FRAGMENTS & EMPIRE: CAMBODIAN ART FROM THE ANGKOR PERIOD

Architectural relief, Angkor, 11th-13th century, sandstone
Collection of the John Young Museum of Art
Photographer: Brandon Ng. Courtesy University of Hawai‘i Art Galleries

March 6 – May 6, 2016
John Young Museum of Art, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Fragments & Empire examines Cambodian (or Khmer) art of the Angkor Empire, which dominated much of mainland Southeast Asia from the ninth through the fifteenth centuries. It includes examples of sandstone architectural fragments, ceremonial bronzes, and stoneware vessels associated with the styles of the imperial capital as well as their transmission into peripheral regions in modern-day northeastern Thailand.

This exhibition highlights and brings together for the first time the collection of Cambodian art from the John Young Museum of Art (JYMA) and a significant portion of John Young’s collection from the Honolulu Museum of Art (HMA). It offers an opportunity to study the historical works as a comprehensive collection. Twenty-four artworks from the JYMA and eleven digital images from the HMA are featured. The digital images will be viewable on electronic tablets.

This exhibition is curated by Kristin Remington as part of her MA thesis in South and Southeast Asian art history, Department of Art + Art History, UH Mānoa.

SPONSORS:
John Young Museum of Art, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Honolulu Museum of Art
Department of Art + Art History, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Student Activity and Program Fee Board, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Gallery hours:
Mon. – Fri. 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. or by appointment
Closed: Sat. – Sun.; Spring Break, Mar. 21–24; Prince Kūhiō Day & Good Friday, Mar. 25.
Free admission. Donations are appreciated. Parking fees may apply.

SPECIAL EVENTS:
All events are free and open to the public.
Location for all events: John Young Museum of Art, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Sunday, March 6, 2016
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Opening reception
1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Gallery walk-through with Kristin Remington, curator,
Fragments & Empire

Friday, March 11, 2016
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lecture: A Heritage of Ruins: The Ancient Sites of Southeast Asia and Their Conservation, by Dr. William R. Chapman, Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and Professor, Department of American Studies, UHM

Tuesday, April 5, 2016
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Film Screening & Discussion: Phnom Penh, Rescue Archaeology: The Body and the Lens in the City
Discussion to follow by Dr. Jaimey Hamilton Faris, Associate Professor of Art History and Critical Theory, UHM, and
Dr. Paul Lavy, Associate Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History, UHM

Sunday, April 10, 2016
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Panel Discussion: John Young, Artist as Collector, with Roger Bellinger, Co-Founder of the John Young Foundation and Victor Kobayashi, Professor Emeritus and Founding Dean of Outreach College, UHM

[link]

Metal medium gives copper artist Sovann Vibol an edge in art market

Sovann Vibol’s intricate copper sculptures sometimes take a week to complete. Scott Rotzoll

Phnom Penh Post
Sat, 6 February 2016
Vandy Muong

In a shelf in Sovann Vibol’s wooden-frame studio, a box of incense rests next to an old radio and an image of the Buddha, carved into copper. The 33-year-old artist sits on the floor below with his eyes fixed on a second – yet incomplete – likeness in his hands.

Angelina Jolie reveals her new tattoo at the Cambodia Film Festival in Phnom Penh

XPOSUREPHOTOS.COMAngelina Jolie shows off her latest tattoo at the 2015 Cambodia International film festival. Good luck symbol: The star’s art is a Buddhist symbol that brings good luck and protection.
Angelina is in the country making a film about the atrocities during the Khmer Rouge reign.

18:57, 12 DEC 2015 UPDATED 19:02, 12 DEC 2015
BY DOMINIC HERBERT

Hollywood star and campaigner’s latest piece of body art is a symbol which Buddhist’s believe is a symbol of good luck and protection

Movie star Angelina Jolie-Pitt shows off a new inking believed to be a tribute to her beloved Cambodia.

The actress adopted first son Maddox when he was seven months old from Cambodia and her tattoo collection includes the co-ordinates of where all her children were born.

While at the Cambodia Film Festival in Phnom Penh, fans snatched the first glimpse of the 40-year-old’s new body art.

Buddhists believe the symbol brings good luck and protection from evil.

Yantra tattooing, also called sak yant or sak yan, is a form of tattooing that originated from ancient Southeast Asia.

It consists of sacred geometrical, animal and deity designs accompanied by Pali phrases that offer power, protection, fortune, charisma and other benefits for the bearer.

The mum of seven has vowed not to stop her children from getting tattoos admitting: “My kids rebelling would be if they all became brain surgeons.”

[link]

Excavating a late-Angkorian Buddhist terrace

from the Southeast Asian Archaeology blog

David Brotherson
University of Sydney

This terrace is unusual because it is built on top of an earthen mound which rises six metres above the flood plain, and is located at the corner of two huge embankments (one of which is the East Baray). This leads us to speculate it may have had another function prior to the construction of the terrace.

