An Art Critic and a Painter's Tibet Travels — Book: Five Colors of Lungta and White Khata

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• Text Review 2007-10-31 · Choi Tae-man

  'From Lhasa to Kathmandu' — Tibet's Nature and Culture in Clear, Translucent Color (2007)

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  Text Review 2007-10-31 · Choi Tae-man

  'From Lhasa to Kathmandu' — Tibet's Nature and Culture in Clear, Translucent Color (2007)

  This exhibition, mounted under the title "From Lhasa to Kathmandu," records my memories of traveling through Tibet with Professor Shin Jang-sik in 2005. The idea took shape as we followed the Friendship Highway (友情公路) linking Lhasa and Kathmandu, leaving Tibet and crossing into Nepal: at the Dhulikhel hotel, within view of Qomolangma — better known as Everest — I proposed publishing a travelogue that would include his works, and Professor Shin readily agreed. After we returned, we each set to work; but with my schedule consumed by finishing 〈A Study in the History of Contemporary Korean Sculpture〉, my own essay stalled at little more than refining the brief impressions I had jotted on my laptop during the trip. What is more, though I am no specialist in Tibetan art, my interest in its history and iconography kept growing, and an immoderate, presumptuous wish to study it further put the manuscript off indefinitely. Meanwhile Professor Shin had completed his works and had to wait nearly a year for the writing to be done. Tibet, too, changed in that interval. In July 2006 the Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened, connecting Beijing through Xi'an, Lanzhou, Xining, and Golmud to Lhasa — a 4,064 km route covered in 47 hours. At the time of our trip the railway had not yet opened, so we flew from Beijing to Lhasa via Chengdu on a Chinese domestic flight. With its opening, the number of tourists reaching Tibet has risen so sharply that the refuse of civilization has become a real concern; though only two years have passed, I am keenly curious how the place has changed. Passing through Lhatse (Latse, 拉孜), I also saw road crews paving stretches that had been unpaved, so the main arteries of this snow-bound plateau must by now be largely surfaced.

  Across the Tibetan plateau it is not hard to find lungta — "wind horse" — flags. On passes and plains, stones are heaped up and cloths of five colors tied above them; for Tibetans who live amid harsh conditions, these "wind horses" may be called an expression of hope and salvation. Watching Tibetans make full-body prostrations before the Buddhist temples of historic cities such as Lhasa or Shigatse, one almost feels they live a life beyond time — and the same feeling arises before the lungta. Bearing every kind of wish — from the health and happiness of family and safety on a journey to the protection of the gods and the rebirth of ancestors in paradise — the lungta, set loose on the wind, carry the heart of the Tibetan people. Nor is that all. The six-syllable mantra (a sacred sound or syllable in Buddhist practice) "Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ," carved on the mani stones scattered across the Tibetan landscape, brings home how deeply Tibetan Buddhism is rooted as the spiritual pillar of their lives. Seeing the worn figures of Tibetans prostrating up the steep slopes of the plateau, one comes to believe their hearts must be as pure as that region's translucent sky. Lungta and mani stones surely hold those plain yet honest hearts.

  Professor Shin Jang-sik's work carries a clear, translucent color that calls to mind the dramatic contrasts of the Tibetan plateau — its sky luminous and clear, the perennial Himalayan snows flowing down to water a land of relatively abundant moisture. The color reflects his optimistic temperament well. At the same time, his work keeps the fresh scent of earth from those unpaved roads. In it one finds the fluttering of the primary colors seen on lungta, and a reverence for the lives of Tibetans — plain yet hardy, untouched by civilization. Writing keeps straining to explain; painting shows at once. When explanation runs long, it turns tedious and loses its tension. Beside my own prose, which feels secure only when it winds into long sentences for want of literary mastery, his work is spare and without excess. Because it sets down the memory of a journey, it rests on fact; yet it has the power to let us grasp the nature and culture of Tibet without a word of explanation. His work made real my wish for a book that is not only read but also seen, and for that I am grateful. I hope his work, like the "wind horse," may settle into our hearts as well.

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