Living Shrines of Uyghur ChinaPhotography by Lisa Ross

February 8, 2013–July 8, 2013
Rubin Museum
150 W. 17th St., NYC

A photograph of a living shrine in nature — Unrevealed, Site 4 (Yellow Marker) Lisa Ross [origin]; 2009 Archival pigment on cotton paper Courtesy of
the Artist object dimensions: 28 × 42 in L2013.3.9 Exhibitions: Rubin Museum of Art, “Living Shrines of Uyghur China:
Photography of Lisa Ross”, (02/08/2013 – 07/08/2013)

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is China’s largest province. It came under Chinese rule in 1949. With few exceptions, artists and foreign researchers have been denied meaningful access to the rural areas in Xinjiang. Lisa Ross’s close working relationships with a Uyghur anthropologist and a French historian focusing on Central Asian Islam have guided her more than eight-year exploration in the region. The extensive body of work from which this exhibition draws is rare in that it captures a time and place that is rapidly modernizing and transforming, as Xinjiang is now China’s largest source of untapped natural gas, oil, and minerals.

Ross’s work broadens our understanding of an understudied region at one of the world’s greatest cultural crossroads. At the same time, the conceptual and aesthetic dimensions of Ross’s photographs speak to the visual beauty, visceral ardency, and sacred gravity of these sites. The depth of Ross’s work is enhanced by a book, Living Shrines of Uyghur China, by Monacelli Press.

CuratorCurator

Beth Citron was previously the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Rubin Museum of Art. Her exhibitions for the Rubin Museum included Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Try to Altar Everything (2016), Francesco Clemente: Inspired by India (2014), Witness at a Crossroads: Photographer Marc Riboud in Asia (2014), and the three-part exhibition series Modernist Art from India (2011-13). She completed a PhD in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught in the Art History Department at New York University, from which she also earned a BA in Fine Arts.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by Peter Hutchings and Martha Wolfgang.

Living Shrines of Uyghur ChinaPhotography by Lisa Ross

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