The Mogao Caves, set near the ancient Silk Road city of Dunhuang, are an oasis of Buddhist art that evolved over many centuries. As professor and theater director BLAZINGPeter Sellars embarks on his most ambitious project to date—a ten-year study in and BEACON of Dunhuang—he returns to themes that have animated his long and storied career:

124 that ideas and practices are shared across geographies and time, and that the art of performance can best reveal these living traditions. In the following text, Sellars tells BLAZING BEACONThomas Francis about his long-standing fascination with the Mogao Caves and his desire to bring the experience of the caves to a wider audience.

125 HOMAS FRANCIS How did you first learn about Dunhuang, and what was inspir- ing about it at the time? PETER SELLARS Well, for twenty-five years I’ve been completely obsessed with one of the first Mahayana Buddhist texts, the Vimalakrti Sutra, which prob- ably dates in its worldly form from the first centurya.d . It’s the first of a new brand of sutras that was followed by the Lotus Sutra, the Flower Ornament Sutra, and the Amitabha Sutra, which are about getting Buddhism out of the monastery, out of the intellectual sur - round of pure mind theory, and moving it into a public space where a nonliterate audience can en- ter the highest levels of practice. The strategies are amazing, in the Lotus Sutra they almost read like supermarket giveaways—everything is like, “No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, you’re already a Buddha.” That’s extremely differ- ent from the long, complex, straight-and-narrow path of the earlier texts. The Vimalak rti Sutra is quite entertaining. Like most of the sutras it’s in dialogue form: every time there’s a sutra it’s because Buddha has gath- ered a bunch of people to teach them something, or a bunch of people have gathered to ask him to teach them something. In fact one of my favorite parts of every Buddhist sutra is chapter 1, because it’s ten pages of guest list. Every time Buddha speaks, everybody is there, and they’re from all the worlds: animal worlds, spirit worlds, human worlds, gods and demigods—everybody is assembled. That for me is one of the most moving things: understand- ing that wherever you are, all the people you ad- mire are present—Martin Luther King is standing right next to you. If you have one beautiful, posi- tive, inspired thought, if your mind is directed pos- disciples are freaked out—they all say, “Get away, Previous spread: The Nine Story Temple The Mogao Caves. Photo by at Mogao, a unesco World itively and you’re focused on doing something of woman unclean, horrifying, stay back.” She’s in a Mick Roessler Heritages site in northwest benefit to other human beings, you’re not alone. very good mood, high hilarity, and she exchanges China, with sand dunes on the plateau above the cliff. In chapter 2, Buddha tells his disciples that bodies with S riputra. The switch is a great the - Photo View Stock/Alamy there’s a businessman, Vimalak rti, who is sick, but atrical moment, a kind of virtuosic and thrilling Stock Photo they can learn a lot from him because he’s very theater trick, and profound at the same time. Opposite: wise, so they should go visit him and offer him S riputra is freaked out now that he’s in a woman’s The Mogao Caves can be comfort. The disciples refuse to go; they’re of - body, so she says to him, “Still feeling unclean?” seen from a distance. Carved into the cliff face, the site fended by this guy Vimalak r ti. It’s ver y mov ing: if [laughter]. sits along the Daquan River you’re serious about Buddhism you renounce the TF Bait and switch. and is surrounded by desert. Photo View Stock/Alamy PS world and devote yourself to spiritual practice, so As far as I know, it’s the first statement in all Stock Photo the idea that this guy is both a businessman and of world literature about the equality of women. I has spiritual teachings to offer the disciples is a don’t know of anything else before the first cen- stunning reversal. Finally Buddha says “Just go.” tury that just lays it out with that kind of vividness So they arrive, but their heads are too big to fit into [laughs]. Then a few chapters later it’s five minutes Vimalak rti’s house, so one of the first miracles is to noon and S riputra panics, he says, “Oh my god, performed to reconfigure the architecture so that we’re going to miss lunch,” because as a Buddhist the disciples can all fit inside [laughs]. Then they’re monk you have to go out begging for food and eat all sitting down, but they need to sit on lion thrones, by noon, and then you’re not allowed to eat for the so lion thrones are flown in from some other galaxy rest of the day. So they’re going to miss lunch and [laughs]. Then Vimalak rti is lying on his sickbed, S riputra is freaked out. Vimalak rti says, “Dear the disciples are sitting on the other side of the S riputra, have you come here for spiritual teach- room, and finally Buddha’s most famous disciple, ing