Raheem Thorpe, a Staging actor, talks about Sugimoto's Sea of Buddha and how he feels about being back at the Pulitzer since being part of Staging Old Masters.

by Amy Broadway, Interim PR Coordinator

One of the main goals of Staging workshops is that the actors personally connect with the artworks in Reflections of the Buddha. The company will craft and perform scenes in the spring based on musings about the stars of the exhibition, such as Prince Shotoku, the giant sculpture of a left hand, or perhaps Oscar Munoz's La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny). The works haven't been officially chosen yet, and it will be interesting to see what gets picked.

Several Fridays ago, Agnes Wilcox, the artistic director of Prison Performing Arts and the workshop leader, asked the actors to pair off, peruse the exhibition, and speculate about the images they saw. Afterwards, the exhibition’s curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, led Staging through the galleries, sharing her knowledge of the artistry, cultural history, and meaning behind the works.

In the video above, Raheem Thorpe, a graduate of the Staging Old Masters program, talks about how he and his peers first interpreted Hiroshi Sugimoto's Sea of Buddha and what they learned from Francesca. The last time I saw Raheem, he was working with teaching artist Jenny Murphy in Urban Renewal, part of the Urban Alchemy series of programs Transformation. You can see him interviewed in 2010 here. He's great on camera, and I look forward to seeing him on stage (Staging will perform in the galleries alongside the art).

As a side note, many of you may recall that this is not the first time the Pulitzer has been graced with Sugimoto creations. As we celebrate our tenth year–which officially began in October– we're looking back at past exhibitions and web catalogues. Click here for another blast from the past, a look at our 2006 exhibition Hiroshi Sugimoto: Photographs of Joe.

by Sydney Norton, Curatorial Assistant



Four Mandalas (dkyil‘khor), 18th century; Tibet; thangka; colors on cotton, mounted on silk brocade; 31¾ x 24 in.; The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Bequest of Joseph H. Heil, 74‑36 /16

Our next Frame of Reference is tomorrow at 2pm. Please stop by the Pulitzer to listen to Miao Han, director of the Fo Guang Shan St. Louis Buddhist Center, talk about Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai) in the entrance gallery. The group will then move to the lower gallery to hear Dr. Qing Chang, Asian art professor from University of Missouri St. Louis, share his insights about Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana).

Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a group of stimulating and varied Frame of Reference talks that addressed the theme of healing in Buddhist art. Neuroscientist Ben Kolber connected Green Tārā’s seated pose of royal ease to his own work as a pain researcher. He identified this pose, known in Sanskrit as lalātisana, as a relaxation posture, noting that the experience of pain is markedly less acute among people who meditate. John Mueller, professor of architecture at Washington University, shared his fascination with Monk Ananda’s ever-so-slight smile, noting that a comparable smile can be found on several Buddha and Bodhisattva figures throughout the exhibition. See, for example, Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni) and Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Karunamaya). According to Professor Mueller, the gentle smile conveys the peaceful contentment that enlightened beings experience through nonjudgmental acceptance and appreciation of their surroundings.

My presentation focused on the healing aspects of Four Mandalas, an eighteenth century Tibetan thangka, or portable icon, from central Tibet. A mandala is a diagram used as a guide to meditation. It represents the dynamic relationship between the Buddhist practitioner and the cosmos of the mandala’s central deity. As you move mentally through the various sections of the diagram, your consciousness dissolves and you temporarily become one with the deity’s cosmos.

Positioned at the center of Four Mandalas is Amitāyus, the Buddha of health and longevity. Clad in red, he sits crosslegged in the lotus posture. His hands, which rest on his lap in the dhyāna (meditation) mudra, hold his special emblem, the ambrosia vase. Many Tibetan Buddhists commission images of Amitāyus to gain karmic merit and to assure health and long life for themselves or someone close to them.

You’ll notice that Amitāyus is seated on an elaborate lotus throne which grows directly out of a body of water. The lotus functions as an important symbol in Buddhism and it appears on numerous artworks in this exhibition. Sprouting from the mud, this flower grows up through the water’s surface only to blossom in the sunlight. Buddhists regard this process as an ideal metaphor for the human spirit, which can transcend duhkha—the negative circumstances of daily life—through meditation and study of the dharma.

