Koringa, a magicienne of the 1930s, creatively reimagined yogic referents to enhance the allure of her act.

Hetty Lipscomb is development writer and stewardship manager at Freer|Sackler.

It takes some kind of woman to take on a crocodile. Look magazine’s cover from September 1937 shows Koringa, the beautiful mystic, crouched low, staring down her adversary. She positions her arms like the jaws of the croc, only wider to intimidate him. A caste mark on her forehead glows red like a third eye, suggesting hypnotic powers.

She claimed to be from India, orphaned at the age of three and raised by fakirs who taught her magic so that she could charm snakes, read minds, or walk on beds of shattered glass. In truth, she was Renée Bernard (1913–1976) a dancer from Bordeaux, who was a member of a traveling circus, a popular entertainment in France from the 19th century on. Bernard’s main act was a quick-footed dance on a ladder made of sword blades. Her performance impressed the Mills Brothers of England, who immediately engaged her as a star attraction of Bertram Mills‘ Circus and Menagerie.

Reflecting the public’s romanticized fascination with India, Bernard and the Mills Brothers created the persona of Koringa, “The Only Female Fakir in the World.” A striking woman, Bernard heightened her exotic look with “Orientalist” costumes—short leopard-print dresses or pantaloons with sequined tops—and a dramatic, auerole hairstyle. She dusted her body with a green-tinged powder before performances to give her a glowing, otherworldly appearance. A poster for Mills Circus in the Sackler’s upcoming exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation shows Koringa in green, posed like the Look cover only surrounded by snakes as well as crocodiles. Koringa remained with the Mills Brothers through the 1960s, touring England, France, and South Africa.

A fierce, 10th-century yogini goddess in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, S1987.905

Today, we may see Koringa as a product of a colonialist fantasy of India and “the exotic woman.” But Koringa’s attributes of the crocodile and snake also appear on a 10th-century sculpture of a yogini goddess in the Sackler’s collections. One of a cult of goddesses worshiped in a temple at Tamil Nadu in Kaveripakkam, south India, the yogini came to the aid of the faithful and helped them achieve worldly powers and success. Renée Bernard’s Koringa can be interpreted as an homage to these ancient goddesses, who in turn helped her achieve fame and fortune.

Want to contribute to the Yoga exhibition? Donate to our “Together We’re One” crowdfunding campaign or email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved.

Vulgaria

Tom Vick is curator of film at Freer|Sackler.

The 1997 handover of Hong Kong from England to China opened up a huge new market—1.3 billion strong—for Hong Kong movies. But reaching Chinese audiences requires compromise. Politically controversial topics must be avoided, for instance, and the sex and violence have to be toned down. Often, films are made in Mandarin, which means losing the Cantonese wordplay that gives Hong Kong comedies their punch.

While many Hong Kong filmmakers have accepted these terms in return for more lucrative paydays, others, like Pang Ho-Cheung, are flipping the script. His latest film, Vulgaria (which is being screened on June 14 and 16 as part of the Freer’s 18th Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival), is a flagrantly raunchy comedy. Chapman To stars as To Wai-Cheung, a movie producer who sheds his artistic integrity and eventually his dignity to make a softcore porn that he hopes will revive his career. From its opening scene, in which To regales aghast film students with a lengthy, obscene monologue about his job, it’s clear that Pang has no designs on the mainland market.

In this and other ways, Vulgaria is a throwback to the glory days of Hong Kong cinema. To’s project is a remake of the Shaw Brothers’ 1976 erotic film Confession of a Concubine. That film’s original star, Siu Yam-Yam (aka Yum Yum Shaw), gamely plays herself in Vulgaria, agreeing to appear in the new version (albeit with her head digitally attached to a younger actress’ body.) Shot on the fly without a complete script—as was done in the old days—Vulgaria bounces along with the anarchic energy of the Hui Brothers’ comedies of the ’70s and ’80s, flinging random subplots and absurd jokes in all directions.

