JILL TOYOSHIBA | The Kansas City Star Colin Mackenzie, the senior curator of Chinese art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, has organized the renovated Chinese galleries around the theme of the tomb.

THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
BY ALICE THORSON

If you haven’t made the acquaintance of the Chinese art collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, for decades one of the museum’s hallmark departments, now is the time.

On Jan. 27, the museum will open four renovated galleries of Chinese art, enlivened by new cases, fiberoptic lighting and works that have never been displayed.

Newcomers and regulars alike will enjoy this quietly spectacular installation, centered on the theme of the tomb.

“The Chinese wanted to take it all with them,” said Colin Mackenzie, the Nelson’s senior curator of Chinese art.

And they did take it all — food, furniture, clothes, vessels, games, grooming and cooking items, money and wine.

A “Case with Tomb Miniatures” features small models, known as mingqi or “luminous objects,” of everything the deceased would need, from back bolsters to riding boots.

“They’re symbolic,” Mackenzie said. “It’s really the quest by the Chinese to find some way of making life go on. It’s all about recreation of life in the tombs for eternity that reflects a person’s life and status.”

Friday’s opening coincides with the Chinese New Year, which began Jan. 23 and is celebrated for 15 days. The Nelson plans a big celebration, with lion dancers, yo-yo demonstrations, a dragon hunt and more.

Dragons, a quintessential Chinese symbol of divine power, weave through the new display the way they writhe around of “Pair of Ceremonial Finials” from more than 20 centuries ago.

They can be tricky to identify.

In the finials, it takes some patience to extricate the dragon images, which appear upside down, their tails at the top.

The outlined dragons that appear on a pair of Western Han Dynasty tomb doors have a curlicue energy and elegance. In contrast, Alice in Wonderland meets Hello Kitty in the flower-studded dragon with a feline face that appears on one of a pair of Southern Song porcelain funerary urns.

Perhaps the most fetching example is a gilt bronze “Striding Dragon” from the Han Dynasty. He’s a tiny little guy, with a jaunty fierceness.

Bronze beginnings

Renovation of the four galleries has been going on for two and a half years, and two of them — the Chinese Temple gallery and the main Chinese gallery — have been open to visitors since June 2010. But with the completion of adjacent galleries focusing on ritual bronzes and tomb luxuries, the scheme is complete. Visitors can take a roughly chronological tour of collection highlights from the Neolithic period to the 14th century.

The earliest pieces are the ritual bronzes, made to serve as intermediaries with powerful ancestors.

The gallery features roughly two dozen of them — amphoras and ritual cooking vessels, wine buckets and libation ewers — with gorgeous, centuries-old patinas encrusting mysterious images of mythical animals and intricate abstract designs.

“This represents the beginning of China,” Mackenzie said.

Printed quotations on the walls above the cases — “This month there will be great rain;” “The king reading the cracks said ‘auspicious’ ” — relate to a small display of “Fragments of Divination Bones,” originally belonging to oxen or turtles.

During the Shang Dynasty, members of the elite sought answers from the ancestors by interpreting the cracks in the bones, which occurred when they were touched with a hot poker.

A bronze ax head from the Shang Dynasty introduces another aspect of ancient Chinese culture.

“We know it was used for decapitating victims,” MacKenzie said, “because it has pictograms that actually show someone’s head being cut off by an ax.”

The same case also features a ceremonial dagger ax made from jade, and a little carved jade sculpture of a cicada.

Also new to the public is a gallery devoted to “Luxury and the Tomb” during the first century of the Han Dynasty. The display chronicles the shift from simple wood-lined pits to more elaborate royal tombs featuring fired clay bricks and stone slabs.

“Casing Slab of a Tomb Chamber” is decorated with lively scenes of figures and animals, arranged in three tiers. The groupings vary in formality and playfulness, from the fanciful animals and acrobat in the top tier, to the graceful dancer and musician in the middle section and the purposeful officials on horseback at the bottom.

The items placed in the tombs included wine cups made of wood and coated with black and red lacquer. The display includes a striking one from the Qin Dynasty, decorated with abstract designs that have a distinctly modern feel.

Earthenware versions of multistory watchtowers also were placed in the tombs. One example features little figures perched on every tier. Another, with elaborate painted designs, is inhabited by a single man, probably the owner, who gazes out from a first floor balcony.

Children will enjoy a trio of three-dimensional animal scenes, including a “Pig Pen and Latrine.”

