I once sat in on an art history class taught by multicultural theorist Thomas McEvilley, wherein he lectured on yoga. He explained that what we as Westerners knew of the practice was really a very simplified overview of the true nature of yoga. McEvilley explained that historically, yoga involved extremely complex beliefs and rituals, and he gave an example involving, to paraphrase, a man and woman mixing various bodily fluids together on the ground and then licking the mix off each others’ open palms. And I’ve yet to witness any of NYC’s yoga diehards attempting that pose. Learning this made me newly intrigued by yoga, and also with artistic forms that possess an Eastern religion-based history.

Currently, Rubin Museum in New York has on view Tradition Transformed: Tibetan Artists Respond, the first-ever exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art in New York. Many of the nine artists included were either personally affected by the Tibetan diaspora, or are the children of parents who were forced to leave Tibet following the 1959 uprising. Their works highlight the tension between traditional Tibetan practices and newer, Western inspirations (many of the pieces shown seem heavily influenced by Andy Warhol).  One artist, Kesang Lamdark, who grew up in Switzerland and received his MFA from Columbia University, plays with this Warhol influence in a humorous way that highlights the ubiquity of Warhol’s favorite muse: the can. In many of his pieces in the show, he has taken tantric imagery and repositioned it, via tiny pointillist pinholes, onto the bottoms of soda cans. Look through the cans, and a small, complicated and enchanting image appears.

Much of the contemporary Tibetan art shown seems linked to a strong-held devotion to Tibetan Buddhism and traditional Tibetan art-making practices, yet most also seems to be entranced by Western aesthetics. The dissolution of traditional Tibetan culture, via the diaspora, can be seen as the main inspiration for the forward momemtum of contemporary Tibetan art–“Without the Tibetan diaspora I would be in Tibet herding yaks or being a monk,” says Lamdark. But is hard for a Western art writer to position a forced cultural reconfiguration as entirely positive. There is something captivating about a singular belief system, unadulterated by Western tendencies toward skepticism. “In old Tibet, art had no individuality,” says Lamdark, to counterpoint this, yet in the contemporary West, we seem to have such a hard time truly believing in anything: love, friendships, ourselves. Entirely different from a culture of traditional Tibetan Buddhism, which holds a belief system indivisible from personal identity, our beliefs lean more and more toward rote social expectations. Probably because it’s just too hard to believe in a world that doesn’t really believe in itself.

Tradition Transformed will be on view until October 18
Rubin Museum
150 West 17th Street, NYC

There are artists that live out their lives on stage, without any filter between themselves and the audience, and ones that are simply pretending to. This year’s lineup of Way out West, an exceptionally well-organized outdoor festival held in the beautiful city of Gothenburg, was a celebration of that first type. Located in Slottskogen city park and continuing throughout the night with additional performances and DJ sets at local clubs, churches and boats, Way Out West is unlike a lot of other festivals in that it takes less than five minutes for audiences to travel from stage to stage. With the weather close to perfect and no serious festival mud in sight, you actually spent most of your time listening to music and hanging out with your friends.

But it was the honesty and self revelation from some of my favorite female artists that brought out the big emotions and sometimes tears from both performers and audience. Anna Ternheim, M.I.A., Anna von Hausswolff and Lykke Li all play by their own rules. They dig deep, and in sometimes uncomfortably dark places, which is why they all seem so much more relevant than most of their male colleagues. Young von Hausswolff dedicated songs to her grandmother as well as her lover and pointed out that performing here was a dream come true. Lykke Li (next to M.I.A.) was the only artist who seemed to put any thought into the visual aspect of her performance, allowing for a highly emotional experience and not just a set of songs.

“A girder is nothing to be ashamed of,” Mies van der Rohe once famously quipped in defense of his trademark aesthetic, which championed a lithe vocabulary of architectural skin and bones. “The old way was to look at architecture as a display of forms. We concentrate on the simple, basic structure, and we believe the structural way gives more freedom and variety.”

Support Structures, Celine Condorelli’s ambitious book on all those things in contemporary culture that prop up and stand behind, operates in an unabashedly Miesian mode. The product of a six year joint project between Condorelli and Gavin Wade, the book is positioned as a curated bibliography, compiled in response to what Condorelli perceived as “an almost complete absence of literature or theory on what constitutes ‘support’” in architecture and the arts. Judging by the breadth of material included in Support Structures, it turns out that sources of support are almost as plentiful and varied as the ways to define, describe and debate them. The book is organized as “a manual for engagement in and with its subject” replete with an explanatory preface (one of six!), titled Directions for Use. What theoretician worth her salt could resist?

