History of Tibet Pop at Rubin Museum
A panel from Green Lama (no. 1) page 3, script by Richard Foster, art by Mac Raboy, 1944.
Visitors entering the lobby of the Rubin Museum of Art are welcomed with soothing Eastern music played by live performers nestled in the curved foot of an elegant spiral staircase—the building is itself a landmarked structure created by the noted French architectural designer Andrée Putman for Barney’s, its previous incarnation— that rises six levels through galleries of priceless permanent collections and traveling exhibitions from countries bordering the 1,800- mile arc of the Himalayan mountain range. For the Sherpa-challenged, an elevator is recommended for the ascent to the top; take the stylish stairway down to see the exhibitions.
The Rubin is the most user-friendly museum in the city; I know of no other that encourages the visitor to slide one of its small padded benches over and sit in unhurried contemplation before the thangkha painting of one’s choice.
Spiraling all the way down to the lower level, one enters the realm of Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics, an extraordinary exhibition of vintage comic books and early action figures that, in keeping with the Buddhist principles of lineage and reincarnation, is the most complete and comprehensive collection of comics related to Tibet ever assembled.
Curated by Dr. Martin Brauen, anthropologist, religious historian, author of several English-language and German publications on Tibetan and Himalayan art and culture and chief curator of the Rubin from 2008 to 2011, the exhibit includes comics from Germany, France, Belgium (The Adventures of Tintin), Italy, India and Japan, in their original languages and translated into English, some for the first time. They are presented for easy perusal in facsimile format in bound albums on a broad table flanked by stools. Headphones are also available for the enjoyment of a video narrated by Brauen.
How could a mysterious country surrounded by the world’s highest, most perilous snowcovered mountains—the impenetrable “roof of the world”—inspire such fantastic stories? It’s a question that embodies its own answer.
W.Y. Evans-Wentz was one of the earliest explorers to Tibet, and his book, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (or The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane), first published in 1927 by Oxford University Press, may have been the first report back by someone who had actually journeyed to Tibet (OUP printed a fifth edition of the classic in 2000) and immersed himself in Buddhism, along with the esoteric concept of the bardo, the after-death mind state in which visions of ferocious demons and deities are unleashed in vengeful comeuppance to settle one’s hash before rebirth. In a nutshell.
Evans-Wentz also edited and compiled Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines and Tibet’s Great Yogi: Milarepa, expanding the occult magnet that drew European explorers— Alexandra David-Neel, Heinrich Harrar, who spent seven years in Tibet, and Giuseppe Tucci—to the Kingdom of Snow, where people possessed mystical powers, the secret of extreme longevity and the ability to levitate. The author James Hilton novelized a mystical arcadian “Shangri-La,” but none topped the tales of loony Madame Blavatsky, who claimed to have been there, done that, while Evans- Wentz was a callow tween in Trenton, N.J.
Reading Evans-Wentz’s Book of the Dead in the ’70s, for all of his archaic references to “lamaism” and “lamaseries,” I thought it the most beautiful book I’d ever read and flippantly dubbed it “karma komix.”
Walt Disney fell under the influence, too, as shown in Walt Disney presents Mickey Mouse in High Tibet and Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge in Tralala, the Roof of the World, accompanied by Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig frolicking in the snow. There were serious heroes, of course—Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystical Arts; The Green Lama, the Man Who Defies Death; Dalai Lama: Superhero— and here we see Flash Gordon and the beginnings of Batman, Iron Man and a lithe Tomb Raider Lara Croft, as well as sinister villains, as in Pharoan, where Nazi agents go to Tibet in search of occult secrets to advance Hitler’s doctrines. Sometimes there was an unfriendly crossover, where a villain could turn nasty: “It’s the Green Lama!! Get him boys!!” commands a really pissed off Bugs Bunny.
The popularity of comics gave birth to action figures, and some are displayed here: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were protoaction figures but are not as scary as the tiny caped Doctor Strange. As for the Yetis, how long can a snowman stay abominable? My guess is that the Yeti evolved from the comics into an industry of its own, encompassing more dependably articulated movie icons like King Kong, Chewbacca, Yoda, vampires and lumbering, uncuddly robots.
Hero, Villain, Yeti: Tibet in Comics Through June 11, Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th St., 212-620-5000, www.rmanyc.org.
