We have long recognized that many objects in museums were originally on display in temples, shrines, or monasteries, and were religiously significant to the communities that created and used them. How, though, are such objects to be understood, described, exhibited, and handled now that they are in museums? Are they still sacred objects, or formerly sacred objects that are now art objects, or are they simultaneously objects of religious and artistic significance, depending on who is viewing the object? These objects not only raise questions about their own identities, but also about the ways we understand the religious traditions in which these objects were created and which they represent in museums today.
Bringing together religious studies scholars and museum curators, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is the first volume to focus on Asian religions in relation to these questions. The contributors analyze an array of issues related to the exhibition in museums of objects of religious significance from Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions. The "lives+? of objects are considered, along with the categories of "sacred+? and "profane+?, "religious+? and "secular+?.
As interest in material manifestations of religious ideas and practices continues to grow, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is a much-needed contribution to religious and Asian studies, anthropology of religion and museums studies.
Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces: Exhibiting Asian Religions in Museums, Bruce M. Sullivan, Bloomsbury Publishing, Paperback, 216 Pages, $35.95
List of illustrations
Introduction, Bruce M. Sullivan (Northern Arizona University, USA)
Part 1: Exhibiting Hindu and Sikh Religious Objects in Museums
1. What Do Indian Images Really Want? A Biographical Approach, Richard H. Davis (Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Bard College, USA)
2. Under the Gaze of Kali: Exhibitionism in the Kalighat Painting Exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Deepak Sarma (Professor of Religious Studies, Case Western Reserve University, USA)
3. Reconsecrating the Icons: The New Phenomenon of Yoga in Museums, Bruce M. Sullivan (Professor, Comparative Study of Religions & Asian Studies, Northern Arizona University, USA)
4. Sikh Museuming, Anne Murphy (Associate Professor in Punjabi Language, Literature and Sikh Studies, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada)
Part 2: Exhibiting Buddhist Religious Objects in Museums
5. Planning the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Gallery of Buddhist Sculpture 2009-2014, John Clarke (Curator of South and South East Asian Art at the Victoria & Albert Museum, UK)
6. Entering the Virtual Mandala: Transformative Environments in Hybrid Spaces, Jeff Durham (Assistant Curator of Himalayan Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, USA)
7. Discovery and Display: Case Studies from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denise Patry Leidy (Curator of Asian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA)
8. Mapping Cultures, Digital Exhibitions, Learning Networks: The Creative Collaborations at Austin College and the Crow Collection of Asian Art, Ivette Vargas-O'Bryan (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Austin College, USA)
Part 3: Religions, Museums, Memory
9. Curating Asian Religious Objects in the Exhibition Sacred Word and Image: Five World Religions, Janet Baker (Curator of Asian Art, Phoenix Art Museum, USA)
10. World Religions Museums: Dialogue, Domestication, and the Sacred Gaze, Charles D. Orzech (Reader in Religion, Conflict & Transition, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, UK)
11. Detritus to Treasure: Memory, Metonymy, and the Museum, Michael Willis (Curator of the Early South Asian and Himalayan Collections, The British Museum, UK)
Bibliography
Index