Indulging in favorite Hong Kong pastimes such as making obscene puns and mocking mainlanders, Vulgaria is, like stinky tofu or fried chicken-feet, a local delicacy that will delight as many people as it disgusts. If, in recent years, people have complained that Hong Kong movies are becoming watered down, Pang’s filthy love letter to the city and its cinema may be an attempt to reclaim Hong Kong’s distinctiveness, one dirty joke at a time.

Curator Debra Diamond preparing presentation on “The Roots of Yoga” at Jaipur Literary Festival, January 24, 2013.
Left to right: Debra Diamond, David Gordon White, Birad Rajaram Yajnik, Mark Singleton, Sir James Mallinson
(photo by Neil Greentree)

Cathryn Keller, senior advisor and producer for external affairs, is writing a book on yoga in Europe during World War II.

Summer is the ideal time to add some yoga reading to your practice. Review your yoga summer reading list below, and read on for details about what you’ll learn.

Alongside the global yoga boom, there’s been an exciting explosion of insights into yoga’s past and present. Scholars are tracing yoga’s origins, meanings, and changes through history, anthropology, sociology, and religious studies—and now, for Yoga: The Art of Transformation, through art history and visual culture. Before the exhibition opens on October 19, we can delve into fascinating reads by authors who are contributing to its catalogue—the first art book to provide a visual context for contemporary yoga—and who will share new research at the Freer|Sackler’s public symposium in November.

As the body is central to both yoga and Indian art, Mark Singleton’s fascinating and accessible Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice is a great place to start. For lighter reading, check out this interview with Singleton and catalogue author James Mallinson, and Modern Yoga Research, a website Singleton maintains with his teacher Elizabeth De Michelis and emerging scholar Suzanne Newcombe.

Yoga is an embodied practice, a means to transcend physical and metaphysical suffering. We can preview the themes of nationalism, health and the body in South Asia, in the forthcoming catalogue essay on “Metaphysical Fitness” by Joseph S. Alter, an anthropologist of medicine who was born in India, in his book Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Philosophy and Science.

The exhibition will provide new views of places where yoga has been practiced, portrayed, and researched, from medieval temples to the caves and forest huts of ascetics to early twentieth-century gyms and clinics. Worth contemplating: the yogic landscapes in curator Debra Diamond’s award-winning Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur and the temple sculptures in her teacher Vidya Dehejia‘s many books on Indian art.

You can also visit the Freer|Sackler this summer to preview one of the treasures that will be on view in the exhibition. Watch Diamond interpret its representation of the paradox of the yoga body in our latest video.

On the beach or on the way to work, yoga reading is a relaxing and stimulating way to prepare for Yoga: The Art of Transformation.

Yoga Summer Reading List

Joseph Alter, Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Philosophy and Science (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004)

Vidya Dehejia, The Body Adorned: Sacred and Profane in Indian Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009)

Debra Diamond (editor), Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur (London: Thames and Hudson, 2010)

James Mallinson (translator), The Shiva Samhita: A Critical Edition and An English Translation (Woodstock, NY: yogavidya.com, 2007)

Elizabeth de Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism (London: Continuum, 2004)

Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

David Gordon White (editor), Yoga in Practice (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012)

Birad Rajaram Yajnik, The Great Indian Yoga Masters, Tracing 2500 Years of Yoga (Hyderabad, India: Visual Quest Books, 2009)

Want to contribute to the exhibition? Donate to our ”Together We’re One” crowdfunding campaign or email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved.

Krishna Vishvarupa, ca. 1740, India; Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

A week ago today we kicked off Together We’re One, our Razoo crowdfunding campaign to support Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first exhibition of yogic art. Opening this October at the Sackler, Yoga will include temple sculptures, devotional icons, and vibrant manuscripts, as well as early-modern photographs, books, and films.

Because of yoga’s broad appeal, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to launch a crowdfunding campaign, enabling lots of people to get involved in helping us make yoga history.

