Rubin Museum Fall Season Explores Himalayan Storty-telling

This fall, the Rubin Museum of Art will present a dramatic sweep of cultural programming relating to Himalayan narrative, expressed through both the art of traditional storytelling and contemporary media such as film. The upcoming season of exhibitions and events build on the museum's dedication to providing audiences with dynamic experiences that connect modern life with the art, culture, and traditions of the Himalayas. The fall season includes:

Once Upon Many Times, an exhibition exploring the many themes and forms of Himalayan lore and featuring 44 works of art from the 9th to the 20th century that depict life stories of the Buddha, great teachers, and legendary masters.
Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics, a presentation of more than 50 comic books from around the world featuring Tibetan heroes and adventures.
On September 30, director Peter Sellars, actress Kate Valk, and dancer Michael Schumacher will invite audiences behind-the-scenes of a new dramatization of the Vimalakirti Sutra, the earliest narrative sutra in the Buddhist canon.
The museum will also host its second Dream-Over, a sleep-over for grown-ups at the museum with activities guided by the venerable Lama Lhanang Rinpoche.
Several films relating to Tibetan Buddhism will also be premiered at the museum.

"This season's varied program offerings highlight the Rubin as a center of ideas, with Himalayan art as a springboard for explorations of global cultures past and present," said Tim McHenry, Producer at the Rubin Museum. "From the Peter Sellars project, which conjures the teachings of the Vimalakirti Sutra, outrageous at the time of its creation and still relevant today, to the Dream-Over, which provides audiences with a wholly immersive and meditative experience of art, to the reading of Transforming Terror, a collision of Buddhist principles with a post 9/11 world, the Rubin's programs create an intimate environment for audiences to consider our global society from varied perspectives."

EXHIBITIONS:

Mirror of the Buddha: Early Portraits from Tibet

October 21, 2011 - March 5, 2012

The foremost scholar of Tibetan painting, David Jackson, has selected a group of magnificent early painted portraits and sculptures of Tibetan gurus for an exhibition exploring the major figures in the development of Tibetan Buddhist religious traditions. Treating paintings as historical documents, Jackson has examined and contextualized these objects and woven them into a rich historical narrative that provides many insights into the culture and art of Tibet.

The primary subjects of Tibetan Buddhist paintings are the founding teachers of various schools and lineages. Beginning in the thirteenth century Tibetans began to exalt these lineage masters in portraits, using symbols of Indian Buddhist iconography to elevate their earthly forms and evoke the highest spiritual status, Buddhahood.

Mirror of the Buddha includes portraits of the founders and teachers in all of the Tibetan Buddhist schools. Six Tibetan Buddhist sects are represented in all, in rough chronological order-Kadam School, Taklung, Drigung Kagyu, Karma Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk schools. Grouping the art by religious tradition allows the visitor to observe broad pan-Tibetan stylistic developments, and also highlights a few cases of striking sectarian stylistic preferences. The exhibition is the third in a series of eight exhibitions and catalogues.

Once Upon Many Times: Legends and Myths in Himalayan Art

September 16, 2011 - January 30, 2012

The Buddha multiplies his bodies in a contest of magical powers;

a perfect monk appears riding a tiger;

master meditators sing songs as teachings to the others;

and rainbow colored lights fill the sky while flowers rain down on amazed spectators-these are just some of the scenes that are depicted in the Himalayan visual narratives on display in Once Upon Many Times: Legends and Myths in Himalayan Art at the Rubin Museum of Art. The exhibition presents its own Himalayan narrative by showing that these works of art are actual stories in a visual form, creative adaptations of the Buddhist lore developed over a period of a thousand years, and examples of specific artistic traditions all at once.

For all of its strict adherence to proscribed visual conventions, Himalayan art is some of the most fantastical in the world. The objects included in Once Upon Many Times take a variety of forms, from the traditional Tibetan scroll paintings (thangkas) and Nepalese banner paintings, to sculptures and manuscripts, a portable shrine, and reproductions of unique murals. Additionally, an explore area provides computer interactive activities allowing visitors to discover detailed sections of select narrative paintings and their stories. A brief video of a Tibetan storyteller in action offers the context for the practice of popular narrative performances.

Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics

December 9, 2011 - June 11, 2012

Comic book storylines have drawn on the cultural and religious traditions of Tibet for more than 60 years. Mixing real knowledge with long-held myths and stereotypes, comic illustrators and writers have created a Tibet shrouded in mystery and fantasy. The Rubin's upcoming exhibition, Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics, featuring more than 50 comic books from around the world, sheds light on human interest in superheroes and paradisiacal places, global perceptions of Tibet, and the perpetuation of stereotypes about the country and its people.

The most complete collection of comics related to Tibet ever assembled, the exhibition includes comics from the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, India and Japan-some of which have been translated into English for the first time and will be presented both in the original and translated formats. Hero, Villain, Yeti continues the Rubin's exploration of Himalayan narratives and illuminates The Common threads that exist between traditional Himalayan art and ideas and those of the present-day.

PUBLIC DIALOGUES AND EVENTS:

The Vimalakirti Sutra, Featuring Peter Sellars, Michael Schumacher, and Kate Valk

September 30 and October 1

The Vimalakirti Sutra, Featuring Peter Sellars and Robert Thurman

September 28

Director Peter Sellars will stage public rehearsals of a new work based on the Vimalakirti Sutra, the earliest teaching in the Buddhist canon. Sellars' dramatization will feature dancer Michael Schumacher and Wooster Group founder Kate Valk as the lead interpreters. Workshop performances will take place on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25.

The Vimalakirti Sutra dates from the First Century AD, a watershed moment in Buddhist history that brought sacred teachings out of the monasteries and into the streets, and out of classical and academic language and into the vernacular. The work is characterized by humor and a radical, democratizing aspect that powerfully and pointedly addresses equal rights for women and an inclusive world of spiritually-charged reciprocity which levels all hierarchies. The text is written in dialogue form and upends many long-established tropes of the Buddhist canon while concentrating on miracles, which the audiences is invited to imagine and embody.

Sellars said, "The Vimalakirti Sutra with its outrageous humor, irreverent tone, and startling spectacle, was intended to be staged for an illiterate audience in fairgrounds, marketplaces and at festival days, bringing the most refined and radical concepts of Buddhism to a working class public; putting the most sacred teachings not only in the hands of a clerical aristocracy, but spreading them with pleasure and ease to a population that knew life's struggles firsthand."

On Wednesday, September 28 at 7:00 p.m. Columbia University Buddhism scholar Robert Thurman and Peter Sellars will discuss the meaning of Vimalakirti Sutra.

Transforming Terror: An Anthology

October 5

Through essays and poetry, prayers and mediations, the new anthology Transforming Terror powerfully demonstrates that terrorist violence--defined here as any attack on unarmed civilians--can never be stopped by a return to the thinking that created it. Robert Thurman, Sharon Salzberg, Bokara Legendre and Jungian analyst Martha Harrell will join contributors Karin Carrington and Susan Griffin for a reading and exploration of texts that offer a new paradigm for moving the world beyond violence as the first, and often only, response to violence.

In Transforming Terror, a diverse array of contributors--writers, healers, spiritual and political leaders, scientists, and activists --considers how we might transform the conditions that produce terrorist acts and bring true healing to the victims of these acts. Broadly encompassing both the Islamic and Western worlds, the book explores the nature of consciousness and offers a blueprint for change that makes peace possible. From unforgettable firsthand accounts of terrorism, the book draws us into awareness of our ecological and economic interdependence, the need for connectedness, and the innate human capacity for compassion. The reading will take place on Wednesday, October 5, at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $20.

Dream-Over

October 22

The Dream-Over, the Rubin Museum's night at the museum for grown-ups, returns after its sold-out debut. Make the Rubin Museum the place of your dreams. Come in your slippers and pajamas and sleep over at the Rubin Museum beneath a work of art selected just for you.

