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Canopy, Bhutan, felt with silk fringe.

 

FOR 2/15

‘MAGIC CARPETS’ WILL FLY AT ROSSI & ROSSI FEB. 17 w/1 cut

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NEW YORK CITY — An exhibition of Buddhist meditation carpets from a private Swiss collection will be presented by London dealer Rossi & Rossi at the Neuhoff Gallery, Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, here February 17–March 25. “Magic Carpets from the Himalayas” will comprise 15 tantric carpets from Tibet, China and Mongolia dating from the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

These fine carpets were commissioned for revered Buddhist sanctuaries. Their unusual imagery of skinned humans, bound demons, skulls and severed heads derives from the cremation grounds of north India where yogis practiced meditation. The exhibition coincides with New York’s Asia Week, other dealer exhibitions and the International Asian Art Fair.

Woolen carpets have provided practical comfort and aesthetic pleasure in Tibet for more than a millennium. They are used for sitting (kha gang ma), sleeping (kha gdan, nyal gdan) and to adorn the walls, ceilings, pillars (kha ‘thum), doorways (sgo yol) and, occasionally, the floors (sa gdan). Traditionally, many Tibetans are periodically itinerant (for trade, pilgrimage or grazing) and the easily portable woolen carpet was multifunctional.

The carpets featured in this exhibition, however, are chiefly associated with social activities and religious practices well beyond the mundane. Their potent imagery attests to their use in a variety of public and private Buddhist rites, particularly those associated with worship of the protector deities.

Several wool, cotton and dye examples come from Ningxia in northwest China. One features a male effigy, naked and bound at the ankles and wrists by heavy chains, within a ritual triangle (dharmodaya), each corner supported by a severed head. This carpet is unusually large by Tibetan standards and is likely to have been commissioned for a particular use.

Another carpet represents a flayed male (g.yang gzhi) whose arms stretch overhead as if bound at the wrists. A third wool, cotton, and dye carpet, probably from China, depicts a flayed elephant.

The only textile in the exhibition is a felt canopy with a silk fringe, which comes from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. It would have surmounted a ritual space in which offerings were made and rituals performed to protect from harm or vanquish enemies.

Among the Tibetan pieces is a wood, cotton and dye carpet or door cover featuring two skeletons (cittipatti) linking arms in a macabre dance. Each skeleton holds a skull cup and a ritual mace surmounted by a skull; tiger skins adorn their bony hips. Such imagery is often found at the entrance to or within secret chapels (mgon khang) dedicated to the protector deities of Tibetan monasteries.

For information, 212-838-1122 or www.rossirossi.com.