ELLEN PEARLMAN is one of the founders of Tricycle magazine and the Brooklyn Rail, where she remains an editor-at-large. She has taught at Columbia University, Parsons School of Design, and the New School University. She has lectured all over the world, including Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia, and Tokyo, and has been awarded grants and artist residencies in Tibet, Mexico, Russia, and China. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and is listed in the current edition of Who's Who in America. Pearlman is the Artistic Adviser of Yuanfen Gallery, the very first gallery of new media in Beijing, China, and was on the Art Panel Review Board for SIGGRAPH ASIA in Yokohama, Japan. She lives in New York City.
"In this eminently readable treatise, Pearlman, a founder of the
Brooklyn Rail and early contributor to Tricycle magazine, explores
Zen Buddhism's influence on the post-WWII American avant-garde,
focusing on its practitioners, students, and resultant artistic
movements. Beginning with the public classes of noted Japanese Zen
scholar D.T. Suzuki, Buddhism was disseminated throughout the arts
in America by Suzuki's famed pupil and composer, John Cage, as well
as through the work of the Abstract Expressionists, the Beats
(e.g., Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac), and Fluxus artists.
Pearlman's study also touches on how Eastern cultures viewed the
transplantation of their religious beliefs into the American arts,
especially in the wake of the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and
Hiroshima—the author notes that while America's artistic elite were
embracing Zen Buddhism, artists in Japan were trying to move away
from the school of thought, whose institutions were viewed as
militaristic and corrupt. Given the book's brevity, Pearlman's
survey is remarkably extensive." —Publishers Weekly
“This fantastic book deftly illustrates and uncovers the direct
Buddhist influence on America's twentieth-century avant-garde. A
fascinating series of truly American stories brought to life with
amusing and colorful anecdotes, and a true pleasure to read.”
—Peter Hale, director, Allen Ginsberg Estate
“Ellen Pearlman's book is meticulously researched and an exciting
read; Kerouac would be delighted.” —John Sampas, executor, the
estate of Jack Kerouac
The American avant garde’s encounter with Buddhism is the subject
of Ellen Pearlman’s episodic narrative, Nothing and Everything
(North Atlantic Books 2012). Though Pearlman aims to discuss the
influence of various Buddhist traditions on the post-World War II
art scene in New York City during the years 1942–1962, her focus is
primarily on Zen. Much of the book profiles the career of the
Japanese scholar D. T. Suzuki, recounting his early life in Japan,
his experience teaching at Columbia University, and his influence
on artists, including the experimental composer John Cage. One
memorable scene in Pearlman’s recounting of East–West encounters
took place on a summer day in 1957, when the writer Jack Kerouac
and his friends Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg visited D. T.
Suzuki in his Upper West Side apartment. Suzuki served green tea
while they talked nonsensically and composed haiku. As the Beat
poets departed, the Zen scholar yelled to them, “Remember the tea!”
to which Kerouac replied, “Key?” —Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's
Quarterly
“Zen thinking permeates Western arts: the mid-century pivot to
Eastern influence is a truism of previous generations, but
curiously absent from contemporary mastications of history. Ellen
Pearlman gets it all right: Nothing and Everything is the perfectly
balanced lesson—art, and change, and friendship.” —John Reed,
novelist, book editor of The Brooklyn Rail
“Pearlman’s book works to trace the rippling, whirling influences
of Buddhism on some of the most important American artists of the
twentieth century. She describes groundbreaking performances, the
cross-pollination of the European Dadaists, and the particular
Buddhist principles that resonated most deeply with American
artists. Artists, avant-garde aficionados, and those interested in
the influence of Eastern thought on the West will be thankful to
Pearlman for tracking and cataloguing the leaps that made the
splashes that cocreated avant-garde." —ForeWord Reviews
“The influence of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics on the
American avant-garde is one of the great untold stories of modern
art. Ellen Pearlman helps illuminate the way by charting
relationships which sparked some of the most important exchanges in
American art and thought.” —Alexandra Munroe, author of The Third
Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989
“Nothing and Everything brings insight and fact to an important
Buddhist teacher whose life and work profoundly influenced the
leading members of the avant-garde arts community. Pearlman's adept
writing is a pleasure to read as well as informative about matters
that too often are glossed over in accounts of the work of John
Cage and those whose work has surrounded him and moved on. A solid
reference.” —Pauline Oliveros, author of Deep Listening: A
Composer's Sound Practice
“Ellen Pearlman has done the heroic work of bringing the
extraordinarily powerful and radical ‘conjunct’ between Buddhism
and the American avant-garde into intelligent scrutiny and focus.
It’s a tale that needs telling, one that educates as it elucidates.
This is the mysterious koan of any time: why the experience of
mortality and impermanence inspires such lucid contrapuntal energy
and passion for artistic endeavor. We are here to disappear. Let
art guide the way and stay awhile.” —Anne Waldman, poet; co-founder
and professor, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics,
Naropa University
“The avant-garde is not ahead of its time; it
is in it. Ellen Pearlman's book about the ripple effect
Buddhism had in American contemporary art is a time
capsule filled with treasures.” —Michael
Goldberg, director of the D. T. Suzuki Documentary Project
“Ellen Pearlman reveals an amazing truth about the American
avant-garde: that much of its freshness comes from ancient Zen
philosophy and meditation! Nowhere else is this important story
told so clearly.” —David Rothenberg, author of Survival of the
Beautiful and Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes
“When D. T. Suzuki began to teach ‘Buddhist Philosophy 101’ at
Columbia University in 1952, his class was like honey to bears
among New York artists and poets, who had never met an authentic
Zen Buddhist. Unknowingly, Suzuki was an important influence on the
development of abstract expressionism and Beat-generation poetry.
Nothing and Everything tells the story of how the seed of Zen was
planted in rich, creative American soil. —Denise Lassaw, daughter
of sculptor Ibram Lassaw
“Like fresh footprints after a newly fallen snow, Zen and Buddhism
left mindful and distinct imprints upon the post–World War II
avant-garde cultural scene in New York City. Nothing and Everything
leads the reader through an odyssey of social and cultural
upheavals in this post-war time and the artistic responses that
burst into creative expression in art, music, dance, literature,
and media. Through extensive research and interview, Ellen Pearlman
explores the influence of Buddhism upon the creative milieu and how
it altered the course of imaginative interpretations in the ‘new
reality’ of mental awakenings. An insightful read and an invitation
for continued scholarship where the arts and Buddhist philosophy
interweave.” —Cathy Ziengs, Buddhist Door International
"Ellen Pearlman vividly captures the feeling of spontaneity and
freedom with which the American avant-garde sought mu and
experienced suchness." —Laura Hoffmann, Artforum magazine
“If you're interested in exploring the syncretism of modern Western
culture and ancient Asian philosophy, Nothing and Everything will
give you a fine kickstart.” —LitKicks
“Nothing and Everything looks at the strong influence Buddhist
traditions and ideals have had on the art style of avant
garde—looking at particular artists of the period, their Buddhist
influences and how it manifested in their work. … Nothing and
Everything is a strong addition to art history and Buddhist study
collections.” —Midwest Book Review
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