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Buddhist Art is a Hot Sale Steel Guanyin Incarnates Compassion 
"Just like the Buddy in Pokémon GO, the lion is lying on the shoulder of Manjusri Bodhisattva, having a chat" said a staff member. This artwork will be on display at the Art Revolution Taipei (A.R.T). A.R.T. this year is still held in the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 3. Open to the general public with ticket from April 14 to 17. April 13 is the VIP night. A.R.T. opens on April 14 with a theme focusing on the Original Aspiration In the work site, there are many bases of the thousand years old Taiwan Incense Cedar, Rosewood, or Camphorwood, each in different posture. Each base is mounted with a piece of copper-plated scrap stainless steel painted with totem. The creator, Art director of A.R.T Lee Sun-Don said: "Every piece is a Guanyin incarnation." Buddhist art! Buddhist art is the darling of today's auction market. Over the past few years, Lee Sun-Don's works will be placed in the most prominent place in the preview of A.R.T.. This year none was seen, mainly because the number is limited, because the Buddhist art is popular. "Manjusri riding on the lion is very solemn; if, like Pikachu, the lion is also lying on the shoulder of Manjusri, it is very kind, the feeling is completely different." Lee Sun-Don talked about the creative concept. But only Manjusri and his mount were seen, where were other Bodhisattvas? The staff member said: "too late to do." Will they be available for pre-order the same as last year? "no idea." Why do we create Buddhist art? Why would these more than 100 pieces of scrap stainless steel sculpture be Guanyin incarnations? "The theme of this year's A.R.T. is 'the aspiration with it all started', and Lee's first painting was "Thousand-Hand Guanyin", said Mei-Ting Liu, Marketing Director of A.R.T. Many people know that Lee Sun-Don is the abbot of YuanDao Guanyin Temple. YuanDao is his teacher's Dharma name. He is the Patriarch of the third generation. Lee Sun-Don's original aspiration is an "esoteric instruction" across eighty years. Lee Sun-Don said, "Eighty years ago, my teacher was twenty years old, when his teacher told him that the Patriarch of the third generation would build the Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin Bodhisattva Holy Pure Land. Before his prefect rest in 1993, my teacher told me many times for me to accomplish this project. "I did it. My feelings were deep - my teacher believed that I would do it." said Lee Sun-Don. This year his teacher will be 100 years old. At the rear of the YuanDao Guanyin Temple, Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin Statue will be completed, with a total height of 56 meters. The internal construction works of the main body will continue. This is the "main building" of the world's largest Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin Bodhisattva. Shipment from China to Taiwan Journey of Twists and Turns The Holy Guanyin was shipped from the mainland China where it was made. Starting from the very first moment of shipment from the factory in Nanjing, "it was a real nervous period." said Lee Sun-Don. From the head of Guanyin to the Dharma treasure held in Guanyin's hand, none can fit into any container in the world, even the largest-size container for any piece of Guanyin. "Each piece has to be protected by iron fence around." The delivery trucks had to take highway to Shanghai to transfer by vessel to arrive at Keelung harbor. From Nanjing to Shanghai is more than a thousand kilometers, across Jiangsu, Zhejiang, several provinces. On each section of the highway there were different policemen. More than a hundred big trucks traveled on the road, each of length and height exceeding the permitted size. All of the trucks will be stopped. Each truck would be fined for five thousand RMB. One hundred trucks would be five hundred thousand, to be fined for a hundred times would be fifty million. Only the fines would be two hundred fifty million TWD. Lee Sun-Don stressed that the worst fear would have been gotten the traffic tickets and the instruction "Turn around. No permit to pass." We were indeed stopped for a hundred times. At each stop from the start to finish, each driver said only these words, "This is Guanyin. You decide." Not even a single ticket was issued. Some of the toll stations were not high enough and bothered to tear off to let the truck team pass. At Shanghai, the shipment was ready to go. The cargo ship was specially set. "All the iron fences were only locked to the deck. If they pierced the deck, the deck will be destroyed." The sea weather of the Taiwan Strait did not look good in those three days. The waves were particularly big. Lee Sun-Don said, "If any piece fell to the sea, my teacher's instruction could not be completed. My life...well, just to collapse..." Lee explained that since the ancient times, there were many documented records stating that Guanyin will not go anywhere if Guanyin decides not to go that place." The most famous location is Mount Putuo. A Japanese eminent monk was to invite Guanyin to go back to Japan with him. The weather was good all the way up to Mount Putuo where was also good weather when they arrived. When they were about to leave, it was huge wave. The next day, the weather was good again until the time they are about to leave so that they had to stay. The same thing happened on the third day. After three consecutive times, the monk had to leave Guanyin at Mount Putuo to be worshiped. Fortunately, Guanyin came. That