This is a repost from a BBC article. It's quite a remarkable story and I hope you go check it out....
Carnatic music normally takes years of patience and dedication to learn
Few would have thought that the Zulus of South Africa would have much interest in southern Indian classical music.
But South African Patrick Ngcobo has proved that ethnicity and language are no barriers when it comes to learning about music far from home.
When he decided to learn southern Indian classical music, better known as Carnatic music, his African friends in Durban ridiculed him, and his Indian neighbours were sceptical.
For them, it was abnormal for a person from the warrior Zulu tribe in Natal province to take up Carnatic music.
Ignoring insults and sniping remarks, Patrick single-mindedly persisted.
Today, the 34-year-old sings in seven Indian languages....
For the full article go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3784767.stm
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Impermanence is the new Obsession....
Yesterday for the umpteenth time I heard yet another artist’s work described as having to do with “impermanence.” Ever since Westerners discovered the term they have been abusing and misusing it to great lengths.
Granted. ‘Impermanence’ IS an English word, but there is little doubt that when used in the artistic context, art writers are trying to allude to the Pāli word 'anicca' (pronounced: anichcha).
According to Rev. Nyanaponika’s Buddhist Dictionary, anicca is the “constant arising and passing away of all phenomena.” Within this context basically EVERYTHING is anicca, which is the intention of the word in the first place! It lets us know that there is not one permanent thing within, or without us. When Westerners use this word they tend to think in the literal sense of the word, which only alludes to a “final” or “eventually complete” dissolution, but according to Buddhism, even that view is erroneous, because if nothing is permanent how can dissolution be “final” or “forever.”
Why do I even care about all this? Because I have been treating this subject in my work for the last twelve years.
Fine. Maybe I’m just taking part in a pervading generational concern. Maybe. Who knows? But the question is: are the artists being described by this new catch phrase really addressing these issues, or are they just being compartmentalized like it happens so often in the art world?
I remember, in the late 90’s, when I finished undergraduate and started graduate school, how the adjective of the moment was “obsessive.” Everything was obsessive! Obsessive this, obsessive that.... “Oooh, her work is SOO… obsessive!” (Where's the puke emoticon on this thing?!).
Any motif that got repeated more than twice made the work “obsessive.” They even tried to pin this label on me during a few critiques, even though I despised the concept of obsession as laudable in itself, and my work dealt mainly with detachment and, yes, impermanence...
I even remember being told that the “impermanence” of my work was a hindrance to its marketability because nobody would want to buy something that they would stop having after a while. But now, impermanence is the toast of the party!
Here is a list of artists recently labeled as doing art about impermanence (the ones with an asterisk next to them* had the honor of being previously labeled obsessive):
Rachel Whiteread*, Doho Suh*, Lee Bontecue*, Rirkrit Trivaniya, Andy Goldsworthy *, Cai Guo-Qiang, Hans Holbein* (for heaven’s sake, Hans Holbein!), Stephen Shore, Nikki Lee*, Frank Stella, Nigel Hall, Tom Friedman, Dieter Roth*, Sara Tze*, Yayoi Kusama*, Wolfgang Tillmans, and the list goes on, and on...
This may not be the fault of the artists (although now many artists are tripping all over themselves to fit into this new fashionable category), and many of the above mentioned artists do deal with the subject of impermanence (although decay would be a more suitable word for many of them), my problem is with how critics simply sling the word around, just like they did with “obsession,” or whatever else was there before. This are the same type of people that bring us the Death of Painting every 10 years, or so! LOL
Now, decay and dissolution are impermanent themselves, so a work that simply disappears, is only pointing to another permanent concept: that of loss. To think that something is gone, or disappeared, is just as off the mark in addressing impermanence as thinking that it will be there forever. They are just two extremes of the same thing: the hedonistic vs. the nihilist. The whole point about impermanence is that just like you can’t get something out of nothing, you can’t get NOTHING out of SOMETHING! And that, in fact, there is no actual THING appearing, or disappearing, in the first place. There are only ever-changing, conditionaly-arising events.
“Oh, but Boti, you’re being too harsh, maybe these people are not trying to do Buddhist art!”
That’s all fine and dandy. Again, my beef is with the writers. The rise of this writing trend does follow the rise of Western Buddhism into the mainstream, so, surely, some parallels do apply, but more importantly, maybe, just maybe, we should stop trying to place art within snappy little sound bites to be (ab)used at cocktail parties, and maybe, just maybe, we should start trying to E X P E R I E N C E art with all six senses first, and then, when trying to explain our experience, maybe we’ll understand the meaning of the work.