The four mandalas represented here are “palace-architecture” diagrams and they float against a blue-black background of mountain peaks and clouds. Each mandala is enclosed by a series of rings. The outermost ring is the belt of fire, signifying the knowledge essential for bursting the bonds of ignorance. The second ring is the narrow black “vajra” belt, which represents enlightenment, the threshold of the spiritual world. The third ring is the circle of eight cemeteries and features eight ascetics meditating in scenes of nature. The innermost ring depicts a circle of pink and red lotus leaves, indicating that the practitioner has left the world of senses and has entered the spiritual realm.*

After making your way inward through the four rings, you’ll notice a structure that resembles a town square. There are four T-shaped doors, each of which is located at one of the four cardinal directions. Each door is flanked by different colored bands that connect all of the doors. These bands represent the walls of the emperor's city. Arches rise above the doors and encircle a series of stories that are supported by columns. All of these architectural elements represent different aspects of Buddhist teaching, upon which the practitioner meditates while moving through the diagram.

At the center of the upper left mandala you'll see a dancing blue figure with four arms. She wears a crown of skulls and holds a skull cup in her lower left hand. This semi-wrathful deity is a dākīni, an accomplished yoginī, who acts as a guiding intermediary for practitioners during meditation.

As your meditation comes to an end, you’ll move outward from the center, through the four exterior rings, and back into the material world.

 

*The source for my discussion of the iconography of Four Mandalas is an unpublished essay titled “Amitāyus,” written by Dorothy F. Fickle for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1968.

The actors have been busily learning, creating, and sharing through a variety of ways. Recently, the company created haiku inspired by the workshops, the building, and the exhibition. It’s important to note that the word company actually includes staff, too, and another valued returning staff member from Staging Old Masters is Rosemary Watts, our stage manager. For those of you who have worked in theatre productions, you know just how valuable a good stage manager is. S/he is the “mom” of the group, loosely translated into the heart, the note-taker, the conscience, the observer, and the consummate model and teacher for company behavior. Rosemary asked to share haiku she wrote to describe the group process. Click here to read Rosemary's haiku. 

Tony Wagner, Actor, in the Watercourt; photograph by Sevda Safarova

With Staging Reflections of the Buddha we are fortunate to have some very talented program staff members who were also part of Staging Old Masters. Among these returning members Maggie Ginestra, who wears multiple hats in this project. Her post today represents a very special role–that of biographer and recorder of the life accomplishments of our actors and staff.

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by Maggie Ginestra, Assistant Scriptwriter for Staging Reflections of the Buddha

As Assistant Scriptwriter, I’m enjoying the opportunity to interview each person involved with Staging Reflections of the Buddha toward short biographical blurbs that will be up on the blog for your perusal and enticement, future audience members.

So far, I’ve been sneaking moments with the actors when they’re not busy, and sometimes even when they are (because an idle moment with Agnes Wilcox is rare). One of the great things about interviewing actors who have rarely or never been on stage before is that their performance background really is, as one actor told me, their whole lives. Another actor’s father taught him to read by handing him the business section after dinner and stomping a foot if he spoke softly or incorrectly. If that isn’t a cure for stage fright…?

Over half of the actors, men and women, are Veterans whom we had the privilege of celebrating last week, and many have traveled all over the United States, one even by bike, though most were born and raised in St. Louis. I’m enjoying the theme of return, and even renewal, as each actor speaks with a sublime blend of openness, humility, and curiosity that seems to be contagious around here.

I still have some interviews to go, but soon we’ll have the privilege of introducing you to the incredible company of eyes, ears, and voices that we hope will magnify and enrich your experience of Reflections of the Buddha. If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, I recommend checking it out before we open in February. We all had a chance to just look and see before we began to talk and listen—so you should too!

by Carianne Noga, Programs and Gallery Assistant

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure and fortune of becoming acquainted with many members of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis. They have generously and enthusiastically shared their time and energy with the Pulitzer in developing and facilitating many aspects of the diverse programming for Reflections of the Buddha. In particular, I have been working with several local Buddhist groups affiliated with the Council, to coordinate the Pulitzer's phenomenally successful meditation series.

