Music Review: Telling a Temple’s Tale From the Nile to the Met

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Zachary Woolfe

The ensemble Alarm Will Sound performing “I Was Here I Was I,”
the Kate Soper work, at the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing at the Met.

NEW YORK---The sandstone temple was built around 15 B.C. on the west bank of the Nile, roughly 600 miles south of Cairo. With the construction of the Aswan Dam, starting in 1960, the temple was threatened with inundation. In gratitude for the assistance of the United States in saving the structure, Egypt gave it to the American government, which in turn awarded it to the Met. The tranquil, soaring space in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that has housed the Temple of Dendur since 1978 is so beloved that New Yorkers could be forgiven for thinking that the temple itself is beside the point, merely an excuse for the glamorous room, with its sweeping wall of glass. Its millenniums-spanning past is explored in “I Was Here I Was I,” a serene, sometimes elegant, sometimes listless new music-theater work by the composer Kate Soper and the librettist and director Nigel Maister performed on Friday by the ensemble Alarm Will Sound and its conductor, Alan Pierson, in the temple’s Sackler Wing pavilion. [link]

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Korea Gives it's Iron Buddha New Status Because of NYC's Met Exhibition

KOREA HERALD
By Lee Sun-young

Iron seated Buddha (National Museum of Korea)

KOREA---The National Museum of Korea’s revamped Unified Silla section, which opens to the public Tuesday, displays an undisputed new star: a larger-than-life Buddha statue made of cast iron. Placed in a spacious room right in the middle of the hall, the statue overwhelms visitors with its mystic beauty and half-smile. The exquisiteness of this artifact, which dates back to the late eighth or early ninth century, however, went unnoticed until recently. The high level of interest in the statue in the Met exhibition prompted Seoul officials to take a fresh look at it. Previously it was just one of the many Buddha statues exhibited in the Buddhist art section on the third floor of the National Museum of Korea. [link]

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In Good Faith: The Birth of Buddhism in India on Display in NYC

INDIAN EXPRESS
By Vandana Kalra

Dressed in a diaphanous robe, the calm sandstone Buddha has
survived numerous centuries and also travelled numerous countries.

NEW YORK---Dressed in a diaphanous robe, the calm sandstone Buddha has survived numerous centuries and also travelled numerous countries. Carved in Sarnath sometime in the beginning of the sixth century, it is a diminutive six-and-a-half inch tall sculpture. The flexed posture and characteristic fine-grained sandstone affirm its origin. In the collection of National Museum, Bangkok, it was possibly commissioned for export, perhaps by a monk returning to his monastery after a period of study in northern India. After all, Buddhism in that period left its imprint across Southeast Asia, much like Hinduism. An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, called “Lost Kingdoms Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century” is now exploring sculptural art produced in the earliest kingdoms of Southeast Asia. [link]

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India's Imprint on Faith on Display in New York City Art Museum

THE HINDU
By Lavina Melwani

ABuddha Granting Boons, part of the ' Lost Kingdom' exhibition
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photos: Thierry Ollivier

NEW YORK---For the first time, the cream of treasures have been gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Sometimes entire worlds disappear, yet art survives and tells us the stories that would have remained untold. ‘Sivapada’ (Siva's footprints), a wonderful sandstone sculpture by unknown artists in Northern Cambodia of 7th-8th century, shows us the imprint of Hinduism on the Southeast Asian cultures of the first millennium that have vanished. [link]

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The Met Museum to Present "Treasures From India: Jewels From the Al-Thani Collection"

BROADWAY WORLD 

NEW YORK---Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that an exhibition of some 60 jeweled objects from the private collection formed by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani will be presented at the Museum this fall. Treasures from India: Jewels from the Al-Thani Collection, on view October 28 through January 25, will provide a glimpse into the evolving styles of the jeweled arts in India from the Mughal period until the early 20th century, with emphasis on later exchanges with the West. The exhibition will be shown within the Metropolitan Museum's Islamic art galleries, adjacent to the Museum's own collection of Mughal-period art. [link]

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