Japanese Art: Kanazawa and DC

The Art of Japan: Kanazawa is a beautiful new website which has emerged recently. It includes numerous pages about a myriad of aspects of traditional and contemporary arts and culture in and around Kanazawa, the capital city of Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture, and is constantly being updated.

Above: The tsutsumi-mon, or “drum gate”, outside Kanazawa Station. A beautiful example of traditional lacquer arts combining with contemporary architectural creativity & innovation to represent a city as wholly modern, but drawing upon a rich past. Something Kyoto Station entirely fails to do. Photo taken myself, during my one brief visit to Kanazawa, in January 2008.

Back in February, the Art of Japan Kanazawa staff collaborated with Japan Society in New York to produce what looks like an exquisite evening of traditional and contemporary culture – including displays of Ishikawa crafts (pottery, lacquerware, etc.), a butoh performance, and saké served by a professional geisha from Kanazawa, one of the few cities which still has an active geisha district. How I would have loved to be there for such an event.

Other posts focus on beautiful and interesting places in the city, local events, and arts.

Boy, I so wish I could be in Kanazawa (or Kyoto, or Naha, or half a dozen other places) right now, to have the opportunities to explore such a city, to attend these events, to be surrounded by and immersed in these arts and goings-on. But more than that, I wish I could work for a project like Arts of Japan Kanazawa. It may not be the most prestigious thing (like being a professor or a curator at a major institution), but who cares? How I would love to be constantly immersed, engaged, with a vibrant Japanese arts & culture community, and to make a living at it. I wonder how many other cities have similar projects, similar websites.

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Meanwhile, for sadly only a very short time, an incredibly major Japanese artwork is on display at the National Gallery in Washington DC. The “Colorful Realm of Living Beings” (動植綵絵, dôshoku sai-e), a National Treasure of Japan, is a series of thirty hanging scroll paintings by Itô Jakuchû (1716-1800), completed over the course of ten years. They are accompanied at the National Gallery by a triptych of hanging scrolls depicting Buddhas, on loan from Shôkoku-ji, a major Zen temple in Kyoto. The works are easily among the most famous of Japanese artworks, included in many if not all survey textbooks of Japanese art history; I don’t think it’s absurd to compare them to being a Japanese equivalent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” but multiplied times 33, filling a room, and creating their own atmosphere.

Just seeing pictures of the installation, I can imagine the setting Jakuchû is said to have aimed to create – of the Buddha presiding before all the living beings of the world, and preaching to them. Standing in this room, you are surrounded by incredible images of a myriad of living beings, from roosters and peacocks described in exquisite detail, sketched from life, to fish, insects, and lizards in a variety of undersea and overland environments, and you feel that you too are in the presence of the Buddha.

One could easily write pages and pages about Jakuchû, his life, his art, but I’ll leave it for now. Check out my Samurai-Archives Wiki article on the artist, and the following:

As usual, embedding doesn’t seem to be working properly, but here is a link to a PBS has a wonderful brief video about the exhibition, including snippets of an interview with guest curator, Harvard professor Yukio Lippit: 18th Century Japanese Scrolls Make Rare U.S. Appearance.

I had no idea that a National Treasure could ever leave Japan – this is the first time that these works are on display, all together, anywhere outside of Japan, and it is incredible that this is happening. I wish I could be there.

The “Colorful World of Living Beings” is on display until April 29, in conjunction with the 100th anniversary Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival.

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Quick Links: Mainichi Shimbun

Just a couple of articles today from the Mainichi Shimbun.

*Kyoto temple hires 25-year-old painter to restore ancient art practice – I have posted before about contemporary Nihonga (neo-traditional) painters being hired to restore, or to create new works to replace, paintings at Buddhist temples. It certainly makes sense. Someone has to do it – the tradition has to continue, we can’t just stick with what we have and watch as it slowly gradually decays, not for all cases. And basically everyone who is a painter in traditional styles and/or traditional media is termed a “Nihonga” painter, so, that’s who it is.