The image we’ve chosen for the campaign was painted in the eighteenth century, but we felt like it was speaking to us today. The deity Krishna is known as “Master of Yoga” in the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text, when he reveals his infinite cosmic form (Vishvarupa), which encompasses all time, space, and beings. An artist from the Himalayan foothills of India evoked the vast and proliferating universe by depicting Krishna with sixty multicolored heads and forty-four pinwheeling arms.

Everyone on the Razoo team loved this image for the campaign because it evokes a community working together. Debra Diamond, curator of the exhibition, also recommended this image because one of yoga’s most powerful transformations is realizing that the self and the universe are one.

Learn more about the campaign, and email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved!

Folio 6B from a Gulshan; opaque watercolor and gold on paper; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; ELS2013.1.174

Elizabeth Axelson, Siobhan Donnelly, and Natalie Creamer are interns in the office of public affairs and marketing at Freer|Sackler.

On May 29, we celebrated the launch of our first crowdfunding campaign, a month-long effort to support Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first exhibition on yogic art. During the event, we talked to guests about their passion for yoga and what transformation means to them.

Among those in attendance was Valerie Grange, cofounder and codirector of DC’s Buddha B Yoga Center. Adorned in crystals and a fuchsia sari—recently purchased by the yogini on a trip to India—Grange told us, “Transformation in the context of yoga is the idea of evolving on a spiritual and physical level.”

Valerie Grange of DC’s Buddha B Yoga Center

Gurumeet and Gurujotsingth Khalsa teach, practice, and partake of the yoga lifestyle at the Guru Ram Das Ashram in Herndon, Virginia. Dressed in all white and wearing turbans, the couple discussed their long history with yoga. Gurumeet noted that their practice began by reading books and meeting with a teacher. Today, she explained, the couple practices “Kundalini yoga and the Sikh way of life.” While many people think of yoga as an exercise featuring postures, the Khalsas were quick to point out that “yoga is more than just posture—posture is only one-eighth” of the equation. While postures, also known as asanas, are part of yoga, they are the least important part, according to the Khalsas. “Yoga means ‘union’ and requires discipline,” noted Gurumeet. “We love all kinds of yoga.”

Gurumeet and Gurujotsingth Khalsa with exhibition curator Debra Diamond

Ceren Ozer, a member of the Freer|Sackler’s Silk Road Society, brought along a few of her friends to the launch party. When we asked why she practiced yoga, Ceren explained, “It’s a way to get relaxed and centered. It’s not only the act of us doing sun salutations. Physical activities are a way for us to be prepared for meditation. In a given day, I try to become centered if I get too … all over the place [by] breathing and being aware of my emotions.”

Ceren Ozer (right), a member of the Silk Road Society, with a friend

Finally, we asked Sara VanderGoot, cofounder and owner of the local Mind the Mat Pilates & Yoga studios, what transformation meant to her. Her definition, she answered, is “being present in every moment and knowing that we are always in transformation.” As someone very involved with yoga, she said she was excited that the exhibition will expose the public to the history and other aspects of yoga.

Sara VanderGoot (left), cofounder and owner of Mind the Mat Pilates & Yoga

Visit our website to learn more about the campaign, or email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved.

Namaste,
Lizzy, Siobhan, and Natalie

Vishvarupa (detail) from the exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation

Miranda Gale is project manager of Together We’re One.

On Wednesday, May 29, the Freer|Sackler will launch the Smithsonian’s first major crowdfunding campaign, “Together we’re one.” The campaign will support Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first exhibition on yogic art, opening this October at the Sackler Gallery. You may have read about the campaign in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington City Paper, or DCist, or perhaps heard about it on NBC Washington—but what exactly is “Together we’re one,” and why did we choose to launch the campaign in the first place? Here are the answers to our most frequently asked questions as we prepare to make yoga history over the next five weeks.

Why crowdfunding?
We’re trying a new (to us, at least!) and innovative fundraising approach worthy of a new and innovative exhibition. Crowdfunding is not too different from our other fundraising efforts; we’re just asking more people for a smaller amount of money, rather than asking a few people or corporations for a large amount of money. Since so many people practice and are enthusiastic about yoga, we’re choosing a format that allows everyone to get involved, not just those who have the means to make large donations.

