Updating Yamantaka

Tenzing Rigdol works in multiple mediums, including photography, performance, video, painting, and collage. This work is from a series of the artist’s contemporary interpretations of Tibetan Buddhist deities. Yamantaka is the Lord of Death and the King of the Law in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He and his sister, Yami, are traditionally shown standing astride a buffalo that is assaulting a human. In this collage, which combines pieces of sacred text, textile design, and vivid color with traditional Tibetan imagery, Yamantaka is depicted with iconographic exactness. However, the human upon which his buffalo treads is not the anonymous everyman typical of Tibetan art. This figure bears the face of Osama bin Laden, and although the work was created before the Al-Qaeda leader was killed in 2011, the message remains equally relevant after his assassination. The composition is meant to symbolize the absolute power of death over all forms of life and the inescapable laws of mortality and morality. By inserting a reference to global terrorism, Rigdol applies the concepts captured in the traditional depiction of Yamantaka to our contemporary world.