or for lunch?” There’s lots of comedy in it. S riputra, breaks the ice and says, “Okay, if So Vimalak rti sends for takeout, a billion you’re so holy, how come you’re sick all the time?” galaxies away, where there are these beings who Vimalak rti’s answer is astounding: he says that live only on perfume. It’s an entire world of per - all human beings carry with them so much pain— fume and magical fragrance. The perfume people acknowledged and unacknowledged, spoken and travel a billion galaxies to Earth in less than a sec- unspoken—that the only way he can hear what ond, they arrive with takeout, and everybody is they’re trying to say is to be in more pain than they given the perfume feast. It’s the best meal they’ve are. He can listen through pain to recognize what ever had. Then the perfume people start sniffing people are going through; his sickness is his Bud- around. They notice that everything on Earth is dhist practice. dirty and smells bad, and they say, “How can you TF So the room is silent. people live here?” So Vimalak rti does this amazing PS Right. Then in the next chapter, a goddess teaching where he explains to the perfume people is floating around in the rafters of the newly en- that they live in their sublime gated communities larged room and she decides to drop in. Buddha’s of perfection, but here on Earth people have to deal

126 with bad smells, dirt, inadequacy, anger, and there- the edge of a river about twenty miles outside Dun- fore they have to learn to practice compassion and huang. This was around the fourth century a.d. understanding and wisdom and love. In this way Interestingly there’s a tradition of Buddhist life on Earth is actually superior to places where rock-cut temples in the same formation in India, life is easier. in the Ajanta Caves in a cliff above a river bend. Anyway, the whole sutra has these amazing There the rock was such that you could carve into reversals, these miracles, this unexpected humor. it, so there are these amazing Buddhist sculptures YOU COME The high goes low, the low goes high. I’ve always emerging from the rock. The sculptors could not wanted to stage it. For twenty-five years I’ve been make a mistake, because they couldn’t put back collecting books with images of the Vimalak rti the rock that they’d just chiseled out. There was a ACROSS THE Sutra, and most of them turn out to be, of course, tradition of three prayers to every chisel stroke, be- in the Dunhuang caves. I was assembling an entire cause they had to be totally concentrated; so their shelf of books without ever quite putting it together car v ing was a spiritual practice. In Dunhuang, far- DESERT WHERE that all roads lead to Dunhuang [laughs]. ther along the route, the rock is crumbling, it has The Getty Conservation Institute in Los An- no substance, so they couldn’t carve, they had to geles has been work ing w ith the Dunhuang Acad- paint. They’d carve out caves, plaster them, then emy on the protection and preservation of the caves paint on the plaster surface. THERE’S NO for twenty-seven years. In the summer of 2016, the This was China’s westernmost frontier, and Institute and the Academy, together with the Getty it was a very violent time; the area was quite con- Research Institute, mounted a stunning exhibition: tested. Tibet ruled Dunhuang for a period in the COLOR, ONLY Cave Temples of Dunhuang. As the exhibition was eighth and ninth centuries. And the caves reflect taking shape, I was able to be part of a series of en- all of this in an interesting way. The interiors of counters with the curators and was invited to im- the caves were carved out and plastered as if they ag ine some of the ancillar y prog rams. T his was the were textiles—the walls are deliberately supple, SCORCHING SAND first moment when it occurred to me that I could they have a little bit of curve to them, and textile actually visit Dunhuang—that it was a real place, patterns are painted all over them, so you’re sur- not just a shelf of books, and I began planning my rounded by wall hangings, tassels, and banners. OR VOLCANIC own projects. When you enter a cave it feels like you’re going into TF Tell me the history of the Mogao Caves in a tent. In the middle there are four ceiling pieces Dunhuang. that go up to a point, and always in the center you ASH, AND PS The history of the caves lies in their geogra- see Buddhism’s seven heavens going up. It’s bi - phy. For many centuries, anybody going in or out zarre—you come across the desert where there’s of China—from or to India, Iran, Greece—had to no color, only scorching sand or volcanic ash, and go over what’s now called the Silk Road. And the suddenly you enter this cool dark place of magical SUDDENLY YOU whole world was being invited to China, particu- color. Ever y surface is painted w ith astonishing im- larly during the Tang Dynasty, because it wanted ages and fields of color. the best of everything, whether it was spices or TF How many of these caves are there? ENTER