There is something really interesting, and wonderful, about contemporary artists stepping in to a long-standing tradition; essentially, stepping across a historical threshold, from the present into the past. Or, to put it a better way – and more accurately – to think of these temples and their traditions being long threads that exist in the present, and engage with the present, but which extend back centuries into the past. I am sure that someone more well-versed than I in theoretical jargon language could articulate some really fascinating argument about the discursive implications of this connection between contemporary artists and a centuries-old tradition of the town painter commissioned by a temple, or of the painter who lives within the temple and practices Zen practice. Kennin-ji in Kyoto, and Kenchô-ji in Kamakura, roughly ten years ago, had gorgeous new ceiling paintings of dragons produced by artist Koizumi Junsaku. But Junsaku was born in 1924, making him a later generation of Nihonga artist as compared to those active in the 1880s-1920s, for sure, but still much more closely connected to the traditional past.

By contrast, 25-year-old Murabayashi Yuki, a recent graduate from a graduate program at Kyoto University of Arts &
Design, is about as young and contemporary as one can imagine. This article doesn’t say much about her work, or about her personality or character – for all we know she’s really involved in traditional culture, and not very involved at all in modern, contemporary, pop culture – but, still, the combination is very interesting. Murabayashi will be doing, essentially, something not too extremely different from what artists like Sesshû did in the 15th century, or what various town artists (machi-eshi) did in the 17th-19th centuries, living at the temple, engaging in Zen practice, and just generally immersing herself in the world of the temple, while she paints new screen paintings for them over the course of three years.

As the article says, she was at first nervous, intimidated by the weight of expectations of this long line of centuries of great temple painters before her (not to mention how her paintings will continue to be viewed, and to be present and associated with the temple for many many years into the future, becoming an integral part of the history of the institution). However, encouraged by the abbot that she does not need to adhere to the styles and expectations of the past, the article says she has regained confidence. I am curious to see what sort of works she ends up creating.

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Meanwhile, Ôshiro Tatsuhiro, the author of “The Cocktail Party,” which I posted about some time ago, now compares the disaster-struck areas in northern Japan to Okinawa, framing the two places within a conceptualization of sacrifice for the sake of the center. What defines the success or prosperity of “Japan”? Is Tokyo the barometer? People in Tôhoku, Fukushima, and Okinawa are sacrificing, every day, continuing to sacrifice, to gaman (endure) and to ganbaru (keep trying), for the sake of the country. Yet, are they not themselves part of the country? Who is benefiting by their sacrifice? How is the health or prosperity of Japan measured? By the health and prosperity of the metaphorical Center? Or by the health and prosperity of its worst-off areas? Or by some more holistic approach, taking into account everything?

Especially after seeing his play, “The Cocktail Party,” and hearing him speak about it, I cannot help but see Ôshiro as a bitter curmudgeonly old man, kvetching and complaining, and most likely quite literally shaking his cane in the air. I would love to see him standing outside a US military base in Okinawa shouting “you damn kids, get off my lawn!” That would pretty much encapsulate his attitudes entirely. Which is not to say that he’s entirely wrong in what he says.

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Just the Right Place

The American “Zen”-influenced artist John Cage apparently is said to have once commented that all of the stones at Ryôan-ji’s rock garden were in just the right place. And that any other arrangement would also be just the right place.¹ Normally I’m not a big fan of American New Age misconceptions of Zen, and the art and philosophy influenced by them, but here Cage actually summarizes very beautifully something I’ve been thinking a bit about. We look at artworks and talk about them as if every single aspect of them is perfectly arranged, perfectly intentional. Sure, as art teachers or art critics we may consider some works more successful than others, more technically proficient, or more aesthetically moving or powerful. But when it comes to those works already judged by history, by scholars, by curators, by general consensus, to be “masterpieces,” we talk about them as if they have no failings, as if every aspect of them is perfectly just as it should be. Consider the works of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Jackson Pollock, Ni Zan, and how they are typically discussed. Every brushstroke in precisely just the right place. Yet, if it were different, would we talk about that version of it too as being just precisely as it should be?

(1) Stokstad, Marilyn and Michael Cothren. Art History. Fourth Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011. p816.

Photo of the rock garden at Ryôan-ji taken myself, 18 July 2010.

