The Rubin Museum has an ambitious photography schedule this year, with three terrific exhibitions overlapping. Try to get there this week, when planning a visit to NYC for (perhaps for the AIPAD: The Photography Show which begins this week, April 12-15):
Ending April 16: Mongolia: Beyond Chinggis Khan
This exhibitions featured the work of photographers ELAINE LING and BUILDER LEVY interspersed with magnificent objects from the Rubin’s Collection. A wonderful show!
“This exhibition celebrates the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Mongol empire by Chinggis Khan in 1206. A selection of Mongolian sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, and other ritual objects, drawn entirely from the RMA’s collection, will be complemented by images of Mongolia made by the contemporary photographers Builder Levy and Elaine Ling. This combination of traditional art and modern photographs, with subjects ranging from the ancient standing stones left by the Huns and Turks to scenes from the annual festival that celebrates Mongol accomplishments in horseback riding, archery, and wrestling, is an effort to illuminate a country whose history, art, and culture is virtually unknown to most westerners. A focal point of the exhibition is the RMA’s collection of Mongolian dance masks, which were used in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the annual festivals that took place in monasteries across Mongolia.”
Ending July 16th: ILLUMINATION, the photographs by LYNN DAVIS which opened this weekend. The New York Times did a wonderful article on Lynn the the opening of this show titled “Travels Abroad Lead to Travels Within” by Mia Fineman (4/8/07) which you can read here.
“Lynn Davis (American, born 1944) has explored the world in search of the greatest universal sites, both man-made and natural. In this exhibition, the artist presents her photographs, deeply modern and imbued with a sense of abstraction, with her selection from RMA’s collection. This pairing reflects her intuitive response to the RMA collection as resonant with the spiritual nature of her work. Davis’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and collected widely. Her work appears in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, which held an exhibition of her works in 1999.”
Ending September 3rd at the Rubin: The Missing Peace Project: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama
This exhibition is touring the US, and it is worth a visit to the project’s website, an excellent example of an exhibition website; don’t miss the FOR PARTNERS sections which leads you to view understanding the tangible benefits of sponsorshi. Those of you have heard me lecture recently know that this is one of the project websites I feature in my section on project sponsorship.
“Contemporary artists from around the world, working in a variety of media, offer a wide range of new and existing works inspired by the messages, vision, and values of the Dalai Lama.
Ending August 22nd at the SVA GALLERY: A component of this large exhibition is lso on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts, 601 West 26th Street from July 12 through August 22.”
From the exhibition website: “The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama is the result of a collaboration between the Committee of 100 for Tibet and the Dalai Lama Foundation. We see this project as a unique opportunity to explore the idea of art as an interpretation of, and a catalyst for, peace. Through the artist’s work, we also hope to broaden appreciation for the Dalai Lama and the principles he embodies. The project and exhibition title is an evocative play on words – peace will always be elusive, or missing, in our world, but the Dalai Lama consistently shows that dedicating oneself to peace is anything but pointless. The word ‘portrait’ is used very loosely. Artists were given the freedom to explore the full life of the Dalai Lama; each ‘portrait’ was the result of personal interpretation.
The artists, both established and emerging, were selected because their work addresses themes that are embodied by the Dalai Lama, such as compassion, peace, unity of all things, impermanence, spirituality, belief systems, community, people in exile, non-violence, happiness, and tolerance. Many of the artists have created new work for the exhibition in a wide variety of media, including photography, painting, textiles, animation, sculpture, video, and installation works.
We hope that this exhibition will inspire us to reflect on who we are as human beings, our relationship to others, and our place in the world.”
For a list of participating artists, click here. As of this writing, I’m not certain which works are on view at the Rubin, and which are at the SVA Gallery; call to confirm or allow time to visit both venues where this large exhibition is on view!
Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson 
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