UPCOMING ARTIST TALK
Artist Talk: Practice, Process, and Personal Myth with Manjari Sharma + Discussion with Katherine Anne Paul
Friday, May 16, from 6-7pm
Tickets: $5 (Adult); Free (Members)
John L. Santikos Auditorium
Manjari Sharma, the visionary artist behind the Darshan photo series, will present a talk, followed by a discussion with Katherine Anne Paul, curator of Envisioning the Hindu Divine, about Sharma’s interdisciplinary practice and process of creating her works.
To learn more and reserve tickets, click here.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Maa Laxmi, From the Darshan Series, 2011, Manjari Sharma (b. Mumbai, India, lives and works in California), Archival inkjet print in brass-embossed frame, Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art; Museum purchase, 2020.48.2a-b, Photography credit: Manjari Sharma, © Manjari Sharma
Envisioning the Hindu Divine: Expanding Darshan and Manjari Sharma
Envisioning the Hindu Divine: Expanding Darshan and Manjari Sharma
March 7 – July 6, 2025
Lecture: Friday, March 7 from 6-7pm (in-person and live-streamed)
Exhibition Tours: Beginning Sunday, March 9 (times vary)
Free Spring Break Family Day: Tuesday, March 11, 10am-7pm
Envisioning the Hindu Divine: Expanding Darshan and Manjari Sharma features forty historical objects from India and Southeast Asia and nine photographs by global contemporary artist Manjari Sharma. Bringing together the striking work of the rising contemporary art star with the historic collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art, this exhibition showcases nine of the most significant deities of the Hindu pantheon and their contemporary relevance in art and faith. These works serve as a gateway to the concept of darshan—seeing and being seen by the divine, a profound spiritual exchange of glances experienced through consecrated images of gods. The vibrant, varied, and sometimes contradictory stories of these gods—as well as their familial relationships with each other—are shared through the works in this exhibition.
Contemporary artist Manjari Sharma makes work that is rooted in portraiture and addresses issues of identity, multiculturalism, and personal mythology. Beginning as a multiyear, crowdfunded project on Kickstarter, Sharma’s Darshan series of photographs aimed to recreate the experience of encountering the nine Hindu deities. An extraordinary aspect of Sharma’s work is her commitment to creating each scene without digital manipulation. All items visible in the images were present when photographed, not digitally added later.
Be sure to catch an evening lecture on opening day, Meeting Some Gods: Contemporary and Classic Visions of Hinduism, with Katherine Anne Paul. Explore the rich diversity of Hindu art through Manjari Sharma’s striking portraits of nine major deities, alongside historic depictions from the Birmingham Museum of Art and SAMA. This illustrated lecture examines Sharma’s work in dialogue with traditional representations of Ganesha, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and others, highlighting India’s artistic influence across Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, and Thailand.
To learn more and view all the related programs, click here.
Samurai Spirit: Swords, Accessories, and Paintings
January 6, 2024 – July 27, 2025
Asian Special Exhibitions Gallery, 2nd Floor West
First recounted by oral narratives, the stories of battles, heroic pursuits, and famous samurai warriors became popular subjects of literature, theater, and pictorial arts that have endured through the ages. And their swords, polished and decorated, were revered as treasured emblems of their honorable heritage.
This exhibit features two important fourteenth century swords, a wakizashi, a short sword signed by the maker, Yoshioka Ishimonji Sukehide, dated to July, 1363, and a katana, a longer sword typically wielded with two hands, that were purchased with funds realized from the sale of the late Robert Clemons’s bequest to SAMA. Japanese swords are admired for the strength of the steel, which comes from heating and folding the metal many times, and by shaping the steel to a fine, sharp blade.
Other samurai weapons and objects round out this introduction to a major aspect of traditional Japanese culture.
To view the exhibition, click here.
Shibata Zeshin, Japanese, 1807-1891, Still Life with Vegetables, 19th century, colored lacquer and gold leaf on paper, 7 1/8 × 10 5/8 in. (18.1 × 27 cm), On loan from The Catherine and Thomas Edson Collection, L.2009.10.3
The Exquisite Art of Shibata Zeshin: Lacquerwares and Paintings
April 27, 2024 – October 27, 2025
The new installation in the Japanese Gallery focuses on lacquer, a medium derived from the toxic sap of trees belonging to the genus of poison oaks. Asian lacquer trees are found in India, China, Korea and Japan, and each country has produced distinctive lacquerwares since ancient times.
Throughout its history, lacquer has been used in a variety of ways for finishes on a wide range of items. In Japan, polished gold boxes embellished with designs in mixed metals and cut and sprinkled gold became one of the exquisite crafts produced as early as the Heian period (794–1185). Black lacquer decorated in gold as well as a warm red lacquer finishes were produced for dining utensils used in Buddhist temples and elite homes.
Japanese lacquerwares reached a pinnacle in the work of artist Shibata Zeshin during the Meiji period (1868–1912). Zeshin was a multi-talented artist who learned traditional painting techniques but was also extraordinarily skilled in using lacquer. Notably, he adapted this difficult medium to painting by inventing a way to maintain the flexibility of the lacquer so that a scroll could be rolled without cracking.
Works on view include sake ewers, stacked boxes for food, storage boxes for paper and clothing, writing boxes with inkstones and brushes, and paintings.
To learn more and view the works, click here.
Tibetan Man’s Robe, Chuba, China, Qing dynasty (1644-1911), 19th century, Brocade silk damask, gold-wrapped silk yarn, polychrome silk yarn, and fur. Purchased with funds provided by the Bessie Timon Endowment Fund and anonymous donors, 2023.2.2.
The Permanent Asian Art Collection
The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing
In 1990, museum trustees Walter F. and Lenora Brown began donating what has grown to over 500 Asian objects, mostly Chinese ceramics, which surveys the entire 5,000-year history of ceramics produced in China. With additional later acquisitions, the Museum’s collection of Asian art is now among the finest in the nation and is drawn from several cultures across the continent, including China, Japan, Korea, India, Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
The collection was installed in its new and dedicated space, the 15,000-square-foot Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing, in 2005. With the installation in 2019 on the museum’s grounds of a 12-foot-high, six-and-a-half ton Taihu Rock, gifted by San Antonio’s sister city Wuxi in China, the Asian art collection became part of SAMA’s riverview.
To view the collection, click here.
