Asia Society Museum | Past Exhibitions, 1997-2004

TOOBA: Shirin Neshat
As a unique component of the programming related to Hunt for Paradise, the Asia Society will present the U.S. premiere of Tooba (2002), a double-screen video installation by the renowned artist Shirin Neshat. A leading contemporary artist whose videos and photographs draw upon her Iranian heritage for inspiration, Neshat uses her artwork to explore her sensitive, complex relationship to her country of origin.

Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Iran, 1501-1576
A rare look at the Golden Age of the arts in Iran. The first two shahs of the Safavid dynasty, the charismatic Isma’il and his son Tahmasp, promoted a cultural flowering of extraordinary brilliance. Bringing together for the first time exquisite carpets and textiles, ceramics, stunning metalwork and illuminated manuscripts and bindings, the exhibition explores the complex interaction of royal patronage and religious faith that inspired this remarkable period of artistic creativity.

Cai Guo-Qiang An Explosion Event: Light Cycle over Central Park
Asia Society presents an exhibition of gunpowder drawings by the internationally renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. The artist has created this series of impressive large-scale drawings as studies for his “explosion” event in Central Park on September 15 to celebrate the Park’s 150th anniversary.

Mandala Sand Painting: Creating an Enlightened World
This mandala sand painting was a gift to New York City from the Tibetan Buddhist monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery to commemorate the tragic events of September 11 and to honor His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Landscape of Memory: The Art of Mu Xin
A poignant examination of one of China’s most significant yet unheralded painters and writers of the latter half of the twentieth century. Painted in secrecy while in detention, Mu Xin’s mysterious landscapes are extraordinary syntheses of classical western and Chinese painting traditions. Also featuring Prison Notes, musings on art and philosophy written on scraps of paper provided by his captors for enforced self-criticism.

Patterns from Nature: Creations by New York City Students Inspired by Aboriginal Art
Inspired by the exhibition The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining, Australia, recently on view at Asia Society and Museum, this collection of art works by students from four New York City schools is a delightful interpretation of contemporary art and its relationship to nature.

The World of Buddhism
Drawing on the Rockefeller Collection's rich holdings of Buddhist art, The World of Buddhism explores key concepts and imagery of one of the world's great religions.

Montien Boonma: Temple of the Mind
This major solo exhibition, focusing on one of Asia's most distinguished contemporary artists, traces Montien Boonma's artistic development in the context of his deep faith in Buddhism. Boonma's striking installations, combining industrial and ephemeral materials such as spices and fragrances, explore the notion of artworks as contemplative space for viewer's participation and meditation.

China Reconfigured: The Art of Ah Xian
China Refigured brings together sculptures by contemporary Chinese artist Ah Xian and a selection of traditional art works drawn principally from the Rockefeller Collection. By featuring fine examples of traditional porcelain from the Northern Song (960-1127), Ming (BCE 1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1912 CE) periods, this exhibition explores the artistic traditions and cultural context underpinning the work of this contemporary artist.

From Court to Caravan Chinese Tomb Sculptures from the Collection of Anthony M. Solomon
From the Han (206 BCE–CE 220) through the Tang (618–906) periods, Chinese ceramic sculpture achieved a level of sophistication and vitality unrivaled by any other ceramic tradition of the ancient world. Drawing on one of the finest private collections in America, this exhibition explores the mastery of form and line embodied in these remarkable Chinese ceramic tomb sculptures.

Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art
An exhibition of paintings and sculptures by distinguished Australian Aboriginal artists from Ramingining, Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Arranged according to six different natural environments found in this region each painting and sculpture illuminates the specific cultural relationship between the Aboriginal people and the land.

Asian Contemporary Art Week
A six-day, city-wide event focusing attention on the richness and diversity of Asian and Asian American contemporary art in New York.

Seeds of Creativity: New Perspectives on the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection
The second in a series of exhibitions providing new perspectives on the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection of Asian Art. New works by students from New York City schools created in collaboration with artists are displayed among the Rockefeller pieces that inspired them.

Banaras: The Luminous City
This exhibition focuses on the historical, religious and cultural significance of this most important of Indian cities. Banaras is better known to Hindus as Kashi (the Luminous) or Varanasi (the city where the Varana and Asi Rivers flow). The city once served as a nexus for trade and today is one of the oldest living cities in the world.

The New Way of Tea
The aesthetic and choreographed ritual of the tea ceremony is often seen as the quintessential face of traditional Japan. The exhibition at the Asia Society and Museum brings this ritual into the twenty-first century by juxtaposing tearooms and tea utensils created by contemporary Japanese architects, artists, and designers with those from other Asian cultures and the West.

