Description
Purpose of grant: For The History of Himalayan Art initiative. Amount recommended: A one-year grant of $240,000. Summary: The Rubin Museum, opened in 2004, holds one of the top collections in the West of art and cultural material from the Himalayan region. Its 4,000 objects come from the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas. Inspired by the philosophical traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism and aligned with ongoing research into behavior and the brain, the Rubin offers programs that examine the arts and explore the mind and well-being. Himalayan art has received scant attention in comparison with the arts of East and South Asia, yet the region has served as a significant cultural crossroads for centuries. To enhance literacy about this understudied material and offer the context for a more holistic understanding of Asia, the Rubin has embarked upon an initiative that integrates a publication, a traveling exhibition, and a digital platform to offer multiple entry points for students, educators, curators and the public. The publication focuses on 108 objects through the lens of cultural history and cross-cultural exchange. The exhibition, conceived with the input of an advisory group of scholars, will acquaint audiences with the visual language and meanings of Himalayan art, the materials and techniques used in its creation, the principal purposes for its production, and its cross-cultural reach. The exhibition’s scalable, modular structure is designed to meet the needs of educators from disciplines ranging from art history, history, anthropology, religion, and psychology to the STEM fields. The open-access digital platform will connect the publication and exhibition, providing curriculum guides and contextual information including videos, animations, maps, and first-person narrations and interpretations by living artists and practitioners. Exhibition modules will also be available as video walkthroughs on the platform. Each of the three components can serve as an independent resource or be used in tandem. Scheduled to launch in early 2023, the five-year project has been designed with smaller colleges and universities in mind. Through surveys and outreach, the Rubin has to date received interest from about 20 institutions. With grant support, it aims to offer the exhibition to at least eight of these free of insurance and loan fees. Staff and advisors will offer free planning sessions to help support integration into classrooms and public programming. Hosts will be asked to collaborate with nearby institutions, incorporate initiatives for underserved communities and, when possible, include engagement with local Himalayan communities to foreground larger narratives of Asian culture and the Asian American experience. The publication, almost complete, has been supported through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Our funds would be applied to the exhibition and digital platform, supporting personnel; compensation for consultants, including a digital humanities specialist; travel; and production costs. As originally conceived, this grant was to be recommended at the level of $500,000. Because the Asia Program set aside funds this year to address urgent needs, including responses to anti-Asian racism and, in this November docket, at-risk scholars and students from Myanmar, a decision was made to approach the grant in two phases. The Asia Program plans to bring the recommendation for a second grant, for $260,000, before the board in March 2022, ultimately raising Luce support for the project to 19 percent. Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a one-year grant of $240,000 to the Rubin Museum to support The History of Himalayan Art initiative. https://rubinmuseum.org
