Mayor to seek return of Buddhist statue in South Korea

In an interview Wednesday, Yasunari Takarabe said he will submit a petition seeking the return of the statue of the Kanzeon Bodhisattva to Kannon Temple, and that it will bear the signatures of around 17,000 residents of the Sea of Japan island. It might be submitted to the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea as soon as July.

?The island?s residents protected the statue for centuries,? Takarabe said. ?My mission is to meet with senior officials of the cultural heritage entity and convey their feelings.?

The Tsushima board of education said Takarabe in late April launched a campaign to collect residents? signatures and that as of Tuesday, more than 16,800, or half the island?s population, had signed the petition.

The seated statue, designated an important cultural property by Nagasaki Prefecture, has remained in South Korea following a provisional ruling by a district court in the city of Daejeon.

An inscription indicates the statue was made in Korea in 1330 at Buseoksa Temple in what is now Yeongju, North Gyeongsang province. The board of education said it may have been sold to Kannon Temple when anti-Buddhism movements began spreading on the Korean Peninsula in the 14th century.

A South Korean temple, however, claims the statue was plundered from the peninsula by Japanese pirates between the 13th and 16th centuries.

Last February, the Daejeon District Court said that the statue should not be returned to Japan until it is confirmed that the temple on Tsushima acquired it lawfully.

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In a postmodern world, a return to the traditional

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Bangkok, Thailand -- While Bangkok's galleries and studios today largely vibrate with the experimental and conceptual, a practitioner of Buddhist painting and plaster-moulded bas-relief quietly keeps the ancient arts alive and relevant

Pakorn Klomkliang, curator of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, describes Songrit Muaiprom's work, as "filled with rich simplicity, unfeigned, unsophisticated, raw and without embellishments".

While the pieces in "Northeastern Thai Buddhist Art", Songrit's first solo exhibition, are clear and accessible, that doesn't diminish the dexterity of the artist nor the relevance of his work. He won first prize in the Traditional Thai Painting category at the Bua Luang Painting Exhibition this year, and has won many other awards and been featured in several group exhibitions.

From the Northeast, Songrit shunned the traditional palatial style and presented his work as folk art, of a local and classical beauty influenced by local Buddhist temple art and Thai traditional techniques in plaster moulding, providing an original interpretation of what he considers the fundamental principles of Buddhism.

"These factors lend much to the experience of Thai painting and low relief sculpture," Mr Pakorn explains, "including its meaning and the tactile beauty and smell of fresh plaster moulded by hand, which reveals the essential truth of the material and colour.

"Some of his works are also considered archetypal within Thai traditional art, such as the bird's-eye view, depicting the filling of vessels, placing images symmetrically, the use of coloured glass and gold leaf, and stories related to Buddhism and Eastern traditions."

Born in 1987, Songrit was an ordained and practising monk for more than eight years from the age of 12, before discovering his talent in the arts and choosing a path that expresses the cultural heritage of Buddhism. Songrit studied painting and sculpture at several colleges and received a master's degree from Silpakorn University.

His work is divided between the secular and spiritual - with the secular expressed through paintings that illustrate points in the history of man, and the spiritual through sculpture that explains important moments in the Buddha's life and illustrates some truths of Buddhism.

In an age where many artists - in terms of technique, subject and medium - strive to out-experiment each other in an effort to lay claim to the avant-garde, and where intensely personal or bizarrely abstract concepts, objets trouve or retro-rehashing fall under the banner of the contemporary, it can also be refreshing to be confronted with work from a modern bastion of traditional temple art.

If you go

'Northeastern Thai Buddhist Art' is on show on the 36th floor of the Pullman Bangkok Hotel G, Silom Road, daily 10am to 7pm until Dec 28.

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