The body of Support Structures consists of a series of brief chapters (“instances of support at work”) that range from interviews and photo essays to architectural drawings, typographical studies, archival press clippings, pamphlets, and of course the odd manifesto or two. Thematically, it forms an interesting and diverse archive, and even if it’s hardly a ripping good yarn, almost all of the material is subtle, considered and thought-provoking. Too bad, then, that in keeping with so much contemporary art criticism, many of the contributing writers default to the kind of icy academic prose that’s likely to alienate all but a small group of post-doctoral-type readers. At least it’s beautiful to look at. Elegantly designed, painstakingly laid out and lavishly printed, as a physical object it seduces completely.

“Support Structures” is published by Sternberg Press and is available now.

Model: Olivia Gordon at Ford NY
Top by Burglar.Co.,Ltd. Skirt by Rodebjer.
Photography by Martin Lidell
Styling by Zara Zachrisson
Makeup by Fredrik Stambro using Shu Uemura at L’Atelier NYC.
Hair by Fernando Torrent at L’Atelier NYC.
Casting by Natalie Joos.
Photographer’s assistant: Melanie Gessner.
Special thanks to Fast Ashleys and Julie Kauss at The Production.

Model: Ylonka Verheul at New York Models wears Tank Top by Calvin Clein.
Earrings by Genevieve Jones.
Photography by Martin Lidell
Styling by Zara Zachrisson
Makeup by Fredrik Stambro using Shu Uemura at L’Atelier NYC.
Hair by Fernando Torrent at L’Atelier NYC.
Casting by Natalie Joos.
Photographer’s assistant: Melanie Gessner.
Special thanks to Fast Ashleys and Julie Kauss at The Production.

Attending summer dance festivals held in idyllic settings often feels like crashing another generation’s party. Happily, for younger people interested in dance and performance, there is a festival newcomer, Mount Tremper Arts, with a much fresher and far more experimental program than many of its older festival relations. Located in the Catskills and founded three years ago by choreographer Aynsley Vandenbroucke and photographer Mathew Pokoik, the festival composes a fairly ideal weekend trip for New Yorkers to watch a well-curated program of new dance and performance. A determined intimacy makes MTA seem in some ways more like a creative camp than a stuffy performance venue: Vandenbroucke and Pokoik prepare a beautiful dinner every Friday evening, and almost always host an after-performance campfire where everyone gets together to drink and talk amid the chatter of frogs and crickets (of whom, one attendee noted: “This isn’t the city. You can’t call 311 on crickets.”). Last weekend featured a Friday evening performance of a work-in-progress by Katie Workum Dance Theater. On Saturday, choreographer Karinne Keithley showcased a dance, film and text-based piece titled Montgomery Park, or Opulance, which reminded me a little of the visual artist Trisha Donnelly in its pile-up of unresolved evocations. Dancer Katy Pyle performed in both pieces, and was riveting each time. The festival opened this year with a performance by the extremely talented Rashaun Mitchell, and will continue into mid-August with performances by Foofwa d’Imobilité, and Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly. The well-designed post-and-beam performance space also hosts a group show of photography curated by Matthew Porter and featuring the work Hannah Whitaker, who is profiled in the current issue of The Last Magazine. Great taste in photography extends to Vandenbroucke and Poikok’s own collection, which includes a small print of Daido Moriyama’s Stray Dog hung in the kitchen, seemingly lurking for table scraps. And, if you hike to the summit of Mount Tremper you’ll find a view to rival Daido’s: climb its vertiginous fire tower and you will see your future, I promise you.

Photography by Mathew Pokoik

http://mounttremperarts.org

Model: Clementine Stevens at Next wears Top by Opening Ceremony.
Photography by Martin Lidell
Styling by Zara Zachrisson
Makeup by Fredrik Stambro using Shu Uemura at L’Atelier NYC.
Hair by Fernando Torrent at L’Atelier NYC.
Casting by Natalie Joos.
Photographer’s assistant: Melanie Gessner.
Special thanks to Fast Ashleys and Julie Kauss at The Production.

Model: Kirby at DNA wears Shirt by LOVE, Richard Chai.
Photography by Martin Lidell
Styling by Zara Zachrisson
Makeup by Fredrik Stambro using Shu Uemura at L’Atelier NYC.
Hair by Fernando Torrent at L’Atelier NYC.
Casting by Natalie Joos.
Photographer’s assistant: Melanie Gessner.
Special thanks to Fast Ashleys and Julie Kauss at The Production.