Victoria Conference Explores Buddhism and Contemporary Art

Expand

The public is invited to two presentations as part of In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art and Social Practice, A Research Convening, a project led by Haema Sivanesan, a curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

The project examines the impact of Buddhism on art in North America from the post-war period to the present.

On Oct. 25 from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. critic and author Kay Larson will present her Lecture on Nothing. Larson wrote feature articles and art criticism for New York magazine for 14 years, before starting a practice at the Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York.

She will discuss John Cage’s seminal text, Lecture on Nothing, first performed at the 8th Street Artists’ Club in New York in 1949. The lecture is written as a piece of music organized around a series of empty time intervals or durations and reveals Cage’s inquiry into Buddhism. 

It takes place at UVic's Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, and will be followed by a performance of Cage’s text, scored by Larson and directed by Christopher Butterfield, the director of UVic's school of music.

On Oct. 27 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., the public is invited to Beautiful Trouble: A Conversation on Activism, Art and Buddhism with artist Suzanne Lacy and author and activist Jodie Evans. It will be held in the 105 lecture theatre at UVic's Hickman Building.

Lacy is a pioneering artist in social art practice who was introduced to Buddhism in the mid-1980s. Earlier this year, she was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Evans is a cultural producer who has worked with the Dalai Lama and Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn.

"The world-class calibre of the invited artists and scholars makes this a key event in the study of the immense impact of Buddhist teachings on modern and contemporary art,” says UVic's visual arts chair Paul Walde.

The complete schedule for the event can be found at: https://aggv.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Research-Convening-program-Sept-11-2019.pdf

Source: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria