How Gay Art Survives in Beijing, as Censors Tighten Grip

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Marjorie Perry

For an exhibition called "Love is Blue," ART.Des displayed a sculpture, The Innocence, in the foreground by the artist Yang Yang and an oil painting by an artist who prefers to remain unnamed. Credit: Marjorie Perry

From the outside, the facade of Destination (a prominent Beijing venue that expressly welcomes gay people) is downright drab. But inside this four-story cultural center on the east side of the city, the works in the nonprofit art gallery can push boundaries. Since the center’s opening, its clientele has remained mostly gay men, but it’s more than just a place to find a date. The center provides anonymous H.I.V. testing, practice rooms for a men’s choir, yoga and dance classes. And on the third floor, the art gallery, ART. Des, provides a window into the current state of gay art in Beijing. [More]

Four Pieces by Artist Tatsuo Miyajima

THE INDEPENDENT
By Charles Donelan

Innumerable Life/Buddha MMMMCM-01, 2018
Light Emitting Diode, IC, electric wire, stainless steel, transformer. LED type "Time Hundred" (Red) 49 plates | Credit: Courtesy Lisson Gallery

Entering this new immersive exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, one experiences an unmistakable sensation of mastery, although not of a typical sort. Tatsuo Miyajima has been creating his distinctive installations for several decades now, and he has arrived at a striking level of expressiveness and concentration through variations on a single process. Miyajima is a major artist with something very timely to say, and he says it with admirable concision. The show, like the Buddhist practice that underpins it, invites both distanced contemplation and sensual apprehension. [More]

Carving the Divine: Filmmaker Yujiro Seki documents the Buddhist sculptors of Japan - Lion's Roar

LION'S ROAR
By Andrea Miller

Syakanyoraizou. Work by Koun Seki.

Artworks depicting buddhas and bodhisattvas are wordless teachings. In their facial expressions and gestures, we can see what we’re aiming for in our lives and practice—be it compassion, equanimity, meditative focus, or even wise anger. But who are the people who create these contemplative artworks? In Carving the Divine, a new, award-winning documentary, we meet some of these artists. Specifically, we’re offered a rare and intimate look at the lives and artistic process of traditional Japanese wood carvers. In this interview with director Yujiro Seki, he reveals what compelled him to make this film and what he learned in the process. [More]

Did You Miss These Show This Fall?

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Gwaneum) from Korea, Goryeo dynasty, ca. 1220–1285. One of the Buddhist masterworks at the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler galleries.

Mark your calendar. From a revamped MoMA and the fearless Pope.L to Renaissance sculptors and female modernists, here are more than 100 shows that define the new season. SACRED DEDICATION: A KOREAN BUDDHIST MASTERPIECE A thousand-year-old gilded wood statue of the Korean bodhisattva of compassion makes a timely visit to our nation’s capital. Sept. 21-March 22; Freer Sackler Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., freersackler.si.edu. [More]

Antiquities Expert Charged With Trafficking in Cambodian Artifacts

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Julia Jacobs and Tom Mashberg

A 10th-century sandstone statue, known as the Duryodhana, that was returned to Cambodia. U.S. Attorney's Office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Investigators have charged Douglas A. J. Latchford, a leading expert on Khmer antiquities, with smuggling looted Cambodian relics and helping to sell them on the international art market by concealing their tainted histories with falsified documentation. In a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday, Mr. Latchford, 88, was accused of having served for decades as a “conduit” for Cambodian antiquities that had been excavated illegally from ancient jungle temples during unrest in the country starting in the mid-1960s, with the beginnings of the Cambodian civil war. [More]

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK - Francesco Clemente

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton

Francesco Clemente talking about his exhibition "India" at Vito Schnabel Projects

When painter Francesco Clemente first visited India in 1971, he left so inspired that he studied Hindu spiritualism for the next four decades. Clemente’s example has been instructive to Ernest who remains spellbound by his one visit to Senegal in 2004. For his newest exhibition, Francesco Clemente: India at Vito Schnabel Projects, the artist created four large map paintings of India using Hindu symbols including skulls, fish, marigold flowers, and a traditional sari. Francesco Clemente's forty-year study of Hinduism makes him our artist of the week.

Ancient Stolen Buddha Statues Returned to Afghanistan After 17 Years in UK

iNEWS
By Katie Grant

The terracotta heads are believed to have been stolen by the Taliban (Photo: Met Police)

An “ancient and precious” collection of terracotta Buddha heads, believed to have been stolen by the Taliban and transported to the UK, are to be returned to Afghanistan 17 years after their discovery at Heathrow Airport. A Buddha sculpture and nine heads will be sent back to their “rightful home”, the National Museum of Afghanistan, following a “long and complex” investigation that was carried out by the Metropolitan Police’s art and antiques unit. In September 2002, customs officers intercepted two wooden crates at Heathrow Airport that had been flown over on a flight from Peshawar, Pakistan. Officials suspected the crates contained drugs but instead stuffed inside were the Buddha sculpture and nine heads. [More]

Bill Viola's "Impermanence" Exhibition at Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul

S [eEDITION]

"Tristan's Ascension" (2000) by Bill Viola

A new solo exhibition by Bill Viola is on display at Borusan Contemporary until 13 September 2020. The exhibition, titled Impermanence, is a satellite show presented as part of the 16th Istanbul Biennale. Impermanence is the first solo exhibition by Viola in Istanbul and features ten works from different stages of his career. Curated by Kathleen Forde, the exhibition brings together a number of thematically linked works by the artist, which explore the capacity of new media, in particular video technology, to extend our collective reflection on the nature of birth, death, fear, desire, reincarnation and reality. Viola’s work contains both enigma and clarity, and is both transcendent, almost religious in character, and rooted in the everyday. [More]

Zhang Daqian: The Master Exhibition at Sotheby's Hong Kong

SOTHEBY'S

Zhang Daqian's "Clouded Village" (1967); splashed ink and colour on paper; 102 x 136 cm 

In celebration of the 120th anniversary of Zhang Daqian’s birthday, Sotheby’s will present a large-scale solo exhibition, Zhang Daqian: The Master, from 12 October to 9 November 2019, at Sotheby’s Hong Kong Gallery. Co-organised by Xi Zhi Tang Gallery, the exhibition will feature nearly 60 paintings sourced from the artist’s family and private collectors around the world. This exhibition will encompass important works from different periods of the artist’s oeuvre, with an emphasis on splashed ink paintings, many of which have been featured in major exhibitions and some have never before been seen in public. [More]

Bill Viola at La Pedrera - Casa Milà Through January 5, 2020

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Bill Viola: Mirrors of the Unseen

"Bill Viola: Mirrors of the Unseen" is now on view through January 5, 2020 at La Pedrera - Casa Milà in Barcelona, Spain. Regarded as a pioneer of video art, Bill Viola uses sophisticated audiovisual technologies with great mastery to explore and express his constant interest in what it means to be human and in the transitory nature of life. In his work, Viola addresses universal themes such as birth, death, pain, grief, redemption and the passing of time, clearing the way for the senses to channel feelings and to generate particular moods. The exhibition Bill Viola: Mirrors of the Unseen offers an extensive survey of the career of this artist, who has evolved in tandem with the advances in video technology over the last 40 years.

Newark Museum Hosting Zen, Other Buddhist Treasures in New Exhibit

NORTH JERSEY RECORD
By Jim Beckerman

Portable Shrine with the Wisdom King of Passion Painted on the doors and back wall, from right to left: Monk Kūkai, Eleven-headed Kannon, Dainichi, Fudō, and Bishamonten, Guardian of the North Edo Period (1615–1868) Shingon religious order Polychrome wood, gold and metal

Zen comes to us from Japan. But its influence extends as far as outer space. That is if you count the Jedi master Yoda, who taught young Luke Skywalker such Zen-flavored maxims as: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'" "Star Wars" is just one example of how Zen Buddhism — unique among Eastern religions — has made the leap into Western pop culture. It's become a kind of shorthand for peace, tranquility, mystic wisdom. I think Zen is a very popular word nowadays, which has come to mean a lot of things and actually doesn't even refer to the actual religion anymore," says Midori Oka, guest curator of the new art exhibit "Beyond Zen: Japanese Buddhism Revealed," at the Newark Museum through January 5. [More]

Decolonizing Western Narratives of Modern Art

HYPERALLERGIC
By Emily Sun

Zarina, single woodcut from “Home is a Foreign Place” (1999), portfolio of 36 woodcut chine collé with Urdu text print on paper and mounted on paper, 8 x 6 inches; sheet: 16 x 13 inches

The 36 woodcut prints in Zarina’s portfolio, “Home is A Foreign Place” (1999), strike me at the base of my throat. Abstracted images mutate and bear different Urdu and English words, beginning with “Home,” a floorplan of the artist’s childhood house in Aligarh, India. A dark barrier, “Wall,” hollows out into a circle, “Sky.” “Dust,” an earthen black block, settles beside “Language,” a rest, the musical symbol for silence. Zarina doesn’t illustrate words so much as unravel them, revealing the buried places from which we speak. Zarina’s lexicon captures how contemporary meanings of home multiply through loss, becoming more challenging, yet necessary, to articulate. Her prints greet visitors to the Met Breuer exhibition Home is a Foreign Place, which remaps Western narratives of modern art in a global context of decolonization and displacement. [More]

Shiva Ahmadi, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and Tsherin Sherpa Reinterpret Religious Practices

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Shiva Ahmadi (b. 1975, Tehran, Iran); Ascend; 2017; single-channel animation; 6 min. 48 sec.; courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco; photograph courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco

NEW YORK---The Rubin Museum of Art presents "Shrine Room Projects: Shiva Ahmadi / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge / Tsherin Sherpa," three contemporary art installations in dialogue with the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. The exhibition includes rotating video installations by Shiva Ahmadi; an interactive sculptural piece by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge; and newly acquired work by Tsherin Sherpa. "Shrine Room Projects: Shiva Ahmadi / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge / Tsherin Sherpa" will be on view

