To celebrate the exhibition Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, Beijing-based artist Bingyi brings her captivating performance piece, Heaven and Earth: The Garden of Cosmos to the Morgan Garden. Wearing a costume of rice paper inscribed with her epic poem inspired by Psalm 104, Bingyi is joined in a processional performance by Aluo, a Yi minority singer whose voice resonates with the universal vibration of Om, and Tibetan ritual master Nanmei, whose sacred Mantra chants draw on Vajrayana Buddhism. Together, their harmonious chanting connects the performers and the audience to the Psalm’s depiction of creation emerging in the divine void.
This performance is presented in partnership with Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts, a non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to providing support for the creation and dissemination of spiritually informed art and its discourse.
Bingyi earned a Ph.D. in Art History and Archeology from Yale University in 2005 with a dissertation on the art of the Han Dynasty. In her large-scale ink paintings, Bingyi uses ink as “dark light”—carbon, an absolute absorber of light, in water, nature’s universal translucent solvent—to illuminate the usually invisible and transient physical processes that enable ordered patterns and forms to arise from chaos. Bingyi has exhibited internationally at LACMA (2024), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2022), the Brooklyn Museum (2019), the National Art Museum of China (2017), Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (2016), Istanbul Modern (2016), Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante, Alicante, Spain (2014), St. Johannes-Evangelist-Kirche, Berlin, Germany (2012), Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA (2010), Galerie Erna Hecey, Brussels, Belgium (2009), Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, China (2009), and Max Protetch Gallery, New York, USA (2008), among others.
The exhibition Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life will be open to attendees before and after the performances. Attendees will gather in the Morgan Garden. In the event of inclement weather, the performance will take place in Gilder Lehrman Hall.
Meet in the Morgan Garden at the 36th Street garden entrance.
Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.