Contemporary Tibet in World Museum
This week we're looking at a recent aquisition to the World Museum for our 150th anniversary blog series. Here is our Head of Ethnology and Curator of Asia Collections, Emma Martin, to tell us more...
A beautiful example of Tibetan art.
One of World Museum's first purchases during it's 150th anniversary is quite an unusual one. World Museum has for many years had a fantastic collection from Tibet, which you can see in the Asia section of the World Cultures gallery.
Most of the objects are 100-200 years old, but in the past month National Museums Liverpool has received funding from Friends of National Museums Liverpool and The Art Fund to buy a group of contemporary Tibetan artworks. This group of 12 artworks is the first to be collected by a museum in the UK and is an interesting new area of collecting for Liverpool.
It's a really exciting development as we are recognised across the world as having one of the great collections of Tibetan art. Displaying this artwork will give visitors a chance to see a completely different kind of Tibetan art that deals with global issues of cultural identity and the changing society.
The piece you can see here is by a woman artist called Dedron who lives and works in Lhasa. Using traditional paint pigments, she has created a beautiful painting of a injured antelope. Although the antelope is being watch by the vulture and the whole scene looks pretty ominous, Dedron sees it as a sign of rebirth and the beginning of new life and new ideas. As you can see this powerful painting is surrounded by a carved frame in the shape of the Buddha's head, a sign that the Buddha continues to surround and protect the Tibetan landscape.
We hope to have the group of artworks on display in World Museum in a couple of months time, so come along and have a closer look at this beautiful and unique collection.