Bill Viola Survey Now On View at Borusan Contemporary in Turkey

BOURSAN CONTEMPORARY

Bill Viola, Tempest (Study for the Raft), 2005; Color High-Definition video on flat panel display mounted on wall, 43 x 26 x 4 inches; 109 x 66 x 10.2 cm

Congratulations to Bill Viola on the opening of Bill Viola: Impermanence, on view now through September 13, 2020, at Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, Turkey. Curated by Kathleen Forde, Impermanence is Viola's first major survey exhibition in Istanbul. The works are like koans with their narratives—classic Buddhist riddles that are unresolvable, inviting us to experience a glimpse of what Viola calls the “invisible world” where our standard intellectual configurations of existence are revealed to be artificial. His works have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. [More]

Rare Buddhist God Helps "Bodies of Light" Sales Reach Over $3 Million

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Padmapani Yongle Mark and Period | Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 Lot Sold 620,000

Last week's "Bodies of Light" auction at Sotheby's reached $3,460,250. Bodies of Infinite Light, an auction of Buddhist art spanning the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Qing dynasty, includes an exceptional polychrome wood figure of Jinasagara Avalokiteshvara from the Xuande period, a finely embroidered silk Qing dynasty thangka of Ekadashamukha Avalokiteshvara and rare bronzes from the Dali Kingdom, among other works. In addition, the sale features twenty sculptures formerly in the Chang Foundation Collection and illustrated in the seminal 1993 published catalog Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal. [More]

Thai Hardliners Demand 'Ultraman' Buddha Art be Destroyed

YAHOO NEWS

A Thai artist’s painting of the Buddha as the Japanese superhero Ultraman | Photo via Facebook

Hardline Buddhists in Thailand called Thursday for the destruction of paintings depicting Buddha as Japanese superhero Ultraman, provoking fevered debate about using sacred imagery in art. The majority of Thais are Buddhist and a law on insulting religion carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail even if prosecutions are rare. The student artwork went viral on social media last week after it was shown in an exhibition three hours outside Bangkok. The artist, whose name has been withheld by her university over safety concerns, offered a tearful apology to monks for the four paintings, some of which had a backdrop with Louis Vuitton logos. [More]

Chaing Rai's White, Black, and Blue Temples in Thailand Look Like Art Museums

FODORS
By Amanda Silberling

Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand

You might think that once you’ve seen a handful of Thailand’s 40,000 Buddhist temples, you’ve seen them all. But three of Thailand’s most memorable, awe-inspiring sites are far different than the traditional monastic centers that characterize Thailand’s peaceful landscape. Unlike most temples in Southeast Asia, monks don’t live and practice in the colored temples (the White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House) because they aren’t actually religious structures–at least in a conventional sense. Rather, these temples more closely resemble art museums, as they represent decades of work from three artists native to Chiang Rai Province in Northern Thailand. [More]

Infinitely Kusama opens at Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Image courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art

INDIANAPOLIS—Yayoi Kusama’s famed Infinity Mirror Room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), is coming to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields October 4, 2019 through March 29, 2020. Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama rose to international fame in the 1960s for her provocative and avant-garde style, and is best known today for her mirrored-light installations that envelop viewers in a repetitive environment intended to share the inner-workings of her mind while challenging the notion of space and time. The pumpkins are enclosed by a box-like structure, surrounded by four mirrored walls and a mirrored ceiling, giving the illusion of an infinite universe full of pumpkins. [More]

Another World Lies Beyond at Metropolitan Museum of Art

APOLLO MAGAZINE

Guan Yu (detail; c. 1700), China. Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Drawn primarily from the Met’s holdings in this area, this exhibition explores how premodern artists in China visualised divinity in remarkably fluid ways. Paintings, prints and sculptures bring together deities from Buddhist, Taoist and other pantheons in a manner that reflects the exchange of ideas across boundaries of faith, culture and politics in this era. Find out more from the Met’s website. [More]

Takashi Murakami Has Covered Practically Every Square Inch of a New Hong Kong Art Center With His Colorful Work

ARTNET NEWS

Takashi Murkamai at "Murakami versus Murakami" at Tai Kwun. Photograph: Alex Maeland.

Takashi Murakami‘s tripped-out universe has touched down in Hong Kong. The 57-year-old artist’s mix of fashion, graphic art, cosplay, and graffiti is spread across every crevice of the three floors of the new Tai Kwun Contemporary. The show, titled “Murakami versus Murakami,” leaves no small part of his career unexplored and no surface of the exhibition space untouched as it examines the different aspects of the Murakami brand. The show is on view through September 1 in the swank new institution, housed in a former Central Police Station complex, that was redesigned by Herzog & de Meuron at the cost of HK$3.8 billion. The center officially opened last May as non-collecting, non-profit organization modeled on Europe’s kunsthalles. [More]