Orientations

Art & Design Collection  

Archived since January/February 2004
Modern Archive

149 issues

Orientations is a bimonthly print magazine published in Hong Kong and distributed worldwide since 1969. It is an authoritative source of information on the many and varied aspects of the arts of East and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, from the latest scholarly research to market analysis and current news.

A digital subscription gives you access to back issues of Orientations from 2004. For a print subscription which comes with complimentary digital access, please visit our website at www.orientations.com.hk

Latest Issue:

It is with pleasure that we share with our readers ‘Unsullied, Like a Lotus in Mud’, an exhibition of Buddhist art from Korea, Japan, and China opening at the Hoam Museum of Art that explores gender-related issues. With 92 pieces gathered from 27 collections worldwide, the theme of women as both objects and subjects in Buddhism transcends regional and chronological boundaries. 

Buddhism has been a great source of art, cultural exchange, and trade. Mongolia’s Amarbayasgalant Monastery, built between 1727 and 1736, holds historical connections to the Mongol cleric Zanabazar (1635–1723) and to several Qing dynasty emperors. Its Sino-Tibetan-Mongolian construction illustrates the crucial role of architecture in establishing a Chinese presence in Mongolia. The Italian Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci (1895–1984) made eight expeditions to the Tibetan plateau between 1928 and 1948, during which he was able to acquire many artefacts, including a group of tangkas.  Three of these have now entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, allowing accessibility to a wider audience. 

The São Roque Church is the earliest Jesuit church in Portugal and is known for its paintings with depictions of Chinese porcelains. We show how these export items were used in a Western context, shedding light on Portuguese trade with Asia in the 15th century. 

Patchworked textiles arrived in China almost two thousand years ago following the introduction of Buddhism. We explore modern-day creations 
by artists in villages in Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei provinces, who have taken patchwork to a new level.

This spring, 130 Japanese prints and paintings from the Worcester Art Museum are on view at the Blanton Museum of Art in ‘The Floating World: Masterpieces of Edo Japan from the Worcester Art Museum’. 

Ragamala is a unique category of miniature painting popularized in northern India from the 16th century, typically using human characters to convey the emotional essence of varied melodies and their poetic symbolism. An ascetic and four wrestlers in a painting from the Yale University Art Gallery represent physical and mental strength within the broader cultural, religious, and artistic context of northern India.  

The Minneapolis Institute of Art celebrates the new year with ‘Year of the Dragon: Mystical Creatures of the Sky’, an exhibition of objects drawn from the museum’s own Chinese art collection that explores the evolution of dragon imagery and its connotations throughout Chinese art history.

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Research Areas: Art & Design, Asian Studies, Museum Studies

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  • First Issue: January/February 2004
  • Latest Issue: March/April 2024
  • Issue Count: 149
  • Page Count: 17,773