The Creative Eye: New Perspectives on the Asia Society's Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection
For a refreshing look at the Asia Society's permanent collection, visual artists, writers, musicians, and theater directors have been invited to select and respond to particular works that speak to them. This site allows visitors to view the exhibition organized by the individual objects and also by the artists who chose them.

Conversations with Traditions: Nilima Sheikh and Shahzia Sikander
Conversations with Traditions is a series of exhibitions that will explore the dialogue between contemporary issues and indigenous artistic languages expressed in the work of Asian and Asian American artists. Nilima Sheikh and Shahzia Sikander both claim pre-modern Rajput and Mughal court (miniature) painting as their artistic lineage, but the two artists articulate differing relationships with both the pre-modern court painting traditions and contemporary art practices.

Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China, Gansu and Ningxia, 4th to 7th Century
This exhibition comprises more than 120 spectacular artifacts— including Buddhist images, metalwork, textiles, glass, and funerary furniture and ceramics—from the only stretch of the Silk Road that traversed ancient China.

Can We Feed Ourselves? A Focus on Asia
In this haunting yet breathtakingly beautiful visual dossier, eminent photographer Hiroji Kubota (Magnum Photos) has captured the crisis of food, population and environment facing Asia.

Power and Desire: South Asian Paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection
The manifold and multifaceted relationship between ruler and ruled, suitor and consort, human and divinity, depicted in the paintings of the Mughal and Hindu courts from the 16th to 19th century.

Dancing Demons: Ceremonial Masks of Mongolia
This exhibition presents spectacular 19th-century masks worn by participants in the Lamaist Buddhist dance ceremonies and shamanistic rituals of traditional Mongolia. The masks, many depicting fearsome deities or fantastic animal heads, are lavishly decorated with silk tassels, gilt bronze ornaments and semi-precious stones. Photographs of the ceremonies, abruptly wiped out during the Communist purges of the 1930s, are also included in the exhibition, along with other ritual paraphernalia.

China: Fifty Years Inside the People's Republic
Drawn to the People's Republic of China by its dramatic upheaval and its rich cultural legacy, the world's greatest photographers offer thrilling proof of the power of the camera to explore—and convey—the human experience. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, China: Fifty Years Inside the People's Republic presents the work of thirty distinguished Chinese and Western photographers, conveying the depth of their involvement in the politics, culture and everyday life of the Chinese people.

Fire Over Earth: Ceramics from the Collection of the Asia Society
The ceramic tradition of East and Southeast Asia, a region rich in clay and other fusible materials, is unrivalled. In China, earth (clay) was regarded, along with fire, as two of the "five elements of the cosmos". This exhibition, comprising more than fifty pieces drawn from the Asia Society's Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, explores the artistry and technology of Chinese ceramics and those of the adjacent regions—Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam—from the third millennium BCE to the 18th century.

Bamboo Masterworks: Japanese Baskets from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection
Japanese bamboo baskets embody a highly distinctive sensitivity to sculptural form, texture, and pattern unlike that in any other artistic medium. The Lloyd Cotsen collection of Japanese baskets is probably the most important in existence, and around 80 of the finest pieces, selected for their extraordinary beauty, intricate craftsmanship, rarity, and art historical importance, are presented to the public for the first time in this exhibition.

Inside Out: New Chinese Art
Inside Out presented the dynamic new art being produced by artists in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and by selected artists who emigrated to the West in the late 1980s. This section contains substantial information including more than 20 images; a full checklist of every work in the show; information on two specially commissioned pieces by Cai Guo-qiang and Wenda Gu; a work in progress by the artist Xu Bing available only on our website; a chronology of the development of contemporary Chinese art in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; biographies of the artists, and more.

More than Meets the Eye: Japanese Art in the Asia Society Collection
This exhibition, from April through August, 1998, featured more than 40 artworks of the highest quality from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection.

The Narrative Thread, Contemporary Women’s Embroidery from Rural India
Embroidered by women from an underdeveloped Indian province, the quilts in this exhibition tell of women's struggles and their growing empowerment through their work and solidarity.

Great Cities, Small Treasures: The Ancient World of the Indus Valley
In early 1998 the Asia Society presented this groundbreaking exhibition of more than 100 artifacts from the one of the great civilizations of the ancient world—the Indus Valley civilization in what is now Pakistan.

Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment
In the fall of 1997, the Asia Society presented the first exhibition ever devoted to the multiple manifestations of the mandala throughout Asia.

The World of Buddhism
Drawing on the Rockefeller Collection's rich holdings of Buddhist art, The World of Buddhism explores key concepts and imagery of one of the world's great religions.

Asian Contemporary Art Week
A six-day, city-wide event focusing attention on the richness and diversity of Asian and Asian American contemporary art in New York.

Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment
In the fall of 1997, the Asia Society presented the first exhibition ever devoted to the multiple manifestations of the mandala throughout Asia.