[link]

Keeping an endangered Buddhist art form alive

Deutsche Welle
04 June 2014

Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge wiped out almost two million people and many traditional arts as well. But some are keeping the old forms alive, including a woman whose voice has taken her from the rice fields to the opera stage.

When Phoeun Srey Pov begins to sing, the palms of her hands come together in the traditional Cambodian som pas position. She closes her eyes slightly and seems to go inside herself, or perhaps somewhere else entirely. The room is flooded with a slow, meandering melody-sung poetry-that is as haunting as it is beautiful.

The Invisible Graffiti of Angkor Wat

American Association for the Advancement of Science
Lizzie Wade
May 27, 2014

Angkor Wat may be covered in graffiti—but don’t worry, it’s invisible. Built in the early 12th century, Cambodia’s architecturally iconic temple is known for its intricate carvings, some of them stretching nearly a kilometer in length. But most archaeologists believe that parts of the temple were once painted as well. So when scientists noticed faint traces of red and black pigment on the walls of several rooms in Angkor Wat, they snapped pictures with a bright flash and used a tool called decorrelation stretch analysis to digitally enhance the images.

Book: Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century

From Yale Press website:

Lost Kingdoms
Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia

John Guy

Numerous Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished in Southeast Asia from the 5th to the 9th century, yet until recently few concrete details were known about them. Lost Kingdoms reveals newly discovered architectural and sculptural relics from this region, which provide key insights into the formerly mysterious kingdoms. The first publication to use sculpture as a lens to explore this period of Southeast Asian history, Lost Kingdoms offers a significant contribution and a fresh approach to the study of cultures in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, and other countries.

Comprehensive texts written by prominent scholars introduce more than 160 objects, many of which have never before traveled outside their home countries. Gorgeous photography shot on location highlights each artwork, and maps and a glossary of place names elucidate their geographical context. A watershed study of Southeast Asia’s artistic and cultural legacy, Lost Kingdoms is an essential resource on a fascinating and enduring subject.

John Guy is Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

With contributions by Hiram Woodward, Robert Brown, Pattaratorn Chirapravati, Peter Skilling, Geoff Wade, Arlo Griffith, Pierre-Yves Manguin, Le Lien Thi, Pierre Baptiste, Berenice Bellini, Thierry Zephir, Stephen Murphy, Federico Caro, Donna Strahan, and John Guy

336 pages, 360 illustrations (304 in full color). 8 3/4” x 12 1/4”. Hardcover, clothbound.

Exhibition Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century, April 14–July 27, 2014

Catalog

Yale University Press

 

For the First Time Ever, Explore Angkor Wat With Google Street View

With more than 90,000 panoramic images, you can see the stunning Cambodian ruins up close from anywhere in the world

By Natasha Geiling

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
APRIL 3, 2014

Angkor, what remains of the capital of the Khmer Empire, is an incredibly beautiful place, but it’s also very remote: tucked in the Cambodian jungle, at the intersection of jumbled ancient roads, its ruins remain off the beaten path and seemingly untouched by the modern world. Or at least it remained untouched until the 2000s, when the Cambodian government granted the oil company Sokimex rights to the money earned from ticket concessions to Angkor, and tourism to the ancient ruins skyrocketed—today, nearly two million visitors traipse over the temples’ stones, causing irreversible damage to the site’s foundations. Like Machu Picchu, once hidden from human view and then endangered by an influx of tourism, Angkor could eventually fall into complete ruin because of its appeal.

But now, those interested in exploring the wonder of Angkor don’t need to make a trek to Southeast Asia—and risk contributing to the damage of the site—to enjoy what the ruins have to offer. For the first time ever, Google Maps is granting users an up-close view of Angkor, through Google’s Street View project.

Cambodian Buddhist temple in eye of storm

Times of India
Feb 28, 2014

VARANASI: The newly constructed Cambodian Buddhist temple was inaugurated in the restricted area of Sarnath on Friday amid controversy and tight security arrangements.

Varanasi Development Authority (VDA), which had already issued demolition order against the construction of the temple in Archeological Survey of India’s (ASI) conserved area, made it clear that it would continue its action against the temple.

The Cambodian embassy officials would also be made aware about the construction of temple by overlooking the prescribed norms.

Buddhist Art Marks Transient Nature of Life

Buddhist monks from northeastern India design a sand mandala at Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh on Friday. (Siv Channa)

The Cambodian Daily, BY MICHELLE VACHON | FEBRUARY 15, 2014

As a new exhibition of Buddhist art opened Friday morning at Wat Ounalom, four Indian monks were already hard at work on an elaborate mandala—perhaps the art form that best reflects Buddhist teaching about the impermanence of life.

By the time the exhibition closes Tuesday night, the monks will have created a multicolored 1.5-square-meter design out of sand. Then they will hold a ceremony to obliterate it.

At 8 a.m. Friday, three monks were sitting around a square, flat wooden frame, armed with small funnels and scrapers they were using to produce white sand granules for the mandala. Next to them were small bowls of colored sand in more than 12 shades.