The Buddhists Vs. The Billionaire

Radio Free Europe
PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY AMOS CHAPPLE

In Russia’s Ural Mountains, a small group of Buddhists led by a veteran of the U.S.S.R.’s Afghanistan war has spent the past 21 years establishing a monastery on an isolated mountaintop. But it sits on land claimed by a company belonging to one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs. After years of delays, a date has now been set for the complex’s removal. RFE/RL’s Amos Chapple visited the monastery for the inside story.

[follow the link for the the rest…]

Yekaterinburg Fine Arts Museum hosts Japanese art series

January 12, 2015 by Yekaterinburg News Reports

The Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts will host a series of lectures this month on ancient and modern Japanese art to coincide with the Masters of Japanese Printmaking: 1980-2010s exhibition.

The paired lectures and exhibit will enable visitors to understand the many aspects of Japanese culture, including tracing the developments of 17th century printmaking to modern printmaking, understanding Buddhist philosophy and viewing other Japanese art pieces that may be new to visitor visitors.

Sergey Vinokurov, the head lecturer of the Exhibition Department, will present a talk about the Buddhist art of Japan at 1 p.m. Jan. 18. Vinokurov will trace the part Buddhism played in developing Japanese painting, architecture and sculpture.

At 6:30 p.m. Jan. 21, lecturer Anna S. Kadkin will speak about the history of Japanese prints.

Olga V. Permjakova, the head of the Foreign Art Department, will lead a tour of the Masters of Japanese Printmaking exhibit at 3 p.m. Jan. 24. Tour participants will view the various developments that have occurred in Japanese printmaking from the 1980s to the current decade.

To complete the series, the museum will host a lecture presented by Anna S. Kadkin, who will discuss Japanese interior murals as mobile architecture at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28.

The exhibit will be open to visitors on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays throughout January. The museum is at Weiner, 11.

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Moscow’s first Buddhist Temple to open its doors

Voice of Russia
19 March 2014

Photo: RIA Novosti

Moscow’s first Buddhist temple will soon welcome believers – its construction in the northeastern Otradnoye district is scheduled to begin this year. The 3,000-square meters facility will also host cultural and medical centers, a conference room and a soup kitchen.

Moscow Buddhists have been waiting for this temple for years. In early 2000s, some hope sparked when the-then Mayor Yury Luzhkov and the head of the Republic of Tyva Sholban Kara-ool signed an agreement on constructing a temple and Tuva cultural and shopping center. It was to be ready by 2008, however, the project was shelved. And finally, unfinished project in Otradnoye reappeared under initiative of the Moscow Buddhist community, Alexander Koybagarov, president of Russia’s Association of Buddhists at Karma Kagyu School told VoR.

Dashi Namdakov feature: “The Artist Behind Works of ‘Elegant Aestheticism'”

The Huffington Post
Shai Baitel
12 July, 2013

A young boy in Buryatia, near Lake Baikal in Siberia, hears the tales of his people and Buddhist and Shaman cultures. He is surrounded by nature, far from cities and works with the elders, helps with shepherding and hunting. After being educated at a boarding school, he is accepted to the Krasnoyarsk State Institute of Art and learns to transform his youth’s experience of landscape, tradition and cultures into drawings and later sculptures. He finds an artistic language that weaves his experiences and traditions together with an unmistakable style. The world takes notice of his sculptures, drawings and jewelry creations.

Years later he, of Mongol background, creates one of his most important works, a sculpture of historic and mythic figure Genghis Khan. It is erected at Marble Arch in London to rave reviews. The artist is being described as a phenomenon, connecting mythology, history and the modern spirit. And a year later the largest exhibition of his works in the United States to date, “The Nomad: Memory of the Future” comes to New York and is currently on view at the National Arts Club. It is highly recommended to go and see it. Due to popular demand, it is being extended through the end of July.

New York City Exhibit from Dashi Namdakov Extended Thru July 28

AbsoluteArts.com
8 July, 2013

Sculptor and Artist Dashi Namdakov

NEW YORK—The largest exhibition in the United States of works by Dashi Namdakov, a renowned Buryat-born artist and sculptor, The Nomad: Memory of the Future, has been extended through July 28. Curated by Marina Kovalyov, the exhibition is on view at the National Arts Club and features over 60 pieces including bronze sculptures, graphic art and jewelry. The exhibition showcases the artist’s extraordinary craftsmanship and highly original style, which blends visual art traditions and techniques of the East and the West.

“Dashi Namdakov is without question a phenomenon in art: not only Buryat or Russian art—and not only modern art—but art as a whole, regardless of time or place,” states Elena F. Korolkova, Senior Researcher and Curator at the State Hermitage, “His style is inimitable; his feeling for form, plasticity and motion, and the sense of harmony embodied in his works is faultless and at the same time absolutely original.”

