2004

Manuscript Sheet with Buddha, Christ, Islamic Figure, and Mao

Tibetan, born 1971

Imitating a traditional folio from a Himalayan manuscript, the artist Gade (pronounced gah-day) has purposefully "aged" this sheet. He burned the edges and applied sawdust to the surface after creating the paintings and "inscriptions" in scripts that imitate Cyrillic or Greek (a reference to the Eastern Orthodox Church), Arabic, and a North Indian script used for Buddhist Sanskrit. The artist also added burnished golden accents to the figures' halos, backgrounds, and symbols. The first contemporary Tibetan work to enter the Museum's collection, this composition provocatively links earlier religious artistic forms to modern topics and concepts.