Exhibition of Chinese Stone Sculpture from the Sackler Collections Opens in Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.- The University of Virginia Art Museum is the final venue of a two-year tour of “Treasures Rediscovered: Chinese Stone Sculpture from the Sackler Collections at Columbia University,” an exhibition organized by the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery of Columbia University. Touted as “eye-opening” by Roberta Smith, art critic at the New York Times, the exhibition is curated at U.Va. by Dorothy Wong, associate professor of East Asian art in the McIntire Department of Art.

Highlighting one of the notable collections of Chinese stone sculpture in the United States, ‘Treasures Rediscovered’ includes 21 monumental sculptures – steles, full figures and heads of divinities, as well as funerary objects – that provide a comprehensive view of how art manifests ritual practice and reveals, through iconography, the transmission and transformation of culture from the Han (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) through the Tang dynasties (A.D. 617–907). The exhibition also reveals the dissemination of Chinese Buddhist culture along the famed Silk Road.

As a counter to the colossal objects found in ‘Treasures,’ the museum will also present “Expressions of the Buddhist Faith,” an exhibition drawn from the museum’s collection and key loans from private collectors. From woodblock printed texts to ceramic tiles, miniature stupas and pagodas, paintings, and sculptures in different medium, this small selection of objects from across Asia demonstrates the broad range of religious expressions inspired by the Buddhist faith.

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4. LACMA Displays First Major Public Sculpture by Chinese Contemporary Artist Ai Weiwei
5. Center for Chinese Studies at University of Michigan rediscovers rare Chinese art collection