Art Institute of Chicago / Taoism and the Arts of China芝加哥艺术博物馆与「道教与中国艺术」大展

Type

Museums

Location

United States · Illinois · Chicago · 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603

Coordinates

41.8796, -87.6237 Map ↗

First built

The museum was founded in 1879; the catalogue for the exhibition "Taoism and the Arts of China" was published in 2000 · Catalogue author Stephen Little, published by University of California Press, 2000, ISBN 0520227840 / 0520227859; the exhibition's specific dates are not reliably documented

Overview

The Art Institute of Chicago was established in 1879, and holds about 35,000 works of Asian art spanning nearly five thousand years, encompassing China, Korea, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and the Near East. This entry is included on account of the museum's exhibition "Taoism and the Arts of China" — the first major comprehensive exhibition on the theme of Daoism held in the West, which detached Daoist art from the general category of "Chinese religious art," systematically presenting the relationship among pantheon imagery, ritual implements, Internal Alchemy diagrams, landscape painting, and Daoist cosmology, and exerting a profound influence on the study of Daoist art in the English-speaking world. The exhibition catalogue was edited by Stephen Little and published by University of California Press in 2000 (ISBN 0520227840 / 0520227859), and remains the standard reference work in the field to this day. Details such as the exhibition's specific dates, whether it traveled to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and its co-curators are not reliably documented in public sources and should be verified with the museum.

Highlights

• The first major comprehensive exhibition on the theme of Daoism held in the West
• Catalogue edited by Stephen Little (2000)
• Holdings of about 35,000 works of Asian art
• Established an independent curatorial framework for Daoist art