How the Met Turned the Mandala Inside Out

(Previously on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 19th, 2024—January 12th, 2025, this posthumous review of Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist Art of Tibet captures the exhibition as it was upon my visit.)

Even absent of Tibetan Buddhist artwork, the architecture of the Met’s Robert Lehman

Wing resembles a mandala; the skylights create a circle of light within which the atrium floor’s

four walls form a square, and the hallways outside of these walls chain into an endless corridor circling the central space. Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist World of Tibet fills both of these spaces. Himalayan Buddhist artworks spanning the twelfth to the fifteenth century dazzle like jewels in the space ringing the central atrium; within the atrium, contemporary Tibetan artist Tenzing Rigdol’s Biography of a Thought forms the mandala’s palace. I found myself starting with Biography of A Thought (an “incorrect reading”, as mandalas should be read from the outside in), but this ended up to be the correct course of action. If mandalas build from the outskirts inwards towards greater enlightenment, then I propose that the Met has inadvertently created a new kind of mandala—an inverse one.

To pass through Tenzing Rigdol’s brightly colored and predominantly light blue

Biography of a Thought, awash in the atrium skylight’s natural lighting, and to begin a clockwise circumambulation into the solemnly lit, navy blue-accented gallery halls is to descend into a space of somber contemplation. Many of the wall-hanging artworks are framed in navy; Rigdol’slight blue makes its reappearance in the bases of the display cases. These blues are a safe choice; the heavy usage of reds and golds, earth tones and deep blues in the traditional artworks contrast pleasingly against the gallery space’s chosen palette.

The artworks form a monumental procession from thangkas to mandalas to ceremonial

artifacts. The thangkas are intricately painted and in remarkable condition despite having been rolled and unrolled repeatedly, a quality that allows for veneration with the ease of

transportation. Vajrapani, Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, Maitreya and Tara feature prominently,

but the diversity of bodhisattvas astonishes, as do the forms of representation. One remarkable quality of these artworks is that just as they depict the venerable, so too do they depict the grisly; a mandala of Ekajata (an aggressive manifestation of Tara) not only features an unusual triangular composition, but surrounds its palace with a flayed human corpse; flames rage both outside and within the heart of the palace. Chinese silk and Tibetan satin appliqués from the seventeenth to nineteenth century astonish in their size and technique. The delicate illustration achieved through the appliqué and the exquisite materiality of the scenes depicted were a marvel to see. The ceremonial objects were an unexpected but welcome inclusion; appearing near the end of the exhibition, these displays of ritual life revealed further beauty. I particularly enjoyed the costumes for both the Stag Dance and the Skeleton Dance; the silk tiger skin forming the base of the Skeleton Dancer’s skirt used stuffed fabric to form the tiger’s fangs and claws such that they hung boldly off of the garment, and the Qing dynasty robe used for the Stag Dance alludes to a fascinating nineteenth century diplomatic relationship.

Tibetan artist Tenzing Rigdol’s Biography of a Thought, a site-specific commision by the

Met, forms the central palace of the exhibition’s mandala. Large-scale paintings on the atrium’s four walls hang above illustrated carpeting, transforming the central space. The paintings are unified by repeating waves of light blue, echoing the blue palette found elsewhere in the gallery. Biography of a Thought is designed perfectly to unify the space. Unfortunately, it is the weakest part of the exhibition. Depictions of a government whistleblower-themed Mount Rushmore, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the fall of the Twin Towers seem holistically unsubtle, a disjointed group more provocative than

stimulating. Invitations to accessibility are welcome but misplaced. Replacing mudras with ASL signs seems a needless transformation for hand gestures already rife with meaning, and the center of the mandala, an elevated platform in the center of the atrium, is the perfect height for an an adult to touch the braille poetry imprinted on its sides—consequentially, the painted top surface of the platform is made entirely unviewable except from a bird’s eye vantage point. The center of a mandala is its most important element, the deity to which the mandala is devoted. To be physically within the space of Rigdol’s mandala without being able to see its central focus (other than through braille, which could possibly be the artist’s intention other than a. the arbitrariness of the implication that the ability to read braille makes one more receptive to enlightenment, and b. the use of two-dimensional braille as a design element in multiple paintings, which serves no purpose to tactile braille readers) defeats the purpose of a mandala as a map of the cosmos; to wander through this central space without this guiding feature makes Rigdol’s work less a mandala than a samsara. It is only when one exits the exhibition space and ascends to the upper floors that one gets a clear view of the mandala’s center, only to find that viewed from above, the image is so small as to be practically inscrutable. Rigdol himself states that the image at the center of the mandala depicts connection; to that I say, that sounds like a nice idea.

From its inception, Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist World of Tibet was lovingly

curated; to exhibit Himalayan Buddhist artworks, a more perfect gallery space could not be

found than within the halls of the Robert Lehman Wing. Tenzing Rigdol started work on

Biography of a Thought four years ago, working on many of the paintings from his home in

Tibet. What should have formed the palace of the exhibition, elevating the historic artworks with a central installation designed to focus and stimulate, sadly fumbled its messaging. Despite this, to see this diversity of works was truly a spectacle and a joy.