My Father's Death

Artist Sonam Dolma Brauen (Swiss, born Tibet, 1953)

Date2010

Medium49 cast-off monks' robes, 2 vests, and 9 plaster-molded tsa tsa's

DimensionsAssembled: 17 3/4 × 39 3/8 × 39 3/8 inches (45.09 × 100.01 × 100.01 cm)

Credit LineGift of Sonam Dolma and Martin Brauen in honor of Leesa Fanning

Object number2020.19.1-60

On View

Not on view

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

Description"My Father’s Death" is an installation work that assembles 49 discarded Tibetan monk’s robes, carefully folded and stacked to form a well in the center. The robes are various shades of maroon, some showing obvious wear. These robes are carefully folded and pinned in place. Each is numbered, 1-49, which indicates their placement in the construction of the sculpture. Nine conical molded plaster forms, known in Tibetan as tsa tsa’s are placed on the center in three rows of three, creating a square arrangement.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Sonam Dolma: Exploring Inner Mountains: Contemporary Tibetan Non-Traditional Art, C.X. Silver Gallery, Brattleboro, Vermont, October 1–December 14, 2010, unnumbered.

Tibetische Wochen in Barmstedt: Sonam Dolma Brauen, Puntsok Tsering Duechung, Losng Gyatso, Galerie Atelier III, Barmstedt, Germany, August 27–October 9, 2011, unnumbered.

An International Exhbition of Contemporary Art, a Millenial Anniversary of the Tripitaka Korena, Haein Art Project, Haenisa Temple, South Korea, September 23–November 6, 2011, no cat.

Yishen/Abandon the Body, Art-House Galerie, Thun, Switzerland, April 20–May 18, 2013, no cat.

Transcending Tibet, Rogue Space Chelsea, New York, March 14–April 12, 2015.

Sonam Dolma Brauen, Art Yourself Kunstforum, Sursee, Switzerland, October 28–November 19, 2017, no cat.

Sonam Dolma Brauen, My Father's Death, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 28, 2023–November 11, 2024, no cat.

Gallery Label

Here, Sonam Dolma Brauen stacked 49 donated monk’s robes and vests from Lhasa, Tibet. Within Tibetan Buddhism, the number 49 symbolizes the bardo, the 49 days when one’s consciousness travels from one life to the next. Inside the center well, she placed nine tsa tsas, molded sculptures that function as ceremonial offerings. Tsa tsas are an important part of funerary rituals. Once someone has died, their body is cremated, and the ashes are then mixed with clay and pressed into a tsa tsa mold. The mold Sonam used here was one of the only possessions her parents were able to carry out of Tibet when they fled in 1959. Together with the robes, the sculpture honors both Sonam’s former life in Tibet and her father’s memory.

Provenance

Sonam Dolma Brauen and Martin Brauen, Bern, Switzerland, 2010–2020;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2020.

Published References

C. X. Silver Gallery, Sonam Dolma; Contemporary Tibetan Abstraction and Installation (Brattleboro, Vermont: CX Silver Gallery, 2010), 22-23, (repro.).

Galerie Atelier III, Tibetische Wochen in Barmstedt: Sonam Dolma Brauen, Puntsok Tsering Duechung, Losng Gyatso, exh. cat. (Barmstedt, Germany: Galerie Atelier III, 2011), 16–17, (repro.).

Ellen Pearlman, “Under Western Influence, Tibetan Artists Turn to Identity Politics,” Hyperallergic, accessed September 1, 2020, https://hyperallergic.com/190780/under-western-influence-tibetan-artists-turn-to-identity-politics/, (repro.).

Paola Vanzo and Martin Brauen, Transcending Tibet: 30 Contemporary Artists Explore What it Means to be Tibetan Today, exh. cat. (New York: Trace Foundation, 2015).

Leesa Fanning, Encountering the Spiritual in Contemporary Art (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 2018), 195, 264, fig. 4a, fig. 4b, (repro.).

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