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Divine
beauty, even when munching on the dead, by Joyce Morgan
- 6th October 2006
(Credit:
The Sydney Morning Herald)
Eastern goddesses are gracing the Art Gallery of NSW,
writes Joyce Morgan.
Some
are models of maternal wisdom and kindness. Others
carry severed heads and devour demons for breakfast.
But
they are all goddesses - whether they appear as women
behaving modestly or very badly. Their extraordinary
range of activities and attributes will be revealed
in Goddess, Divine Energy, which opens at the Art
Gallery of NSW next week. It is a sexy, new-age title
for an exhibition of female deities in Buddhism and
Hinduism.
Jackie
Menzies, the show's curator, admits she was apprehensive
when she first encountered Kali, one of the most fearsome
females. "I'd always found her rather daunting,"
she says.
She
looked for a way of understanding the dark-skinned
dishevelled Hindu goddess, who is at times depicted
munching on corpses and wearing a skirt of severed
hands. The gruesome imagery is symbolic of her ability
to cut through ego and delusions and release humans
from their fate. "We recoil like she's some evil
creature," says Menzies. "But once you see
that she's not some ogress, she's actually protecting
you and working for you, you look at her differently."
Menzies
learned that Kali is a popular figure not just among
India's Hindus but among Western Goths. She wanted
to tap into the Western interest in Eastern religions
and art, an interest evident in the popularity of
Buddhism, Radiant Awakening, which she curated at
the Gallery in 2002. "Now it's the girls' turn,"
she says.
Among
the "girls" on show are Durga, the fearsome
buffalo-slayer, and at the other end of the spectrum
Tara, the benevolent female Buddha and the most revered
Tibetan female deity, said to have been born of the
tears of the Lord of Compassion. The centrepiece of
the exhibition is an exquisite 17th-century bronze
of White Tara, associated with health and longevity,
seated on a lotus. "She has eyes in the palms
of her hands and feet so she can look over you,"
Menzies says. "The lotus is such an important
symbol in Buddhism because just as the lotus rises
out of the muddy pond to produce something absolutely
pure, so Buddha and Tara rise above all the filth
and unhappiness and muddiness of this world.
"That's
why you always have Buddhas sitting on lotuses …
Once you understand the symbolism it all falls into
place."
Although
the images in the exhibition include figures of great
artistic beauty, the goddesses are personifications
and simplifications of complex philosophical or spiritual
ideas. So the exhibition can be seen on many levels.
Menzies,
the head of Asian art at the Gallery, is aware many
people find the pantheon of Buddhist and Hindu deities
confusing. But she says the West has been introduced
to them only recently. Our understanding of Tibetan
Buddhism has come only since the 1950s, following
the Chinese invasion, when many lamas fled into exile.
Among
the images on show are some from secret Tantric traditions,
images which would traditionally have been revealed
only to advanced spiritual practitioners by their
teachers. These include images of females and males
in sexual union, symbolising wisdom and compassion.
"Some
of these potentials are considered so powerful you
need your guru to show you how to deal with them,"
Menzies says.
Is
there a danger for the uninitiated gallery-goer?
"We
don't know," she says. "We are assuming
wisdom and compassion are benign forces."
She
resisted calling the exhibition Tantra because of
misunderstandings of what it is about and popular
misconceptions that associate it with unbridled sexual
passion. But included in the show are some works from
the landmark 1971 exhibition Tantra, held at the Hayward
Gallery in London. Films and lectures, including a
two-day symposium coinciding with the opening, will
be part of the exhibition. It will end on January
26 with a Durga puja or ceremony in which a specially
created image of the dark goddess will be ritually
destroyed.
The
Goddess, Divine Energy exhibition opens at the Art
Gallery of NSW on October 13. Making of the Modern
Goddess: Spectrum, Saturday
Websites
NSW
Art Gallery
Goddess
Art
Profiles
Goddess
Divine Energy Exhibition (Art Gallery Of New South
Wales)
Goddesses
Art,
The Arts and Creatives
Mediaman Summary Review, by Greg Tingle - 28th
October 2006
The
Divine Goddess exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery one
of the greatest art related exhibitions Australia
has ever seen.
This
is the perfect exhibition to either attend alone and
increase your knowledge of goddesses, or to visit
with one or two of your goddess female friends as
I did.
Like
most things in the art, what appeals to one may not
necessarily appeal to another.
It's
hard not to fall in love with some of the Goddesses
on display such as Radha (Goddess of Devotion and
Love) and Tara (Goddess of Universal Comparison).
The
expo may be about "Exploring myriad imaginative
expressions of divine female power in the art of India
and the Himalayas, as the Art Gallery puts it",
but for me, and I suspect many of the Goddesses (and
Gods) who take time out to visit, this is an empowering,
stimulating and educational experience that will help
the visitor find the Goddess (or God) within.
For
my liking, we are living in the year of the Goddess,
and where harmony with the universe is paramount.
This is a "must see" expo.
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