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Oldest Wooden Pagoda found – dated to 1159

The Asahi Shimbun reports today the discovery of the oldest wooden five-tiered pagoda yet found. Now, just to be clear before we move forward, the Japanese news article is using the word 「五輪塔」 (gorin-no-tô), but as you can see from the photo, we’re not talking about a full-size pagoda building, but rather a small object carved of solid wood. The full-size five-story pagoda building at Hôryûji near Nara dates (at least in part, since it’s been repaired and renovated numerous times) to the 7th century or so, and is considered, along with the Kondô a few feet from it, one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world. So, this small, solid wood object is a different story altogether.

Now follows my rough translation of the Asahi article:

A small wooden pagoda has been found, marked with the late Heian year “first year of Heiji” (1159), at Shikobuchi Shrine, in a valley in the southernmost area of Kyoto City, Ôtani University announced on Dec 12. This makes it the oldest extant object in the country to have a reign year (nengô) written on it. [I find this hard to believe. The oldest wooden pagoda of this sort, perhaps. But there are older objects with the date written on them, right?] It is a valuable object for showing us an early form of wooden pagodas created for the purpose of memorial services.

According to Ôtani University, it was in connection with a survey of Buddhist scriptures held by that same Shinto shrine that it was discovered, in March 2010, that this object existed, “sleeping” in storage. It is 29 cm tall, and sits on a base 8cm square. On the side of the base [as you can see in the photo] is inscribed “First year of Heiji, 12th month, 9th day,” and on the opposite side is written the name “Sainen,” a monk who founded the temple of Bujô-ji in 1154, about four km southwest of Shikobuchi Shrine.

The date written here is the date of the beginning of the Heiji Rebellion (or “Heiji no Ran”), an incident which provided the opportunity for Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181) to rise to power. Since Fujiwara no Michinori (aka Shinzei), who helped establish Bujô-ji, died in the Heiji Rebellion while fighting alongside Kiyomori, there is a possibility that this funerary pagoda might have been made for his memorial service.

Incidentally, if you can see it, the current header image is from the “Tale of Heiji Scroll,” a painting depicting the Siege of the Sanjô Palace, the key event in that same 1159 Heiji Rebellion.

京都市最北部の山あいにある志古淵（しこぶち）神社（左京区）で、平安時代後期の「平治元（１１５９）年」と記された木造の五輪塔が見つかったと、大谷大学が１２日発表した。年号がある現存のものでは国内最古。供養のために建てる五輪塔の初期の姿を伝える貴重な作としている。

　大谷大によると、同神社に保管されていた仏典の調査に関連し、蔵に眠っていたのが昨年３月にわかった。土台の基壇は８センチ四方で高さ２９センチ。基壇の側面に「平治元年十二月九日」とあり、裏面には神社から南西４キロの峰定寺（ぶじょうじ）を１１５４（久寿〈きゅうじゅ〉元）年に開いた僧、西念（さいねん）の名が書かれていた。

　記載の年月日は、平清盛（１１１８～１１８１）が台頭する契機となった「平治の乱」が起きた日。清盛と手を結びながら乱で没した信西（しんぜい）（藤原通憲〈ふじわらのみちのり〉、１１０６～１１５９）が峰定寺の建立にかかわったことから、この供養の可能性もあるという。

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Meanwhile, in other Japanese archaeology news, they’ve apparently uncovered a 7th-8th century site in Dazaifu, today cut through by train tracks, which back then may have been some kind of facility for hosting foreign delegations, especially from Korea and China. Full article in English at Mainichi.jp.

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Kanô Hôgai’s Hibo Kannon

I was fortunate this summer to get to see, up close, in person, at the Freer Gallery of Art, a painting by Kanô Hôgai (1828-1888) called “Hibo Kannon,” or “Kannon as Merciful Mother.”

