For millennia, people of all faiths have enriched their religious lives by embarking on physical journeys to sacred places. This summer, New York’s Rubin Museum of Art invites you to explore the role of these important pilgrimages in three of the world’s largest religious traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
“Pilgrimage and Faith” represents the greatest range of objects and geographical scope ever presented at the museum, with examples from Japan, France, Turkey, Spain, Iran, Tibet, England, Italy, China, Uzbekistan, Nepal, and India. Diverse examples of objects from each faith, including a Chinese Buddhist pilgrimage map, Muslim clay prayer tablets, a Tibetan Buddhist hand prayer-wheel, and a 14th-century Italian chalice, are among the exhibition’s more than seventy works of art and artifacts.
Dating from the 9th century to the present, some works are of high artistic skill, while others were intended for everyday use. Though these pilgrimage objects take myriad forms, inherent in each is a shared human need that transcends any one faith.
