Foundation's Secret Bids Guide Hopi Indians’ Spirits Home

THE NEW YORKBy Tom Mashberg

Alain Leroy, owner of an auction company in Paris, surrounded by sacred Hopi spirit masks.

CALIFORNIA---The foundation had never done something like this before — a repatriation effort — and the logistics were tricky, to say the least. More than 100 American Indian artifacts were about to go on sale at the Drouot auction house, including 24 pieces, resembling masks, that are held sacred by the Hopi of Arizona. Now the Annenberg Foundation decided to get involved from its offices in Los Angeles. It hoped to buy all of the Hopi artifacts, plus three more sought by the San Carlos Apaches, at the Dec. 9 sale and return them to the tribes. To prevent prices from rising, the foundation kept its plan a secret, even from the Hopis, in part to protect the tribe from potential disappointment. [link]

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U.S. Foundation Buys Sacred Native American Masks to Return to the Hopi Nation

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By David Ng

A Hopi mask that was being sold by the Paris auction house Eve as part of a sale of Native American objects on Monday.

CALIFORNIA---The Annenberg Foundation has revealed that it was an anonymous bidder that paid $530,000 for 24 Native American artifacts that were being sold at a controversial auction in Paris earlier this week. The Los Angeles-based charitable organization headed by Wallis Annenberg said that it will return the artifacts to the Hopi Nation and to the San Carlos Apache tribe. Monday's controversial sale took place several months after another French auction house sold 70 Native American artifacts despite international criticism. Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou sold the objects at an April auction for a total of €930,000 ($675,479). [link]

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Yoga Exhibition Spotlights The Continuing Church-State Debate

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Lee Lawrence

Bringing to life a constellation of yogas, from ascetic to esoteric to physical.

WASHINGTON, DC---It isn't every day that an art exhibition at the Smithsonian's museum of Asian art speaks (however unintentionally) to a continuing church-state debate in California. The issue is whether public schools should be teaching yoga: Do "downward dog" and "salutation to the sun" postures promote mental and physical well-being or do they constitute religious practice? Simply put, what is yoga? This is the question that "Yoga: The Art of Transformation" explores—or, rather, explodes. As curator Debra Diamond researched the topic, "it kept growing in depth and complexity," she says. Although meditation was always important, she found no single practice or belief that consistently defined yoga as it moved through India's religious and cultural communities for 2,000-plus years. [link]

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Sierra College Students Photograph Sikh Parade

SACRAMENTO BEE

CALIFORNIA---The lead banner and flag bearers begin their six mile parade route during the 34th annual Sikh Parade in Yuba City. [link]

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2013 A&O Prize for Philanthropy is 10,000 Buddhist Relics to California Temple

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

CALIFORNIA---Which act of philanthropy from 2013 will have the biggest influence on U.S. Religious Art collecting? Throughout human history, religions and art have been joined as part of the wider quest for meaning. "That is why we need both," says Greg Disney-Britton, chair of the Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts in Indianapolis. Since 2008, Alpha Omega Arts has been surveying our members about the impact of Religious Art in the United States, and this year the members picked the donation of 10,000 Buddhist relics to a temple in California as the winner. "There has been a tremendous surge in collecting Buddhist Art, and not only in the United States but in China and other places around the world," say Disney-Britton.

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Jewish Art OF LA, Spans City with ‘Sacred Words, Sacred Texts’

JEWISH JOURNAL
by Jonathan Maseng

“Rebel Spies,” by Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik, mixed media, 2013. On loan from Scott and Gayl Gluck.

CALIFORNIA---The Jewish art scene in Los Angeles is a small but vibrant community that spans generations, styles, and the full length and breadth of the city itself. Now, for the first time, three of L.A.’s preeminent Jewish institutions — Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), University of Southern California Hillel and American Jewish University (AJU) — have teamed up to produce a collaborative exhibition that stretches across three venues and features more than a dozen local artists. “Sacred Words, Sacred Texts,” which officially opened Oct. 6 with a reception at AJU, is an exhibition that celebrates Jews as a People of the Book: Torah, Talmud, Midrash and sacred poetry are all explored through various media by more than a dozen Jewish artists from the L.A. area. It was curated by Anne Hromadka, Sara Cannon and Georgia Freedman-Harvey. [link]

