Lotus Leaves Spring 2018 Volume 20 Number 2
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SOCIETY FOR ASIAN ART Lotus LeavesVolume 20 Number 2 The Melt: Tibetan Contemporary Art Comes of Age by Jeffrey Durham 3 Spr ing 2018 Contemporary Art in an Emerging Asian Megacity: Karachi by John Zarobell 9 About the Society Board of Advisors Directors Mitra Ara, PhD The Society for Asian Art, a 501(c)(3) 2017–2018 nonprofit organization that was incorporated Guitty Azarpay, PhD President in 1958 by a group of enlightened citizens Anne Adams Kahn Terese Bartholomew dedicated to winning Avery Brundage’s Vice President Patricia Berger, PhD magnificent art collection for San Francisco. Maureen Hetzel Sandra Cate, PhD Since that time, we have been an Vice President M.L. Pattaratorn independent support organization for the Peter Sinton Chirapravati, PhD Asian Art Museum-Chong-Moon Lee Center Secretary Kim Codella, PhD for Asian Art and Culture. Trista Berkovitz Robert J. Del Bonta, PhD For sixty years, we have offered a wide Treasurer Renée Dreyfus, PhD Ed Baer range of innovative, high-quality educational Penny Edwards, PhD and cultural programs, along with social Asst. Treasurer Munis D Faruqui, PhD (and culinary) events where participants Vince Fausone Nalini Ghuman, PhD share their knowledge and enthusiasm. Melissa Abbe SAA’s popular, Arts of Asia Lecture Series, Deborah Clearwaters* Robert Goldman, PhD open to all, is the core of the museum’s Sheila Dowell Sally Sutherland Goldman, PhD docent-training curriculum. We sponsor Margaret Edwards foreign and domestic travel, visits to private Kumja Paik Kim, PhD Jennifer Kao art dealers and collections, in-depth study Alma Kunanbaeva, PhD Etsuko Kobata groups, special lectures by leading scholars, Sanjyot Mehendale, PhD Myoung-Ja Kwon literature courses and symposia. Some Mary-Ann Milford- of our programming supports specific Kristl W. Lee Lutzker, PhD exhibitions. Sherlyn Leong John Nelson, PhD Forrest McGill* Benjamin W. Porter, PhD David Menke Stephen Roddy, PhD Howard Moreland Dawn F. Rooney, PhD Greg Potts Donald M. Stadtner, PhD Merrill Randol Richard E. Vinograd, PhD Pamela Royse John Wallace, PhD Ehler Spliedt Julia White Society Nazneen Spliedt Joanna Williams, PhD Lucy Sun John Zarobell, PhD Alice Trinkl for Asian Kalim Winata Sylvia Wong Kasey Yang Carolyn Young Art *ex officio The Melt: LOTUS LEAVES Tibetan Contemporary Art Comes of Age by Jeffrey Durham Tibetan art is perhaps the last of the contemporary philosophical power, and artistic excellence, it is disciplines to achieve widespread recognition difficult to see why this might have been the case. as such; the first high-profile exhibition of even A number of historical and religious considerations, Tibetan traditional art dates only to 1991.1 For however, can help clarify what has led to this state this reason among others, Tibetan contemporary of affairs, and even suggest how contemporary art is also fraught with theoretical difficulties, not Himalayan artists are presently in the process of the least of which involves whether or not it even overcoming them. qualifies as sufficiently ‘contemporary’ to merit a seat at the table. Now given its stunning imagery, At first glance the world of contemporary art and art discourse little resembles the world of traditional Himalayan Buddhist philosophy and art. In a recent exhibition catalog, Michael Sheehy states unequivocally, “Art is not a word in the Tibetan language.”2 In this connection, he observes that the verbal root for “to draw” always implies a divinity that is being drawn. For Sheehy, then, Tibetan art is by its own description essentially religious art. If this is the case, Himalayan art faces substantial obstacles to gaining global recognition as authentic contemporary art, for the interrogation of religious art and its claims to authority is a crucial component of contemporary art historical discourse. Similarly, the notion of personal expression or individual creativity in response to concrete historical circumstances — another key aspect of contemporary art discourse’s emphasis on Cover — Figure 1-1: The Melt by Tsherin Sherpa. Photo the rhetoric of social engagement — might seem copyright Asian Art Museum. Spring 2018 Volume 20 Number 2 Copyright 2018, Society for Asian Art 3 LOTUS LEAVES Figure 1-2: Tsherin Sherpa, Three Protectors of Tibet. Photo copyright Asian Art Museum. absent, or at least occluded, in Himalayan art for historians as it is visceral for artists. How then traditions influenced by Buddhism. This places to effect a rapprochement between Buddhist traditional Tibetan art at loggerheads with what tradition and the global contemporary art world? Tenzing Rigdol identifies as the crux of his work, for “with art, one consoles oneself by consolidating Clear and unequivocal answers are difficult unsettled experiences.”3 to find, and many pioneers in the field seem to have fallen back on what from some perspec- In some ways, Rigdol’s unsettled “consolation” tives might look like a simple juxtaposition of will be the antithesis of traditional Tibetan art, Tibetan Buddhist imagery and elements drawn which follows