The traveling exhibition Gateway to Himalayan Art, which continues at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) through July 27, is extraordinary on several levels. The exceptional amounts of detail in traditional scroll paintings (thangka), sculptures, medical instruments and ritual objects are mesmerizing. Just as extraordinary are the equally meticulous installations outlining step-by-step lost-wax metal casting and thangka painting.
However, Gateway, part of a greater project organized and provided by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and curated by Elena Pakhoutova, potently demonstrates an epiphany of cultural resilience that could not be more timely or directly applicable in an age where some are touting the tools of artificial intelligence for human creativity. Keith Sawyer, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill scholar specializing in exploring the building blocks of creativity, explains, “while AI can produce impressive creative outputs, there may be a fundamental qualitative difference in the source and nature of that creativity compared to human creativity that emerges from conscious, embodied experience.” Gateway demonstrates a remarkable continuity of techniques, skills and aesthetic traditions that thrive today across all realms of religious, secular and cultural activity.
The Himalayas is unique as the world’s only place where the co-existence of Buddhism, Hinduism and Bon (indigenous religions) can be studied in depth for encompassing how art permeates every dimension, sector and function and purpose of society. An overarching intention for any creative pursuit in the Himalayas is religious merit or positive karma which both patrons and commissioned artists gain from the creation and production of art.
To appreciate Gateway to its maximum possibilities, visitors are encouraged to check out either before or after their visit to the galleries the excellent links on a thoroughly accessible and readable digital platform, which includes videos and short interviews, about the foundations of Himalayan Art and the attending culture that cannot be reduced to homogenous features. A third prong in this project is the publication Himalayan Art in 108 Objects. In fact, engaging with the digital platform will inspire visitors to return to the galleries to enhance the magnitude of the appreciation for the extraordinary art work and processes highlighted in the exhibition. Some of the web videos were produced in collaboration with Smarthistory, as part of the comprehensive array of digital content.
There are examples of art being created for specific purposes, ritualistic functions, instructional use and even for popular and festival settings. Likewise, artists follow well elucidated rules of proportions in religious texts for portraying deities, buddhas, bodhisattvas and other figures of iconography. The underlying cosmology of Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most important themes in Gateway. It is difficult to imagine a cultural and artistic tradition that has placed the character and role of humans as teachers in a central pantheon as it is realized in Tibetan Buddhism. The buddhas and bodhisattvas are joined by personal deities (known as yidam) who can be either images of wrath or sublime good, or there are defenders of the faith (Dharmapalas) and protective deities. Tibetan’s spiritual and religious culture would come to accommodate regional and local spirits and nature divinities too numerous to catalogue in one sitting, which have significantly enlarged the spectrum of aesthetic expression not just in traditional forms where artists follow strict rules of process but also contemporary and even digital forms that serve functional purposes of spiritual life and activity spanning every degree of religious and secular life.
Rubin Museum of Art, Gift of Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation
F1997.12.4 (HAR 700040)
These include prayer wheels (lakkhor), a ubiquitous ritual object where spinning them with “proper intention is the accumulation of merit. It ensures the removal of obstacles and offers protections, freedom from bad rebirths, worldly gains, advancement in Buddhist practices.” The prayer wheel remains integral to this day even in digital forms, as “contemporary versions of Tibetan prayer wheels include solar-powered wheels, electricity-powered computer screen savers, compact disc–based ones, and mobile phone apps.”
The durability of Mahalaka, a Buddhist deity and protector, is manifested in a late 13th century sculpture and his fierce stone figure painted black is a vivid reminder of the heterogenous cultural traditions the Mongols brought together, including the prominent role of “Tibetans, Newars, and Tanguts in visual production (for example, Feilaifeng, the White Stupa, and more), [and] this stone image signals a need to further rethink what characterizes Yuan dynasty art.”
Rubin Museum of Art, Gift of Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation F1997.17.24 (HAR 100024)
Gateway telegraphs the complexities of sustaining cultural resonance through centuries of cross-cultural encounters and concerns about the encroachment of imperialism. Paintings such as those depicting the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso (1617-1682) stand out for their cultural historical significance. He built the Potala Palace, which was designated 30 years ago as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Paintings of the palace highlighted the main monuments of the Lhasa as the religious sites that Buddhist pilgrims would visit to attain merit. During the late 18th century and continuing throughout the 19th century, only Buddhist pilgrims from the Mongolian regions of the Russian Empire were permitted to visit Lhasa, which had become the center of competition for British and Russian empires. Nevertheless, today, the Potala is preserved as a “symbolic center of Tibet and Tibetan identity continues to be promoted and reinforced globally.”
One of the most enchanting works in Gateway is a painting from a tradition of the Newars, who live in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley. The painting epitomizes the importance of Nepalese Buddhism, in celebrating elders who have reached the age of 77 years, 7 months, and 7 weeks. Known as the bhimaratha ritual, men will celebrate this ritual with their wives as a couple, irrespective of their spouses’ age. But, women, if widowed or unmarried, will mark bhimaratha on their own.
The wheel of existence is one of the most fascinating narrative forms, especially for how it has inspired interpretations in different art media and forms. The earliest sources described the wheel as the chronicle of the stories of Buddha’s disciple Maudgalyayana, who had visited all realms of existence to see firsthand the consequences of good and bad actions. The wheel of existence would be recreated in many forms including a relief sculpture at Baodingshan in China, a frontispiece illustration for the Avatamsaka Sutra (Flower Garland Sutra) in Korea and later in woodblock printing. “To this day contemporary artists and authors have turned to the didactic form of the wheel of existence to articulate their own views about the modern world, including themes of capitalism, social dysfunction and the relevance of Buddhism,” as the accompanying digital essay indicates.
It should be emphasized robustly that the exhibition’s edifying values are amplified by the supplementary digital resources which are convenient and compactly written in comprehensible clarity and include additional video and graphic resources. This is a multimedia model to emulate in exhibitions that are positioned to counter cultural misnomers, stereotypes, misrepresentations, reductionist historical assessments, romanticized portrayals of erroneously exotic Orientalism, and commodification and exploitation that disrupt and interrupt accurate representations of the intersecting religious, secular, spiritual and cultural dynamics that comprise art for both its functional purposes as well as its aesthetic creative expressions.
Of note, The Rubin Museum’s Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, featuring more than 100 works of art and ritual objects displayed as they would in an elaborate private household shrine, a space used for offerings, devotional prayer, rituals, and contemplation, will be presented as a long-term installation for six years, beginning June 11 at the Brooklyn Museum. For Gateway, a smaller but still effectively representative example is on display.
UMFA is the fifth stop for Gateway. After July 27, the exhibition will be presented at the Flaten Art Museum at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and then in 2026, will be featured at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon and then at the University of Southern California’s Pacific Asia Museum.
A global museum, The Rubin advances scholarship through a series of educational initiatives, grants, a collection sharing program with other museums and institutions and the stewardship of its collection of nearly 4,000 Himalayan art objects spanning 1,500 years of history—providing unprecedented access and resources to scholars, artists, and students across the globe. Founded in 2004, the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art first opened its doors at 150 West 17th Street in Chelsea, New York City.
For more information about the Gateway exhibition, see the UMFA website.