Hôgai is often cited as the last master of the Kanô school; he painted both traditional ink paintings more or less indistinguishable from those of his predecessors, and was among the pioneers of the neo-traditional form known as Nihonga. This work was featured at the Paris Salon in 1883, and later purchased by Ernest Fenollosa, a major supporter of Hôgai, who in turn later sold it to Charles Lang Freer. The piece was so popular that Hôgai later produced a second version of the work, which is now held by Geidai (the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts). A third copy, produced by Okakura Shûsui (1867-1950), nephew of Fenollosa’s companion Okakura Kakuzô, and today in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, generally falls outside of the radar of discussions of this work. … It would be amazing to see all three together, but, alas, it can never happen, as the first cannot leave the Freer (in DC), and the second cannot leave Japan.

Left: Kanô Hôgai’s original 1883 painting, now in the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian. Right: Okakura Shûsui’s version, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photos from the official online collections databases of the two institutions; I was going to use my own photos, but these are so much clearer and cleaner.

Martin Collcutt has written a chapter in Ellen Conant’s edited volume Challenging Past and Present, entitled “The Image of Kannon as Compassionate Mother in Meiji Art and Culture,” which addresses this work; Chelsea Foxwell has recently also published an article on the subject, included in the Dec 2010 issue of The Art Bulletin, and titled “Merciful Mother Kannon and its Audiences.”

Still, just looking at the original in the storerooms of the Freer, while thinking about the MFA version, and the Tokyo version, which I called up on my smartphone, I noticed for myself some interesting comparisons and contrasts.

(The following is adapted from my notes taken, more or less stream-of-thought style, as I stood in front of the object. Bear with me, please, as I fail to directly state my assumptions, and just describe how the object differed…)

Looking at the piece in person, it is dramatically different from what I remembered, which might just mean my memory is flawed. (Which is probably true to an extent; as it turns out, however, there are in fact major differences between the original Freer version, and the two later works, the one by Hôgai in Tokyo and the copy by Okakura in Boston.) The piece is overall darker and more drab than I had pictured it. Is this just the aging of the silk and fading of pigments? The gold of Kannon’s jewelery shines – I didn’t realize real gold (or some kind of gold pigment?) was used on this. I especially did not realize that gold was used for a stream of liquid poured down onto the baby.

The baby does not float in the bubble as I had thought, but crouches upright on a bit of gold-rimmed cloud. The red ribbon seems more a real cloth wrapped around him, and while the “womb” idea may still be very much present, the composition makes sense without it. Is the bubble a bubble? If he’s not floating in it, then is it perhaps just an aura or the like? The bodhisattva, too, looks far more masculine, or more androgynous, less feminine, than I’d thought a “Kannon as Mother” would be.

The blue-eyed (!?) baby points downwards, looking up to Kannon as if asking something. What is this meant to convey? Something about caring about the world of mortals below? Or about desiring to go down there? Is the baby asking for Kannon to take action, or just asking out of curiosity and infantile naivete?

Ah. As I thought, now that I’m looking at it in person, the Okakura work shows some major differences from this Hôgai original. The overall composition is the same, but many details are different. A purple cloud behind the boy’s head more strongly implies the deep red fleshy colors of the womb, an association I remembered feeling quite strongly when looking at the Okakura and was surprised to not see as strongly evidenced in the Hôgai. In the Okakura, in addition, the boy does not point down, questioning as though asking a parent, but rather looks up, curious, surprised, or frightened by the bodhisattva, his hands clasped together (and not pointing). The red cloth wraps around him more completely here, its end not floating in the air as in Hôgai’s work, but seeming to emerge from within the purple, more closely evoking the idea of an umbilical cord.

Kannon’s mustache remains, and so the face and relative flat-chested body cannot be said to definitively look more female. But, whereas Hôgai left blank silk for the areas of Kannon’s exposed skin, now discolored as silk is wont to do, Okakura painted the skin in, a pale pinkish white, the more porcelain look of the ideal of womanly skin.

…

So, that’s it for the notes I took at that time. As I said, I have yet to read any articles about the production of these pieces, and so I don’t have any special insights into why these changes were made, or when and where exactly Okakura might have seen the Hôgai piece (though, given the strong ties between Hôgai and Fenollosa, and between Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzô, and between Kakuzô and Okakura Shûsui, his nephew, it seems not unlikely that Shûsui was able to see the original quite close-up and in person). But, for now, for a start, I thought I would just share these observations. I hope you find them interesting… One of these days, maybe I’ll give it more thought and figure out something more to say about these intriguing works.