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Gods and Heroes: European Drawings of Classical Mythology

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"Diomedes Devoured by Horses" (1866) by Gustave Moreau

CALIFORNIA---Featuring a selection of close to 40 drawings dating from the Renaissance to the 19th century, "Gods and Heroes: European Drawings of Classical Mythology," opens on November 19 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. The exhibition explores the pictorial representation of myths that have been instrumental in the formation of Western culture. The stories involving the mythical gods and heroes of Greco-Roman antiquity have inspired artists for centuries, testing their abilities to represent complex narratives in visual form. The world of gods and heroes could also be a violent one, and drawings such as Gustave Moreau's representation one of Hercules’s labors, when the hero had to capture the flesh-eating mares of Diomedes, the evil king of Thrace. Hercules, having succeeded in seizing the animals, feeds Diomedes’s body to his own horses.

J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center: "Gods and Heroes: European Drawings of Classical Mythology"; (November 19, 2013–February 9, 2014); 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA; (310)440-7330; getty.edu

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10,000 Relics Transform Small California Buddhist Temple

BISMARCK TRIBUNE
By John Rogerts

Dharma Master YongHua displays a bottle containing aromatic shariras, part of the temple collection of Buddhist relics

CALIFORNIA---Although he'd been a practicing Buddhist for 20 years, until 10 months ago Dharma Master YongHua hadn't even seen so much as one of the sacred relics known as shariras that are so important to his faith. So it came as quite a surprise to the modest, soft-spoken monk when he learned he was becoming the caretaker of more than 10,000 of them. YongHua's modest Lu Mountain Temple became a repository for the thousands of colorful crystals, two teeth and a single hair that are believed to have come from the body of the Buddha himself. A congregant offered up the collection that he'd painstakingly gathered for years. [link]

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Tibetan Monks Begin Work on New Mandala

SANTA MARIA

The Official Mandala Group of Tibetan Monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery chant Tuesday
at Allan Hancock College. The monks will continue to build a sand mandala for four days.

CALIFORNIA---A group of Tibetan monks, in the direct lineage of the Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, began a Tibetan Buddhist artwork known as a sand mandala in an opening ceremony at Hancock College on Tuesday. The monks, who visited the Central Coast as part of a 2013 Art Tour to the U.S., started the inner center of what would by Friday be a five-foot-diameter sand mandala to symbolize compassion and wisdom. A compact crowd of students and community members packed around the monks as they recited prayers and chants in an opening ceremony held at the Ann Foxworthy Gallery. [link]

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Reaching for Utopia: CJM Exhibit Studies Kibbutz Movement, Struggle to Make the World a Better Place

JEWISH WEEKLY
By Renee Ghert-Zand

“In the Kibbutz,” a poster issued by the Jewish National Fund in Jerusalem

CALIFORNIA---If the state of the world is getting you down, head over to the Contemporary Jewish Museum for a glimpse of utopia. The new exhibit “Work in Progress: Considering Utopia” explores the concept of utopia from Jewish and contemporary perspectives. It features installations by two New York–based Israeli artists — sculptor Ohad Meromi, and photographer and video artist Oded Hirsch — and a mural by local artist Elisheva Biernoff. [link]

Contemporary Jewish Museum: “Work in Progress: Considering Utopia,” (Ends Jan. 20, 2014), 726 Mission St., San Francisco, CA.; 15.655.7800; thecjm.org

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Tibetan Buddhist Monks Construct a Sacred Sand Mandala at Allan Hancock College

SANTA MARIA SUN

CALIFORNIA---A group of Tibetan Buddhist monks has been making its way across the United States sharing cultural art forms and philosophies. Now on the Central Coast, the group—which hails from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India—will be presenting several cultural pageants locally as well as creating an intricate sand mandala at Allan Hancock College over the course of several days. A sand mandala means many things, explained Geshe Lobsang Tsetsen, the leading teacher among the monks. “The sand mandala, it is a technical meditation,” Tsetsen said. “This is a tradition of hundreds of years. It’s not just colorful designs.” [link]

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How Much Would Jesus Weigh? Critic Challenges Fernando Botero

