Circumambulation of the Sacred Mount Kailash - An International Art Project

The Myth of the World Axis

Five Artists on a Working Trip in Tibet August/September 2005

"Installation" in Lhasa

Five artists, three of whom studied at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, one in Vienna and one in Lhasa, traveled to Tibet in August 2005. They came together with Tibetan artists in the capital city of Lhasa, and then set out for Mount Kailash in connection with an art project.
The initiator of the Kailash journey is the painter and author Elke Hessel, who has worked in the area of Tibetan culture for many years. Addiional team members are Chistiane Rasch, sculptor; Püntsok Tsering, poet and painter; Velli Vandoulaki, ink-color technique; Jörg Wiele, sculptor.

Kailash

Kailash

The sacred Mount Kailash is located in western Tibet on the highest plateau on earth between 4500 and 6000 meters, at the headwaters of four great, powerful rivers: the Ganges, Indus, Sutley and Karnali (Brahmaputra). It arises alone from the arid high-plateau desert as a mighty black and white snow-capped mountain, almost like a vision, and represents the center of the world, indeed the axis of the universe, in the cosmologies of India and Tibet. It is seen in the tantric view as a three-dimensional mandala, as a trans-mundane concentric palace, inhabited by Hindu or Buddhist deities.
The so-called “Kora,” the ritual circumambulation of the sacred mountain in three days is said to set energies of purification and transformation free, it is considered to be the high point of a believer’s life.

The Project

The monastery Puntsok ling

The six artists traveled to Mount Kailash, Asia’s most sacred place, difficult to reach and even more difficult to circumambulate, in summer, 2005. They took up the theme of the sacred mountain as the center of the world, the idea of the outer and inner mandala, the material and immaterial aspects, and worked artistically on location – under these extremely challenging but profoundly inspiring circumstances. The artists spent a total of five weeks in Tibet, first of all, a week in the capital city of Lhasa to acclimate themselves and to connect with contemporary Tibetan artists.

At Guesthouse in Purang

Finally, they set off in Jeeps and drove past ancient temples and monasteries along the Yarlung-Tsangpo Valley. After three days they turned north, now travelling more or less parallel to the main Himalaya mountain chain with its magnificent snow-capped peaks that seem so close that one could touch them, reaching the foot of the sacred Mount Kailash within two further days’ journey.
The artists circumambulated the mountain within three days’ time. Afterwards they stayed there for a longer time, to work and to visit monasteries and sacred places in the area. After two weeks they returned to Nepal/Katmandu, their point of departure.

Perspectives

At the destination

Taking up the idea of the mandala as a concentric network, the artists intend to bring the artistic results of their journey in all directions of the world, starting from Kailash as their center. They are planning exhibitions not only in Lhasa and Germany, but also in Shanghai, London and New York (a catalog documenting the journey and the art works will appear in this connection).

The Artists

ELKE HESSEL

At Drölma Pass (5700m)

She works inspired by Tibetan poetic, mythological and philosophical texts. Her central focus is the equality, mutual permeation and interchangeability of profane and sacred themes. Elke Hessel is a collector of found objects, both material and immaterial. For the most part, almost abstract, mystically enraptured collages that are also architectonic in appearance arise on wood, on pigmented surfaces, drawings, and papers that are then covered with semitransparent daphne paper from the Himalayas, waxed and polished. Elke Hessel takes up the idea of the sacred Mount Kailash as a mandala or mystical palace during the journey. Following the Buddhist conception of the four gates at the four cardinal directions that lead into the inside of the mandala, she made drawings, collect objects and documented the process. Elke Hessel studied a the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, among other things the integration of art and architecture under Prof. Megert, and Classical Tibetan at the Institute for Central Asian Studies of the University of Bonn. She is a painter and author.  www.elke-hessel.de

CHRISTIANE RASCH

Christiane Rasch’s sculptures and frequently space-related works are abstract and radiate a quiet clarity. They often consist of a combination of several different materials such as plaster, wood, wax, cloth or foil. Also, found or used objects are integrated and brought into new concrete forms. In recent years Christiane Rasch travelled through Asia for several weeks and worked intensively with the theme of landscape and horizon.

During this artistic journey to Kailash, Christiane Rasch intends above all to draw and make small changes and interventions in the landscape at individual locations and document them.
What she sees and collects there, later has been transformed into space-defining sculptures in her studio.
Christiane Rasch was born in 1971 in Krefeld, Germany, and studied under A.R. Penck and David Rabinowitch at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, is a master-class student, has received numerous awards and has held exhibitions in Germany and abroad. She lives and works in Cologne, Germany.

PÜNTSOK TSERING

Born in Lhasa, TAR, V.R.China, Punstok Tsering first studied under a private teacher, and then studied painting and classical poetry.
He has lived in Düsseldorf for some years now. He paints, makes modern calligraphy and colleges and writes poetry.
His contribution to the Kailash Project evidently is the keeping of a poetic diary during the entire journey that will primarily consist of poems, calligraphies and sketches reflecting his inner images as well as the world of his external experience. They give expression to the theme of return to oneself, to one’s roots, to the center of this world. He composes his poems in Tibetan and in German translation.  www.dusug-art.com

VELLI VANDOULAKI

Born in a Cretan village, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, under Hundertwasser, among others.
She has lived for years in Asia, Lhasa, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi and India, but also in Düsseldorf.
Her deeply personal and free ink drawings on rice paper that are placed next to poetic fragments show situations in every-day life in Asia, mythological scenes, dreams. Her main theme is the human individual in dialog with his or her subconscious and with archetypical images of deities.

JÖRG WIELE

Jörg Wiele builds a stonework at 5700 m altitude

Works

  • with the changing appearances of the forces of nature
  • with the fields of tension of dualities (movement and stillness, light and shadow, round and square, soft and firm, etc.)
  • with the continually flowing changes in states of being
  • and with this vanishing “moment” of perception!

Wiele places his wind-moved art forms in energetically weak and important locations.

His objectless poetic constructions, consisting of many different materials, contain healing mantras, symbols and signs from the Tibetan-Buddhist tradition.

Turning in the wind, these finely balanced organic forms glide and float and point out space. The healing power of the mantras and symbols diffuses concentrically into the world.

Documentation of the journey

Jörg Wiele accompanied the artist group’ journey through Tibet

  • with a video camera
  • also develop artistic works relating to the surroundings, construct and film them

Jörg Wiele was born in 1951 in Mecklenburg, Germany, completed training in precision mechanics and studied at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts under Profs. Schwegler and Bobek until 1981. Since then he has worked as an independent sculptor with exhibitions in Germany and abroad.
 www.Joerg-Wiele.com