Permission Denied for Display of National Treasures at Niigata City Art Museum

On March 9, the Agency for Cultural Affairs decided not to permit the display of the statue of Miroku Bosatsu (National Treasure) from Chūgūji temple and fourteen Important Cultural Properties at the exhibition titled ‘Nara no koji to butsuzō (Old Temples and Buddhist Statues of Nara)’, which had been scheduled to open in April at the Niigata City Art Museum. The reason cited was that, following the occurrence of mold on exhibited works at the museum in July 2009, spiders and insects were detected in February 2010. Consequently, the museum’s director KITAGAWA Fram was replaced, and the exhibition ‘Nara no koji to butsuzō’ was relocated to the Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art. (Japanese)