Art Review: Book's Photo's of Sufi Shrines Now at NYC's Rubin Museum of Art

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Carter

Lisa Ross, Black Garden (An Offering), archival pigment print on cotton paper, 2009

NEW YORK---Although the show doesn’t say so, applying the term “art” to these structures can be a problem. The Chinese government, eager to control an oil-rich region and reduce any strain of separatist fervor, has designated the Uyghur shrines as “cultural property,” officially undercutting their religious function and promoting their identity as tourist attractions. But in Ms. Ross’s photographs they remain what they were meant to be: spiritually functional, formally arresting, conscientiously fleeting. And a selection of pictures from the book makes up this small exhibition, organized by Beth Citron, at the Rubin Museum of Art. [link]

Rubin Museum of Art: "Lisa Ross's Living Shrines of Uyghur China" (Ends July 8), 150W. 17th Street, Chelsea - NYC, (212)620-5000 or www.rmanyc.org