Orientations

Orientations is a bimonthly print magazine published in Hong Kong and distributed worldwide since 1969. It is an authoritative source of information on the many and varied aspects of the arts of East and Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, from the latest scholarly research to market analysis and current news.

‘Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) explores how the observation of heavenly bodies has shaped our concepts of time to inspire the creation of art and sacred architecture across civilizations. It navigates these narratives from fifteen cultures spanning the Neolithic to the modern era, including those of the Indigenous Americas, Mesopotamia, and various regions of Asia, among others. Rather than attempting a survey of global cosmologies, the exhibition offers a series of contemplative explorations on themes such as creation, the construction of time and space, the mapping of the universe, and the interplay between cosmological and political or religious power.

First presented at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, ‘Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendor of China’s Bronze Age’ showcases nearly 200 artefacts from the Hubei Provincial Museum that illustrate the luxurious court rituals, aristocratic lifestyles, and spiritual practices of these kingdoms of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256 BCE) in China which blended indigenous traditions with Zhou culture to create a unique southern style in Chinese art. 

The Hong Kong Palace Museum, in collaboration with Palace Museum, Beijing, and the Palace of Versailles, will open the exhibition ‘The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: China–France Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’ to explore how exchanges in science, medicine, painting, philosophy, and other fields served as catalysts for creativity and innovation. 

We feature two new discoveries in this issue. The first recounts how three 18th century album leaves from the imperial collection, illustrating Zhou dynasty ancestral rituals and misplaced in another album, were rediscovered at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The second highlights a late 16th century memorial thangka of three Tibetan Lamdre teachers that recently resurfaced on the market, unusual for its Chinese landscape style.