The “Luxuries” gallery also includes the museum’s treasured “Ritual Disc with Dragon Motifs,” billed as “one of the most famous Chinese jade carvings in existence.”

Foreign influences

The reinstalled main Chinese gallery explores some fascinating subthemes under the rubric of the tomb. Many objects speak to the foreign influences that came into China along the Silk Road, which stretched from Rome through Central Asia to China.

In fact, the lions that we think of as Chinese, and that often appear as guardian figures for the tombs, came from India, and were part of a vast array of Buddhist influences that flooded into China beginning in the 1st century.

The Sogdians, a merchant people from present-day Uzbekistan, also influenced China, when they came into the country and adopted Chinese burial practices and brought a few of their own..

From the 5th to the 7th centuries, a fashion for mortuary beds with exposed corpses replaced the traditional wooden coffin, a practice that may have begun with the Sogdians, Mackenzie said.

A display of tomb furniture includes a “Facade of a Mortuary Bed,” with a design scheme that incorporates Central Asian influences as well as lotus petals and lions from Buddhism.

Foreign influences also can be seen in the images of horses. They take on a different appearance after the 2nd century, reflecting the Chinese importation of Ferghana horses during the Han Dynasty.

This Central Asian breed was bigger and sturdier than the Chinese horse. The Chinese eventually went to war with Ferghana to have unlimited access to the horses, which played an important part in China’s battle with Mongolian tribes during the 2nd century.

A lively display of colorful Tang dynasty tomb figures, arranged on two tables on either side of a central aisle, includes horses as well as two-humped Bactrian camels from Central Asia.

People with Central Asian features, including elaborately dressed guardians, robed officials, and the grooms that attend the camels, dominate this figural grouping. Housed in a separate case, an unfired earthenware sculpture of a Central Asian woman breast-feeding her baby while rousing her camel, suggests that at one point, anyway, the Chinese apparently regarded Central Asians as rather vulgar.

Buddhism

The Buddhist influence on Chinese art continues in sculptures of luohans, who served as spiritual exemplars, and bodhisattvas, who served as intercessors. “Guanyin of the Southern Seas,” the museum’s most popular Buddhist sculpture, is the dramatic focal point of the Chinese Temple Gallery, which has been improved with lighting that allows visitors to see the coffered ceiling with carved dragons.

And the ceiling has quite a story.

It came from the Zhihua Temple, Mackenzie said, which survives in Beijing — the only remaining example of Ming Temple architecture.

The Nelson got the ceiling after it had been sold to a coffin maker’s shop. Laurence Sickman, who bought Chinese works for the museum from the early 1930s until his retirement as director in 1977, spotted it and worked to get it, Mackenzie said.

In Beijing, a huge digital photo of the ceiling, taken at its Nelson location, has been substituted for the lost original.

To reach Alice Thorson, call 816-234-4783 or send email to athorson@kcstar.com.

Posted on Fri, Jan. 20, 2012 12:00 AM

[link]

Aerial view of Asia Society Hong Kong, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects

BLOUIN ART, INTERNATIONAL EDITION
January 25, 2012

by Janelle Zara
New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects are slated to open a project next month that’s spent ten years in the pipeline: The Asia Society Hong Kong, the first American museum satellite ever to open in China.

“It’s a major new building initiative that allows us to extend our reach into Asia with a physical complex,” Asia Society director Melissa Chiu told ARTINFO. “We all know that Asia is growing in political and economic importance, and so by opening a building in Hong Kong it’s a major architectural statement about Hong Kong’s past and future. We’re also able to make a statement about the growing connections between the U.S. and Asia.”

The architecture firm’s designs for the first official home of the Asia Society Hong Kong, founded in 1990 by local community leaders, transformed a campus of four heritage buildings dating back to Hong Kong’s English period. Built by the British army in the mid-19th century, the buildings were used as explosives magazines to process and package gunpowder. After being turned over to the Navy and subsequently to the British government for storage use, they were left vacant in the 1980s. As some of the few remaining traces of England’s presence in the city, they hold an importance place in its cultural history.

