Buddha Mind in Contemporary ArtJacquelynn Baas, Mary Jane Jacob University of California Press, 2004 - 280 pages Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art documents the growing presence of Buddhist perspectives in contemporary culture. This shift began in the nineteenth century and is now pervasive in many aspects of everyday experience. In the arts especially, the increasing importance of process over product has promoted a profound change in the relationship between artist and audience. But while artists have been among the most perceptive interpreters of Buddhism in the West, art historians and critics have been slow to develop the intellectual tools to analyze the impact of Buddhist concepts. This timely, multi-faceted volume explores the relationships between Buddhist practice and the contemporary arts in lively essays by writers from a range of disciplines and in revealing interviews with some of the most influential artists of our time. Elucidating the common ground between the creative mind, the perceiving mind, and the meditative mind, the contributors tackle essential questions about the relationship of art and life. Among the writers are curators, art critics, educators, and Buddhist commentators in psychology, literature, and cognitive science. They consider the many Western artists today who recognize the Buddhist notion of emptiness, achieved through focused meditation, as a place of great creative potential for the making and experiencing of art. The artists featured in the interviews, all internationally recognized, include Bill Viola, and Ann Hamilton. Extending earlier twentieth-century aesthetic interests in blurring the boundaries of art and life, the artists view art as a way of life, a daily practice, in ways parallel to that of the Buddhist practitioner. Their works, woven throughout the book, richly convey how Buddhism has been both a source for and a lens through which we now perceive art. |
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activist aesthetic American Angeles art world art-making artwork Asian attention Avalokiteshvara Avatamsaka Sutra Awake awareness beautiful become bodhisattva body Buddha Buddhist practice Center China Chinese compassion concept contemporary art cosplay Courtesy the artist create creative culture D. T. Suzuki Dada Danto emptiness engaged art engaged artists engaged Buddhism enlightenment essay everything experience feel Gallery human Ibid idea illusion imagine installation JANE JACOB Japan Japanese John Cage kind Kuan Yin Lacy live look Marcel Duchamp meaning meditation mind monk nature object one's painting performance person philosophical Photo piece present psychology reading reality realization religion Rrose Sélavy sense social sound space spiritual Spoleto Festival USA story studio suffering Sutra Suzanne Lacy Suzuki T. S. Eliot talk teaching Tehching Tehching Hsieh things thought understand University viewer Western word writing York