- Size: 28.6 (L) x 21.1 (W) cm
- Binding: softcover, 107 pages
- Language: English
- Publisher: Orientations Magazine Limited, 2024
‘Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) explores how the observation of heavenly bodies has shaped our concepts of time to inspire the creation of art and sacred architecture across civilizations. It navigates these narratives from fifteen cultures spanning the Neolithic to the modern era, including those of the Indigenous Americas, Mesopotamia, and various regions of Asia, among others. Rather than attempting a survey of global cosmologies, the exhibition offers a series of contemplative explorations on themes such as creation, the construction of time and space, the mapping of the universe, and the interplay between cosmological and political or religious power.
First presented at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, ‘Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendor of China’s Bronze Age’ showcases nearly 200 artefacts from the Hubei Provincial Museum that illustrate the luxurious court rituals, aristocratic lifestyles, and spiritual practices of these kingdoms of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256 BCE) in China which blended indigenous traditions with Zhou culture to create a unique southern style in Chinese art.
The Hong Kong Palace Museum, in collaboration with Palace Museum, Beijing, and the Palace of Versailles, will open the exhibition ‘The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: China–France Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ to explore how exchanges in science, medicine, painting, philosophy, and other fields served as catalysts for creativity and innovation.
We feature two new discoveries in this issue. The first recounts how three 18th century album leaves from the imperial collection, illustrating Zhou dynasty ancestral rituals and misplaced in another album, were rediscovered at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The second highlights a late 16th century memorial thangka of three Tibetan Lamdre teachers that recently resurfaced on the market, unusual for its Chinese landscape style.
FEATURES
Stephen Little. Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures
Stephen Little. Daoist and Buddhist Cosmologies in Southeast Asia
Stephen Markle. Hindu Cosmology and Mythology
Richard A. Pegg. A Korean Star Chart Screen from the Mid-18th Century
Tofigh Heidarzadeh. Middle Eastern Astronomy and Cosmology
Fan Jeremy Zhang. Phoenix Rhapsody: The Art of Ancient Zeng and Chu States
Wenxin Wang, Mia Ye Ma and Phoebe Yiu Yin. When the Forbidden City Met the Palace of Versailles:
New Light on Treasures from the Palace Museum
Ricarda Brosch and Junyao He. Accidental Acquisition: Three Newly Discovered Album Leaves from the Eulogies of Zhou at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Karl E. Ryavec. A Previously Unknown Chinese Landscape Tradition of the Ngor School of Tibetan Painting
INTERVIEW
Interview with Fadi Basbous of the Alfred Basbous Foundation
PREVIEW
The Abu Dhabi Art Fair