In this $49.5 million project, the architects restored and re-adapted the four buildings and added a fifth, taking into consideration its surroundings. Contrary to the Hong Kong’s numerous, tightly-packed skyscrapers, the complex sets itself apart by emphasizing its horizontal space, at its highest rising only two and a half stories. Resonating with the Society’s goal of bridging together the old and the new, and East and the West, the architects also built a double-decker footbridge connecting the new building with the heritage building. The magazines have been converted into an exhibition space, a theater, lecture halls, and a gallery, and the new building features a store, café, rooftop garden, and permanent exhibition illustrating the facility’s transformation.

Following the vision of John D. Rockefeller, who found the Asia Society in 1956 to promote the understanding of Asian culture, the 11th (and first overseas) location’s will feature inaugural exhibition, “Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art” showcases 6th-century relics from Rockefeller’s collection of Asian art together with work by contemporary Asian and Asian American artists like Michael Joo, Mariko Mori, and Zhang Huan. This will be the first time most of the works will be shown in Hong Kong.

“Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art” will run from February 10 to May 20 at the Asia Society Hong Kong.

[link]

“Kusa – Paba” a movie based on a buddhist theme is on show from today (26) onwards at EAP cinemas.

The movie unfolds a story of one of Prince Siddhartha’s previous births, one in which he was born with a disfigured face and had to woo the most beautiful princess in the land. Renowned art personality Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne brings the story to the wide screen. The script which is penned by Dr. Tissa Abeysekara is believed to be the last film script he had worked on before passing away.
The Kusa Jathaka is the 523th Jathaka story in the 550 Jathaka book. Indian folktales came to Sri Lankan with Arahant Mahinda Thera’s visit.

Versatile artiste Jackson Anthony will be portraying King Kusa’s role.Pooja Umarshanker plays the role of Paba in the movie. The locations are in Ranminithanna Tele Cinema Village. Kusa Paba is the first Sri Lankan film made in Ranminithanna.

[link]

Wednesday, February 01, 7:30 pm, Reception Hall
Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University 

Sara McClintock, Assistant Professor of Religion at Emory University, gives a lecture titled Transforming the Five Root Afflictions into the Five Wisdom Buddhas: The Mandala of the Five Buddha Families in Tibetan Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism aims at a radical transformation of persons through the transmutation of afflicted bodies and minds into enlightened ones. The five root afflictions that affect all beings in various proportions are ignorance, hatred, craving, greed, and envy. When the energy of these afflictions is purified, the result is a particular kind of embodied enlightened wisdom. This talk explains the symbolism of the five wisdom Buddhas, and asks us to reflect on our own root afflictions with a view toward their eventual transformation.

Horse sculpture by Deborah Butterfield.

Helen Independent Record
Thursday, January 19, 2012 12:00 am | (0) Comments

Valerie Hellermann’s “Invite Your Demons to Tea” will be on exhibit Jan. 20-Feb. 26 in the Holter’s Nicholson Artworks Gallery.

Hellermann’s work is inspired by Tibetan Buddhist monk Patrul Rinpoche who once said “from time to time invite your demons to tea.” The idea of a safe and comfortable space to meet and disempower your demons intrigues the Helena artist. Hellermann’s porcelain sculptures are inspired by the sacred Cham dances of Tibet performed by Buddhist monks.

She explains that “in my studio, I drink tea, listen to Buddhist teachings, and invite demons to take form through clay. My hope is they will bring strength and courage to the viewer.”

For Hellermann, making art has been a lifelong passion. She took her first ceramic class at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts after moving from Westchester County, N.Y. According to her, “from day one the feel of clay in my hands and the instinctive shaping of mud into form was a new found passion.”

At the Bray she had the opportunity to attend workshops taught by many clay legends. In 2002 she undertook a 15-week residency in China at the Sanbao International Clay Institute in Jingdezhen, where she learned about the techniques of porcelain while immersed in this ancient culture.

Her artwork reflects her world travel experiences, Buddhism, and her work on issues of peace and social justice. She works as the project manager for the Tibetan Children’s Education Foundation. This work is her passion and inspiration.

Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Sunday noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are welcome. Visit www.holtermuseum.org or call 442-6400.

[link]

Bangalore: A 30-ft Buddhist stupa made of 400,000 flowers, including 150,000 roses, to convey the message of peace will be the star attraction at the Bangalore flower show beginning on Friday as part of Republic Day celebrations. In front of the floral 34-ft radius stupa built at the Glass House in the famed Lalbagh will stand a statue of Buddha decorated with 75,000 roses and other flowers.

For the first time, a group of florists from the Netherlands will showcase arrangement of flowers from their country at the Glass House, according to P. Hemalatha, director of horticulture department that manages the Lalbagh.

