America Sutra is the first in a series of three projects by artist Amit Desai. It is the culmination of a ten-year journey through the United States.
A seven-volume portrait in text and image of the American Dream, the first exhibition of America Sutra is on a website that is curated by a computer algorithm and is unique to each visit. This show is accompanied by a feature length documentary Possible Psalms, a behind the scenes look at the making of America Sutra.
The images in America Sutra portray the people and landscapes the artist experienced during his many years on the road. Shot on 35mm, 120 medium format, Polaroid and digital, along with hand made collages and drawings, the seven volumes display a wide range of photographic techniques. all the double exposure photographs were made in camera and all the work was shot on film except for Book IV, which is the only digital work in the sutra.
America Sutra can be purchased directly through the website. In keeping with the root concept of the project, the seven volumes are sold as a single box set on a “pay-as-you- wish” basis.
The second part of this series, Dear God, will be released in Spring 2014. The third part, Songs of the Road, a soundtrack of original text spoken and sung by the artist, TBC.
Statement of Purpose
The word sutra means “a line” or “to sew”. a sutra is a collection of short statements and original thoughts. Stitched together, like a necklace of jewels, they form a concise manual. This manual can be scientific in nature but, more often than not, it is spiritual. for example, two well known sutras are the Heart Sutra and the Kama Sutra. The oldest known printed book, now in the British library, is the Diamond Sutra, published by a chinese monk in the year 868 and found in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, China.
It ends with the lines…
All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows; Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning
Thus should they be contemplated
America Sutra is a 21st century sutra made up of image and text. In a tradition that goes back to Walt Whitman and the early american transcendentalists, it combines both eastern and Western thought and influences into an original system of aesthetics.
Art is as old as the caves. Its purpose has always been the expression of man?s spiritual consciousness. Art is the invisible made visible. It is a portal into all of human experience through the realm of feeling, from the earliest known paintings of the Paleolithic era up to the present day.
America Sutra is one stop on this prehistoric road of art.
About The Artist
Amit Desai (born 1977) is an american artist and poet.
Born in India, a Brahmin, he spent his early childhood on a mango farm in the state of Gujarat before moving to America. He grew up in Valley Stream, New York.
In 1995, he traveled to Africa where he lived with the Khoisan tribe
in Botswana. during this time he visited Tsodilo Hills and had his first experience of cave paintings. on this same trip he discovered the camera.
America Sutra is his first body of work to be published. He now lives in India.
Stephen Cheng (born 1979) is a chinese producer and publisher.
He spent his early childhood in new York before his family returned to
Hong kong. He received his education at Eton College and Harvard University. In the late 90?s, he met artist Amit Desai and the two began work on what would later become America Sutra. This project took over ten years to complete. America Sutra is the first work he has published.
He now lives and works in Hong kong.
