Engaged Buddhist Art by Kenji Liu
Bay Area artist Kenji Liu has just released this gorgeous new poster for sale, and the only reason I haven't already ordered one is that I'm planning to hit up his table at this Sunday's Buddhist Peace Fellowship event. (What's Up With Engaged Buddhism? Part 1: Who Gets To Speak? with David Loy, Donald Rothberg, Alka Arora, Jen-Mei Wu, Kenji, and me. If you're around Oakland, CA, you should come!)Lemme tell you why I find this piece so fly and powerful.One, the aesthetics speak to me. Just look at those colors! They resonate with me on a very different level than the muted, earthy greens, browns, and whites that I often see at US meditation centers. (Though, to be fair, I've mostly seen Zen, Insight, and a couple of Shambhala ones.) As Kenji puts it, this print employs "more traditional Tibetan Buddhist colors and symbols and gives them new context." The graphics, too, are bold yet nuanced. (Love the expression on the Buddha's face.) The Buddha is a woman of color with a bullhorn in her lap. The Dharmacakra is a hubcap! This is a world I live in!Then, once the art has my attention, it educates me. Although I have an immediate visceral reaction against the cop and capitalist, the way Kenji visually includes them as possible "guardians of the Buddha's teachings" challenges me to reconsider them as part of the total scene. As he writes,
Can we simultaneously act to stop the suffering caused by corporate capitalism and police/state violence, while remembering that they too are Buddhas-in-the-making?
Whether I agree with the statement or not, at least it's a statement I can understand, and that feels incredibly relevant and important to my life and political work. And if that weren't enough, Kenji's explanation of some of the symbology he uses in the thangka (the blue skin of the medicine Buddha; the mudras; the traditional placement of the guardian figures) also educates me (fairly ignorant when it comes to thangkas) about Buddhist art and iconography. Philosophy as art; art as philosophy.One final word to the wise, folks: this print is limited-edition. So if you're feelin it, I recommend you cop one quickly! :)