Warm Place in a Cold Season: The Rubin

It started with the smile of the security guard in the lobby, and the women checking coats and taking tickets. Then, in that New York City is such a small place kind of way (which is actually more of a we-move-in-small-socioeconomic circles kind of way) it continued with the sighting of a work colleague, a delightful man who adds a wonderful polish to copy and says wonderful things like, "Before I realized it was you, I was going to tell my friend to look at the beautiful golden hair of that woman sitting there." (How can one not love someone who says things like that? For that matter, who can not love Paige of Louis Licari?) I was at the Rubin Museum of Art, at the corner of 17th Street and 7th Avenue, and already I was loving the place.

The beautifully designed Rubin Museum has been up and running since 2004, but this was my first visit. I knew it was housed in the old Barneys building and had kept the famed spiral staircase, and had heard that people left small offerings on the bases of certain statues. But aside from that, I knew nothing more about it than what is mentioned about its evening activities in the post below this (and there's even more going on there at night than I wrote about). It is a beautifully laid out, thoughfully curated museum with many wonderful examples of the art of the Himalayas--bejeweled sculptures, carvings, paintings, textiles. Many of the works are just awe inspiring in their intricacy--a textile that functions as a painting that is done entirely in gold embroidery, for example, that would have been originally viewed in the flickering light of a butter lamp. It really is a total aesthetic experience--there was a musician playing some lovely music at the base of the staircase that leads to the first exhibit, the colors on the gallery walls are warm, the lighting is great, the guards are unobtrusive.

Since I have a friend who spent time in a Mongolian "ger"--a sort of round heavy felt tent--I was particularly interested in the show "Beyond Chinggis Khan," on view until April 16. It "celebrates the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Mongol empire." (Chinggis Khan is the warrior many people know as Genghis Khan, and apparently he wasn't quite as bloody a warrior as legend has it.) There are contemporary photographs mixed in with the sculpture, paintings, ritual objects and masks, and, in keeping with the warm welcome of the place, my friend and I learned from a fellow viewer (who must work there in some capacity) that one of the photographers whose work was on view, Builder Levy, often comes to the museum, and that the photo of the two stallions rearing was quite a feat to accomplish. The stallions had the most beautiful wild manes.

An especially nice touch can be found on the 6th and top floor of the museum, where you can watch the artist-in-residence, Tibetan Pema Rinzin, and his assistants work on a large painting/mural in progress (his second at the Rubin). There's a table behind them, with pencils and graph paper and cushions on the floor, where kids can sit and get a sense of the work that it takes to develop the sense of porportion that is essential to paintings. Despite being, oh, 30 years or so above the target audience for this activity, my friend and I decided to take advantage of this, as did two other adults, and we merrily sketched away, trying to copy the designs shown in the examples of drawings left on the table. The artist eventually came over to speak with us and told us about his work, how he uses his brushes, the educational backgrounds and aspirations of his two assistants (one, Melissa, is an art historian interested in the conservation of Tibetan art, so what better way to learn than to apprentice with someone and actually participate in making the art? I think the other was a former "art handler" at the MET who wanted to become, or was, a teacher).

The museum is a very manageable size, and once you've made your way through the floors, there's a great cafe on the ground floor--you don't have to pay the entrance fee to go there. Off to the side of the cafe, opposite the decent gift shop, was actually the only place where I saw people leave any sort of offerings to the statues. It was actually in the alcove where the bathrooms are, and the statue was--excuse my ignorance--I think it's Ganesh--and the one item left that sticks in my mind is the hot pink guitar pick.

To wrap up, here's what Mark Stevens wrote in New York Magazine about the Rubin: "The Buddha works in mysterious ways. At the behest of energetic Jewish couple Shelley and Donald Rubin, the Enlightened One has symbolically claimed the former Barneys emporium in Chelsea, once the downtown center of hothouse fashion, and transformed Mammon into a temple of Himalayan art...Donald Rubin does not want his museum to become forbiddingly academic. He emphasizes the living quality of Buddhist art, its ability, he says, to stimulate an "emotional rush" in viewers. The floor-wide exhibitions around the staircase are therefore organized by theme rather than by particular time or place. Rubin himself, who lost much of his family in the Holocaust and continues to be troubled by the eruptive violence in the human heart, takes a special interest in the demonic strains of Buddhist art: the nightmarish imagery represents a Buddhist's determination to confront internal demon's—and tame them. "