Yang Mao-Lin

Celine Chao ed., Canonization of the Gods—the Pure Land of Maha, Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei, 2006, p. 23, illustrated in color

The Taiwanese sculptor Yang Mao-Lin has made his name crafting traditional devotional sculpture, albeit with an important difference: the bodhisattvas and other deities he portrays are based on Asian and Western popular culture. One god is incarnated in the form of Marilyn Monroe, for example, while another is an avatar of Astroboy. Particularly in his early work, the artist carved such figures in wood, but the majority of Yang's profane deities are cast in bronze. Yang obviously comments on the loss of tradition, even more on the loss of authentic religious sentiment, and its replacement by commercial icons in the contemporary world. Even with their flaming nimbuses and other religious attributes, these figures can never command the respect and devotion their predecessors did—or at least not the same kind. Although Yang casts the venerable pantheon of Buddhist enlightened beings as animated cartoon characters and film stars, the exquisite surfaces of Wang's sculptures unquestionably resonate with the weight of the sculptural tradition that is their source. The physical grace of Yang's sculpture evokes the Buddhist legacy, while the identity of the deities reminds us that the contemporary culture of popular taste is inescapable. Yang's art therefore represents a well-considered strategic compromise, one that is poised between past and present iconographic history.

In Yang's recent bronze entitled Dorothy Bodhisattva in Maha Dancing World, Dorothy has renounced the world of Oz for more noble pursuits in the Maha Dancing World. The cartoonish figure of the adolescent girl is portrayed with a wheel of fire behind her head, proper adornment for a near deity of such pop-cultural importance. Dorothy performs a mudra of peace with her right hand; in her left, she holds a golden figurine. She is not quite the embodiment of an exquisite being who has renounced enlightenment in order to help others in the human world, but she appears to be on the right track. Her body and dress are dark, but her shoes are a brilliant golden foil, seemingly transformed by the nobility of her purpose from the ruby red magic slippers of filmic fame. Standing more than fifty inches high, the sculpture is decidedly impressive, even if the figure is a movie heroine from Kansas incarnate. It bears considering, however, that the essential function of the sculpture—as a physical representation of the spiritual world amidst us—remains unchanged, no matter the figure's actual identity. Yang's satire reflects a contemporary sensibility, but it also maintains ties to a sculptural tradition that has endured for more than a thousand years—and which we continue to see in his Dorothy Bodhisattva. As such, interpretation—and perhaps even authentic spiritual resonance—is left to the viewer's discretion. 

-Jonathan Goodman