A team from Udhagamandalam (formerly Ooty) in neighbouring Tamil Nadu has created a floral replica of a waterfall where thousands of flowers appear to fall from a height of 10 ft.

Other attractions at the show will be floral arrangements with Dances of India as the theme displaying Yakshagana, Dandiya, Bharatanatya, Kathakali, Kuchipudi and many folk dance forms.

The annual show is held for 10 days, starting six days ahead of the R-Day on Jan 26, at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden spread over 240 acres in the city centre. Over 10 million are expected to visit the show that ends Jan 29, Hemalatha told reporters on Wednesday.

[link]

As members of the Tricycle Community we are well aware of the many benefits of being a Buddhist practitioner in the Internet age: online retreats, downloadable Buddhist art, and discussions about life’s important questions, to name a few. However, as Tricycle contributing editor Pico Iyer notes in a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, sometimes our devices leave us “feeling empty and too full all at once.” Being in the World, the current film at the Tricycle Film Club, raises the question of whether we have forgotten what it means to be truly human in today’s technological age. By looking at the lives of three remarkable individuals—a poet and flamenco dancer, a chef, and carpenter—this film, by Tao Ruspoli, celebrates the ability of human beings to find meaning in the world through the mastery of physical, intellectual, and creative skills.

As always, Tricycle Supporting and Sustaining Members can watch the film here and discuss it with the director.

[link]

I am very sad indeed to hear of the sudden and unexpected death of André Alexander. I had only recently finished working with him on an article based on one of his many conservation projects. Working with André was interesting, educational, and a lot of fun. Like many, many others, I will miss him. If you don’t know his work, please go on to read about his Tibet Heritage Fund here, and have a look at the introduction to his Temples of Lhasa here. Below I reproduce some words by Per Sørensen on André’s many achievements.

* * *

Dr Andre Alexander

17 January 1965 – 21 January 2012

It is with profound regret and in deepest sorrow that we announce the death of Dr Andre Alexander at the age of 47.

Andre had just turned 47 this very week, and was full of enthusiasm and commitment. Over 10 years ago, he co-founded the successful, widely acclaimed and much respected Tibet Heritage Fund (THF) committed to the preservation and documentation of the unique Tibetan architectural monuments and heritage. The organization has launched a large number of rehabilitation projects throughout Central Asia intended to benefit and assist the local residents.

His organization has been involved in assisting local communities in the wake of natural disasters, earthquakes (Yushu) and flashfloods (Ladakh and Sikkim), and initiated countless conservation and restoration projects of sanctuaries and monasteries in India, Tibet, China and Mongolia.

His enthusiasm ensured that the THF won a steadily larger number of supporters who all shared Andre’s quest and vision of preserving the wonderful Tibetan architectural heritage.

A number of still unpublished books now await publication. A large study on vernacular housing and architecture in Lhasa (originally submitted as doctoral thesis in Berlin), the second volume of the Tibet Heritage Fund’s conservation inventory is due to appear in 2012 with Serindia Publications and another large study on Tibetan imperial architecture was under way. We hope that this work too will soon be completed.

Andre was a passionate and colourful person, totally committed to his vision of documenting and preserving, against all odds, the unique Tibetan architecture.

He and his most dedicated friends at THF received numerous awards for their commitment: they twice received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards and the Global Vision Award for a number of their cultural heritage projects, and they were featured on BBC’s series on Heritage Heroes 2011.

Andre – You will be sorely missed. RIP.

Per Sørensen

[link]

VISAKHAPATNAM: The All India Lay-Buddhist Organisation (AILBO) and the Forum for Better Visakha (FBV) have decided to move the court against the government order transferring around three acres of Thotlakonda Buddhist site to the Indian Navy to construct a 60 feet road making a passage to its own site of around 100 acres beyond Thotlakonda.

The controversial GO No. 37, issued on January 18, kicked up a row in Visakhapatnam. The Thotlakonda Buddhist site is a protected monument on the Bheemili beach road, about 15 km from Visakhapatnam. The monument is located on the top of a hill.

The site spreads over an area of around 600 acres and has been declared a protected monument by the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Incidentally, it is the Indian Navy which discovered the Thotlakonda Buddhist site during the aerial survey conducted for setting up the Naval base in Visakhapatnam.

The archaeology department carried out major excavations at the site between 1988 and 1993.

