Non-CAS Event
Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Schlessman Hall, North Building, Denver Art Museum
Ticket information here
Join us as Dr Peter Sharrock of London University explores the history of Ganesha, the great, cultivated, elephant-headed Hindu god capable of solving all problems, long loved by merchants, scholars and writers, and worshipped before all major undertakings as the lord who removes snags and encumbrances. Literate and blessed with the high intelligence of elephants, he has a rounded paunch, a broken tusk and his vehicle is a cunning rat. In medieval Southeast Asia, he received a fond royal welcome among the Buddhist Cambodian and the Cham peoples who both venerated this benevolent form of Shiva ‘Badhreshvara’ at the vast forest temple complex of Koh Ker, and in 12th century Angkor Wat.
Dr Peter D. Sharrock teaches the art history of the Angkorian Khmer Empire and the Esoteric Buddhist and Hindu art of maritime Asia from 800 to 1400 CE at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His passion for the art of Indochina and Southeast Asia was behind his signing up as Reuters’ chief correspondent during the American war in Indochina. Only in the 1990s, after the fall of Pol Pot and after Vietnam’s ‘open-door’ policy made Vietnam again accessible to the world, could scholars and tourists access the great temple complexes of Cambodia. He now teaches in the History of Art and Archaeology Department of the School and is a member of the SOAS Academic Art Programme (SAAAP) that oversees the implementation of a $30 million donation from the Alphawood Foundation in Chicago to enhance teaching and research in Southeast Asian art. The Programme provides student scholarships and builds bridges to the universities, museums and heritage institutions focused on conserving the rich art heritage of the region.