A Buddhist order brings its founder’s art exhibition to U.S.

 

Cultural News, June 2008

 

 

Shinjo Ito, founder of the Shinnyo-en Buddhist Order, worked on the Great Parinirvana stature in 1957 (Photo courtesy of Shinnyo-en)   

 

     The Tokyo-based Shinnyo-en (Borderless Garden of Truth) Buddhist order, one of Japan’s most active religious sects with nearly one million followers, has brought the art exhibition of its founder, Shinjo Ito, to Westwood where it is running until June 29.  Shinnyo-en became headlines recently when the religious organization purchased an 800-year-old cypress wood sculpture of Dainichi Nyorai at an auction at Christie’s in New York City in March for $13 million.

 

    “Centennial Exhibition: The Vision and Art of Shinjo Ito” is currently on exhibit at the Westwood Art Forum, 1028 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024. Admission is free. Gallery hours: Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Two-hour free parking is available at 1036 Broxton Avenue between Kinross Avenue and Weyburn Avenue.

 

    The Centennial Exhibition was first unveiled as “Eyes and Hands of Shinjo Ito” in Japan and visited five cities throughout 2006 and 2007, receiving over 300,000 visitors during its brief 54-day run.

 

    A three-floor art galley, the Westwood Art Forum houses over one hundred pieces of Shinjo Ito’s works including sculptures, engravings, calligraphy and photography. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the 16-foot-long “Great Parinirvana” statue depicting the reclining Buddha, who has raised himself to his followers on one arm in the moment before his death and entry into final Nirvana. He completed this sculpture in 1957 in only three months.

 

    Shinjo Ito was born in 1906 to a Soto Zen family in Yanamashi prefecture in Japan and died at the age of 83 in 1989.  He had inherited a family secret divination from his father and became known as a healer, attracting a few hundred people during his twenties. He formed a congregation under a Shingon Buddhist linage at the age of 30 in 1936 after leaving an engineering job at an airplane manufacturing company. Then he started his monastic training under the Daigoji School of Shingon in Kyoto. He became a great acharya (religious master) at the age of 37 in 1943. Shinjo Ito formed Makoto Kyodan (True Order) in 1948 and changed the name to Shinnyo-en in 1951.

 

     Many of Shinjo Ito’s Nirvana statues have been enshrined in Shinnyo-en temples and traditional Japanese religious sites, as well as religious and scholarly institutions worldwide.

 

    Shinjo Ito was also an accomplished photographer and calligrapher. He studied modern and classical techniques and his oeuvre grew to include numerous religious sculptures and a body of personal work that includes busts of those dear to him.  

 

   The Los Angeles exhibition is part of a world tour which started in New York, at Milk Gallery in the Chelsea gallery district from Feb. 21- Mar. 30. The Westwood exhibition began on May 8 after the Chicago exhibition was held from April 8-May 1. The exhibition will travel to Milan, Italy in August and Florence in November.

 

   For more information, visit www.shinjoito.com.