Linking Asia: Art, Trade, and Devotion

Explore how trade routes inspired and influenced art over time and across the Asian continent. Linking Asia: Art, Trade, and Devotion will feature approximately 150 sculptures, ceramics, textiles, scrolls, and other multi-dimensional works from 20 countries that span 2,000 years.

Linking Asia will dive deeper into the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and techniques along the Silk Road trade routes, which profoundly affected the development of Asian art. The presentation will consider themes such as artistic inspiration and cross-cultural hybridization of styles, trade by land and sea, ink art trends in East Asia, and religious links before the twentieth century.

Works on view from the DAM’s Asian art collection will include visitor favorite Shiva, King of Dancers (Shiva Nataraja) and many on view for the first time, such as objects from three shipwrecks.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website