DC’s Sackler Gallery to exhibit 9th-15th century bronzes from Cambodia’s National Museum 5/15-1/23
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will exhibit 9th to 15th century masterpieces, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia", from May 15 through January 23, the Smithsonian’s Sackler and Freer galleries announced today.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will exhibit 9th to 15th century masterpieces, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia", from May 15 through January 23, the Smithsonian’s Sackler and Freer galleries announced today.
They also announced a partnership with Cambodia’s National Museum, establishing that country’s first metal conservation lab.
The exhibition is the first international one to focus specifically on the skills and achievements of Khmer (Cambodian) bronze casters. It includes rarely displayed ritual and ornamental objects.
“These bronzes are among the most exquisite expressions of Khmer ideals of religious imagery and ritual implements," said exhibition co-curator Louise Allison Cort, curator of Ceramics at the Freer and Sackler galleries (FSG). The exhibition co-curator is Paul Jett, head of FSG’s Department of Conservation and Scientific Research.
The first of three linked rooms will display the two prehistoric bronze works in the exhibition: an urn with pictorial decoration, and a bell. Both are examples of rare and highly valued items that were traded over long distances within Southeast Asia. The room will also have a crowned Buddha, and an image of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha.
The second room, will have Buddhist sculptures from the pre-Angkor period (6th-8th centuries). One highlight is a group of seven diverse bronze figures unearthed together in 2006.They include two imported Chinese figures, both with gilding, as well as Cambodian figures.
In the third room, 11th-14 century bronzes, distinctly Angkorian in syle, include Buddhist and Hindu sculpture. A mirror that may have adorned a palace, and a heavy bell for a court elephant suggest the wide importance of bronze objects among the Cambodian elite.
Co-curator Jett and colleagues at FSG and the National Museum have established Cambodia's first metal conservation lab over the past five years. That program, the new laboratory for the treatment of ceramics, and the National Museum's long-standing stone restoration efforts, comprise one of the most advanced conservation facilities in Southeast Asia.
Cambodia will be the focus also of FSG's public education programs and Southeast Asian Film Festival, scheduled to run from September through October 2010.
The exhibition will travel to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in February 2011.
"Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia" is organized by the Sackler Gallery in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Museum of Cambodia. Major funding is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and Leon Levy Foundation.
For more info: Freer and Sackler galleries www.asia.si.edu, 202-633-1000. The Freer Gallery of Art, 12th Street and Independence Avenue SW, and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Avenue, SW, are on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Free admission.
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