THIS COOL fruits or slaves or lapis lazuli or horses. Buddhism PS About 500. You can’t generalize about them, was one of those things. People in China recog - either, because they represent hundreds of years of nized that there was something in India—some- the evolution of Buddhist iconography. In the early DARK PLACE OF thing outside of their culture—that they needed. phase of Buddhism, as in the Hebrew and Islamic The arrival of Buddhism, which happened over traditions, it was forbidden to show an image of several centuries, came over the Silk Road. You Buddha, so Buddha is represented as a tree, a wheel, have this path that goes between two deserts, the or a pillar. Later we get an anthropomorphic image MAGICAL COLOR. Taklamakan Desert and the Gobi Desert, with, of Buddha that comes to China by way of Greece Peter Sellars in the middle, an oasis town, Dunhuang. It was through what is now Afghanistan, is transformed a treacherous path because the desert dunes in Gandhara and Indian art, and then takes a Chi- gods of lightning, and also the god who introduced are shifting all the time. Entire caravans were nese form, and you can watch this morph ethni- architecture to China. So there’s an amazing sim- just erased. cally and culturally across the centuries in the ultaneity of interlocking cosmologies, where all of TF Was Dunhuang ever threatened by that? Dunhuang caves. Some of the earlier caves have these traditions are present simultaneously in the PS The dunes are right on the edge of Dun - fantastic examples of Buddha sitting with a kind same cave, and are not at war but are mutually sup- huang, and that’s actually part of the story. Once of amazing Jimi Hendrix psychedelic nimbus of porting. That is so moving to think about at this people made it through the Taklamakan Desert flames of inspiration in fourteen colors, and next moment in histor y right now, to see multiple tradi- they’d want to offer a prayer before going through to Buddha are Shiva and Ganesh, and on the other tions that aren’t canceling each other out but deep- the Gobi desert, which is a little less friendly be - side is Brahma, and above them is the Goddess ening each other. cause it’s volcanic ash, so it’s gray and austere and of the East bringing the sun with her in a chariot TF How are the caves generally laid out? quite terrifying. So for the offering of those prayers, drawn by geese, and above them are all these Chi- PS In most of them you enter through a central there began to be a carving of caves in a cliff face at nese weather gods, gods of thunder, gods of rain, portal. Typically there was a first vestibule room and then a deeper chamber, but because of centu- ries of crumbling and earthquakes, most of the ves- tibules have fallen off and only the deeper cham- bers remain. But what’s very powerful is how it’s a totally immersive installation work—the ceiling is alive, the side walls are alive, the wall in front of you is alive, and the wall behind you is alive. You’re in a 360-degree experience of an expanding mind. The walls all illustrate Buddhist sutras or stories of Buddha’s previous lives. Reading them you’re overwhelmed, every wall is packed with layers of information—gods, goddesses, divine beings, mor- tal beings, beings in transformation. Scholars still haven’t decided what these caves were used for. I think they were used for per- formance, to gather people for sutra readings and

127 and prophets along the way. There’s a particularly exquisite fifteenth-century Timurid manuscript of this myth, held in the Bibliothèque nationale, that’s apparently heavily inspired by the Dun - huang murals. PS Yes, the idea of the wisdom that comes from journey ing, from mov ing your body through a pil- grimage, through geographies, through cultures— that is the power of the caves. I want to create a modern response to them, a series of discrete but linked art projects involving collaborations be- tween filmmakers and poets, dancers and sculp- tors, installation artists and musicians. They’d be about multiple art forms and cultures, cultural po- sitions in dialogue. TF Only composite art forms could properly re- spond to this composite civilization. PS Exactly. One of the most important things we’ve been talking about with our Chinese part- ners is that our interest in Dunhuang is our interest in Los Angeles—what we’re interested in is art on the Western frontier. We’re interested in a city that is an immigration capital, and in the flow-through of different peoples. Los Angeles is actually a great way to think about Dunhuang and Dunhuang is a great way to think about Los Angeles. The caves at Dunhuang are fragile and remote. To create a body of work that isn’t situated in the caves any- more but that is able to move itself across the world, to be seen in a range of cultural capitals or in ex- tremely remote locations—that’s very exciting. The idea is t hat t his project is ten years of commissioned work by teams of ar tists from A frica and from Rus- sia