Worldspirit 2003 Sweet’s Ballroom, Oakland, CA Alex, Allyson and Zena Grey with Kenji Williams Worldspirit is a prayer for the realization of our integration With the web of creation And for the transformation of our species From one gripped in fear and self annihilation To a species that stands for love, wildly creative peace, and liberation. Art can be worship and service. The incandescent core of our soul. A glowing God’s eye, Infinitely aware of the beauty of creation, Is interlocked with a network of souls, Part of one vast group soul. The group soul of art beyond time Comes into time By projecting music and symbols Into the imagination. God’s radiant grace fills the heart and mind With these gifts. The artist honors the gifts of sound and vision By weaving them into works of art And sharing them with the community. The community uses them as wings To soar to the same shining vistas and beyond. Translucent wings teem with eyes of flame On the mighty cherub of Art. Arabesques of fractal cherub wings enfold And uplift the world. The loom of creation is anointed With fresh spirit and blood. Phoenix-like, the soul of art, Resurrects from the ashes of isms. Transfusions from living primordial traditions Empower the artist, Take them to the heights and depths Necessary to find the medicine of the moment, A new image and song of the Infinite One, God of Creation Manifesting effulgently, Multidimensionally, With the same empty fullness That Buddha knew And the same compassionate healing That Jesus spread. Krishna plays his flute, The Goddess dances, And the entire tree of life vibrates With the power of love. A mosaic and tile-maker inspired by Rumi Finds infinite patterns of connectivity In the garden of spiritual interplay As the Worldspirit awaits its portrait.
Heart Net 1999 American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland paint, rope, silk, roses, gold, neon, rocks, skeletons, stained glass, and soil, 10 X 60 X 8 ft. Alex and Allyson created an alchemical healing piece called Heart Net at the American Visionary Art Museum in 1998. On a 60-foot-long painted map of the world, a red rope web radiated from a gigantic heart composed of hundreds of silk roses. A stained-glass eye in the heart cried continuously into a small stone grotto surrounded by broken buddhas. Under the heart a black and a white skeleton embraced and an earth child crawled out of the grotto. Above the heart was a golden buddha, and above the buddha was a white neon infinity symbol, and above the neon was a tiny naked embracing Ati-Buddha sculpture. The Heart Net was an audience participatory piece that invited people to write a healing prayer or loving message on a small paper heart and tie it to the rope net. The Heart Net had thousands of prayers and messages on it, and it was really moving to read some of them. Everything from cynical dirty limericks to children scrawling love notes to their mommies to people expressing passionate and spiritual regard for each other and the planet. Different areas on the world map elicited specific prayers in the native languages of those nations. The piece was meant to spread a subtle field of healing good wishes over out broken world.
Goddess 1989 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York City Alex and Allyson, with the help of friends and passers by, laid out 5,500 apples in the shape of the Goddess. Then Allyson sat at the heart center of the Goddess nursing daughter Zena while Alex performed one hundred prostrations at the feet of the figure. The creation of the figure was a ritual acknowledgment of our source of life, the Mother Earth, who nourishes us and whom we must preserve if we are to survive. At day’s end friends assisted us in reboxing the apples which were then donated to a shelter for homeless families.
Prayer Wheel 1983 University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst performed by Alex Grey and Allyson Grey In Tibet, prayer wheels are used by monks and laity to increase the power of their meditation. Carved or printed on all prayer wheels is the mantra – Om Mani Padme Hum – literally meaning, Om, Hail the Jewel in the Lotus, Hum. With the correct understanding, the mere utterance or inspection of this mantra is believed to transport one directly to paradise. The mantric prayer is dedicated to the Buddhist deity of active compassion, Avalokitesvara. It is said that when Avalokitesvara saw the suffering of the world, He sprouted one thousand hands and arms to assist the world, each palm containing an eye of unobstructed vision. In the performance of “Prayer Wheel” my Alex and Allyson were bound together along with a skeleton, while holding a realistic baby doll and a knife. Our bodies were all painted gold. We were attached to the Prayer Wheel which turned as we walked around it chanting the mantra. After circumambulating for an hour and a half, Alex cut the rope attaching us to the Prayer Wheel and we walked out of the space. Sound was recorded at the Avalokitesvara Initiation given by Deshung Rinpoche in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 1983
Living Cross 1983 Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago For three hours Allyson and Alex lay motionless on the ground with eyes closed. Red votive candles balanced on our chests. Surrounding us were hundreds of roses and two thousand apples arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. Candles illuminated the perimeter of the cross. Hanging directly above us was a rotting Angel of Death holding a neon infinity symbol. Gregorian chants were played for 3 hours as hundreds of people observed the performance installation.
Wasteland 1982 Vehicule Art, Montreal, Canada performed by Alex Grey and Allyson Grey Mr. and Mrs. X were on their way to dinner when they were surprised by a nuclear blast. With their faces and clothes scorched and bloody, they arrive in hell at a dinner table covered with money. Suddenly Mrs. X awakens, stands up and turns back the clock. She turns off the alarm and vomits up the money, then leads Mr. X to do the same. Prior to the performance the audience received a program which included the following quote: “Two paths lie before us, one leads to death, the other to life… One day we will make our choice. Either we will sink into the final coma and end it all or, as I trust and believe, we will awaken to the truth of our peril, a truth as great as life itself, and, like a person who has swallowed lethal poison but shakes off his stupor at the last moment and vomits the poison up to cleanse the earth of nuclear weapons.” —Jonathan Schell The Fate of the Earth
Meditations on Mortality 1980 Sarah Lawrence college, Bronxville, NY performed by Alex Grey & Allyson Grey The performance began with the space in total darkness. A tape of the deep chanting of Tibetan monks played loudly. My wife, Allyson, her body coated with white greasepaint, walked slowly into the space carrying a candle. I followed behind her, my body coated with black greasepaint. We entered the large yin-yang symbol placed on the floor. As i sat motionless, fixing my attention on a skeleton seated opposite me, Allyson lit twelve candles placed like watch numbers around the rim of the symbol. Then she placed her candle in the center of the symbol and continued walking slowly around the rim. The chanting continued and the candles melted and went out, leaving only the central flame. Allyson and I met at the edge of the circle. A strobe light began flashing outside the circle. Standing under the light with horns and drums playing loudly, we sensuously embraced and merged our pigments. When the chanting returned and the loud music ended, we went back to the circle and the strop went off. Both of our bodies were now grey. Allyson walked into the center, picked up the central flame, and walked out. I followed her. The space was again left in total darkness, and the chanting ended.
God's Art 1978 Anatomical Museum, Boston, Massachusetts performed by Alex Grey & Allyson Grey Exhibited in a large glass case, Allyson and I made love.
Secret Walls #3 1976 4 x 6 ft., mixed media, wood, photo mural. Secret Writing in my art portrays an occult symbol system witnessed on a mystic journey in 1971. An infinite variety of symbols washed over all surfaces in the room and wafted in ribbons through the air. The specific meaning of the writing was ineffable and untranslatable. It occurred to me that "this represented what people call God." Symbols interpret everything we perceive. The way we read and understand each symbol depends on our unique life experience. Symbols are the “windows” of our understanding, read with unique meaning by every individual. Beyond literal translation, Secret Writing stands for the language of The Creator.