Photos of Bhutan and Sikkim
August 6, 2010 - January 10, 2011
The Rubin Museum presents the first exhibition of late 19th and early 20th century photographs by John Claude White, a British government officer who was stationed throughout the Himalayas during the British Raj. White traveled extensively during his residence in Sikkim, documenting his journeys with an enormous camera. The resulting collection of large format prints represents the mountains he loved and the people whom White considered companions and friends.
Gateway to Himalayan Art
July 23, 2010 - January 1, 2012
This new keystone exhibition equips visitors with a working knowledge of the principal concepts of Himalayan art, including important deities and symbols, materials and techniques used in creating works of art, and the purposes and functions of these works in context. In October, a reproduction of a Tibetan shrine room will offer visitors a chance to experience Himalayan art in its cultural context.
Tradition Transformed
June 11, 2010 - October 18, 2010
Tradition Transformed: Tibetan Artists Respond marks the first exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art in a New York City museum. The nine Tibetan artists featured each explore contemporary issues--personal, political, and cultural--by integrating the centuries-old traditional imagery, techniques, and materials found in Tibetan Buddhist art with modern influences and media.
Bardo
February 12, 2010 - September 6, 2010
The transitional states between death and either the attainment of spiritual enlightenment or the return to the cycle of rebirth are explored in Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife. For centuries, Tantric Buddhism has used tools that aid in the preparation for hallucinatory visions that appear in the afterlife. Only by recognizing these visions as illusory can buddhahood be attained.
From the Land of the Gods
February 8, 2008 - March 8, 2011
This exhibition features the finest examples of Nepalese art from the RMA collection, highlighting the variety of forms and subjects, techniques and media that emerged from the creative matrix of the Kathmandu Valley.