and from China and from Peru. It’s a conversa- tion about no fixed points, but rather about what kinds of dialogue are possible between art forms and cultural vantages. The Dunhuang caves are a unesco World Heritage Site, you can’t meditate in them. You have a security guard who looks at your little slip of pa- per and then goes and unlocks the padlock on the metal doors that cover the cave, and then you have fifteen minutes. The caves are cold and sandy and don’t have lovely textiles, incense, or meditation cushions [laughs]. You’re not invited to spend three days reciting a sutra [laughs]. TF So ever y t hing has to be transposed elsewhere, chanting. As in any liturgical religious practice, Wall painting in Cave 285 Opposite: because that’s where those conditions obtain. (detail). Mogao Caves, Reclining Buddha in you’re repeating something hundreds of times in Dunhuang, China. Photo by Cave 148, Mogao Caves, PS Exactly. W hen you’re in Dunhuang you have order to deepen your perception of reality. Zhang Peng/Contributor Dunhuang. Photo by Sura Ark to imagine, “What would the sensory experience In Cave 85, when you turn to go back out have been?” Because the caves must be protected, into the world—this blazing hot sun—the wall that’s you can’t imagine those possibilities there now, so been behind you as you’ve been looking at Buddha, you need to create other places that begin to re - depicts Vimalak rti and Manjushri, who engaged in spond to what they might have been, and also to a famous debate about how you can best represent now. It’s a way of creating a body of work that is perfect Buddhist realization. The imagery in forward looking and that has some spiritual im- Dunhuang is incredible: Vimalakr ti and Manjushri manence and challenge to it. are in a pavilion in a garden. The debate reaches So the attempt is to try, every May and De - this incredible moment where they’re going back cember, to take a trip with twenty-five to thirty art- and forth, and Manjushri finally says, “So how ists and historians to experience the caves—ideally could you describe perfect realization?” Famously, a really interesting group of people, all of whom Vimalak rti is silent. . . . And then Manjushri says, will see radically different things and have very “Oh my god, you’ve won the debate. Silence is the different experiences from each other in the caves. I only correct description” [laughs]. So when you just returned from the first of these trips and I have leave this spiritual cave to go back into the world, to say the discussions were just thrilling, because the door you walk through is the silence between being in the caves with people this rich in percep- Vimalak rti and Manjushri. Then you step back into tions and backgrounds is quite astonishing. You the sun, sand, and desert. get new insights that you can’t get from ar t-histori- TF We were discussing earlier this idea of cal literature. That literature is absolutely involved discovery through journey in the context of the with answering important questions, but the caves Isra or Night Journey, one of the Islamic revela - are asking larger questions. First of all, they’re ask- tion miracles, in which the Prophet travels in the ing for knowledge of the Buddhist sutras, and that’s space of one night from Mecca to Jerusalem, and very powerful. When you walk into a cave know- thereon through many heavens, meeting angels ing an actual sutra, the cave speaks back to you,

128 and the sutra takes astonishing new forms. TF How did the Getty’s exhibition treat the caves?. TF Will it always be the same protagonists? PS The Getty did something quite amazing. PS No, ever y trip w ill be dif ferent people. We’re What’s powerful is its sense of the way in which all being challenged by the incomprehensible, the this material has to be reexperienced. A gener - transcendent, the beyond, the world of what the ation of Chinese artists went to the caves in the Vimalak rti Sutra calls inconceivability. That’s a 1940s and started to preserve them. They had dif- really thrilling place to be with a bunch of artists. ferent ideas of preservation than we do now, and THE CEILING IS TF Will Dunhuang be your major preoccupa- some of the overpainting and other things they did tion? How do you see it bearing on the other work had to be undone, but one of their most powerful you’re doing in Europe and in the West? ideas was to make replica caves. They recognized ALIVE, THE SIDE PS I’ve got to clear my schedule and make ten that the caves are fragile and should not have visi- years of effort focused on a concentrated set of pro- tors, should not be disturbed. So what they started jects. I want to make it a series that could one day doing—and they’re still doing this in Dunhuang WALLS ARE be assembled in some contiguous way, but for now eight y years later—is creating replica caves that you they all have to be considered and financed and can see in their museum. The replica caves have log istically ar rived at as separate