The continuing military conflict, internecine violence and political tension in Cambodia continue to make it a forbidding place to visit.
But in a sense, this summer, Cambodia has come to us–in the form of the mysterious treasures from the ruins of the temple complex at Angkor Wat.
One hundred sculptural pieces from this storied place, some of them immense, are on display here through Sept. 28 at the National Gallery of Art.
One of the major American cultural events of the summer, this is the first exhibition ever in the U.S. devoted exclusively to Cambodian statuary, and the National Gallery is its only American venue.
The works–some from museums outside Cambodia–include awesome representations of Buddha, the rather rapturously reclining god Vishnu contemplating the Earth’s next cycle of existence, the voluptuous 7th Century female figure Durga Mahisasuramardini and the imposing head of Cambodia’s greatest king, Jayavarman VII. They reflect a millennium of culture between the 6th and 16th Centuries and represent some of Cambodia’s greatest surviving art treasures.
Situated along the main trade routes between India and China, Cambodia at one point was the most powerful nation in Southeast Asia, extending over much of what is now Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. During this thousand-year period, it also turned from Hinduism to Buddhism while retaining strong influences of the former.
Since the United States invasion almost 30 years ago that led to the country’s downward spiral, Cambodia has endured the genocide of the Khmer Rouge and foreign occupation by the Vietnamese–and continuing theft and pillage of its sacred sites. But recent peace accords, new international cooperation and the installation of a democratically elected assembly made it possible for Cambodia to loan these breathtaking works to the U.S. That was before fighting between rival factions in early July once again turned the capital into a battleground.
“The Cambodian people want to send a message of peace and reconciliation to make possible reconstruction, make friends and to make cultural rehabilitation,” said the Cambodian secretary of state for culture, Prince Sisowath Panara, at the opening of this show before the recent flareup of violence.
The National Gallery, 7th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W. (202-737-4215), charges no admission.
Pictures of India
It has been 50 years since India won its independence from Britain, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art is joining in the celebration with an exhibition of 250 photographs of India past and present.
The 21 photographers in the show include contemporary Indian artists and such well-known non-Indians as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who have been drawn to the giant, teeming nation as one of the most fascinating and colorful locations on the planet. Cartier-Bresson’s works here are of particular interest, as they capture such extraordinary political and historic events as Gandhi’s funeral, the refugee exodus generated by partition and Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, posed on the steps of Government House as the last viceroy and vicerene of India at the very moment of independence.
The India show closes at the museum, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street (215-763-8100), on Aug. 31.
More shows
– New York’s Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St. (212-708-9400), is staging what should be one of its more popular shows, “Paris–The 1890s.” It’s a huge collection of brilliant prints–frivolous and glamorous, polemical and political–by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Vuillard and celebrated others. It closes Sept. 2.
– The Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, 2200 Crescent St. (514-284-1252), has opened its new 10,000-square-foot downtown gallery with a wowser. Called “Designed for Delight,” this inaugural exhibition presents 200 creatively designed objects–furniture, glass, ceramics, metalware, jewelry and textiles (a grandmother’s tablecloth, among them)–all in pursuit of the themes of fantasy, ornament and the human body.
This is a historic retrospective embracing such design movements as modernism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, post-war, Pop and post-modernism. Niki de Saint-Phalle’s brightly colored polyester armchair “Clarice” is made to resemble a woman sitting in an arm chair. The sitter sits in her lap.
It closes Sept. 2.
– Ft. Worth’s Amon Carter Museum, 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd. (817-738-1933), has reached into its own holdings for a crowd-pleasing show of “Gems From the Permanent Collection” that includes some of the best paintings of the American West by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, as well as some American Impressionists and a few works of American modernism.
Closing Aug. 17, this show runs more or less concurrently with the Amon Carter’s “Inspired by Children” exhibit–photographs of children from the mid-19th Century to contemporary times–which is up until Sept. 7.
Of most moment are the highly candid “street pictures” of children, in which the camera is barely noticed, and darker images documenting the cruel exploitation of child labor in factories and elsewhere.
– What Frederic Remington was to the West, Currier and Ives were to America’s 19th Century East. Their prints, illustrating virtually every aspect of American domestic life and outdoor activity, were ubiquitous–framed and hanging on walls all over the country.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive (410-396-7100), is showing 80 of these images in an exhibition up through Oct. 12 called “Currier and Ives: Printmakers to the American People.” It includes not only kitschy ice skaters on ponds but also some eye-opening scenes revealing the darker side of America’s post-Civil War industrialization.
– The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. (213-857-6000), has reinstalled and reorganized a major part of its considerable collection, concentrating on displays of its American, Islamic and Asian art. Emphasis was made on providing a lot of in-depth accompanying commentary to better understand the artists’ nature and background and the artworks’ context.
Among the great American paintings back on view are George Bellows’ “Cliff Dwellers,” Henry Ossawa Turner’s “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” John Singer Sargent’s portrait of “Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston” and Winslow Homer’s “The Cotton Pickers.”
– If the U.S./Russian problems aboard the space station Mir have you fascinated, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, 7th Street and Independence Avenue (202-357-2700), is showing daily in its Langley Theater a brand new IMAX film, “Mission to Mir,” which among other things conducts viewers on a tour of the now-troubled space station.
