A gentle murmur of storytelling surrounds me atop the Rubin Museum of Art’s spiral staircase. As I descend, hundreds of Asha Kama Wangdi’s now-faded flags, woven at the top into a unicorn head that watches over me, cascade down the stairwell. At the bottom, I arrive at a circular table, where a designated storyteller rolls a die that indicates a theme, prompting each museumgoer to share a personal story and a piece in the museum that embodies the sentiment. This game represents the central mission of the institution: inviting visitors to cultivate compassion and awareness and deepen their connections with the world around them via contemplation of Himalayan art.
Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now celebrates the museum’s 20th anniversary, as well as its impending closing in October. Featuring 32 contemporary artists, the show’s paintings, sculptures, video, installation, and performance works explore and reimagine the stories of the cultures that shape the Himalayan diaspora.
Nepal-based artist Prithvi Shrestha looks at the interconnectedness of elements in our universe, bridging the gap between human existence and the natural environment by situating depictions of deities from Nepali paubha paintings in contemporary contexts. His painting “Attachment” (2018) depicts lotuses and flowers, symbols of purity and blessings. Golden lines laid over the piece, however, suggest technology’s impact on our intrinsic relationship with the natural world.
Several artists reinterpret traditional narratives to reconsider gender and sexuality in relation to their culture. In their new video commission, “Power, Masculinity and Mindfulness” (2024), Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, who works to elevate LGBTQ+ voices and address issues of sexual violence in the Tibetan diaspora, explores the fluidity of gender in a four-part video series comprised of exchanges between the artist and his father. Meanwhile, in the photo series Stay Home, Sisters (2020), Nepali photographer Uma Bista sheds light on reproductive taboos in Nepal and the lasting effects cultural practices such as isolation and confinement during menstruation have on women.
Memory, and the fight against cultural erasure, is another central theme in the exhibition. Nepali artist IMAGINE (a.k.a. Sneha Shrestha)’s immersive installation emulates a traditional Himalayan devotional space in which she incorporates ritual objects from both her own and the Rubin’s collections. The walls feature a repetitive pattern of Devanagari script, which fuses the aesthetics of Sanskrit scripture and contemporary graffiti.
This compelling reimagining of Himalayan culture asks visitors to consider its relevance, power, and rich cultural history, especially in light of the museum’s closing. As practices such as meditation and yoga have become pervasive in American culture under the label of “wellness,” the exhibition invites viewers to consider the people who introduced this knowledge in a bid against their erasure in the modern Western consciousness. By bridging material culture with broader conversations around technology, consumerism, geographical borders, and globalization, the exhibition affirms the significance of the cultural production of the Himalayan diaspora.
Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now continues at the Rubin Museum of Art (150 W 17th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through October 6. The exhibition was organized by Michelle Bennett Simorella with Tsewang Lhamo and Roshan Mishra.
