The Menri Monastery in northern India possesses the world’s largest collection of manuscripts and block-print books relating to Bon, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. Most of these materials were rescued from ancient Tibetan monasteries before those institutions were destroyed in… Continue reading
The Smithsonian Institution’s latest exhibition explores objects donated to the National Museum of Korea and National Museum of Contemporary Art from the collection of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, which his family gifted to the Korean nation in 2021. Korean… Continue reading
For more than five thousand years, silk was an integral part of life in China, composing an important role in the history of Chinese civilisation and global cultural interaction. Silk not only helped connect diverse ethnic groups and vast regions… Continue reading
An exhibition currently showing at the Rietberg Museum in Switzerland aims to paint a different picture of the country by presenting a wholly new perspective on Mongolia’s 2,000-year history, partly thanks to cutting-edge archaeological research. Some 200 works are included in the… Continue reading
A retrospective exhibition examining the work of Kim Tschang-Yeul (1929-2021), one of the most prominent figures in Korean contemporary art, offers a comprehensive look into the artist’s creative vision. It re-examines his body of work within the historical and art-historical… Continue reading
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale is currently showing Textured Stories: The Chirimen Books of Modern Japan, The exhibition explores Japanese crêpe-paper books, known as chirimen-bon, which feature handmade pages filled with stories drawn chiefly from Japanese… Continue reading
In the ancient world, the kingdom of Silla (57 BC–AD 935) on the Korean peninsula was renowned as a country of gold. Silla was one of three kingdoms on the Korean peninsula that rose to prominence in the late 4th… Continue reading
Tea is nothing but the following: first boil the water. Then add the tea. And drink it. That is everything you have to know.’ These seemingly simple instructions by tea master Sen no Rikyu (1522–1591) refer to both the formalised… Continue reading
An exhibition of Indian textiles at the Abegg-Stiftung in Switzerland not only shows the beauty of the fabric produced during the Mughal period (1526-1858) but also explores their uses and the motifs used in the designs that have now become… Continue reading
Cåelebrating the rich textile heritage of Indonesia, this exhibition explores the ancient inter-island links found in this vast maritime region. Textiles and textile trade have a long and continuous history in Southeast Asia, with these cloths showing the changing outside… Continue reading