Michael Zheng

DOI: 10.64212/SBMD9300

The second article in this column is based on a forum organized by the Art Frontier, in which art critic Max Blue and artist Michael Zheng engaged in conversations around the topic of “Ch’an Buddhism (禪宗)’s influence on conceptual art”.  Owing to its vicinity to Asia, the West Coast of the United States, especially the San Francisco Bay Area, has a distinctive affinity to the spiritualism from Asia, including the spiritual practices that came to the US from India in the 1960s, as well as the Ch’an or Zen practices from the Far East.  The thinking and practices such as ko’an in Ch’an Buddhism, have a marked similarity to the conceptual art practice.