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Thomas Murray

ASIA WEEK NEW YORK 2024

Collections: Ainu, Boro, Islamic Batiks, Tibetan Rugs, Indonesian Textiles, Indian Trade Cloth, Wrathful Deity Masks

March 14 – 19, 2024
Asia Week Hours: Mar 14 (Evening by Appointment Only), Mar 15-19 (by Appointment Only from 10am-6pm)
The Mark Hotel 25 East 77th Street

We are pleased to be offering small collections of highly selected works of art reflecting our discriminating taste, as formed over the last 45 years in Asia.

Presented in online digital catalogs, with introductions and captions, we are happy to share our knowledge and vision.

To view the Ainu Collection catalog, click here.

To view the Boro Collection catalog, click here.

To view the Tibetan Rug and Textile Collection catalog, click here.

To view the Islamic Calligraphic Batik Collection catalog, click here.

To view the online exhibition: click here.

 

Transformation Masks

It has been fashionable of late to access the merits of tribal art in a decontextualized manner. We often use a language of connoisseurship to assign aesthetic value to a ritual object now defined as a work of art. This, despite the fact that when it was created such criterion may never have been remotely considered. Instead, indigenous ideals of beauty based on ancestral traditions and iconic efficacy would have been more important.

To this end, an art brut mask may be more effective in ceremonies than a conventionally pretty mask and therefore be handed down for more generations and develop a deep patina as a result.

We present here a sampling of masks from the Himalayas and Indonesia that was presented along with contemporary works from the Shamanic Mask Series by sculptor Mort Golub that shared common themes of animism and transformation.

To view the exhibition, click here.