Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery Debuts World’s First Exhibition on the Visual History of Yoga

May 14, 2013

“YOGA: THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION” OPENS FALL 2013, SUPPORTED BY THE MUSEUM’S INAUGURAL CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN

Yoga is a global phenomenon, practiced by millions of people seeking spiritual insight or better health. Few, however, are aware of yoga’s rich diversity and historical transformations. Opening Oct. 19 at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, “Yoga: The Art of Transformation”—the world’s first exhibi­tion about the discipline’s visual history—will reveal its fascinating meanings and histories over the past 2,000 years.

“The Art of Transformation,” on view through Jan. 26, 2014, explores yoga’s philosophies and its goals of transforming body and consciousness, its importance within multiple religious and secular arenas, and the varied roles that yogis played in society, from sages to spies.

To support the exhibition, the museum is launching the Smithsonian’s first major crowdfunding campaign May 29. “Together We’re One” will run through July 1, raising funds for exhibition production, Web content, catalog printing and free public programs for adults and families. Beginning late May, supporters can learn more, donate and download campaign materials—including e-cards and desktop and smartphone backgrounds—at “Yoga: The Art of Transformation”.

Exhibition curator Debra Diamond worked with an interdisciplinary team of scholars to compile a remarkable survey of Indian art, with more than 130 objects from 25 museums and private collections in India, Europe and the United States. As much of yoga’s history remains shrouded in mystery, this comprehensive look at yoga’s visual culture marks the start of a new field of study.

“These works of art allow us to trace, often for the first time, yoga’s meanings across the diverse social landscapes of India,” said Diamond, curator of South Asian art at the National Museum of Asian Art. “United for the first time, they not only invite aesthetic wonder, but also unlock the past—opening a portal onto yoga’s surprisingly down-to-earth aspects over 2,000 years.”

Renowned masterpieces of painting and sculpture as well as popular images weave parallel stories of yoga as an individual path and as a cultural force, both in India and abroad. The exhibition features 90 stone and bronze sculptures, richly illustrated manuscripts and lavish court paintings created from the third to the early 19th century CE. Objects such as a 12-foot scroll of the chakra body and the earliest illustrated Yoga Vasishta (an important Hindu philosophical text) illuminate central tenets of yogic practice and philosophy. Other works shed light on yoga’s obscured histories and archetypes, which range from tantric yogini goddesses to militant ascetics and romantic heroes.

Later 19th- and early 20th-century materials—including photographs, missionary postcards, magic posters, medical illustrations, iconographic manuals and early films—chart the vilification of yoga in the colonial period and the subsequent emergence of the modern discipline in India.

Exhibition highlights include an installation that reunites for the first time three monumental stone yogini goddesses from a 10th-century south Indian temple, 10 folios from the first illustrated compilation of asanas (yogic postures) made for a Mughal emperor in 1602 and never before exhibited in the U.S. and a Thomas Edison film, Hindoo Fakir (1906), the first movie produced about India.

A full range of public programs, concerts and family activities, including a November symposium, will accompany the Sackler’s presentation. The exhibition catalog, “Yoga: The Art of Transformation,” is the first publication on the visual history of yoga and includes contributions by noted scholars Joseph Alter, Debra Diamond, Carl Ernst, James Mallinson, Sita Reddy, Tamara Sears, Mark Singleton and David Gordon White. It will be available for purchase in October.

Following its Washington, D.C., debut, “The Art of Transformation” will travel to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum (Feb. 21–May 25, 2014) and the Cleveland Museum of Art (June 22–Sep. 7, 2014).

About the National Museum of Asian Art

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching and interpreting art in ways that deepen our collective understanding of Asia, the United States and the world. Home to more than 46,000 objects, the museum stewards one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world. Its rich holdings bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century art from the United States, providing an essential platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange between the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.

Beginning with a 1906 gift that paved the way for the museum’s opening in 1923, the National Museum of Asian Art is a leading resource for visitors, students and scholars in the United States and internationally. Its galleries, laboratories, archives and library are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and are part of the world’s largest museum complex, which typically reports more than 27 million visits each year. The museum is free and open to the public 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25), making its exhibitions, programs, learning opportunities and digital initiatives accessible to global audiences.

For more information, visit the museum’s website and follow updates on Instagram at @natasianart, Twitter at @NatAsianArt and Facebook at @NatAsianArt.

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