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Quick Links: New York Times Edition

Lots of interesting stuff in the news today – mostly from the NY Times, as it’s one of the chief news sources I read.

*Anthropologist E.B. Banning argues that Gobekli Tepe, an 11,000-year-old site that has been billed as the world’s first temple, may not have been exclusively or primarily a sacred space, and further, that the dichotomy between sacred spaces and secular (mundane) spaces [I don't like the word profane], is a rather modern concept.

Actually, we just discussed just yesterday in the course I’m TAing how churches and mosques have always, historically, traditionally, served as more than just religious spaces, but as community centers as well, where a wide variety of activities took place.

*Thanks to the Heritage of Japan blog for sharing links and content from several news articles today discussing the newly opened museum at Tôdai-ji, a temple established in 752 to be the central, chief Buddhist temple for all of Japan.

For those unfamiliar, Tôdai-ji, in the city of Nara, contains the largest bronze Buddha in Japan, and the largest wooden building in the world. This new museum will feature a great many National Treasures and other treasures of Japanese Buddhist art not so easily (if at all) accessible, that is, viewable, by the public previously. I look forward to my next trip to Nara to visit and check it out myself.

*Art Spiegelman has published a book entitled Metamaus, in which he looks back and discusses his groundbreaking graphic novel ‘Maus’. The first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, ‘Maus’ is a Holocaust story told using animal characters (cats for Nazis, mice for Jews).

I have to admit, I’ve never actually read ‘Maus’. (gasp!) But, despite the glut of indie comics and all sorts of things that are out there these days, I think it really stands as one of the shining examples of what the “visual sequential narrative” format can be. It can be serious. It can be literature. It can be dark, and powerful, and meaningful.

*A discovery has been made in South Africa of 100,000 year old tools used to make ocher pigments for painting. This is by far the oldest evidence we have yet found of human painting, and how it was done. By contrast, while apparently painting workshop finds have been found dating back 60,000 years, some of the most famous examples of cave painting, such as those at Lascaux, go back only 17,000 years.

EDIT: Two more articles about the African paint discovery: A report from NPR, and one from Science Magazine.

*Meanwhile, Thailand is suffering from some of the worst flooding in decades, and UNESCO is dispatching a team to assess the damage to World Heritage Sites in Ayutthaya, the early modern capital (1350-1767) of the Thai kingdom.

*And, finally, bad news, ladies. The heartthrob king of girls all across Asia, 31-year-old King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck of Bhutan, is now married. It sounds like it was a beautiful, colorful, and traditional ceremony, with royal astrologers choosing the time for the celebration, gold and red traditional costume, golden Buddhas, and of course the Raven crown.

I’m kind of surprised that royals from other countries, or other celebrities, were not invited or present. But, then, perhaps we shouldn’t be. This is not about the spectacle (well, it is, in that it’s a royal wedding. But it’s domestic spectacle), not about People magazine, or about showing off the good life for/with other royals from around the world.

I won’t pretend to know all that much about Bhutanese politics, or culture, but from what little I know, the king seems quite down-to-earth, accessible and open to speaking with commoners, very much beloved, and, as far as I know, a very capable ruler, in terms of economic and political policy, balancing modernization/Westernization with tradition and protecting Bhutan’s unique cultural identity. Congratulations to him on his marriage (and to his 21-year-old bride, the daughter of an airline pilot, and now newly royalty!), and all the best wishes for the future!

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Nam June Paik at the National Gallery of Art

Came across today a beautiful, fascinating Nam Jun Paik installation at the National Gallery. A bronze Buddha staring at a live feed of itself on TV screens, live feeds of a single candle projected large all over the room. Is this “Buddhist art”? Is it to be meditated upon as a religious space, or contemplated as an art installation? What do you think?

It is, in any case, to me, avant-garde, unusual, thought-provoking, but beautiful, not abstract, and drawing upon historical and cultural associations. Just the way I like my contemporary art.