It’s not a test people! And you are not expected to have an answer to everything! Words are traps, and they are only good for pointing at things. Somebody told me once (and with a highly didactic tone too!) when addressing the smell component in one of my pieces, “Well, that’s why they are called the VISUAL Arts, after all.” To which I replied, “Well... that’s just in English. Most other languages use words like Plastic Arts, or Beautiful Arts."
Beauty, what a concept…..
Granted. ‘Impermanence’ IS an English word, but there is little doubt that when used in the artistic context, art writers are trying to allude to the Pāli word 'anicca' (pronounced: anichcha).
According to Rev. Nyanaponika’s Buddhist Dictionary, anicca is the “constant arising and passing away of all phenomena.” Within this context basically EVERYTHING is anicca, which is the intention of the word in the first place! It lets us know that there is not one permanent thing within, or without us. When Westerners use this word they tend to think in the literal sense of the word, which only alludes to a “final” or “eventually complete” dissolution, but according to Buddhism, even that view is erroneous, because if nothing is permanent how can dissolution be “final” or “forever.”
Why do I even care about all this? Because I have been treating this subject in my work for the last twelve years.
Fine. Maybe I’m just taking part in a pervading generational concern. Maybe. Who knows? But the question is: are the artists being described by this new catch phrase really addressing these issues, or are they just being compartmentalized like it happens so often in the art world?
I remember, in the late 90’s, when I finished undergraduate and started graduate school, how the adjective of the moment was “obsessive.” Everything was obsessive! Obsessive this, obsessive that.... “Oooh, her work is SOO… obsessive!” (Where's the puke emoticon on this thing?!).
Any motif that got repeated more than twice made the work “obsessive.” They even tried to pin this label on me during a few critiques, even though I despised the concept of obsession as laudable in itself, and my work dealt mainly with detachment and, yes, impermanence...
I even remember being told that the “impermanence” of my work was a hindrance to its marketability because nobody would want to buy something that they would stop having after a while. But now, impermanence is the toast of the party!
Here is a list of artists recently labeled as doing art about impermanence (the ones with an asterisk next to them* had the honor of being previously labeled obsessive):
Rachel Whiteread*, Doho Suh*, Lee Bontecue*, Rirkrit Trivaniya, Andy Goldsworthy *, Cai Guo-Qiang, Hans Holbein* (for heaven’s sake, Hans Holbein!), Stephen Shore, Nikki Lee*, Frank Stella, Nigel Hall, Tom Friedman, Dieter Roth*, Sara Tze*, Yayoi Kusama*, Wolfgang Tillmans, and the list goes on, and on...
This may not be the fault of the artists (although now many artists are tripping all over themselves to fit into this new fashionable category), and many of the above mentioned artists do deal with the subject of impermanence (although decay would be a more suitable word for many of them), my problem is with how critics simply sling the word around, just like they did with “obsession,” or whatever else was there before. This are the same type of people that bring us the Death of Painting every 10 years, or so! LOL
Now, decay and dissolution are impermanent themselves, so a work that simply disappears, is only pointing to another permanent concept: that of loss. To think that something is gone, or disappeared, is just as off the mark in addressing impermanence as thinking that it will be there forever. They are just two extremes of the same thing: the hedonistic vs. the nihilist. The whole point about impermanence is that just like you can’t get something out of nothing, you can’t get NOTHING out of SOMETHING! And that, in fact, there is no actual THING appearing, or disappearing, in the first place. There are only ever-changing, conditionaly-arising events.
“Oh, but Boti, you’re being too harsh, maybe these people are not trying to do Buddhist art!”
That’s all fine and dandy. Again, my beef is with the writers. The rise of this writing trend does follow the rise of Western Buddhism into the mainstream, so, surely, some parallels do apply, but more importantly, maybe, just maybe, we should stop trying to place art within snappy little sound bites to be (ab)used at cocktail parties, and maybe, just maybe, we should start trying to E X P E R I E N C E art with all six senses first, and then, when trying to explain our experience, maybe we’ll understand the meaning of the work.
It’s not a test people! And you are not expected to have an answer to everything! Words are traps, and they are only good for pointing at things. Somebody told me once (and with a highly didactic tone too!) when addressing the smell component in one of my pieces, “Well, that’s why they are called the VISUAL Arts, after all.” To which I replied, “Well... that’s just in English. Most other languages use words like Plastic Arts, or Beautiful Arts."
Beauty, what a concept…..
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