WND
By Marisa Martin

NEW YORK---Fernando Botero is a famed Columbian artist whose distinctive mark is pounds upon pounds of saggy, surplus human flesh. No one born of Botero’s brush or sculptural studio is immune from his extra, in-depth avoirdupois, not even Jesus himself. Jesus had never been a central fixture in the exhibits of the über-successful Columbian artist until a 2011 show at New York’s Marlborough Gallery. “Via Crucis,” or “The Way of the Cross,” reenacts gospel accounts of Jesus’ scourging, mocking and crucifixion, but it’s the shape of Christ’s body that draws much of the attention in these works. [link]
ARTDAILY

COLUMBIA---A woman looks at paintings in the exhibition "Via Crucis, the passion of Christ" of Colombian artist Fernando Botero, on October 8, 2013, in Cali, department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Botero was the curator of his own exhibition, which is composed of 27 oil paintings and 34 drawings combining traditional aspects of Catholicism and the modern world. [link]

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L.A.’s Hammer Museum Is Latest to Go With Free Entry

THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY

CALIFORNIA---The Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, will do away with admission fees next year, solidifying a seeming trend among major local cultural institutions, the Los Angeles Times writes. Hammer officials announced at the museum’s annual gala Saturday that the ticket charges, which top out at $10 for adults, will be eliminated in February. Local philanthropists Erika J. Glazer and Brenda R. Potter, both longtime Hammer donors, are contributing $1-million each to support the first four years of free entry. [link]

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Turning Nuclear Material Into Jewish Jewelry for Hanukkah

THE ALGEMEINER

A menorah necklace by From War into Peace, which uses recycled material from nukes for Jewish jewelry. Photo: From War into Peace.

CALIFORNIA---Using the words of the prophets as inspiration, a company called From War to Peace is turning swords into ploughshares—actually, recycled material from nukes into Jewish jewelry—in California. The line of peace-oriented products that includes flower power earrings, peace symbol pendants, tree of life bracelets, and household accessories is made from recycled copper cabling that once carried the launch codes to Minuteman III nuclear missiles. The copper, taken from a disarmed and deactivated Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) site in Grand Forks, ND, is cast by the company into an array of wearable and usable symbols from many religions, including Star of David earrings,hamsa pendants, and mezuzahs. In time for Hanukkah, a new menorah pendant design will soon be available. [link]

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The Scandalous Art of James Ensor at Getty Museum of Art Next Summer

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

"Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889"(

CALIFORNIA---Next summer, the Getty Center charts James Ensor's astonishing artistic development in the decade culminating with his avant-garde masterpiece, "Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889", a shockingly satirical indictment of modern Belgian society that is one of the museums major highlights. The exhibition presents more than thirty Ensor paintings from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, along with a rich selection of the artist's drawings and etchings from the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and several other key lenders.

 The Getty Center of Los Angeles: "The Scandalous Art of James Ensor" (June 10–August 31, 2014) 1200 Getty Center Drive Los Angeles, California; (310) 440-7300; getty.edu

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Ancient Fragments Bring to Life All But Vanished Indian Jewish Community

J-WEEKLY
By Dan Pine

Torah ark fromn Tekkumbhagam Synagogue photos/courtesy of magnes collection

CALIFORNIA---A scalloped wooden doorframe inscribed with passages from Psalms and ornamented with lotus blossoms. A 13-foot-tall Torah ark painted in maharajah red and gold. These architectural fragments are all that’s left of the 17th-century Tekkumbhagam Synagogue that once stood in the Indian state of Kerala. The objects symbolize a nearly vanished community of Jews that lived in southern India for centuries. They are two of 120 pieces on display in “Global India: Kerala, Israel, Berkeley,” a new exhibition at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. [link]

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12th Century Cantebury Windows Shipped to Los Angeles for Show

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Even Kahn

A 12th-century window from Canterbury Cathedral.

CALIFORNIA---Twelfth-century stained-glass windows from Canterbury Cathedral have been shipped to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for a show that opens next Friday. They are on loan while the cathedral shell is undergoing repairs. Instead of being perched high, as they were in Canterbury, the windows will hang at eye level at the Getty and, next year, at the Cloisters in New York. [link]

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