My advisor taught a course on Buddhist art a year or so ago, including a section on works such as these. I kind of wish now that I had sat in on those lectures or discussions, as he was talking specifically about Nam June Paik and precisely about these kinds of works. Yet, even without that, or any real expertise in Buddhist art, let alone anything beyond the most basic knowledge of Nam June Paik’s work, or Korean Buddhism, or Korean-American art, without any of that, the work still really speaks me, makes me feel something, and makes me think and question and wonder. And that, perhaps, is one of the true measures of a successful work of art.

Nam June Paik’s installation will be up in the Tower Gallery in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, until October 2, 2011.

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Spotlight on the specialness of Horyuji as Buddhism’s cradle in Japan

The blog Heritage of Japan shares with us today a Japan Times article summarizing the history and importance of Hôryû-ji.

When UNESCO cast its beady, critical eye on Japan 18 years ago to assess the country’s cultural and natural merits with a view — in the agency’s ponderous prose — to “inscription on the World Heritage List,” it settled on four places that became the nation’s first entries to those ranks so adored by tourism associations.

…

It may have come as rather a surprise to some that Horyuji, located 14 km southwest of the city of Nara, should have been selected ahead of obviously much more famous Kyoto — and indeed Nara itself. But Horyuji really is exceptional. As well as being a landmark in Japanese history and the oldest existing Buddhist temple in the land, the complex of Horyuji contains the world’s oldest wooden buildings.

For those interested, you can read the rest at the original post on Heritage of Japan, or at the Japan Times.

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Quick Links: Meanwhile…

The situation in Japan of course has not, and will not, go away overnight. It is still very much on my mind, especially after hearing directly (on skype video chat, rather than simply in text form via Facebook, Twitter, or email) from a friend who, though quite safe in Tokyo and quite far from the real center of the devastation, was even there in Tokyo terrified, and shaken, if you’ll pardon the pun, to the core.

I have been putting off posting about anything else for a few days, watching other bloggers put up post after post of serious, concerned, disaster-centric posts. People in Japan sharing their own photos and their own stories; people sharing images and information from the news, and lists of websites for finding and getting in touch with people, and for making donations to the relief efforts.

Here‘s just one of the many many stories being posted online right now. An op-ed piece published in the NY Times – a New Yorker reminisces about her time in Tôhoku, and how much has changed in the last few days, and writes about her relatives in Tôhoku, experiencing this tragedy firsthand. A beautiful, short, piece, entitled “Memories, Washed Away.”

Gary Leupp, history professor at Tufts University and Edo period culture/society specialist, meanwhile, shares his thoughts on the disaster, touching upon the history of the city of Sendai, its poetic beauty, and historical artifacts and sites damaged and lost, and those which have hopefully survived.

It is far too easy to simply move on and get on with our normal lives here in Hawaii… I just learned that my rabbi back home in NY asked after me, and made some kind of announcement to the whole congregation about my being okay. Given how completely out of danger I was, and how relatively normal the last few days have been, I cannot help but feel bad that anyone should be worried about me at a time like this.

But, what can I say? Of course, I cannot, I will not, “move on” completely. I will continue to think about what’s going on in Japan, to pay attention to the news, to be concerned; to keep in touch with friends over there, and to do what I can to be supportive for Japanese friends here. But in the meantime, some scattered news bits from other parts of the world:

*Neil Gaiman – the author of Neverwhere, American Gods, and the comicbook series Sandman, and easily one of my favorite writers – has been working for quite some time on a non-fiction book about The Journey to the West, the classic Chinese story from which The Monkey King is particularly famous. And now, it has been announced that Gaiman is working with others on a film of The Journey to the West. It has been done before, numerous times, in both Chinese and Japanese films and TV dramas, and I don’t want to say that I definitively predict that this one will blow those all away, I trust Gaiman with this kind of project. He’s exceptionally insightful and creative in understanding the internal logic of fantasy worlds, and amazingly skilled in bringing such worlds to life; he’s profoundly respectful of other cultures and their histories, while at the same time not as invested in the project as an expression of nationalism as a Chinese or Japanese creator might be. In short, I’m very much looking forward to it.