Not knowing how incredibly popular this series would turn out to be, each week has brought its own set of challenges. The first week was very exciting for all of us planning it, and we did everything we could think of to be prepared for hosting the 50-60 people we expected. It was a particularly funny thing we didn't think of though–what do you do with the castoff shoes of 50 meditators? Oops! We did not plan for the piles of footwear, but by the second week we had assembled shelving to further eliminate what could have been a potential fire hazard. Now, if only we could count on everyone to actually use the cubbies! Of course, we continue to do our duty to keep the space safe and comfortable, but this requires a certain amount of finesse and thinking on the fly.

Read the rest of this entry »

Frieze Magazine asked a number of artists, curators, critics, and frieze contributors for their picks of the Best of 2011. CAM's very own Chief Curator Dominic Molon was among those chosen. Find out which art happenings, sports moment, impromptu a cappella performance, and more made Dominic's list.



1. Karla Black’s Scottish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Following Martin Boyce’s virtuoso installation in this space in 2009 would have been a mighty prospect for any artist, but Black’s go-for-broke distribution of material textures, fragrances, surfaces and colours within seemingly every corner of the space made for a spectacularly transcendent and visceral experience.

2. Wayne Rooney’s bicycle kick goal, Old Trafford stadium, UK, February 12, 2011
It wasn’t just the timing and the significance of the goal that allowed Manchester United to beat their noisy neighbours, Manchester City (and move closer to a record-breaking 19th Championship). It was the pure style and aesthetics of the thing: the anticipation of the slightly deflected cross from Nani, the striking acrobatics to meet the ball, and the elegant arc into the net that resulted.

3. David Hartt’s MCA Screen project at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA
An installation combining sculpture, photography, video, and sound that takes the viewer into the dynamically designed offices of the Johnson Publishing Company (publishers of the popular African-American magazines Ebony and Jet). It deftly intertwined a sense of privileged visual access into a hitherto mostly unseen space with the provocative revelation that corporations, in the best and most unusual instances, still possess the potential for a sense of positive individual identity to occur. The installation was wildly successful in matching the sophisticated originality of its subject.

4. Tacita Dean, FILM, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, UK
Dean successfully resolved a space that has challenged numerous artists since Olafur Eliasson’s tour-de-force Weather Project in 2003. Not only a joyous exploration of the inherent properties of film itself but also a work that provided a thoroughly resolved physical/sculptural experience as well.

5. Juan William Chavez, Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary, Los Caminos, Saint Louis, USA
Comprising various plans, films, and sculptures, this project-in-progress reconsiders the legacy of the failed Modernist project of urban planning through an appreciation of the more positive socially collective activity and structure of insects.

6. Rick Perry’s ‘Oops’ moment, Republican Presidential Debate, November 7, 2011
Three things I love about this moment: the self-sabotage of one of the scarier prospects in the 2012 American Presidential Election; its astonishing mixture of hilarity and weirdly empathetic unease; and … uh …

7. Bertrand Goldberg: ‘Architecture of Invention,’ The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
Desperately overdue survey exhibition dedicated to the visionary architect best known for Chicago’s iconic Marina City (1959–67) buildings.

8. Michael E. Smith, Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, USA
If ever there was a beautiful marriage of ‘furtive reconfigurations of abject everyday objects’ and ‘insanely brilliant installation tactics,’ this would be it.

9. Robert Heinecken at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, USA
A perfectly installed presentation of a long underrated and underestimated pioneer of photography. His ongoing critical reassessment (arguably begun at the MCA Chicago in 1999) is remarkably welcome and long overdue.

10. The semi-impromptu performance of ‘Lean On Me’ by Stephen Colbert, Brian Eno and Michael Stipe, The Colbert Report, November 10, 2011
My new ‘happy place’ in gloomy times. Pure sweetness and light.

To see what made other art aficionados swoon this past year, click here.

