In dialogue with the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room at the center of the gallery, Shrine Room Projects is an exhibition series that features contemporary artists who reinterpret traditional and religious iconography. This juxtaposition provides visitors with the opportunity to reflect on the themes and symbols emanating from the Shrine Room.
Rohini Devasher (b. 1978, New Delhi, India)
Rohini Devasher works in a variety of mediums and explores how the act of observing is defined by the relativity of the field or site from which it occurs, as well as the relation of the observed object to the observer.
For Shrine Room Projects, Devasher presents a two-channel video installation, 300 Km or the Apparent Movement of the Sun 2020), a powerful visual meditation on the observation of the sun moving across the sky. In the mesmerizing video—which stems from her research with amateur astronomers at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in India—the movement of the sun is captured on the metal plate of a spectroheliograph. Yet the sun’s motion is actually an illusion, the result of manipulating the scientific equipment. Devasher invites us to observe the relationship between the human and the cosmos and to cross-examine our perceived perception vis-à-vis time, space, and the world around us.
Palden Weinreb (b. 1982, New York, NY)
Palden Weinreb is a visual artist who draws on Buddhist motifs and ideas and works in a repetitive approach guided by minimalistic aesthetics. Many of his artworks are an invitation to look to where there is a seeming void—between lines, forms, light, and darkness.
For Shrine Room Projects, Weinreb presents two mixed-media works created in wax and illuminated by LED lights. Offerings (2014) and Untitled (Stupa) (2013) look at first glance like highly iconic Buddhist-inspired objects, yet both artworks are an invitation to look beyond the surface. Once the viewer approaches and transcends their first perception of these objects, deeper layers of meaning are revealed.
Curated by Jorrit Britschgi with curatorial assistant Anna Cahn
Jorrit Britschgi has served as the Rubin Museum’s Executive Director since 2017. Before joining the Rubin, he served as Head of Exhibitions and Publications at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland, where he was manager of the exhibitions program and curated numerous exhibitions. Mr. Britschgi also served as publisher of Artibus Asiae, one of the leading scholarly journals in Asian art and archaeology, for over a decade.
Jorrit Britschgi graduated from Zurich University with an MA in art history and Sinology (2005) and a PhD, with highest honors, in East Asian Art History (2009). Besides his research activities, he’s taken part in archaeological excavations in Eastern China and Bhutan, and curated numerous exhibitions on paintings from the Indian Himalayan region. Mr. Britschgi has received grants from federal and private foundations to pursue his studies and research. He is a 2017 alumni of the Getty Leadership Institute, and shares his expertise in an advisory capacity with other museums and individuals.
The Shrine Room is supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Namita and Arun Saraf, and by generous donations from the Museum’s Board of Trustees, individual donors, and members.
Your gateway to Himalayan art and its insights, with stories and news from the Rubin.