Gateway to Himalayan Art

FAIN: GI-290768-23

Shelley and Donald Rubin Cultural Trust (New York, NY 10011-5491)
Michelle Bennett Simorella (Project Director: August 2022 to present)
Karl Debreczeny (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)
Elena Pakhoutova (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)

Implementation of a traveling exhibition geared to university galleries that would introduce essential concepts of Himalayan art and culture and a digital educational platform.

Gateway to Himalayan Art, developed with the support of a scholarly advisory group, is a traveling exhibition that presents the iconography, materials, and artistic and cultural practices of the Himalayan region through select objects from the Rubin Museum combined with narrative descriptions, photographs, audio tours, videos, and digital animations. The public will learn about the fundamental art forms and important universal ideas from the Himalayan region, such as compassion, karma, the cyclical nature of existence, and the interdependence of things. Presented in three modules with a variety of thematic access points, different museum communities can modify the exhibition according to their needs. An open-access digital platform expands material from the exhibition, offering additional opportunities for engagement and learning about a lesser-known area of art and culture necessary for a holistic understanding of Asia.