Flaten Art Museum Gateway to Himalayan Art Opening Reception

All are invited to an opening lecture or panel discussion followed by a celebratory reception. Free and open to the public This exhibit opens Friday, September 12, 2025, 5-7 p.m. CST at the Flaten Art Museum, Center for Art and Dance, St. Olaf College 

Flaten Art Museum (FAM) at St. Olaf College will host Gateway to Himalayan Art in the fall of 2025. Organized by the Rubin Museum, this exhibition offers an introduction to the forms, concepts, meanings, and traditions of present-day Bhutan, China, India, Mongolia, Nepal and Tibet. Objects include thangka paintings, mandala, a sacred shrine cabinet, and numerous statues and ritual objects such as a Tibetan prayer wheel, vajra, and bell. Thematic links include Tibetan medical practice, the feminine divine as personified within the esoteric Buddhist tradition, Tibetan Buddhist book traditions, including woodblocks for printing sacred texts, the processes and materials involved in painting a Buddhist thangka and casting a sacred sculpture. Our exhibition will be grounded in the living practices of the thriving Tibetan community in Minnesota.