My Exhibitions

2022

VĪRABHADRA, THE DIVINE WARRIOR

November 

2021

OBJECTS TELLING THEIR STORIES

October 13th – November 20th

2019

MILANO & ASIAN ART 2019

Ganesh sthapanas – Embroidered talismans
15 may – 8 June

The exhibition presents 30 Ganesh Sthapana of various types and sizes from different areas of Gujarat.

Read the short essay…

2019

JAPANESE BAMBOO DESIGN

30 works by Contemporary Artists
April 9 – June 8

The exhibition presents 30 works by the most important Japanese contemporary artists.

Read more…

2018

FRANCO MANFREDINI’S COLLECTION OF CHINESE CERAMICS

An assortment of rare Changsha-manufactured ceramics from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and a significant number of Song Dynasty ceramics (960-1279). All pieces were acquired by Franco Manfredini during his extended stay in China and speak to the refined taste of this passionate Milanese collector.

2017

GIUSEPPE TUCCI’S TIBET

Photographs of expeditions from the 1930s

Twenty photographs taken in the 1930s during the exploration trips led by Giuseppe Tucci, who is still considered one of the most important Orientalists ever. These images document majestic Himalayan landscapes and centuries-old customs.

2017

HIMALAYAN MASKS

Tradition and Inspiration

These masks take us into a world where animism and traditional religions, classical art and tribal forms mixed over a thousand years. For Mort Golub, one of the first American collectors of Himalayan masks, their fascination also became an important source of inspiration. Thus I decided to stage a double exhibition where ancient Nepalese tribal masks are shown alongside 15 masks made by Mort Golub using the most diverse materials.

2016

JAPANESE WEAVING

the Art of Bamboo

Fifteen bamboo works by modern and contemporary artists take us into an art uniting the elegance of Japanese design and the spritual values inspired by Zen. Although most works are within the realm of tradition, some abandon the expected and result in abstract and original forms.

2016

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE BUDDHA

The exhibition presents 20 black-and-white photographs shot by Roberto Meazza in India. The photos depict places where the Enlightened One was born and lived, as well as images of ancient buildings, pilgrims and devotees, and a deep sense of religious faith.

2015

SHAMANS OF NEPAL

The 30 photographs taken during my two expeditions to Central Nepal in 1980 and 1981 illustrate my experience with an archaic and fascinating world—a world that still exist in many areas of this country.

2015

MASKS OF THE SOUL

30 masks of Japanese Theatre

A collection of 30 masks of Nō theater, a dancing-lyric drama believed to be the deepest and most significant of Japanese theatrical performances. These masks are ancient and powerful; they transform the actor into aching and suffering characters the moment he puts them on.

2014

MY INDIAN MEMORIES

The 36 photographs by Roberto Meazza, shot in various regions of India during the 1970s and 1980s, are an extensive travelogue. They are images of an India not yet transformed by the recent economic development and include portraits of a joyful/suffering population, ancient monuments, and intense ambiences.

2013

MAGIC OF INDIA

(Exhibit in Treviso, Italy)

Curated by Renzo Freschi, Marilia Albanese, and Adriano Madaro, “Magic of India“ is the most significant large-scale exhibition of Indian art ever staged in Italy. In the beautiful venue of Casa dei Carraresi in Treviso more than 250 pieces were on display, all on loan from Italian museums and collecotrs. The pieces included sculptures, paintings, jewelry, architectural elements, old photographs and vintage custumes.

2013

DEDRON

and Her Tibetan Visions

An exhibition of one of the most important contemporary artists in Tibet. Central in Dedron’s paintings are the natural and urban landscapes, the real and fantasized animal world, the monastery as the community center, the link between man and environment. 

2012

CHINA

The Art of Rocks

In old Chinese culture mountains were the skeleton of the world, rocks were its bones, and the waters its blood. This ancient world view explains why the rocks found in river beds or at the foot of mountains exert such a powerful fascination and have been collected for more than two millennia.

2010

PAST AND PRESENT OF TIBETAN PAINTING

This exhibition presents for the first time to the Italian public two periods of Tibetan painting, the ancient and the contemporary. Although seemingly different, the two genres are united by a strong cultural continuity. Twenty paintings from the 15th to the 19th century are presented along with 14 works by the most famous Tibetan contemporary painters.

2008

GANDHARAN PORTRAITS

For many centuries Gandhara was the point of contact between East and West. The region’s sculptural art displays a surprising variety of styles, all characterized by strong Hellenistic influence and Buddhist themes. The Buddha’s Apollinean beauty, the portraitural nature of the devotees’ faces, the dreamy stare of some heads showcase a wide variety of human and divine faces in the art of Central Asia.