units. Maybe one no time limits on your stay. Your presence, your day in the future they could actually be joined to- breathing, isn’t loosening the paint. There’s a full ALIVE, THE WALL gether to create one epic picture. program of students from the leading arts institu- TF Do you have any preconceived ideas of what tions in China who come for residencies to work you’re looking for? Any parameters? on painting replica caves. There are artists in res- IN FRONT OF YOU PS I don’t want to say there’s a protocol or proce- idence—some of them have been there for thirty dure, but maybe the projects do inform each other, years—who are in charge of the initiative to create and maybe that turns into some kind of dialogue. more replica caves. T here are three caves right now The artists are all so different from each other, and in London at Prince Charles’s School of Traditional IS ALIVE, AND THE what’s so cool about artists is that they will always Arts, and three caves came to the Getty. do something you didn’t expect—that’s one of the It’s very moving for me to watch the students most thrilling parts of working with artists. We’re painting. Every inch of these caves has been doc- WALL BEHIND YOU taking a big step into particularly unknown terri- umented digitally but the digital documents have tory and it’s an unlimited field. That’s a very excit- no qi, no spiritual energy, they don’t breathe. These ing space of political possibility, of spiritual possi- young artists use those images but work freehand, IS ALIVE. bility, of cultural possibility. using a br ush, mixing the paint, and mak ing a ges- TF You say you’re going to invite dancers, per- ture that is both very careful and precise but also Peter Sellars formance ar tists, v isual ar tists, musicians, and ac- free and genuine. Again, the process of making ademics. Do you see merit in bringing practicing the caves was not a construction project, it was a they’re well lit, and that you can spend hours and Buddhists to Dunhuang? spiritual practice. I have rather controversially an- hours in them. T hey’re much more welcoming. But PS That’s very important. Every group will in- nounced that I preferred the replica caves to the I also love that people in our lifetime have engaged clude practicing Buddhists. That’s made more com- originals, because the replica caves involve young in the practice. That’s very beautiful. plex by the fact of diminished practice of Buddhist people engaging in Buddhist practice right now. TF That’s a common tension in archaeological traditions in China for many years, so Buddhist art Buddhist practice has to be new every day, it has and historic-preservation circles. There’s a cult of isn’t immediate for most people who have grown to be renewed at every moment. You can’t just say, authenticity. up in China. It’s also not the primar y focus of most “Oh, these people in the fifth century did some - PS Right. Western art distrusts copies, and of art-historical writing. We need to make sure that thing beautif ul.” T hey have set the bar for you, and course in Asian culture the copy is the point. A every group includes practicing Buddhists who un- now you have to meet them at their level. copy isn’t less valuable. We’re so sure that there’s derstand what the caves represent as a ritual, not So I love the replica caves. I love that they’re this one moment of authenticity and everything just as something you read but as something you clean, I love that they’re not dusty, I love that you else is the machine, mechanical reproduction. In have to internalize in your body. can see really clearly what’s going on in them, fact, mechanical reproduction is one thing but re- production by human beings is another. Even me- chanical reproduction—when the subject matter is infinity, how can you have too many images? TF Right. There’s this presupposition that people are struck by moments of divine inspiration, like the angel of history flashing up. PS Jesus, Muhammad, and Moses were not just speak ing to their own personal friends. T hey were speaking across all of history. These are spiritual traditions that exist outside of time. Our history is about dating something cor rectly, whereas the tra- dition itself is inviting you to experience time at a completely different level. TF How do you think these caves can relate to people today? PS Oh, they strike me as deeply exciting in terms of where we all are in the world right now, with all cultures on the move, with everything in conversa- tion with ever ything else, with no purity available in any direction, and with all of our vocabularies morphing and trying to be more inclusive, trying to recognize what someone else is say ing, tr y ing to represent people who are not like you in your pain. And you’re doing it because you’re in their paint- ing and they’re in your painting, because you’re in each other’s lives. And because culture cannot be considered as a fixed point, but has to be consid- ered as an open, evolving reality.

