n many ways, the epoch between 1500 and 1700 was a historical turning point. Great inventions and discoveries were made; there was stronger contact between the cultures of Europe and Asia. People were confronted with the foreign, the other, and were influenced by them.

This publication compares outstanding works of art from different cultural circles of that period of time, in their capacity as communications media. A woodcut by Dürer, illustrated Chinese scrolls, pictures from the Khevenhüller Chronicle, Turkish fayence, sixty miniatures from the Hamzanama, a sixteenth-century handwritten Mogul document, and essays by outstanding Orientalists, art historians, and authors such as Salman Rushdie, Barbara Frischmuth, or Wheeler M. Thackston undertake to reinterpret central questions about cultural exchange between Asia and Europe from a decidedly contemporary standpoint, sharpening our awareness of a point of view that manages without Eurocentrism.

German, English

Exhibition schedule: MAK, Vienna , June 3–September 27, 2009