Why Buddhist Art?
Amongst artists and experts in the arts, there are different interpretations of art. Some deem art a thing, some deem art a process, and some even think it is a religion.
Amongst Buddhist, there are different interpretations of Buddhism too. Some even deem it not a religion, but a point of view, or a set of philosophy as suggested by a thinker from 2,500 years ago in present day India and Nepal.
Around that time, 500 BCE, there was also Socrates and Pythagoras from present day Greece, Confucius and LaoZi from present day China, and Zarathustra from present day Iranian Plateau.
Contemporary artists and writers, in creating or preparing creative works, often refer to these ancient thinkers, or to more recent, derivative ones. Some refer to thinkers and ideas that are more recent, like Freud, Derrida, Camus, or Spivak, just to name a few. Correspondingly, there are artworks and writings interpreting psychoanalysis, politicism or power structures, existentialism, or the subaltern and cultural identities. In a similar way, creatives can also refer to the Buddha and his ideas.
Just like how a “Feminist Art Journal” may gather art about feminism, this “Buddhist Art Journal” hopes to gather art about Buddhism.
BAM Journal (Buddhist art meditations) is an inquiry on the creative outcomes of artists and writers referring, reflecting, or meditating on Buddhist ideas. A survey of what is available and what is possible... gathered for the rest of us to also reflect and meditate on the works in return.
Here are some examples of connections between Buddhist and contemporary creative practices.
Click on the images or links for more details.
“In my calligraphy, there is ink, tea, breathing, mindfulness and concentration. This is meditation. This is not work. Suppose I write ‘breathe’; I am breathing at the same time. To be alive is a miracle and when you breathe in mindfully, you touch the miracle of being alive.”
Isamu Noguchi, Memorial to Buddha, 1957, Metal, Plaster, Wood
“Am I crazy?" she asked. "I feel like I am sometimes."
"Maybe," he said, rubbing her forehead. "But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing not a bad thing.”
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being
Chun Kyungwoo, The weight of pain, 2013, stone, red sack, participatory art with public
‘Bagyi’ Aung Soe, Untitled (Buddha), from c.1980 to 1990, Ink Drawing.
Paul Gauguin, Buddha from the Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints, 1898-99, Woodcut print, 11 15/16 in x 8 15/16 in (30.4 x 22.8 cm)
Tenzing Rigdol (born Kathmandu 1982). Pin Drop Silence: Eleven-Headed Avalokitesvara, 2013. Ink, pencil, acrylic, and pastel on paper; image: 91 5/8 x 49 1/8 in. (232.7 x 124.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Andrew Cohen, in honor of Tenzing Rigdol and Fabio Rossi, 2013 (2013.627)
Xu Zhen, Eternity-Aphrodite of Knidos, Tang Dynasty Sitting Buddha, 2021 Bronze, steel, paint, concrete 139.76" x 35.83" x 35.83" (355 cm x 91 cm x 91 cm).
The Buddhist Archive of Photography
An initiative of the Buddhist Heritage Project, a community of monks, novices, and laypeople in Luang Prabang founded in 2006 to organize and survey activities in the fields of culture, conservation, education, and research, and to assist Buddhist life in the monasteries.
Odilon Redon, Intelligence Was Mine! I Became the Buddha (L'Intelligence fût à moi! Je devins le Buddha) from The Temptation of Saint Anthony (La Tentation de Saint-Antoine), 1896
Wang Dongling, Heart Sutra in Chaos Script at Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand
In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art, & Social Practice
A major, multi-phase, research and exhibition project that looks at aspects of Modern Buddhism—Buddhism as it is practiced today— and examines its relationship to modern and contemporary art in North America."
John Cornell, Six-Armed Avalokitesvara, early 1990s, paper, wire, wood, wax, and pigments.
Silent Thunder
a group exhibition proposing new possibilities for the shape of Buddhist art through the work of artists Chen Lizhu, Chu Bingchao, Liao Fei, and Shao Yi.
Liao Fei, A Straight Line Extended, 2021, stone, steel plate, concrete base, 290 × 165 × 90 cm.
“Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain't this and that at all?”
“I think it's a lovely hallucination but I love it sorta.”
“The human bones are but vain lines dawdling, the whole universe a blank mold of stars.”
Jack Kerouac,
The Dharma Bums
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