“Through uniting Zen concepts with furniture, Eric Manigian unites spirituality, art, and practical objects.”
Furniture designer Eric Manigian was a young artist, fresh from a BFA in Sculpture at Pratt Institute, when he decided to organize an extended trip through Asia. In Japan, he was awed by the grace of Zen architecture, and decided to stay for a year as a Zen student at Daitokuji temple in Kyoto. Later, in New York, he studied traditional hand-carving techniques, and decided to bring Zen into his furniture design.
In his interview with Brookyn Modern, Manigian states, “I came to understand design as a way to express subtle, poetic, or simple ideas while being grounded by the sincerity and integrity of craftsmanship and utility.”
Through uniting Zen concepts with furniture, he unites spirituality, art, and practical objects. Manigian’s latest work, Ensô Table, speaks for itself. It is a large-scale table shaped as an ensô, a traditional Zen symbol, which is drawn in calligraphy with a single, meditative stroke. The ensô represents the wholeness of life, as spheres are the shape of the earth, sun, and moon. Some Zen practitioners draw the ensô daily as a spiritual exercise, for there is the belief that only a spiritually complete person can draw a true ensô.
Eric Manigian’s past reflects his respect for Zen philosophy; however, his use of the ensô could also be seen to reflect the co-option of religious symbols by secular commercial art. Most of Manigian’s art goes to high-profile private clients. The Ensô Table was shown at BKLYN Designs, which is presented by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, May 8-10, 2009.
Audrey Yoshiko Seo, in Ensô: Zen Circles of Enlightenment, writes: “Zen art, as sacred art, is a direct expression of the ineffable. It helps to transform the way we understand ourselves and the universe… All of this notwithstanding, ultimately we should appreciate that the ensô has no reason or point for its existence other than itself. It exists perfectly and completely, and is aesthetically gratifying for its own sake. The ensô is its own merit and its own reward… The fruit of the ensô is the ensô.” Whether the Ensô Table is fruitful, is up to the ensô.
So who draws the line?
Art and architecture have always had high-end patrons, including projects of a religious nature. Buddhists temples (and magazines) in America are created by people with money. The Buddha himself slept homeless in a park designed and donated to him by a king.
In this post, Heisler elevates the ensô as a sacred religious symbol with lines like, “. . . only a spiritually complete person can draw a true ensô.” And then she suggests that Eric Manigian’s Ensô Table is “secular commercial art” because his “art goes” (is bought by) “high-profile private clients” (rich people).
The sacred remains sacred by its very nature.
An ensô creates a distinction of sacred AND secular, yet its essence points to the non-dual. If there is no outside to the circle, then nothing can be seen as sacred. If there is no inside, then nothing can be seen as secular.
Manigian is an artist and a Zen Buddhist who has been practicing for 20 years. What makes his Ensô Table any less sacred? It becomes “secular commercial art” because rich people might buy it? Really?? So rich people are bad and artists must be poor. Sounds like childish platitudes to me.
I absolutely agree with you, ZenCowboy602. My intention was to provoke discussion of this sort. I believe that discussion around the connection between art and the commercial world is important.
I also believe that symbols can be taken out of context, which lessens the power of their symbolism. For example, where will the table end up? Will the people who buy it appreciate it for what the ensô stands for, or will the table become yet another bragging point of expensive craftsmanship? I have absolute respect for Manigian as both an artist and a Zen Buddhist, and don't think there's anything wrong with what he's doing. I should have made the point of the article more clear, which was to comment on the relation of where art finally ends up, to its original meaning and context.
However, I agree with you that the ensô itself opposes this distinction between sacred and secular. That being said, it is still a symbol with a vast and important philosophical history behind it, a history which, in my own opinion, should be respected if the symbol is being used. Manigian is respectful, as there is nothing wrong with using such symbols in art, as art is about expression. However, the commercial world does not sell to who has the most respect for what is being sold, but to who has the most money.
It is, however, a table. My discussion might have been more relevant if it were, say, a traditional Tibetan Thangka, once hanging in a temple, now hanging in an art gallery or a private collector's living room. Another example would be the symbol of the Buddha on somebody's t-shirt. Symbols lose their strength, their ability to transform our minds through their symbolic power (or symbolic simplicity, as in the case of the ensô) when taken out of context.
There is a difference between painting the ensô daily as a spiritual practice, and buying it as a table for the sake of, well, functioning as a table.
The idea of people being "spiritually complete: (as opposed to incomplete?) is dualistic, and shows little understanding of the Dharma generally, and what an enso represents specifically.
If you think there's a difference between a table and Thangka, you don't understand the reality of either. If you can't find the Buddha in a shit-splattered toilet, you won't find the Buddha in a statue on an altar.
Might people brag about owning such a piece of art? Certainly – just as many smug, spiritually-materialistic people brag about the retreats they attend and the sanghas they are members of.
You'd know, Barry. Gee, someone's read some books on Zen. So cutting! Mention of poop is always so "real."