*UNESCO has decided not to recommend the reconstruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, and the Afghan government has decided to go along with that recommendation. Now, admittedly, there are some pretty good reasons for them not to be reconstructed – chiefly, the argument that the millions of dollars it would cost might be better spent on alleviating poverty or any number of other humanitarian or development sort of purposes, and the argument that reconstructions would be fake. There isn’t enough material from the originals to reconstruct them properly from the original materials, and so, really, reconstructed versions would be fakes.

Still, my knee-jerk response is to say that of course they should be reconstructed. Their destruction was a heinous act of religious intolerance, and was the destruction of astonishing sites of cultural and historical value on a global scale. Monuments that, the argument goes, belong to all humanity, not just to the Afghan gov’t to do with it as it pleases.

But, then again, if indeed logistically it is not feasible to reconstruct them, if that is indeed the case, then that has to be the result, obviously.

*The Australian reports on continuing damage and threats to major tourist sites from hoards of tourists. This is, of course, nothing new, but it continues to go on, continues to be a problem, and sites continue to struggle to find solutions. As with artworks, so with sites, and so too I am sure with other cases which don’t immediately come to mind – a balance must be struck between access and conservation. Allowing people in to historical sites such as Angkor Wat, Borobudur, and the Great Wall seems only natural; denying access to these sites because they are so important, and beautiful, and impressive, essentially defeats the purpose of conserving them, just as keeping the Mona Lisa locked away in a dark storage vault to keep it safe from light and other conservation threats completely defeats the purpose. If we’re protecting something – whether it be artwork, or a site – we are presumably protecting it for people, but, the people (or display – exposure to light, air, moisture, etc.) are themselves the threat.

Never mind the graffitti, the people climbing where they shouldn’t, those stealing bits of rock. Even those who are fully obeying the rules are causing damage, as the moisture in the air they breathe out – multiplied by multitudes of people times days, weeks, months, years – encourages the growth of mold in centuries-old cave paintings in Dunhuang. As the erosion caused by footsteps, just regular ordinary footsteps, again, multiplied by thousands or even millions of people, day after day, year after year, wears down the floors of the Great Wall, of, frankly any and every building that sees visitors. You touch the walls, and you think it’s nothing. But multiply that by however many people, touching it however many times – that’s why those bronze statues at your alma mater, you know the ones, the ones that people rub for luck on exams, are so shiny and polished only in those places. Even just the lightest touch of robes brushing up against the wall as people walk by, happening time and again, wore off the wall paintings, only below a certain height, a certain point on the wall, in a famous and majorly old and important Buddhist temple in Japan (I’m blanking on which one at the moment..), and that was a site where tourists have never been let in – the damage was done by courtiers hundreds of years ago, and other religious devotees, visiting the temple and worshipping by walking around the perimeter.

Is there a definitive answer? Perhaps. I don’t know. Perhaps not. Perhaps we just need to strike a balance, keep a close eye on the sites, or make difficult decisions. Some sites are closed off; others are replaced, essentially, by reconstructions built next door and opened to the tourists. It’s a problem that is not going away any time soon; and, hopefully, if everyone does their jobs, the sites themselves won’t be going anywhere either.

*Donny George, former director of the Iraqi National Museum, has died. He collapsed in Toronto airport, and was declared deceased shortly afterwards at the hospital; he had been in Toronto to give a lecture on Mesopotamian artifacts and efforts to combat the black market illegal trade in such objects.

Dr. George had been instrumental in recovering thousands of objects looted from the Baghdad museum in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq, and was a real force for good in the museum world. His loss will surely be felt deeply.

*The Japanese contemporary art show “Bye Bye Kitty” which I have been eagerly awaiting for quite some time opens later this week at Japan Society in New York. A brief article today accompanies a slide show of installation shots and of staff working to figure out how to get Nawa Kohei’s life-size deer sculpture in the doors.

I quite like Gallery Director Joe Earle’s comments on having the show despite recent/current events. The article states: “Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami will surely hang over the exhibit that opens March 18, but Joe Earle, vice president and director of the Japan Society, noted that much of the work itself had already contemplated such destruction. After all, he said, every Japanese child, from a very young age, is trained to prepare for such disasters.”