the precise geometries, colors, from the contemporary world, be they images and configurations specified in Buddhist texts. of its vanity, confusion, mechanization, or com- The artwork created according to canons of modification.4 Brauen makes the same point production understood to reflect timeless realities in more theoretical language: “These artists when properly replicated can be explicitly called frequently integrate Buddhist symbols and imag- a mirror (melong). That mirror reflects the image ery into their compositions, thereby subverting of a deity — enlightened awareness rendered conventional stylistic features and sometimes visible. To alter the mirror or what one sees in it is even conveying a subtext of strong social com- to garble the message. mentary.”5 Under these conditions, what pos- sibilities might exist for developing “a visual Obviously, to claim that Himalayan art traditions language that bridges Tibet’s tradition with its have no place for individual creativity and are evolving modern context?”6 instead unchanging insofar as they are religious would simultaneously caricature religion in Until recently, many art historians would be general and Himalayan art in particular, whether forced to admit that initial attempts to do so have traditional or contemporary. Yet the collision been halting at best, especially given the mani- between the contemporary world and Buddhist fest tendency simply to juxtapose tradition and culture of the Himalayan region is as undeniable modernity. Yet there is a contemporary Himalayan 4 Spring 2018 Volume 20 Number 2 Copyright 2018, Society for Asian Art artist, steeped as deeply in global contemporary same way as had been its traditional custom. art culture as he is master of his chosen medium, LOTUS LEAVES Tibetan thangka painting. Here we have reference A number of Sherpa’s early Mahakala-in- to Tsherin Sherpa, two of whose works are diapers paintings present the deity in static pose, conserved by the Asian Art Museum. as if echoing the geometric repetitions of imagery that often characterize traditional Tibetan thangka Tsherin’s journey from traditional to contempo- paintings. One painting, however, suggests that rary — and back again — has indeed been circu- the static has now become dynamic in Sherpa’s lar, or rather spiral. Trained as a classical thangka practice. Neo-Conqueror is no stiffly posed painter by his father, Sherpa’s initial ambition upon hierarch, but a dynamic figure whose dance is so moving from Nepal to San Francisco was to create powerful it stirs up waves of color, forms warped Buddhist artworks for the American public. During by the faster-than-light movement of Mahakala, this period, he created a number of masterfully- whose name does indeed mean “Great Time.” executed traditional works, but often employed new formats in so doing. The waves of color stirred up by Neo- Conqueror themselves represent the leading Conserved by the Asian Art Museum, the edge of a sea change in Sherpa’s inquiry of painting Three Protectors of Tibet by Tsherin tradition and transformation. Does his tongue-in- Sherpa is the very last one he created. (See Figure cheek Mahakala still contain the essence of the 1-2.) It is executed in classical Himalayan painting Vajrayana traditions of visualization and meditation techniques and deals with a classical subject — a that produced him? Or has the sacred become series of bodhisattvas who together comprise The secular, fundamentally transformed, perhaps even Three Protectors of Tibet. Traditionally, however, distorted, by the 21st century art milieu, whether they would not appear together in this horizontal market or museum? format, but would have appeared individually on thangkas dedicated to each bodhisattva. Even In a quest to explore such questions, Sherpa here, then, we can see the unbreakable protocols created a series of paintings of which the Asian Art of Tibetan painting practice beginning to melt Museum’s recent acquisition, The Melt, is perhaps under his brush. quintessential. (See Figure 1-1 and Cover.) Here, against a shimmering golden background, vibrant Something was happening to the world, but colors unfold from radiant formlessness into form. something was also happening to Sherpa and At one level, this combination of elements manifests his consciousness. As might be expected given visually an important Buddhist philosophical Tibetan Buddhism’s rather violent clash with principle — the unity of form-and-formlessness, modernity, Sherpa’s fixed ideas regarding sacred actual apprehension of which truth leads directly and secular were among his first objects of artistic to enlightenment. scrutiny. Another Tibetan protector, this time the fierce deity Mahakala, or “Great Time,” became At another level, he explores visually the question the subject for his explorations. Mahakala is one of whether or not it is possible for a traditional of Tibetan Buddhism’s most important protectors, image to undergo systematic distortion such that and he often appears with other protectors also it is all but unrecognizable, while still retaining its affiliated on a symbolic level with time and death.