None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection, is currently on display at the Japan Society Gallery, New York from March 8 to June 16, 2024. The exhibition has attracted large audiences and received significant press reviews in the U.S. and Japan.  

Japan Society President and CEO Joshua Walker called the exhibition “a remarkable showcase of Zenga-style Japanese paintings from the Edo period onward,” stating, “[this] world-renowned collection has enriched our understanding of Zen art immensely.” This is the second exhibition at Japan Society that has exclusively featured works from our collection; An Enduring Vision: 17^th to 20^th Century Japanese Painting from the Gitter-Yelen Collection (organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art) was exhibited in 2004. 

Containing over 50 works spanning four centuries, None Whatsoever at Japan Society explores the origins of Zen Buddhism in Japan through ink paintings and calligraphies by 18th-century Buddhist master Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) and followers in the 18th to the 20th century, including Sengai Gibon (1750-1837), Nakahara Nantenbo (1839-1925),  and Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), Torei Enji (1721-1792),  Suio Genro (1716-1789),  Shunso Shoju (1751-1839), and others. Hakuin and his followers expressed Zen Buddhist teachings through their art, often in playful, sometimes comical, and profound ways.  Zen paintings, or Zenga, are a distinctive form of ink painting that seek to give form and visual representation to the teachings of Zen Buddhism. Built around new research by Dr. Yukio Lippit of Harvard University, this exhibition demonstrates that Hakuin was a revolutionary artist, with his bold experiments in calligraphy and abstraction, expressed in his hundreds of depictions of Daruma, a ubiquitous figure in Zen portraiture and first patriarch of Zen Buddhism.

The March 9, 2024 Nikkei Asia article by Michiyo Nakamoto comments upon the legendary encounter for which  the exhibition is named: “The cryptic title of the exhibition, ‘None Whatsoever,’ alludes to a well-known episode from Zen lore in which a Chinese emperor who has dedicated wealth and power to supporting Zen Buddhism asks Bodhidharma how much his deeds have earned him in the eyes of the Buddha. He is told: ‘None whatsoever.’ ” This seemingly irreverent exchange is also profound, uncompromising, and revolutionary, and has come to embody the student-teacher relationship in Zen Buddhism.

“Hakuin used paintings and calligraphies as a way of reinforcing his teachings and mediating relations with followers. For more sophisticated audiences, he was fond of using parables, such as ‘Two Blind Men Crossing a Bridge,’ in his lectures. For commoners, however, Hakuin sometimes created calligraphic works that had nothing outwardly to do with Zen teachings; instead, they touched upon themes important to the daily lives of merchants and agrarians, such as prosperity, long life, and filial piety” (None Whatsoever Exhibition Guide, Japan Society).

In the April 9, 2024 New York Times Critic’s Pick “In Zen Painting, It Takes Years of Practice to Do Almost Nothing” art critic Will Heinrich, “was thrilled to find the memorable demonstrations of unburdened artistic spontaneity that are scattered in ‘None Whatsoever’…But as delightful as many of those pieces are, as paintings, none quite has the self-propelled perfection of Hakuin’s ‘Giant Daruma.’ That one contains nothing but what’s necessary to communicate the ideas in question.”

None Whatsoever originated at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Spring 2023 and was co-organized by Yukio Lippit and Bradley M. Bailey, Curator of Asian Art. The Japan Society presentation is organized by Tiffany Lambert, Curator, Japan Society.

The MFA Houston’s expansive presentation (February 19 – May 14, 2023) comprised over 100 works drawn from the Gitter-Yelen collection, as well as works from the museum’s permanent collection and the Menil Collection. This iteration featured a selection of modern and contemporary art influenced by Zen Buddhism, including works by Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ad Reinhardt, Takahiro Kondo, and Franz Kline, among others.  The MFA Houston produced an accompanying e-catalog, The Gitter-Yelen Collection / None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings. In a press release, Bailey noted, “Through the sheer importance of the Gitter-Yelen Collection and the extraordinary quality of the paintings themselves, None Whatsoever will enable us to appreciate the history, legacy, and many dimensions of true Zen, as expressed over several centuries by its devotees and disciples.” 

Following the Japan Society installation, None Whatsoever will travel to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem in 2026.

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Selected Press:

New York Times Critic’s Pick by Will Heinrich, “In Zen Painting, It Takes Years of Practice to Do Almost Nothing”

Arts of Asia, Autumn 2023: “None Whatsoever, Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection”

Nikkei Asia, “Art of Zen goes to New York”

artnet News,  “How Collectors Kurt Gitter and Alice Yelen Gitter Embrace Both Eastern and Western Art Traditions”

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Explore the links below to learn more:

Online E-Catalog, The Gitter-Yelen Collection / None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection

Select works included in None Whatsoever: Zen Painting from the Gitter-Yelen Collection on the Manyo’an Collection website

Japan Society Exhibition Webpage

Japan Society Exhibition Guide

MFA Houston Exhibition Webpage

MFA Houston Press Release for None Whatsoever

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