At a Colaba gallery, Bollywood stars make up a Buddha and the way of the New York tube finds space inside his feet all in the works of four contemporary Tibetan artists who are exploring new forms of look outside of classical Tibetan art.
There is a scene in the Brad Pitt-starrer Seven Years in Tibet, where Pitt, who plays Austrian walker Heinrich Harrer, is tasked with the structure of a theatre for the young Dalai Lama. But when work starts, there is difficulty. Tibetan construction workers decline to work. They scold Pitt, pointing to earthworms, "This could be your mother. No more soreness."
As the famous Tibetan writer Jamyang Norbhu wrote of that succession in the Hollywood blockbuster, "It was resembling Saturday Night Live. Every Tibetan I know shudders over to scene."
Beyond The Mandala, an art exhibition of modern Tibetan art is in many ways a reaction to that kind of romanticisation of Tibet. The view that refuses to see Tibet as anything else but the mythical Shangri la, which with its magic chants and spiritualism can save the materialistic West.
Here, the works of Gade, Tenzing Rigdol, Tsherin Sherpa and Palden Weinreb escort a Buddha composed of Bollywood stars (Bollywood Buddha). There is another work of his feet, but with the way of the New York tube inside (My Exilic Experience). These are reflect the artist's experiences in India and later, New York.