129 CAVE CONSERVATION Dr. Neville Agnew, Senior Principal Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, speaks with Shannon Cannizzaro about the future of the Mogao Caves and the specific conservation challenges they face.

130 Shannon Cannizzaro: You have personal ly led t he par t nership bet ween t he Get t y Conser vat ion I nst it ute [GCI ] and t he Dunhuang Academy in China since 1989. Can you tal k us t hrough t he var ious stages of t he Mogao Caves projec t over t hat nearly t hir t y-year per iod? Dr. Neville Agnew: It’s had many facets in that time. In the initial five years, the GCI and the Academy were focused on immediate issues out- side the grottoes. The most impor- tant was that a tremendous amount of sand had blown from the dunes over the top of the cliff and was bury- ing the entrances to the caves. The site was abandoned for centuries, from the Ming to the middle of the Qing dynasty, and there are frequent sandstorms in that area; during that time the sand buried the entrances of many caves. Thousands of cubic me- ters of sand had to be cleared away. We also had to examine the geo- log ical stabilit y of the clif f face, which is very soft rock, full of cracks. We began monitoring the cracks, some of which were opening due to earth- quakes, which are a huge problem in that part of China. The cliff face and many of the caves are very suscep- tible to earthquakes. And we moni- tored and researched the color sta- bility of the pigments in the wall paintings, studying how they aged under the influence of visitors and lights, and of the salts that come out of the rock into the clay paintings and destroy them. This is one of the big issues at the Mogao Caves. That period culminated in 1993, when we held the international con- ference “Conservation of Ancient Sites along the Silk Road.” After the conference we also began studying Cave 85, which I will discuss in more detail later. Simultaneously, we worked with the Dunhuang Academy and others to develop a set of national princi- ples, which we call the China Prin- ciples, for conservation and man - agement of heritage sites in China. We think that’s the most important thing we’ve done in China because now there are national guidelines for conservation and management. The principles were issued in both Eng- lish and Chinese, and have been re- v ised and reissued in both lang uages. As you can see, many initiatives were going on at the same time. They were- n’t sequential. While we were studying Cave 85 and compiling the China Principles, we were also establishing a set of guidelines for visitor management. More and more people are ar riv ing at the sites. When we first started, they might have received 50,000 v isitors a year; today it may be more than a mil- lion visitors a year. There can be more than 20,000 visitors on the site at one

131 time. So we embarked on a very de- tailed plan for visitors and issued a book on that. In early 2004, we held the “Sec - ond International Conference on the Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road.” What we’re doing isn’t just technical work; it’s scientific, it’s research and training, it’s analysis. We’re looking at a comprehensive picture of the site. And then last year at the Getty Center we had the ex- hibition Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road . Everything we’ve done has been in collaboration with the Dunhuang Academy and with the full support of both the national authority in Bei- jing and of the provincial authority in Gansu.

W hat are t he key goals of the project? There are multiple goals, but the over- arching goal is to provide support, g uidance, and training in China—and specifically at the Dunhuang Acad- emy, which is responsible for manag- ing the Mogao Caves and other sites— Previous and this spread: old kind, right? The cure needs to be you can see them glinting in the light, Technicians work to to take care of their historical treas- restore the Mogao caves in related to the underlying problem. disrupting the surface. It’s like a can- ures for the future. As such, the way Dunhuang in northwestern Diagnosis is everything. And in the cer affecting the wall paintings. So China’s Gansu province, May we treat the Dunhuang sites serves 2013. Photos by Ed Jones/ case of conser vation, you want to test that’s why we had to understand the as a model for other areas in China AFP/Getty Images your methods before you apply them. salts and the impact of visitors—an and stands as a kind of beacon, if you So testing, research, more testing, di- indirect impact in this case, mainly like, of a successful international col- agnosis. The mantra is to do as little when the outside humidity is high. laboration. Our work in conservation, as possible. From there we can determine what broadly speak ing, which also encom- management interventions to put in passes management, is concerned So you must lear n as much as place as a response. One example is with stabilizing and saving what is possible about the site before to have environmental monitoring to there and trying to slow deterioria- you begin? know when the critical humidity of tion—it’s impossible to stop deteriora- Yes. Of course you do what has to be 67 percent is reached, and then those tion, but we want to slow it down. So done for conservation, but you never