Next Wednesday, December 7 at 6:30 p.m., the National Museum of Oriental Art reopens its doors at its new headquarters: the Borges Cultural Center (Viamonte 525, 2nd floor). The Museum has a heritage made up of more than 4000 original parts from China, Japan, Korea, India, Egypt, Turkey, Armenia, the former Persian Empire, Tibet, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, among other countries. Its collection is made up of paintings, sculptures, engravings, objects for daily use and worship, clothing, musical instruments, toys, photographs and furniture from different oriental cultures.
After more than 18 years closed to the public, the Oriental reopened in September 2019 at its original headquarters, located in the Errázuriz Alvear Palace, with a temporary exhibition room and the presentation of the collection reserve space. This month it moves to a new venue on the second floor of the Borges Cultural Center with a completely renovated space for the presentation of its main exhibition, middle alland the temporary sample Tracing Flashes of an Orientcurated by the artists Aili Chen and Johanna Wilhelm.
The new design respects the international standards of museology for the presentation of the pieces of the collection and complies with the accessibility and space guidelines for the reservation of visitable collections. In addition, it incorporates an educational room for families and schools.
dew boffodirector of the Museum, affirms: “The move to a new, larger and more suitable headquarters for the correct exhibition of the Museum’s heritage and for the development of public programs for the communities is a fact of profound relevance for our institution and for the Ministry of Culture, after many years in this search”.
Main exhibition: East All
How to propose a museum that from here represents communities from there? How to put two halves of the world in dialogue? How to enhance the experience of cultural expressions from those countries and open the game to multiple perspectives? What do we think of when we say “East”? In the Western imaginary, the concept of the Orient seems to be defined by opposition: it is everything that is not the Occident. It includes diverse geographies, nations, cultures, practices, and social groups. The attempts to meet that other were not and are not innocent. They have a political dimension where the centrality of Europe built a story that was internalized by the rest of the West.
What are the ideas about the Orient created by our cultural imaginary? The East is usually associated with detail, spirituality, sensuality and a great connection with nature. Is it really so or is it just imagined conceptions? The exhibition presents the very constitution of the museum as one way, among others, of encountering the Orient. Oriente Todo tries to recognize these ideas and put them to the test, observing the collection through the different times that it congregates and the individual experiences of each visitor.
“We review our preconceptions to reconstruct new ideas from objects, adding the perspective of contemporary artists and local communities. The National Museum of Oriental Art seeks to disseminate both oriental cultures and contribute to coexistence in the diversity of our societies,” they explain. Lucia de Francesco and Anush Katchadjiancurators of the exhibition.
Temporary exhibition: Tracing Glimpses of an Orient
In this show, the artists Aili Chen and Johanna Wilhelm They work with pieces made of paper, paradigmatic material of the imaginaries on oriental arts, proposing a counterpoint with the permanent collection of the Museum. While Chen models versions of the objects on paper, Wilhelm evokes the pieces with openwork paper. Thus, both propose an approach to the Museum’s collection through lights, shadows and sparkles.
For 2023, the Museum proposes a program that will integrate various public and community programs, including talks by specialists, guided tours of the exhibitions, workshops, screenings, and concerts.
From December 7, open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Borges Cultural Center (Viamonte 525, 2nd floor) with free admission.