Why does the Smithsonian need money? Don’t our taxes fund the museums?
While federal taxpayer funding covers some of our costs (mostly operating costs, such as keeping the galleries clean and the lights on), private and public support—whether from donors, sponsors, or grants—cover the majority of expenses related to exhibitions and programming. We rely on public and private support to offer our programs and exhibitions free of charge to the public. Private and public support for the Yoga exhibition will help us create videos, publications, and pamphlets; print catalogs (and sell them for a much more reasonable price than through a bookstore!); offer yoga classes during the exhibition, and more.

The cost of putting on a major exhibition like this one is high—but not unusual for the Freer|Sackler. It is simply necessary for keeping the artwork and visitors safe and ensuring a quality experience for both.

How will my money be used?
Yoga: The Art of Transformation, a longtime labor of love for the Freer|Sackler, will bring more than 130 artworks from around the world to Washington, DC. The associated costs are high. All donations will fund the unexciting but expensive logistics (shipping, mounting, lighting, paint, cases, labels), plus the fun aspects that allow us to better share the exhibition’s content with the public: workshops for adults and families, yoga classes in the exhibit space, a yoga festival, pamphlets and other takeaway materials, honorariums for speakers and teachers, a comprehensive website, and videos. It will also support a public symposium that will bring international art and yoga scholars to DC, and the production of a full-color exhibition catalog, the first on yogic art.

Visit our website to learn more about the campaign, or email us at yoga@si.edu to see how you can get involved.

Namaste!

Examples of books you can make at our Inner-Artist Workshops: The Art of Japanese Pouch-books

The Freer|Sackler has teamed up with Pyramid Atlantic Art Center to offer six Japanese book-making workshops for adults in conjunction with the exhibition Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer’s Japanese Illustrated Books. F|S educator Joanna Pecore chatted with Pyramid Atlantic’s artistic director, Gretchen Schermerhorn, about these events, which will take place on selected weekends through the end of June.

Joanna: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk, Gretchen. Can you tell me about your work with making papers and books?

Gretchen: I am a printmaker and paper-maker. I started making paper around 10 years ago and have since been trained in making both Western and Asian papers. I am also specifically interested in woodblock printing.

Joanna: What inspired you to begin making paper?

Gretchen: In graduate school, one of my professors taught a paper-making class. At the time, I wondered why anyone would want or need to make paper. It is so easy to purchase. Then, I learned about everything that goes into it: the vision, what it is made from, and the control involved in the process. There is so much variation in what can be done.

Joanna: Can you tell me about Pyramid Atlantic?

Gretchen: It is an art center in Silver Spring, Maryland, dedicated to the preservation and creation of prints, paper, and book arts. We offer all kinds of opportunities, like residencies, internships, and classes. Visiting artists come from all over the world to share their art at our center. What’s more important, though, is that we do it all: paper, prints, and books. We explore how all of these elements relate to each other. They are all important to the process of bookmaking. People can do it all under one roof at Pyramid Atlantic.

Joanna: What can participants expect when they join your workshops at the Sackler?

Gretchen: They will to get to create a book and a print inspired by works in the Hand-Held exhibition. After the workshop, they will be able to really understand how the books in the exhibition were made, especially how they were bound and printed. It ties into exhibit. It is not just an art project.

Joanna: What is unique about this opportunity?

Gretchen: This is an authentic experience. It is really exciting for me. Although I have been doing stab binding—the type of binding used in the “pouch-books”—for years, this is the first time I have tried to replicate how it was done in Japan. And we are going to use the “pouch” technique. We haven’t done that before. This workshop is an incredibly rare and affordable way for participants to get this experience.

The first classes begin this weekend. Check the F|S website for the complete schedule.

Taking part in Slow Art Day in the Freer Gallery.

David Nash is program assistant in the Education Department at Freer|Sackler.

