Exhibition

Listen to the calming sounds of water and take in the subdued palette of evergreen shrubbery embracing
the Koi Pond. The garden features stone lanterns crafted from Okazaki stone over 200 years ago, as well as a bonsai display maintained by the South Coast Bonsai Association.

This exhibition presents an international survey of Buddhism and Buddhist art, beginning with the religion’s origins in India and following its spread through mainland and island Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, and East Asia. Incorporating 150 masterpieces of pan-Asian Buddhist art, the exhibition introduces key concepts of Buddhist thought and practice viewed through rare and extraordinarily beautiful Buddhist sculptures, paintings, and ritual objects. Drawn from LACMA’s permanent collection, with several significant loans from private collections, the exhibition explores the life of the Buddha, the role of the bodhisattva, Buddhist cosmology, and key concepts such as dharma, karma, nirvana, mantra, mudra, and mandala.

This exhibition showcases works by Asian diasporic artists that explore the process of unmaking and remaking the self. Focusing on art as a site of radical reimagination, the exhibition presents a cross-generational conversation about the liberatory possibilities inherent in the continuous, messy, and sometimes contradictory process of forming social identity.