Participants will spend the night under a work of art chosen specifically for them after experiencing art meditation workshops, traditional sleep tonics, and Himalayan bedtime stories and lullabies. Under the guidance of the Venerable Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, a spiritual teacher of the Nyingma Longchen Nying-Thig order of Tibetan Buddhism, and clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. William H. Braun, dreamers will be woken by Dream Interpreters early in the morning and asked to verbalize their dreams while in a state between sleeping and waking.

FILMS:

In the Shadow of Buddha

September 14

In the Shadow of Buddha, a compelling and exquisitely-shot film by Heather Kessinger, takes viewers into the seldom seen world of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and refugees in Ladakh, in northernmost India. For these women the notion that a woman can be educated and that being born a female is not a punishment of past deeds is currently challenging thousands of years of history. Through their voices - humorous, wistful, insightful-- Kessinger explores the paradox that being a woman within Tibetan Buddhism represents: that a fundamental spiritual equality does not equate in any way to equality in life.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and Kim Gutschow, professor at the Institute of Anthropology and Center for Modern Indian Studies, at Göttingen University, and author of Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas. The screening-the New York premiere of the film-- will take place on Wednesday, September 14 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $12.

View trailer: http://www.shadowofbuddha.com/view-trailer/

Crazy Wisdom: The Life & Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

November 25

The Rubin Museum of Art will host the U.S. premiere of the film Crazy Wisdom, directed by Johanna Demetrakas, on November 25. Crazy Wisdom explores the story of Chögyam Trungpa, the brilliant "bad boy of Buddhism," who was pivotal in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West and shattered preconceived notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave. Born in Tibet, recognized as an exceptional reincarnate lama and trained in the rigorous monastic tradition, Trungpa fled his homeland during the Chinese Communist invasion. In Britain, realizing that a cultural gap prevented his students from any deep understanding of Buddhism, he renounced his vows, eloped with a sixteen year-old, and lived as a westerner.

He moved to the U.S. in 1970, where he drew a following of the country's prominent avant-garde artists, spiritual teachers, and intellectuals. Poet Allen Ginsberg considered Trungpa his guru; Catholic priest Thomas Merton wanted to write a book with him; music icon Joni Mitchell wrote a song about him. By translating ancient Buddhist concepts into language and ideas that Westerners could understand, Trungpa contributed to a radical cultural shift that brought Tibetan Buddhism to hungry Western audiences, disillusioned with the violence and materialism in their own world.

Initially judged harshly by the Tibetan establishment, Trungpa's teachings are now recognized by western philosophers and spiritual leaders, including the Dalai Lama, as authentic and profound. Today, 20 years after his death, Trungpa's books have been translated into thirty-one languages and sell worldwide in millions. His organization thrives in thirty countries and five continents, and yet Trungpa's name still evokes admiration and outrage. Director Johanna Demetrakas uses archival footage, animation, interviews, and original imagery to build a film that mirrors Trungpa's challenging energy and invites viewers to go beyond fixed ideas about teachers and leaders. With unprecedented access to Trungpa's inner circle and exclusive never-before-seen archival material, Crazy Wisdom looks at the man and the myths about him, and attempts to set the record straight.

Screenings take place on Friday November 25 (6:30 and 9:00 p.m.); Saturday, November 26 (4:00, 6:00, 8:00 p.m.); Sunday, November 27 (4:00, 6:00 p.m.); Monday, November 28 (5:00, 7:00 p.m.); Wednesday, November 30 (5:00, 7:00 p.m.); Thursday, December 1 (3:00 p.m.) Saturday, December 3 (4:00, 6:00 p.m.). Tickets are $12.

ABOUT THE RUBIN MUSEUM

The Rubin Museum of Art holds one of the world's most important collections of Himalayan art. Paintings, pictorial textiles, and sculpture are drawn from cultures that touch upon the arc of mountains that extends from Afghanistan in the northwest to Myanmar (Burma) in the southeast and includes Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, and Bhutan. The larger Himalayan cultural sphere, determined by significant cultural exchange over millennia, includes Iran, India, China, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. The museum explores these rich cultural legacies-largely unfamiliar to Western viewers-from a variety of perspectives, offering multiple entry-points for understanding and enjoying the art of the Himalayas.