The Rubin Museum of Art, NYC presents: "Grain of Emptiness: Buddhist Inspired Contemporary Art"

David Byrne in discussions at The Rubin Museum of Art NYC

"poetry makes nothing happen..."

My late friend John used to quote his great-uncle W.H Auden; he, like Auden, I suspect, had a deep respect of the void.

 It wouldn't be the first time an artist considered his/her relationship with "nothing"; or cited "nothing" as the source of a more profound, unfathomable "nothing". Nor is this news to yogis; the stillness of the void has been the wellspring of asana, or seated practice, for thousands of years. As for whether art makes nothing happen, or nothing is the deep wellspring of all else; well, that's a topic that The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City is willing to take on.

Atta Kim, The New York Series, Times Square, 2005

The forthcoming exhibition entitled: Grain of Emptiness: Buddhist Inspired Contemporary Art, which begins November 5th 2010 and runs through April 11, 2011, features five contemporary artists -Sanford Biggers, Theaster Gates, Atta Kim, Wolfgang Laib, and Charmion von Wiegand- all inspired by the Buddhist notions of emptiness and impermanence and Buddhist ritual practice. These artists are from disparate backgrounds and explore a range of artistic mediums, but all have inherited the practice of incorporating Eastern religious beliefs into their works. The exhibition's paintings, photographs, videos, and installations will be complemented by performance art.

This is another opportunity for those of us a plane-ride away, to take a look at contemporary artists' musings on "nothing"; as well as, take in the other "nothingness" programming that the Rubin has arranged to complement the exhibit. Talk about Nothing, is a new series of dialogues being presented beginning in late October at the Rubin, that brings together personalities to discuss the void. Running between October 27th and January 29th, the Rubin presents talks with a diverse group of thinkers ranging from writer/musician Amit Chaudhuri, performance artist Laurie Anderson, to Tibetan lama Traleg Rinpoche.

The Red Book arrives at the Rubin, 2009

I stumbled across this exhibit while I was looking for events based on Carl Jung's richly illustrated, and posthumously published journal, The Red Book; which, I ecstatically received as a gift from my brother and sister-in-law, last Christmas. And as it turns out, the Rubin had presented a similar series of talks about Jung's undiscovered tome called "The Red Book Dialogues" last year. The picture up top is lifted from the Rubin Museum website; and features David Byrne in conversation with psychoanalyst Sherry Salman about the mysterious and wonderful Red Book.

Programming at the Rubin Museum is worth bookmarking.
Tickets for Talk about Nothing are now on sale to members at the Rubin Museum of Art website.
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Guest Author: Michael Stone on Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind: Connecting Yoga & Buddhism

Michael Stone, Centre of Gravity summer practice 2010, photo Andrea de Keizer

Michael Stone is a yoga teacher and psychotherapist who leads yoga and meditation workshops and teaches internationally on the effectiveness of yoga and Buddhist meditation in clinical psychotherapy practice. His approach to yoga focuses on the integration of theory and practice in a way that is rooted in tradition yet responsive to contemporary culture. He is the founder of Centre of Gravity Sangha, a community of yoga and Buddhist practitioners based in Toronto, where he lives. He has published several books including, The Inner Tradition of Yoga, and Yoga for a World out of Balance. His newest publication, Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind is a collection of writings by prominent teachers in Yoga and Buddhism, that investigates the common threads in both traditions.

I had a hard time finding Centre of Gravity on my first visit; that's despite Bellwoods Avenue having been a street I lived on for many years. It's nudged quietly in between the residential rows; and I think there was something on the website about finding a red door. And then, Michael had also said something about arriving early. Inside, on wooden floors in a long hall, lined by low lying book shelves, people spread their mats alongside one another in two careful rows; leaving about an inch of space in between. It was intimate. This was the closest I'd been to anyone else in a room while practicing. Intimacy and community is something Michael likes to talk about; he brought it up again this weekend in a few workshops at Yoga Festival Toronto. As guest author of the following post, he traces the intimate connections between Buddhism and yogic practice, so that we can find our way through otherwise cryptic maps to the red door; and to the helix that marks the communal meeting spot of the body and the mind.

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Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind: Connecting Yoga and Buddhism

by Michael Stone

Over the years, I’ve found it increasingly frustrating that Yoga is continually reduced to “a body practice” and Buddhism “a mind practice.” This makes no sense at all. Anyone who has practiced deeply in both traditions knows that the Buddha gave attention to the body, Patanjali the mind, and both traditions value ethical precepts and commitments as the foundation of an appropriate livelihood. I organize a community in Toronto called Centre of Gravity Sangha, a thriving group of people interested in integrating Yoga and Buddhist Practices.

"Who" is the Final Destination? The Looking Glass and Sister Elaine MacInnes

It really depends on how you look at it. But you can see a wave forming before it actually comes up. I mean, you can see it underneath, before the surface rolls over.  There's an introduction, a pre-amble, a subtle shrinking almost in the opposite direction that happens a split second before the swell.  Something that hints at what's really going on.
Extraordinary people are wonderful to watch when they are doing extraordinary things. That's obvious. But extraordinary people at rest are also a revelation; because they look empty until something comes through them. And they appear aware of that fact...of that ground zero....Resting in some steady neutral...

Sister Elaine MacInnes, Yoga Festival Toronto 2010

Sister Elaine MacInnes is sitting in an S-shape. At eighty-something, she is curved gently over the clay colored metal chair in the mirrored room at the National Ballet. The light is peppered unevenly, glowing grey in the early evening, coming through the slender rectangle of a window on the far left corner. Sister MacInnes' chair is tilted to the right; and the floor, a smoke-blue, is covered is washy streaks left by toe shoes....like ice-skates, the geometric shapes, half-arcs, scratched into the reflective surface of its rubber.

And then with a few words everything about her unfolds, quite literally, as she opens her shape across the chair and leans into the small gathering at this weekends Yoga Festival Toronto.