#4 from SE Asia — the Sala Kaew Ku sculpture garden

I had previously heard of this sculpture exhibit. People said that I had to see it, so I did.

Luang Pu, a Laotian national, had a mystical vision as a young man where he, like Alice in Wonderland, stumbled into a hole and visited an enchanted world. He later fled Laos after the Pathet Communist takeover in 1975 to Thailand. In Thailand, he already had a large following. There he built his vision of his mystical world with a number of untrained artists. It is a combination of Hindu and Buddhist images with a complete Salvadore Dali twist of bizarreness. The artists themselves are in poses with Buddha, Krishna, Vishnu, at varying ages in the artists’ lives. Luang Pu’s body lies embalmed under a glass plate, surrounded by blinking lights. His media is mostly concrete, with wood and brass.

This is unlike anything I have ever seen. I have no reference points to anything else. This man was obsessed, and obviously, very charismatic to have drawn so many other people to volunteer to create his vision.

These sculptures are LARGE. Some are over 25 meters high. There are many of them, and they demand your attention. This sculpture garden is a tribute to the power of a man’s obsession. It could never have been built without it. Walking thru it, you will be overwhelmed at the scale, detail, and originality of the work.