2007

ZEN PAINTINGS

In the mid-1960s I bought a small book of haikus, these very short Japanese poems brightened my weary days in secondary school. The striking simplicity of Basho’s haikusbrought me closer to Zen and the Oriental world; thus, it seems fated 40 years later that I would have the opportunity to stage an exhibition of Zen paintings.

2006

GLANCES FROM THE PAST

Chinese Portraits from the Ming to Qing

Within Confucian culture the family is one of the elements of Chinese identity. For centuries portraits were reserved for the imperial court; however, from the 17th century they also came within reach of the highest levels of state administration and the wealthier classes. These paintings give us a glimpse into the subject’s character and the environment in which he was portrayed.

2005

MYTHS AND RITUALS

Myth and Ritualism in Art from India to China

The dawn of myth gave way to the transition of memory to history; and the mystery of its genesis is connected with the development of human consciousness. The exhibition focuses on aspects of Indian, and some Chinese, mythology and iconography.

2004

BODY AND SOUL

Body and Soul, Form and Emotion in Oriental Sculpture

This exhibition aims to illustrate how the relationship between “body and soul, form and spirit, aesthetics and feeling” was addressed in some of the most essential Asian artistic traditions. A series of comparisons among an Indian, a Khmer, and a Chinese figure; or between a Gandharan and a Tibetan Buddha highlight the distinctive characteristics of the various traditions.

2003

The Art Jouney of

MARCO POLO

The idea for this exhibition came to me while I was viewing another, “Marco Polo: Michael Yamashita, a Photographer on the Trail of the Past” (Palazzo Altemps, Rome, 2003) where some pieces from my gallery were shown alongside the images of this celebrated photographer for the National Geographic Society. Each photograph is accompanied by an ancient artefact to convey the same theme or feeling.

(Le foto pubblicate nelle pagine del catalogo sono di Michael Yamashita)

2002

ANIMALS OF ANCIENT CHINA

This exhibition introduces the visitor to the fascinating animal world of ancient China in an attempt to disclose its original symbology and beauty. The protagonists are 80 pieces of terracotta animals dating from the 2nd to the 10th century, and a rare group of wooden animals from northern China dating from the 1st to the 2nd century.

2002

SCULPTURES FROM INDIA

On a sentimental level I could call this exhibition “You Never Forget Your First Love.” After 30 years the feelings and memories I experienced during my first trips to India are still strong and vivid. Over 40 statues and high-reliefs in stone and terracotta invite the visitor to appreciate the beauty of Indian sculpture.

2001

ART OF TIBET

An homage to a culture that despite Chinese repression and the resulting diaspora, still fights to preserve the strong identity of its origins. The exhibition is an overview of a thousand-year old art that produced works we can see in all Oriental art museums.

2000

THE ART OF GANDHARA

Appreciation for Gandhara sculpture slowly went beyond the bounds of specialist circles. The fascination of its “classical” form, coupled with its Buddhist spirituality, has also gained a sizeable number of fans and collectors in Italy. I hope this exhibition of 48 works in schist, terracotta and stucco from the 1st to the 5th century, will contribute to a further surge in interest for an art that is so close to our own aesthetic tradition.

1999

THE ART OF BUDDHISM

from India to China

This exhibition offers an insight into Buddhist art spanning from India to Gandhara, to Tibet, to Southeast Asia and up to China. It is also meant as a symbolic act of deference to a “form of Knowledge” which had the same significance for the Eastern World as Christianity had for the West.

1999

THE SCULPTED FACE

50 Heads from India, Tibet, Thailand and China

What a difference between the representation of faces in Asia and in the West! Physiognomy, so prominent in Western art, is virtually unknown in the East where emphasis is on rendering an image of the Divine; therefore, tends toward an ideal face.

1998

IMMORTAL BEAUTY

The Human Sculptural Image from India to Tibet

The title of this exhibition hints at the aesthetic qualities of the pieces, taken as examples of immortal beauty, regardless of their provenance and dating.

1997

ORDOS

Art of the Steppes

During the first millennium CE migrations from Siberia and the Ordos, a region on the border of Mongolia and Shaanxi, brought nomads, pastoralists, and predators known as the “Steppe Culture” into parts of Chinese territories, and centuries later into Europe. The exhibition includes 40 metal artefacts dating from the 7th to the 2nd century BCE offering an overvew of Ordos art and its connections with Chinese and Scythian art.

1997

CHINA BEFORE CHINA

Artefacts from the Neolithic

Between 4000 and 2000 BCE various Neolithic cultures flourished in China who differentiated themselves by the types and motifs of their decorations. The exhibition presents 25 painted terracotta vases and 20 ritual and quoitidian stone objects.

1996

TWENTY YEARS ON

The exhibition celebrates 20 years after the Gallery’s initial opening and the move to its new location in Via Gesù. On display are important works originating throughout Asia.