Oakland Museum at the Oakland International Airport

Secret World of the Forbidden City
Splendors from China's Imperial Palace

Dorothea's Children

Secret World of the Forbidden City Splendors from China's Imperial Palace

August 10 - October 20, 2000

Location: Terminal One entrance on both sides of the walk ramp leading to Security Checkpoint

On display at Oakland International Airport from August 4th until October 20th is a sampling of Secret World of the Forbidden City, a large traveling exhibit on view in all its splendor at the Oakland Museum of California this fall.

The Forbidden City at Night

Emperor Xianfeng's Ceremonial Armor Reign of Emperor Xianfeng (1851-1861)

As its name suggests, the Forbidden City was for centuries one of the most secretive and mysterious imperial residences in the world. Built in 1407, it was literally a city made up of a series of palaces and halls reputedly totaling 999 buildings and 9,999 rooms, the number nine representing longevity in Chinese tradition. Within its walls lived nearly 30,000 attendants, all there to serve the emperor and "Son of Heaven." There were also numerous workshops that produced beautiful works of art from Mogul-style jade and antique bronzes to art devoted to the Buddhist religion.

Now known as the Palace Museum, the Forbidden City boasts collections totaling over one million artworks and artifacts from all aspects of the emperors' lives. The exhibition on display at the Oakland Museum of California October 14, 2000 through January 24, 2001 is the largest ever brought out of the Palace Museum. It consists of over 365 imperial treasures from the Qing Dynasty, which extended from 1644 until its collapse in 1911.

Chinese presence in California began as early as 1852 and flourishes today in Oakland's Chinatown area. Located between Seventh and Eleventh streets and from Broadway to Harrison streets, it is a community in which tradition and culture have deep roots. Those roots include the superb artistry and long-lived traditions exemplified in Beijing's Forbidden City.

Dorothea's Children

July 28 - October 20, 2000
Location: Connecting walkway between Terminals One and Two

Children hold a privileged position in the photographs of Dorothea Lange (1895-1965). One of the most compassionate artists ever to work in the medium, her images are among the most direct and incisive ever made and the children she photographed are acutely representative of the values she championed.

Andrew, Berkeley, 1959

Lange's "children" are actively engaged with their world, always bearing feeling and intelligence, independence and personality, assurance and vulnerability—much like Lange herself. In the course of a career that spanned over forty years, Lange continually sought new expressions of her belief in and commitment to the human spirit. Her photographs are consistently about the relationship of individuals to their surroundings and to others. Despite the compelling circumstances that occasioned much of her work, they are first and foremost images of people: their responses, stances, and gestures.

Lange is most widely known for her work with the federal government's Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression. From 1935-1939, she often worked alongside people in desperate circumstances. Yet her work documents not only their plight but also their resilience and hope.

Gifted with penetrating insight and a keen eye, Lange sought new expressions of her belief in and commitment to the human spirit. She possessed an intuitive ability to draw forth the essence of those she photographed, and her work embraced the diversity and universality of the human experience. Her profound respect for life, in both its physical and spiritual realms, resonates even today.

Dorothea's Children is but a small sample of the vast collection of negatives and original photographs by Dorothea Lange now in the Oakland Museum of California's collection.