"Tibet:Treasures from the Roof of the World" (2004) offered a rare glimpse into the sacred culture of Tibet, bringing nearly 200 sacred objects to the Western world for the first time. Midway through its run, about 70 protesters gathered outside the Bowers to complain that the show failed to address the fraught history of Chinese domination of Tibet since the 1950s, including its crushing of a 1959 uprising and ban of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's spiritual leader. The Bowers at the time said that the exhibition's aim was to explore Tibet's art history, not contemporary politics.