Serious fun with Art

Gonkar Gyatso tells Shivangi Ambani-Gandhi that his art works are not just fun to look at but also playful to make.

“It’s fun to work with and fun for people to look at,” says artist Gonkar Gyatso about his signature sticker-collage technique of crating artworks. ‘Fun’ is certainly not the word many would associate with art, yet Gyatso’s works are exactly that—they are playful, witty and great fun to decipher.

Three of his works are on show at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane as part of the 6^th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6). If can’t make the trip up to Brisbane, two of his other works will also come to the 17^th Biennale of Sydney later this year.

Born in Tibet and now living in London, Gyatso combines traditional thangka iconography and the Buddha figure with pop culture imagery of the West to create layered works of great intrigue.

Having its first showing at the APT6, is the 9-metre long Reclining Buddha – Shanghai to Lhasa Express (2009). The reclining Buddha in the state of ultimate bliss having achieved moksha, is ironically covered in hundreds upon thousands of cartoon stickers, news clips, ads, product labels and logos in Gyatso’s work.

To ‘read’ this work, viewers must also walk along the length of the work, retracing the train journey that Gyatso made from Shanghai to Lhasa. At either end of this work, are also surveillance cameras pointing at the Buddha figure. “Everywhere you go, there’s someone watching you nowadays,” says Gyatso. “That is also reflecting the political situation and surveillance culture in Tibet. Especially after 9/11, the surveillance culture became dominant, while civil rights completely became a shamble.”

In Angel (2007), a drawing of the Bodhisattva of compassion, Bodhissatva Avalokiteshwara is super imposed with the well known image of the Iraqi prisoner tortured by US soldiers at Abu Gharib. The third work at APT6, Spring 2008 (2009) makes reference to the violent confrontations between Tibetan and Han Chinese in Lhasa in the spring of 2008, according to Suhanya Raffel, curator of APT6. By using popular culture imagery, Gyatso breaks the very construct of an exotic and spiritual Tibet that mainstream media create.

Looking at the works, I found myself laughing and then stopping to think “Gonkar’s work is beautiful to look at, but also intellectually stimulating,” says Fabio Rossi of Rossi & Rossi gallery in London which represents Gyatso. “There is a certain ambiguity that is very appealing but the message doesn't over-power the aesthetics,” he adds.

Gyatso finds his own collage practice contemplative yet fun. “It is very meditative yet activates my mind at the same time. It’s also very playful to work with,” he says. He also spends a lot of time choosing the stickers and clippings he uses in each work. “I choose the text and stickers according to the content of the work,” he says. “I use the cartoon images to say what I want to say on behalf of myself.”

This need to communicate through images is perhaps a product of his continual migration across Tibet, China, India and finally London. He grew up in Lhasa during the Cultural Revolution when much art and culture was destroyed, and traditional Tibetan art forms were forbidden.

“Those days in Lhasa, as a kid to grow up in a very Chinese and communist environment, there were no visible religious or Tibetan culture influences around,” recollects Gyatso. “However, in the 1980s when I was studying in Beijing, the environment had dramatically changed. During my time in Beijing, I came across my own ethnic tradition as well as Western visual cultures for the first time, mainly through exhibitions, films, and of course later on through text books. These had made a very big impact on my art practice later on.”

It was in Dharamsala, India where Gyatso learned traditional Tibetan thangka painting. “I started the training with one of the masters from Tibetan Library in Dharamsala,” says Gyatso. “The learning process was more like that of guild system. There was one master with many students. The whole learning process was practice based rather than theory. Also, you will develop very close engagement with the religious practice and philosophy.”

Spoken language was a particular problem in India. “When I was in India I didn’t speak very good English or Hindi. For this reason I often stayed within my own native Tibetan community in Dharamsala,” he says. “However, I am planning to visit there next year after 16 years of my absence. What’s happening in India is also very inspiring and fascinating.”

After moving to London, Gyatso founded the Sweet Tea House in 1985, which became the first Tibetan avant-garde artists’ association. “The initial idea for the gallery was to open a small window space where people could see contemporary Tibetan art, which was not widely acknowledged at that time,” says Gyatso. “During the 4-5 years period, the gallery organised exhibitions and lectures to promote contemporary artists from inside Tibet. These have led more prominent Western commercial galleries such as Rossi & Rossi in London, Peaceful Wind in the US, Red Gate gallery in Beijing to get involved with this movement of contemporary Tibetan art.”

Fabio Rossi agrees: “Our involvement in contemporary Tibetan art is fairly recent - since 2005. However, in this brief period of time, we have witnessed a development in both content and technique. Tibetan artists, both within and outside Tibet, have grown in confidence as they are reaching a more international audience. Their work is now being perceived in relation not only to the tradition of Tibetan art but also to what goes in the world of Asian and non-Asian contemporary art.”

While Gyatso’s works sell between £ 10,000 and over £ 100,000, and have also been included in the prestigious Venice Biennale, he is not the only one enjoying global recognition says Rossi. “There are a number of Tibetan artists living abroad, such as Kesang Lamdark in Zurich, who was showcased in the Gangzhou Triennial of 2007 and Tenzing Rigdol in New York, who are creating 'global' work and the same can be said of artist in Tibet such as Nortse, Gade, Benchung.”