And while I don’t like to attribute too much to Murakami Takeshi, or to talk about him too much, he often speaks/writes about his own theory of the profound importance and fundamental role that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki played – and continue to play – in shaping the collective psyche of postwar Japan. Going along with Earle’s comments, I would say that the creators of these contemporary current artworks are fully embedded in the cultural and societal issues which face Japan, including not only a culture of overworking salarymen, and extraordinary pressure placed upon high schoolers, as seen quite directly in two works from the show, but also in a society that is constantly aware of the dangers of natural disasters, and takes preparations very seriously.

*One more link for now. The New York Times has a rather interesting article today about the collection of the White House and its curator, a position started 50 years ago by Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy.

One could probably write volumes about private collections, and could take all different sides of the issue, talking about how cool it is to think of all the wonderful things that a place like the White House must have, but then also the negative side of how many similar private collections throughout the country and the world must have so many awesome artworks and other objects hidden away from public view or access.

I’m not sure I have anything really to say about it all at the moment, without getting into a pages-long stream-of-thought ramble on the subject… I shall simply say that I think it a very interesting and intriguing job to have; fun and interesting to realize that there definitely are curatorial-type jobs outside of the major museums, and just nice, and fun, to get a brief glimpse into it through this article.

That’s all for now, I suppose. Stay safe, everyone. My thoughts and prayers to those throughout Japan continuing to struggle with this crisis, and to their friends and families overseas.

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Quick Links: Archaeology and Temples

Once again, I have put off talking about certain topics long enough that they have piled up… so, it’s time for another Quick Links post.

(1) The pagoda of Yakushi-ji, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan, has never been open to the public in the 1300 years since it was built. That is, until yesterday. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of pagodas are not meant to be entered. Having evolved out of the Indian stupa tradition – large mounds erected over the grave, or simply some relics, of a major figure – pagodas serve chiefly as reliquaries and symbols, and not as prayer halls or some other type of building designed for human occupation and use.

The pagoda at Yakushiji is about to undergo an eight-year renovation, during which not even the exterior will be visible. So, perhaps to make up for that, and to help maintain/attract interest in and attention to the site, and to the marvels of Asuka period architecture and design (all of these reasons are just speculation on my part and not mentioned in the article), they are allowing visitors, up until March 21, to take a peek inside.

I wish I were in Japan right now to take advantage of this opportunity…

(2) Speaking of renovations to ancient monuments, WIRED has a new article on the reconstruction of the Great Buddas of Bamiyan.

We’ve been hearing about reconstruction efforts for years, ever since the Buddhas – surely some of the largest Buddha statues in the world, carved right out of the mountainside in the 6th century – were dynamited and destroyed by the bigoted, religiously intolerant, and anti-culture Taliban in 2001. Now, a researcher from Germany claims to have an actual plan for the reconstruction, which he is expected to present at an upcoming UNESCO meeting in Paris.

UNESCO, as I understand it, is generally against the dramatic alteration of World Heritage Sites, and especially against reconstructions being counted as World Heritage Sites. (This is why the rebuilt Shuri Castle in Okinawa does not count as a World Heritage Site, but rather the site it sits on and the ruins and such below it are the listed/designated UNESCO Site.) … But, should UNESCO really be opposed to the reconstruction of these statues, so inappropriately destroyed? I suppose if they are not restored, the empty caverns could continue to stand for centuries, or millennia, as a monument to intolerance and religious hatred, reminding us all what an asshole thing it is to allow your own beliefs to supercede appreciation of other cultures, and of the past.

(3) A figurine excavated from the Chihara Ohaka tomb in the town of Sakurai, in Nara prefecture, is the oldest humanoid haniwa figure to ever be discovered. The 4th century figure is 67 cm (26.4 in) tall, and 50 cm (20 in) wide, predating the previously earliest found haniwa figure by several decades.

More can be found (in Japanese) at the Asahi Shimbun, for as long as they decide to keep that article up.

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