Hyphen

The Invisible Thread; Buddhist Spirit in Contemporary Art, The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center
Staten Island, New York, NY

Dimensions:
12 x 9 x 78 feet (366 x 274 x 2377 cm)

Materials:
Cotton, elastic line, aluminum, copper, steel, vinyl, and mirror

Constructed within the passageway between buildings and parts of the 2003-04 The Invisible Thread: Buddhist Spirit in Contemporary Art exhibition at The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Hyphen was an ephemeral work that explored the potential for ascendancy and transformation for the individual engaged in Buddhist practice.

Moving through the space, the anamorphic image of a vibrant blue Buddha on a saffron floor slowly revealed itself, as the viewer’s unique perspective transformed the figure from abstraction to icon, traveling from expansion to contraction, and to expansion again.

A pair of convex mirrors echoed immediate, personal self-reflection, also suggesting the illusion of existence and emphasizing the individual in the impermanent moment.

Hyphen explicitly focused upon the viewer, intentionally leaving references to specific Buddhist doctrine open to interpretation. Intended to be experienced as a tool for questioning oneself in the context of the exhibition as a whole, the work was a hyphen between potentialities.