caves that are particularly susceptible we’re saving the authentic, stabilizing act in haste. Conservation interven- to salt damage through recr ystalliza- it, and trying to slow deterioration as tion is the last thing you do, not the tion have to be closed to v isitors. Cave much as possible. first. There’s no one universal mate- 85 is an example of this case; terrible rial that’s good for conserving wall salt damage has occurred there. So You’ve al ready spoken of specific paintings. You have to understand you can see how research plays into problems threatening the the problem, and you have to under- the policy and the decision-making caves, including earthquakes, stand the properties of the material that management has to put into place sand accumulat ion, and t he you’re proposing, you have to test for good preservation. influ x of v isitors. Can you tal k them. Flooding has also become a more about specific conservation serious threat to the caves. In the last problems t hat you and your team Have t he goals for t he caves’ five or six years, there have been two faced when you fi rst star ted? conservation evolved over time? or three major floods. Fortunately I understand t hat some early W hat are some of t he fut ure goals they didn’t do much damage to the conservation techniques were for t he site? caves because there’s a big channel less successful t han ot hers. No, I wouldn’t say they’ve evolved outside for the river, and it’s almost When we began the partnership, over time, but they’ve had to adapt to deep enough, but flooding did sweep one of the first problems we encoun- the changing realities there, mainly away the bridges and railings and al- tered was the belief that science was in response to increasing tourism. It’s most got into the caves. This may or conservation and that all conserva- not just a question of crowding, it’s may not be right, but we think it’s a tion was technical conservation, that the impact of visitors on the grotto climate-change-related issue. conser vation was fixing things, stop- environment itself. For example, we ping things from falling apart. Some found that if it rains, as it sometimes I wondered if you and your earlier conservation techniques were does in the summer, the outside hu- team had seen any g row ing in fact harmful in the long run; we midity rises. If the doors to the caves t hreat s to t he caves as a result had to identify these and try to stop are opened and v isitors go in and out, of climate change. them. You need to understand what’s that humidity comes in and is ab- Yes, we think it’s very likely. But we causing deterioration before you can sorbed by the salts in the wall paint- must remember that climate change do anything. You should never go in ings, causing them to dissolve. When is difficult to discern, especially when blindly and concentrate on an adhe- the air dries out a few days later and you’re look ing at what might be normal sive or a treatment, because unless it’s a normal desert environment variability over a short period of time. you understand the causes—I mean, again, those salts recr ystallize. If you Another threat that the Dunhuang a doctor doesn’t give you pills of any shine a strong flashlight on the paint Academy is facing is development

132 in proximity to the site. When we 320 for the Getty’s exhibition? Can Limitations on visitor numbers have time to time. The reason we did this drafted our master plan, we re - you tal k about t he complex it ies of been defined and applied to the one with our Chinese colleagues is quested that a big buffer zone be ap- replicating these caves? caves. that it was really an opportunity to plied around the site. The new exhi- We chose them with the agreement of promote the China Principles on a bition and visitor center is actually the Dunhuang Academy, which was T hat ’s ver y impressive, 20,0 0 0 in wide basis, but actually it’s not our about ten miles away from the site. responsible for their replication. We one day? business to continue running train- Visitors go there first and then they were not directly involved in that as- Yes, per day. This is often in the be - ing courses. get bused to the site. pect, as they have a highly sk illed set ginning of October. They’re enor- In the same way, we’re not going of artists at Dunhuang and a long tra- mous numbers. to do another wall-painting conser- W hat is a day in your life like dition of copying the wall paintings vation project like the one we’ve done on this project? in order to, first of all, study how they W hat are t he nex t immediate steps? for Cave 85. We initiated that project [Laughs] It’s been very variable, were done. That practice also allowed In early September we did a training with the express objective of devel- I must say. When we were work - for alternatives should there be some course with the Dunhuang Acad - oping methods, materials, practices, ing on Cave 85—I should say that I catastrophic loss of some of the caves, emy to help to disseminate the China and policies for conser v ing a site that never did any wall-painting conser- through, for example, earthquake or Principles document. This was a is representative of many other sites vation work myself, I’m not trained flooding: they have copies. And they China-wide training course, not at on the Silk Road. Painted