The 10th iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB for short throughout)—which has now become a fixture on the art world’s calendar and another source of civic pride for a city better known for basketball teams and beaches—showed the fair settling into its status as the premier commercial exposition for contemporary art in the United States. Since its first appearance in 2002, ABMB has inspired the development of satellite fairs—among the most prominent being the NADA (New Art Dealers Association) fair. It has also been aided by various entities and individuals in Miami “stepping up their game” with the opening or expansion of public spaces devoted to private collections or curated exhibitions—the de la Cruz Collection, World Class Boxing, the Cisneros Foundation, and the Rubell Family Collection, among others—as well as museums and alternative spaces such as Locust Projects or the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, putting on more ambitious shows. Perhaps it was just me but despite the seemingly healthy business being done, one couldn’t help but feel that things were somewhat more subdued, with the fairs moving into their “mature” phase and, celebrity spottings of P. Diddy, Val Kilmer, A-Rod, and Owen Wilson aside, the context of a still uncertain economy made the carnival a little less … carnivalesque.

A shortlist of my picks that clicked:
• Los Angeles-based artist Ruben Ochoa’s dynamic, site-specific project at Locust Projects featured excised sections of the gallery floor propped up on precariously pitched steel beams.

• Larry Johnson’s presentation at Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, was one of numerous so-called “Art Kabinett” presentations at ABMB that featured in-depth mini-exhibitions of a gallery’s artist. I’ve admired his deadpan text-and-image-based photographic work since first seeing it in the 1989 exhibition The Photography of Invention and am glad to see him finally getting further exposure.

• Two Art Kabinetts for John Miller at Praz-Delavallade and Meyer Riegger (both at ABMB) were welcome presentations of another artist who’s quietly established a strong career for iconoclastic works that touch on the quirkiness, disposability, and abjection of American culture.

• Alan Reid and Michael Bauer both were represented with strong paintings at Lisa Cooley Gallery (NADA)

• The third floor at the de la Cruz Collection featuring phenomenal works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jim Hodges, and Gabriel Orozco. A welcome reminder of the Collection’s earlier days and a good counterpoint to the visual “maximalism” of the first two floors.

• Works by Jack Whitten and Hassan Sharif and an Art Kabinett for Joan Semmel at Alexander Gray Gallery, (at ABMB), a space that specializes in celebrating figures working somewhat outside of the art historical spotlight.

• I found the suspended sculpture by Alan Shields at Greenberg van Doren’s booth in ABMB very hard to resist.

• Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in a mesh-clad building but I was very drawn to Valerie Snobeck’s works incorporating plastic-scaffolding mesh at Essex Gallery (NADA).

• Mary Reid Kelley’s black-and-white video at Pilar Corrias (ABMB) made an indelible impression with its meditation on the plight of prostitutes during the First World War. The use of poetically dense dialogue and elaborate costuming and make-up—most unsettlingly Kermit-the-Frog-style eye coverings—makes the work that much more strangely affecting.

• Philip Hanson’s paintings at Corbett vs Dempsey were tucked away on a side wall but that positioning did little to diminish their compelling combination of stylized text and inspired handling of color and composition.

• Brendan Fowler’s maze of paintings and broken photographic wall structures at Untitled (ABMB) demonstrate a great sense of progression and ambition in this L.A. artist’s practice.

• Finally, something about Carissa Rodriguez’s ultra-subtle object-based sculptures at Karma International (ABMB) struck a chord with me …

Traveling to Miami in December was a whirlwind of a research trip/scouting expedition for CAM, involving seeing as much art as possible in a mere four days. During this frenetic visit, in which each new art experience threatened to overtake the one prior (in keeping with the old psychology adage about the "magic number seven,” or our ability to store seven chunks of information within our short-term memory), I took copious notes bookmarking what I found to be the most memorable booths and artworks, of which, for our curatorial purposes, there were fortunately many. Here is a shortlist that will surely inspire our work at CAM in the coming months and beyond.