is why we have "Guanyin Transformation" to be on display at A.R.T. Lee Sun-Don said that the metal used on the sculpture is the scrap stainless steel from the making of Guanyin statues. For the factory, those are scrap. For us, those are really Guanyin incarnations. A.R.T. attracts famous artists Sculpture is the focus of attention "Wow, ART is getting more and more international." said a guest who participated in the preview of the Art Revolution Taipei. This year a total of 360 artists from 63 countries around the world participate the exhibition. Even works from North Korea are also on display. In addition, there are four exhibitors who once participated in the Venice Biennale on behalf of their own country, and a number of artists who have won important awards, being a real artist star studded event. Together with Lee Sun-Don, a total of five artists ever participated in the Venice Biennale. Interestingly, sculpture is the focus of their exhibition. Of the five artists are Italian Mirella Guasti and Ivan Lardschneider, and Egyptian Khaled Zaki who all brought sculpture works, mainly bronze. Zaki's female sculptures often bear the expression of perseverance, which are quite different from her other works of self-expression or sweetness. "This year's sculpture is worth seeing." X-Power Gallery's Manager T.T. Tung said that it is not just about the artists who represented their own country to exhibit in the Venice Biennale. He pointed to a Ukrainian Igor Grechanyk's works "scorpion" in the preview for us to touch. "You can really feel that hard joints of the scorpion." Igor Grechanyk has won the National Olympic Medal. British Louise Giblin also exhibits his famous human armor sculpture. During the 2012 Olympic Games in the UK, he worked with five prominent Olympic athletes to make the Olympic series of five hollow armor sculptures according to their stature, which was the origin of his human armor works. In 2015, he won the Italy's Florence Biennale International Sculpture Award. Italian Carlo Alberto Palumbo is a classical realist painter, and worked hard especially on the study of human body. His works on display are portrait works. He was one of the five Venetian Biennale exhibitors, who participated in the 54th year. In 2011, he was selected by the Italian Art Institute as one of the most outstanding artists in the decade. The countries included in the new southern policy also participate in the exhibition. You can see works from Myanmar, Vietnam, India. There is a work of a group of cattle from India, that the investors must be very happy to view. "It is really cattle." (a Chinese slang used to describe someone or something wonderful.) A person who looks at the painting got the humor and smiled. This year you can also see works from North Korea. A volunteer said: "It must never occur to you that North Korea's works are very sunny, and most of the paintings are landscape, giving a happy, peaceful feeling." North Korean painters are divided into six Levels. This time came two first level painters. Group creation sets the trend This year's Art Revolution Taipei is blowing the group creation style, domestically and internationally; however, the pricing strategy is completely the opposite. The foreign pricing is that one plus one is greater than two while the domestic pricing is less than two. Loes van Delft of the Netherlands and the British Sara Sammakia both love cartoon characters. The former also created the cartoon character Pjipje. The latter created a sold-out record in her first time participating in the Art Basel-Miami in 2015, being an emerging artist star in the art world. Both have their own individual works and also collaborated works on display. Take the size 50 for example. Loes van Delft's work is 124,000 yuan, Sara Sammakia's is 200,000 yuan, their collaborated works is 240,000 yuan. The group creation has a price higher than their own individual works. Sergey and Olga Kamemnoy are husband and wife team. Known as KAMU for their collaborated works, they once won the Moscow's Kandinsky Award. One is responsible for composition, and the other is responsible for coloring. This is also a group creation team. Ma Sing Ling is a well-known trio artist group - MANIHOO, Singway and Ling Ling, with Luna Chen this year, together creating "The Myriad Sublimity" series. Singway introduced the works in the preview and said that the three thousand dots of the works were painted by Luna one by one. These dots represent all the beings, and also the Buddha light manifesting from the Buddha nature. "Luna's works are more dreamy, filled with happiness. Having Luna in the group, the works are also infused with some romantic atmosphere." Ma Sing Ling's works are priced at about 5,000 yuan per unit, Luna's at about 2,000 yuan, "The Myriad Sublimity" is priced at only 3,000 yuan per unit. In the foreign practice, the collaborated works usually have a price higher than the highest price of the artists. Otherwise, who would want to cooperate? "Our pricing is intended to help new artists," Singway said. Coincidentally, Lee Sun-Don's Fortune Girl, with Luna Chen's owl, also has this "Help-New-Artist" pricing. Lee Sun-Don is on average priced at 20,000 per unit, while the collaborated work "Fortune Girl" series is priced at only 4,000 yuan per unit. Lee Sun-Don, with Ma Sing Ling, and Luna Chen, totaling five artists in the creation group, taking the price of Ma Sing Ling, is priced at 5,000 yuan each unit. (2017/04/10 Economic Daily News) @http://udn.com/ |
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