Photo by Dave de Armas
Since its debut in 2015, the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room has been one of the Rubin Museum’s most popular installations, providing an immersive experience inspired by a traditional shrine. Now the Shrine Room travels to Brooklyn where it will be on view for six years in the Brooklyn Museum’s Arts of Asia galleries as part of a multiyear collaboration.
The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room features 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. It features scroll paintings known as thangkas, sculptures, and ritual implements and musical instruments arranged on traditional Tibetan furniture according to their use in Tibetan Buddhist practices. The design incorporates elements of Tibetan architecture and the color schemes of traditional Tibetan homes, offering visitors the opportunity to experience Tibetan religious art in its cultural context.
Elena Pakhoutova is senior curator, Himalayan art, at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and holds a PhD in Asian art history from the University of Virginia. She has curated several exhibitions at the Rubin, including Death Is Not the End (2023), The Power of Intention: Reinventing the (Prayer) Wheel (2019), and The Second Buddha: Master of Time (2018). More →
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 Friends.
Get the latest news and stories from the Rubin, plus occasional information on how to support our work.