On Saturday, April 27, ten enthusiastic visitors joined Education Specialist Hillary Rothberg and me for Slow Art Day. Joining more than 250 other museums worldwide, we looked at four objects for fifteen minutes each and thought deeply about what the objects represented and how they were crafted. We examined a third-century frieze that depicts the life of the Buddha and sketched it in the gallery. Looking through handmade telescopes, we gazed at ancient scenes of romance and destruction on Japanese screens. We circled four Guardian Kings and looked closely at them from four directions, and we listened to a recording of a piano playing a soft nocturne as we looked upon night scenes from the nineteenth century.

After our time in the galleries, we made our way to Teaism and enjoyed a casual lunch, sharing our thoughts on art and what we’d seen over a slow and delightful meal. Everyone expressed what art means to them and how they were affected by the day’s activities. We took our time listening to each other and offering comments.

Finally, as lunch ended, twelve newly acquainted friends parted ways. Each went on his or her separate path, back to the normal pace of life. However, with memories of this day as a guide, perhaps each will continue the practice of looking at art slowly.

We hope you’ll join us for next year’s Slow Art Day on April 12, 2014!

Charles Lang Freer ca. 1905, Charles Lang Freer papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

Lee Glazer, associate curator of American art at Freer|Sackler, takes a closer look at American art this month in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Freer Gallery of Art, which opened its doors to the public on May 2, 1923.

It may come as a surprise to learn that Charles Lang Freer, captain of industry, connoisseur of fine art, and, eventually, founder of the Freer Gallery, was also a fan of banjo music. In 1897, he arranged for a famous banjo trio, the Doré Brothers, to travel from New York City to Detroit, where they performed at a formal dinner at the exclusive Detroit Club in honor of club-member Russell Alger’s appointment as Secretary of War under President McKinley. (Alger, a Civil War veteran, had made a fortune in the lumber business and was a major shareholder in Freer’s Peninsular Car Company.) On the evening of January 20, the Doré Brothers played a specially commissioned piece, “The Detroit Club March.” Freer, writing to American artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing (another Doré Brothers fan), praised their performance as a great success.

Was there a wild and crazy guy behind that pince-nez and starched collar? Maybe … but then again, maybe not. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, there was a movement among some musicians to “elevate” the banjo, distancing it from its African origins and subsequent association with minstrel shows. By the 1880s, the banjo had become nearly as popular as the piano among wealthy, novelty-seeking young women. It was a full-blown fad on college campuses, whose banjo clubs typically performed orchestra-fashion, with guitars and mandolins. Professionals, among them the Doré Brothers, appeared in tuxedos and played serious European music arranged for banjo: well-known works by Wagner, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Chopin were all part of the banjo repertoire in the 1890s. “The Detroit Club March” wasn’t exactly high art, though, and it’s nice to think of what one Gilded Age critic called the banjo’s “half-barbaric twang … in harmony with the unmechanical melodies of the birds” enlivening a winter gathering of capitalists in black tie.

[Sources: Philadelphia Music and Drama, 1891; Thomas Wilmer to Charles Lang Freer, February 16, [1897] and March 2, [1897], Charles Lang Freer papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Archives]

Visitors take a good look at a work of art at Freer|Sackler (photo by Cory Grace).

Hillary Rothberg is an educator at Freer|Sackler.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. —Henry David Thoreau

The above quote is this year’s motto for Slow Art Day—and how true it is. While we may all look at an object together, what we see as individuals varies widely. And it is that subjectivity that makes art such a powerful tool. Some see the intricacy of design and technique in a piece of art; others see the emotion and poignancy in the story told by that piece. By slowing down and really taking time to view a work, we can deliberate on art in a meditative style, exploring its depth and meaning, and can understand better its craftsmanship.

On Saturday, April 27, the Freer and Sackler Galleries will take part in the rapidly growing Slow Art Day movement. We, along with more than 250 other art venues across the globe, will lead a group in looking at art objects. Then, we will discuss what we’ve discovered over lunch. It’s an opportunity to see and think deeply, and to share with each other the meaning of art in our lives.

Want to learn more about Slow Art Day? Check out this interview with founder Phil Terry on the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s blog, Eye Level.