Buddhist imagery on display at MAO Turin: large statues never seen in public exhibited

It opens on October 20, 2022 and will be on view until September 3, 2023 at MAO - Museum of Oriental Art in Turin, Italy, the exhibition Buddha10. Fragments, drifts and refractions of Buddhist visual imagery, curated by Davide Quadrio and Laura Vigo.

The exhibition stems from some questions: what meanings do the ritual objects in MAO’s collections have and how were they used and perceived in their original context? Why and how did they become part of the museum’s holdings, as well as those of other Asian art museums in the European context? And again: what are the problems posed by conservation and restoration, subordinated to changing tastes and techniques over time? What is the relationship between Buddhism and new technologies?

The exhibition project starts from the works in the collections to open broader perspectives related to questions concerning the museum, its collections, and what it means to manage, preserve, and enhance a heritage of Asian art in the Western context.

The MAO’s collections are a heterogeneous corpus consisting of some 2,300 objects from geographically and culturally distant places. The numerically most relevant section is the one dedicated to China, which is mainly composed of works and artifacts related to the ritual worldand linked to thefunerary and religious spheres, including some Buddhist sculptures that have never been shown to the public, which will be exhibited precisely on the occasion of the exhibition.
In the rooms dedicated to temporary exhibitions, more than twenty large Buddhist statues in wood or stone from different periods (from the 5th to the 19th century) from MAO’s collections will be placed side by side with some sculptures, including two stone sculptural heads from the Tang period (618-907 AD) from the Museum of Civilizations in Rome, with which the Museum has established a fruitful collaboration, and an important loan from the E. Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art in Genoa.

The works will be placed in dialogue or contrast with each other, in a dialectical and diachronic relationship intended to open reflections on many themes: the relationship between true and false, between science and religion, the ability of restoration to reveal and conceal, how two types of restoration can profoundly alter two similar works, the role of light in the viewing of works, and much more.

Visitors will also be offered aVR experience of Cave 17 of the Buddhist temples in Tianlongshan, from which some of the works in the exhibition come, to provide further insight into this archaeological site and its artifacts. The 3-D reconstruction was done in collaboration with Chicago University.

Considerations on the restoration and significance of this operation on Asian artistic heritage from a decolonial and non-Western perspective will be conducted in collaboration with the La Venaria Reale Center for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, which, on the occasion of the Buddha10 exhibition, carried out a complex restoration of the works, restoring them to a state of preservation that would allow them to be exhibited to the public. Part of the restoration work will also take place in the exhibition and will be visible to the public, who will be able to witness the delicate process live.

Instead, in the initial part of the exhibition route will find space for a site-specific project created by botanist and scholar Stefano Mancuso, professor at the University of Florence and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, intended for studies on plant behavior, together with artist and designer Andrea Anastasio, a garden of plant compositions that aims to welcome the public and purify the air: visitors will be invited to spend a few minutes in this space before entering the exhibition, to “clean themselves up” and take part in a sort of ritual.

Buddha10 aims to be an open exhibition, constantly evolving; a project that reveals analyses and processes, but does not suggest definitive conclusions: through this exhibition, the museum intends to present itself as a place where the relationship between the object shown and the visitor is perpetually questioned. It is the work itself that constructs complications with respect to its meaning: it is up to the observer to grasp its contradictions, meaning, and deep value.

In the spring, the exhibition will undergo a radical change and, thanks to the intervention of scholars and artists and the replacement of numerous works, the exhibition itinerary will be profoundly renewed: visitors will then be invited to return to the museum several times to discover new works and new insights. To foster this dynamic and cross-cultural approach, the exhibition route will be enriched with works by contemporary artists, who will offer new readings and reflections on museum collections, their perception by the public. Among the artists involved are Lu Yang, Xu Zhen, Wu Chi-Tsung, Charwei Tsai and Zheng Bo, whose works will be an integral part of the exhibition itinerary. In particular, Zheng Bo’s installation Drawing life is also part of the exhibition project The Mountain Touch, which can be visited at the National Mountain Museum from November 5, 2022 to April 2, 2023, while Charwei Tsai’s Ah is one of the three chapters of So will your voice vibrate of Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino, realized with GAM and Palazzo Madama.

The exhibition will be enriched with site-specific projects and musical performances by a number of nationally and internationally active artists.

In addition to the collaboration with the Venaria Reale Restoration Center, the project will benefit from the scientific contributions of experts from different disciplinary fields, including Puay-Peng Ho, Director of the Department of Architecture, Design and Environment, University of Singapore; Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and the College Adjunct Curator, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; Laura Vigo, Curator for Asian Arts and Archaeology, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Professor of Chinese Art, Université de Montréal, Canada; Maria Luisa Giorgi, Curator Museum of Civilizations, Rome; Loretta Paderni, Curator Museum of Civilizations, Rome; You Mi, Professor of Art and Economies, University of Kassel, and Documenta Institute; Francesca Tarocco, Professor of Buddhist Studies and Chinese Religion and Director of The New Institute: Center for Environmental Humanities (NICHE), Ca’ Foscari University, Venice; Filippo Comisi, Adjunct Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History, University of Macerata; Claudia Ramasso, Curator for South Asia and Southeast Asia, MAO Museum of Oriental Art, Turin.

Beginning with Buddha10, MAO begins its commitment to greener exhibition management. In fact, the exhibition takes into account the environmental impact and is made with a view to sustainability: there will be no “disposable” exhibits, only elements designed to be reused in future projects. The exhibition design is by dArk Studio.

On the occasion of the Buddha10 exhibition Chiara Lee & freddie Murphy are offering a series of events that kick off on the evening of the exhibition opening and continue through the summer: not just concerts, but a traveling collective sound ritual officiated by artists from the Asian continent and its diaspora.

For info: www.maotorino.it

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets: Full 10 euros, reduced 8 euros.

Image: Luohan seated in dharmacakramudrā, detail (16th century; wood and lacquer with polychrome, 113 x 68 cm; Fujian) © CCR Photo by SilvanoPupella

Buddhist imagery on display at MAO Turin: large statues never seen in public exhibited

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