'The craftsmanship is exquisite': celebrating Himalayan art as museum preps to close

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Happy AAPI Heritage Month! 

Every May is a time to celebrate the historical and cultural contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 

And there is so much to celebrate at the Rubin Museum of Art.

A new exhibit is called “Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now.” 

It features 32 artists bridging past and present using contemporary artwork in dialogue with museum objects. 

All these works are created by people from the Himalayas, Asia, or the diaspora. 

“The beauty and craftsmanship of Himalayan artists have been exquisite throughout time,” Michelle Bennett Simorella, the exhibit's curator, told PIX11 News. “Also, there are stories behind the narratives,” she added.  

Kunsang Gyatso, born in Nepal but 14 years now a New Yorker, created this tangerine shrine. It was placed next to a traditional Buddhist shrine inside a wealthy Himalayas home. 

“This is very simply an imagined shrine that has been taken out of a different time and space,” Gyatso told PIX11 News. It imagines that tangerines are considered sacred, so inhabitants have dedicated a shrine to them. It also explores what faith means,” he added.  

John Tsung, raised in Taiwan, is a sound artist. He installed 1,000 feet of cables and microphones throughout The Rubin to capture the movements of everyone in the museum. 

The sounds then emanate from this rock in front of the traditional shrine.  

“This rock is a piece of the foundation of the Rubin Museum,” the sound artist John Tsung told PIX11 News. 

The staff took a hammer and chipped out a large chunk of the foundation. When you touch this rock, you feel everybody. You’re touching the heart and the genesis of the Rubin Museum itself.  

Tsung continued: “When I found the museum was changing its incarnation, It’s a fitting way to say hello and goodbye to the museum and a way to say hello to the next incarnation,” he added.

A five-story installation of prayer flags and all the artwork will be at the Rubin until Oct. 6, when the building closes. 

Then, the exhibit will travel to Chicago.  

For more information about the future of the Rubin and all its traveling exhibits, go here.