Exhibit of the photography of Thomas Merton to be featured at Clare Boothe Luce Library
Exhibit of the photography of Thomas Merton to be featured at Clare Boothe Luce Library
A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton, an art exhibit featuring the photography of Thomas Merton curated by Paul Pearson will be on display at the Mepkin Abbey Clare Boothe Luce Library September 17 – November 1, 2022.
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He is best known today for his spiritual writings on contemplation and his own personal spiritual journey. Merton was also a visual artist of considerable talent exploring drawing and calligraphy and, as reflected in this exhibition, photography. It is unclear exactly when Merton took up the camera.
A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton exhibition includes 35 of Merton’s most powerful photographs from the Collections of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky.
His photographs were a way to summon viewers to be present to what Merton called the “living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door.”
With these photographs we invite viewers to “one aesthetic illumination” in which to see the “mundane” and the “spiritual” as one. Merton wrote, Zen “seeks not to explain but to pay attention, to become aware, to be mindful, in other words, to develop a certain kind of consciousness …” It is this experience to which Merton invites us as we view these photographs: “Come and see.”
This exhibit will be available for viewing from September 17-November 1, 2022, at the Clare Boothe Luce Library at Mepkin Abbey. It can be viewed as part of the church tours given every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 11:30 a.m. The tours start at the visitors’ center/gift shop and are $5 per person.
It can also be viewed during the Merton and Me-A Living Trinity Performance on September 17 at 10 a.m. There is no extra charge for viewing the photography, but you will be able to give a freewill donation to help offset the cost of hosting the exhibit.
If you have any questions, please email mepkinguestmaster@gmail.com.