The excavations uncovered three kinds of structural remains–religious, secular and civil.

The structures include a mahastupa, 16 votive stupas, a stone pillared congregation hall, 11 rock-cut cisterns, well-paved stone pathways, an apsidal chaitya-griha, three circular grihas, two votive platforms, 10 viharas, a kitchen complex with three halls and a refectory (dining hall).

Apart from the structures, the Buddhist treasures unearthed include nine Satavahana and five Roman silver coins, terracotta tiles, stucco decorative pieces, sculptured panels, miniature stupa models in stone, Buddha padas with asthamangal symbols and early historic pottery.

The GO permitting transfer of land to the Navy said there was no other way for the Navy to reach its site, which is beyond Thotlakonda There is no other direct passage to the Navy site, it said.

The Indian Navy proposed that the 60 feet road to be constructed can be used commonly by both the Navy and the Department of Archaeology.

Archaeology department’s assistant director in-charger, IDV Prasad Babu, said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is said to have plans to set up a coastal surveillance radar system at the Naval site to detect, identify and track maritime vessels.

The land will be given to the Navy only temporarily, he added.

Coming down heavily on the archaeology department, the all India governing body member of AILBO, K Venkata Ramana Rao, said once the Navy builds the road at Thotlakonda, they will occupy the entire Buddhist site saying its a prohibited area.

He said the Navy should create a passage to its site via Kapulaupadda, sparing the Buddhist site.FBV convener EAS Sarma said the archaeology department failed to safeguard the centuries old Buddhist site.

If the road is built, the structures at the site will get damaged because of heavy vehicular traffic, he said and urged the Navy to lay their road via Jeeyar Ashram and protect the Buddhist site.

[link]

An small Buddha used on the grounds at the Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado in Westminster, CO, (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post, 01/17/2012

WESTMINSTER — There is more of a sense of urgency now among the Laotian community to rebuild the Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado, which was destroyed by fire in December.

Flames almost claimed the life of Ounkham Vuennasack, the head monk who lived there. He suffered smoke inhalation, mild burns and frostbite.

Vuennasack recovered, but two weeks after the fire, he complained of being dizzy, and doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in the right side of his brain, said Maly Khanthaphixay, whose father was among the key founders of the temple, near West 108th Avenue and Dover Street.

Vuennasack is undergoing chemotherapy and hopes to see the temple rise again, Khanthaphixay said.

“We truly, truly want him to see the temple before it is too late,” she said. “We want to build it for him.”

The estimated cost of rebuilding could reach $600,000. Donations have been pouring in, including from Home Depot, which gave building materials, she said.

The Westminster Fire Department also gave $1,000 from its Fire Victims Relief Fund to help rebuild the structure.

Maly Khanthaphixay stands near statues used in New Year's ceremonies on the grounds of the Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado, which was destroyed by fire. "It's not an exaggeration to say that the temple is our community's heart and soul," she said. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

Investigators determined that bad wiring in the building, built in 1989, most likely caused the fire, Khanthaphixay said.

Many in the congregation want to build a larger temple to make a bigger gathering place for the Laotian community in Denver, which is estimated to be about 3,000 strong.

Members say the temple served as a community center for cultural preservation through dance, music, storytelling, cooking and sports. It also hosted youth programs, gang-intervention programs and community services.

The temple has served as lodging for visiting monks, as well as homeless and visiting Laotians.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the temple is our community’s heart and soul,” Khanthaphixay said.

“I personally want to see us stay here and grow,” added Si Khanthaphixay, Maly’s husband.

The temple housed priceless artifacts, including a 7-ton statue of Buddha and sacred writings at least 1,000 years old. The temple is Theravadin, ascribing to the oldest surviving school of Buddhism, which is practiced by most Laotian Buddhists.

The giant Buddha statue was a gift from a Buddhist temple in Thailand and paid for by a general in the Thai army. It was melted by the fire and then almost stolen by thieves who most likely coveted it for its metals, Maly Khanthaphixay said.

It and other Buddha statues that survived the flames have been taken to an undisclosed location until a new facility can be built.

“We hope to stay for a long time,” Khanthaphixay said. “This is home for us and many others who have come here for years.”

Want to help with the restoration?

For more information about the Lao Buddhist Temple and its rebuilding efforts, call Sy Pong at 720-210-7555 or Maly Khanthaphixay at 720-217-6142, or go to laotempleco.org.

[link]