When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that when a death occurs "there is sore havoc made in other people's lives, a pin [is] knocked out by which many subsidiary friendships hung together," perhaps he was describing a particularly Western tragedy. In Buddhism, death is viewed differently. The relationship with the deceased does not abruptly end; it is merely transformed.
There is an exceptional example of this mind-set at the Ginza Art Space, a show which is part of a unique series. No pin was knocked out of the friendship of Kazuhiko Satani, one of Japan's most influential postwar international art dealers, and the art critic and poet Shuzo Takiguchi, after Takiguchi died. If anything, the friendship became stronger.
Satani met Takiguchi 10 years before his death and will never forget the influence Takiguchi had on his life and the Japanese art world. Every July since Takiguchi's death 20 years ago, Satani has organized an exhibition "to keep his memory alive."
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