Art Basel Miami Beach

• Overduin & Kite’s gorgeous, pastel-hued booth — one of my absolute favorites across all the fairs — featuring a theatrical multi-part installation by France-based British artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Los Angeles-based painter Dianna Molzan’s ebullient, bunting-like shaped canvases

• Japanese minimalist (and one of the founders of Mono-ha) Nobuo Sekine’s fluorescent infinity-shape pencil drawings from 1968 at Blum & Poe

• The text-based prints of Luis Camnitzer, the éminence grise of Cuban conceptualism, at Alexander Gray’s terrific booth

• Trevor Paglen’s surveillance photographs of near-imperceptible predator drones against a wash of pink and blue sky at Metro Pictures

• Ross Knight’s precarious sculptures made of paper-like rawhide and other delicate materials at TEAM Gallery

NADA

• Tokyo-based Take Ninegawa gallery’s booth was fresh and lively all around, particularly Shinro Ohtake’s kaleidoscopic dime-store assemblages and young painter Shinpei Kagashima’s rich abstract landscapes

• Sigmar Polke’s suite of performative lithographs from 1968 at Leo Koenig and a giant new painting by the reliably cunning Nicole Eisenman

• Most everything at the booth of San Francisco gallery Altman Siegel (who represent current CAM exhibiting artist Emily Wardill in the United States); standouts were Will Rogan’s documentary-like black-and-white photographs and Devin Leonardi’s nearly all-black portrait painting

SEVEN

• Winkleman gallery featured a suite of William Powhida’s cranky yet hilarious (and oh-so-accurate) drawings lamenting the artist’s co-conspiracy with the art world itself; also of note were Christopher K. Ho’s abstract walnut box framed paintings

• Ronald Feldman Fine Arts’ juxtaposition of British-Israeli artist Yishay Garbasz’s photographic series detailing the landscape along both sides of the Israel/Palestine border against another series, Becoming (recalling Eleanor Antin’s own Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1972), depicting the artist’s sex change over the course of two years; the overt political tones in both series could not be more different yet at the same time were equally compelling

PULSE

• A minimalist black-and-white painting from 2008 by Israeli artist Michal Rovner (best known for her haunting films) at Los Angeles’s Shoshana Wayne gallery

• Orly Genger’s Brice Marden-esque oversized drawing at Larissa Goldston’s booth, which provided a nice foil to her labor-intensive practice involving large-scale painted and crocheted/knitted ropes

Bonus acknowledgments to Los Angeles/Chicago-based Intelligentsia coffee, which provided much-needed caffeinated fuel at NADA, as well as the be-hammocked lounge area in the courtyard outside of Pulse, which offered a different kind of respite: impromptu r&r after epic days of art viewing.

Congratulations to Toky Branding + Design on yet another recognition for the amazing work they did on branding CAM's Misterios de Mayo event series. This time their design genius was featured in the December issue of Print as one of the top 421 pieces from the past year.  Every year since 1981, Print has taken a snapshot of American design with the Regional Design Annual. For the 31st edition, they assembled a team of judges—Kim Bost, of The New York Times; Brigitta Bungard, of the Museum of Modern Art; Joshua Darden, of the Darden Studio; Michael Freimuth, of Sagmeister Inc.; John Kudos and Kiki Katahira, of Studio Kudos; and Pum and Jake Lefebure, of Design Army—to sort through 2,536 submissions from every corner of the country. They chose the 421 best pieces and TOKY's Misterios de Mayo branding was one of them!  "Gathered together, the work offers a portrait of American design today, in all its messy brilliance," said Print Magazine.

Thank you TOKY for the continued design genius you provide CAM and our exhibitions, public programs, and special events.

Congratulations to CAM's architect, Brad Cloepfil, on the opening of his newest architectural endeavor - the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, CO. Cloepfil, Founding Principal of Allied Works Architecture, designed a big, horizontal concrete box with a cantilevered entrance and a glass-walled first floor for a cost of $15.5 million. Click here to read an article from The Kansas City Star for more information about Denver's newest art museum housing some of the greatest and least-known American paintings of the post-World War II era — big, craggy, all-over abstractions made by Clyfford Still (1904-1980), perhaps the most cantankerous and original of the abstract expressionists.