on mud in that—but I would go into the cave can send those copies, replicas, on Mogao but at another cave site, Mai- stuck on rough-cut walls . . . frag - and discuss management issues exhibition elsewhere. You can’t move jishan, also in Gansu Province and ile hand-hewn caves with salt prob- with the wall-painting conservators the actual caves themselves, but you also a World Heritage Site under the lems . . . these are unique character- there, document and record the visi- can send the replica, and that’s what authority of the Dunhuang Academy. istics of those sites in the Gobi Desert tor flow, look at environmental moni- they do. Much of the methodology that we re- and beyond on the Silk Road. And toring data, hold meetings with peo- searched and applied at the Mogao GCI’s concern is less with any one ple from the Dunhuang Academy, de- Was it dif ficult to br ing t hese site is encoded and enshrined in the site than with endeavoring to iden- cide on next actions. Then as a way to replicas to LA for the exhibition? China Principles, which are now go- tify and address the big problems in enhance the collaboration, we would It was enormously complicated ing to be disseminated at Maijishan conservation. Whether it’s technical invite the Dunhuang Academy staff logistically. The replicas had to com- and other sites. conservation, analysis, research, or to come to stay here in LA with us—it ply with safety codes in LA and the management, we really like to have a improved their English, allowed them United States against earthquakes Do you have a lot of t hese long-term impact. Otherwise there’s to see how we work here, and, very and wind. We had thirty technicians training courses? no point in just conserving some - important, it cemented bonds of col- from the Dunhuang Academy come We don’t, actually; this was a spe - thing. It might be fun while you do laboration and friendship. So it was for about six weeks beforehand to put cial one. A nd I should clarif y that the it, but without that larger framework both diplomatic and practical. up the replicas and then come again China Principles isn’t actually our it’s probably going to—you know, just for a month at the end to take them document; we initiated it, we worked go to hell after you’ve gone [laughs]. Why was Cave 85 selected as a case down. It was an amazingly compli- on both versions, but we wanted it to We always make it a priority to try study for GCI’s restoration work? cated process but the exhibition was be a Chinese document. We’ve been to put in place the sustainability W hat was special about t hat cave? a great success. involved in training courses from aspects. During the first five years of our part- We also had a digital reproduc - nership with the Dunhuang Acad- tion of Cave 45, which was an immer- emy, we’d been focused on looking sive experience. You could wear 3D outside the caves, mainly to stabilize glasses and experience a seven-min- their structure and stability. Next we ute video in three dimensions. As needed to look inside them, and that’s such, we had four caves here, three when we chose Cave 85 as a model real replicas and one virtual replica, conservation project for the other in addition to a lot of rich imagery and caves. Remember you don’t conserve loaned material from Dunhuang. first, you conserve last. So the very first thing you do once you’ve cho - Can you discuss t he measures sen the cave is document it. What’s its t hat have been taken to manage condition today? You do that through fut ure v isitors to Dunhuang? As photographs, drawings, and other I understand it , a set of g uidelines techniques. You also look at the his- has been established for t his. tory of the cave, archives relating to T he tourism industr y in China is one the cave, earlier photographs of the of the largest in the world at present, cave. . . . you spend a couple of years and it continues to grow because the amassing information, getting to un- country has such a huge population. derstand your patient. The patient Today, with greater wealth in China, here was Cave 85. Chinese nationals can travel to Dun- It’s a spectacularly beautiful cave. huang by car, train, or plane. We’ve It had the scale, it had the beauty, it done work to establish capacity: also had much of the original work. we know that the caves can handle A great deal was known about it. Its about 3,000 people a day easily and date of construction was known. The safely and without impact on them. ninth-century donors who donated With 20,000 people it’s more compli- the money for its construction were cated to manage, with overcrowding known. It’s famous. There are pho- in the peak summer and holiday sea- tographs of it from the early days of sons and bad air quality in many of the twentieth century. Essentially, the caves. To give you a brief over- it’s a spectacular cave with problems view, the China Principles stipulates symptomatic of the site. Those prob- a comprehensive strategy for manag- lems, once solved, could be applied ing visitors and interpreting the site more widely. that would include considerations for a visitor center, methods of enhanc- Were you involved in the ing the visitor experience, and a res- replication of caves 275, 285, and ervation system to reduce crowding.

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