New York City Exhibit: Sculptor Dashi Namdakov Presents “The Nomad” [16 June thru 30 June]

Broadway World
Visual Arts News Desk
4 June, 2013

The Russian American Foundation is pleased to present The Nomad, Memory of the Future, the largest exhibition in the United States of works by Dashi Namdakov, a renowned Buryat artist and sculptor. Curated by Marina Kovalyov, the exhibition will be on view June 16-30, 2013 at the National Arts Club and will feature over 60 pieces including bronze sculptures, graphic art and jewelry. The exhibition will showcase the artist’s extraordinary craftsmanship and highly original style, which blends visual art traditions and techniques of the East and the West. The Namdakov exhibition will be part of the 11th Annual Russian Heritage Month, a celebration of events and exhibits highlighting Russian culture.

Dashi Namdakov is one of the most original voices in contemporary Russian art. Born in 1967, in Transbaikal, the borderlands between Russia and Mongolia, and trained as a sculptor at the Krasnoyarsk Academy of Fine Arts, Dashi had his first solo exhibition in Irkutsk in 2000. Dashi’s sculptures, graphic and jewelry pieces have been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally, including The State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), Beijing World Art Museum (China), Grand Palais (Paris, France) and Tibet House in New York, NY. One of a few living artists to have had a solo exhibition in The State Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia) Dashi also has art works in this prestigious museum’s permanent collection. His work is in the personal collections of the German Chancellor Mr. G. Shroeder, the family of Uma Thurman, Willie Nelson, and many other collectors worldwide.

Tibetans to Make Tallest Buddha Statue in Russia

Ria Novosti

KYZYL, April 3 (RIA Novosti) – Tibetan sculptors will create a statue of Buddha for Russia’s East Siberian republic of Tuva that will be the tallest Buddha monument in the country, Buyan Bashky, chairman of the Tuva Buddhists Union, said on Wednesday.

The monument, which is being erected on Dogee Mountain in the predominantly Buddhist republic’s capital of Kyzyl, will be comprised of Buddha sitting on a throne.

Work on constructing a six-meter-high (20-foot) throne began in 2011 and the total height of the monument after completion is expected to reach 15 meters (50 feet), Bashky said.

New Russian film on Tibet screened in Moscow

Tibet Net
February 7, 2013

MOSCOW: The documentary film entitled “Tibet on the Roof of the World”, which was produced by Russian expedition group and directed by Michael Linder, was screened in Moscow city yesterday. It was jointly organised by Moscow-based Tibet House and White Cloud Culture Center.

The film shows the current situation in Tibet, as what they saw during their expedition from Lhasa via Shigatse to Mount Kailash and Mt. Everest. At the same, it contains the old footage depicting the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and destruction of monasteries during the Cultural Revolution.

After the film, the questions from audience were answered by Representative Nawang Rabgyal and Tibet House Vice-President Nadya Berkengeym.

Moscow Exhibition: German Titov. The Russian Roots of Buddhism

Stella Art Foundation in Skaryatinsky Pereulok
November 29, 2012 – January 13, 2013

Stella Art Foundation presents a project by the artist German Titov with a title – “The Russian Roots of Buddhism” – that is designed to intrigue . The author is the first to admit that the name of the project is completely meaningless . And that does not invoke historical veracity, but the tradition of the absurd in Russian 20th century art, a tradition in which the Moscow Conceptualist School is also situated.

The exhibition consist of a series of pictures with pseudo-Buddhist symbolism, as well as video films and photo installations, constructed from authentic Russian material. In sum it is a monumental cipher, composed of externally heterogeneous visual images or, in the author’s words, a “Zen Buddhist koan” on the theme of the road or the way – in both a spatial and existential sense. This theme is central to the practice of Moscow Conceptualism, of which the author of the Russian Roots of Buddhism is a faithful adept.

German Titov (born in 1964 in Cherepovets) is an artist and collector. Publisher of the Library of Moscow Conceptualism. Winner of the Innovation Prize in 2010 in the nomination “Support of Russian contemporary art”. Lives and works in Vologda.
Solo exhibitions: Synchronization (E.K.ArtBureau, Moscow, 2010); The Golden Hand and Other Objects (E.K.ArtBureau, Moscow, 2010); Insignificant Alterations (Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, 2011)

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Dead monk stimulates tourism economy in Siberia

travelmole.com, WEDNESDAY 19TH SEPTEMBER 2012

Lama is dug up 10 times a year to prove to pilgrims that his body has not decayed

Incense wafts up to the ribbon-enshrouded ceiling as red-robed monks sit before scrolls, quietly chanting the prayers inscribed in Tibetan. Silent crowds line the walls, sprinkling rice and leaving offerings at the numerous thang-kas (Buddhist paintings) and sculptures that surround the monks.

A large Buddha sits directly across from the door, but is slightly obscured by a clear glass box. A form, covered in robes, lies in the box. As people approach the box, they sprinkle rice and bow their heads to the robes that descend from the form. Having performed this ritual, the people back up slowly, never turning their backs to the box or the Buddha that lies behind it.