francisco Labor Council voices its protest against this meeting.” The meeting was in California Hall, and last in its “Resolved list” was “That copies of this resolution be forwarded to the press of San Francisco.” Got it.

Read more here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/leahgarchik/article/Gump-s-Buddha-to-be-

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