Sanford Biggers, The Cantor, pink Portuguese marble, 2022 (copyright Sanford Biggers / courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery)
SITES OF IMPERMANENCE
National Academy of Design
519 West Twenty-Sixth St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., second floor
Thursday, February 8, free with recommended RSVP, 6:00-8:00
Exhibition continues through May 11
nationalacademy.org
“By beginning with the analysis of form’s impermanence, the Buddha appeals to the direct experience of our body,” the Dalai Lama and Ven. Thubten Chodron write in the January 2022 Tricycle article “An Unbroken Sequence.” “We know our body is constantly changing; we know it is aging and will eventually cease to exist. This is a comparatively gross form of impermanence, whereas the understanding of subtle impermanence frees us from the illusion of the body being permanent.”
Impermanence is a difficult concept to embrace, as we’ve just learned with the announcement that the Rubin Museum, the treasure trove of Himalayan art since 2004 in the former Barney’s space in Chelsea, is closing its doors in favor of a virtual presence.
In 2019, the National Academy of Design left its longtime home in the elegant Huntington mansion on Museum Mile, where it had resided since 1942. In August 2022, incoming executive director Gregory Wessner told the Art Newspaper, “Absolutely an exhibition space is in the future. Will it be a Beaux-Arts townhouse on Fifth Avenue? No. But it will be a New York space.” The organization’s new gallery is on West Twenty-Sixth St. in Chelsea.
On February 8, NAD will open its latest show, the appropriately titled “Sites of Impermanence,” consisting of art and architectural works addressing temporal and spatial concerns, by 2023 National Academicians Alice Adams, Sanford Biggers, Willie Cole, Torkwase Dyson, Richard Gluckman, Carlos Jiménez, Mel Kendrick, and Sarah Oppenheimer. Advance reservations are requested here. Cocurated by Sara Reisman and Natalia Viera Salgado, the exhibition continues Tuesday – Saturday through May 11.
In the article, the Dalai Lama and Ven. Thubten Chodron also note, “The experience of a pleasant feeling is dependent on an object, the sense faculty, consciousness, and contact, but once the feeling arises, could it be permanent during the time it endures?” You can find out at NAD.