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Gonkar Gyatso: Tibetan Idol V (LV)
GONKAR GYATSO born 1961
TIBETAN IDOL - 5 (LV)
2006
ink and pencil on treated paper
52.5 x 38.5 cm
signed lower centre: [relief stamp] Gyatso
La Trobe University Art Collection. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2024-2025.
IMAGE: Courtesy the artist
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Oh! What a beautiful day – Peter Towse and Gonkar Gyatso's shared visions, Rossi and Rossi, London, 6 October – 15th December 2006
Gonkar Gyatso: Three Realms, Griffith University Art Gallery, University of Queensland Art Museum, and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 25 February – 15 October 2012
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
Gonkar Gyatso: Excuse Me While I Kiss The Sky, 30 Aprilk - 11 June 2022, ACAE Gallery, Melbourne
ACAE Gallery, Sydney Contemporary, FUTURES, 5-8 September 2024, Sydney
Gonkar Gyatso's Tibetan Idol V (LV), 2006 was recently acquired by La Trobe University through the Federal Government's Cultural Gifts Program. ACAE Gallery was delighted to facilitate the transfer of this important ink and pencil on paper by a leading contemporary artist. The work will join La Trobe's extant holdings of Gyatso's works including Buddha In Our Times, 2010 and Eight is Beautiful, 2009, which are held in the Geoff Raby Collection of Chinese Art at La Trobe University.
According to Dr Damian Smith:
In Tibetan Idol V (LV), Gyatso juxtaposes the traditional silhouette of a Buddha or Bodhisattva with the ubiquitous Louis Vuitton fashion house logo, which appears at the centre of the work. In this clash of tradition and modernity, wherein the religious icon recedes into the background, it is hard to ignore the sentiments hinted at by the artist, that consumer culture is the dominant feature of contemporary life, whereas, sipritual concerns are sadly diminished. Gyatso draws on his background training in religous Thangka painting to reveal the guildelines or 'iconometry' of Tibetan Buddhist art, which make up the linear structure of the piece. The slightly oval head and tapering ears that distinguish the central figure, along with the circular mandorla that frames the otherwise blank visage, appear to suggest that the work is a depiction of the Buddhist Bodhisattva Chenrezig (Sanskrit: Avalokiteśvara - Lord who looks down). The text element in this piece, which appears in the grid formation across the figure appears as a cryptic amalgam of Tibetan and Chinese.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gonkar Gyatso is a Tibetan-born British artist. Born in 1961 in Lhasa, Gyatso moved to London in the late ’90s on a scholarship to study at the Chelsea School of Art and Design, where he attained his MA in Fine Art. Gyatso also studied Chinese brush painting in Beijing, attaining a BFA, and Thangka painting (traditional Tibetan scroll painting) in Dharamsala. The artist is the founder of the Sweet Tea House, a contemporary art gallery dedicated to showing Tibetan work, based in London, which he ran from 2003–10. The artist was the recipient of a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2003 and was an artist-in-residence at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.
Gyatso’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA), the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israel), The City Gallery (Wellington, New Zealand), The Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia), the Rubin Museum of Art (New York, USA), the National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China), the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art (Scotland), the Courtauld Institute of Art (London, UK), the Burger Collection (Switzerland), the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam (the Netherlands), and the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia). Gyatso has participated in the 53rd Venice Biennale, the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, and the 17th Sydney Biennale. Hiswork has also been collected by important institutions around the world.
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