Yoga and Meditation in the Contemporary Art of Germany, Austria and Switzerland

To date, the rich tradition of yoga and meditation has been perceived and integrated into the daily life and leisure of many cultural communities. Being a part of the spiritual and intellectual heritage of the East, it has a multifaceted history of reception in the Western world. The present paper is devoted to the study of this phenomenon from the first decade of the XX century to the present, including the 20s of the XXI century in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The films of the Weimar Cinema were chosen as the research problem of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is devoted to the interpretation of the ideas of Zen Buddhism by members of the artistic groups ZEN 49, ZERO and Fluxus. The peculiarities and differences in the perception of the categories of the spiritual in the works of Jochen Herz, Leiko Ikemura and Wolfgang Laib formed the subject of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 examines the aspect of physicality coming from meditation and yoga in the artistic activities of Alexei G. von Jawlensky and the performances of Ulay and Marina Abramovich; The same section focuses on the use of yoga and meditation for recreational purposes at the institutional level, as exemplified by the experience of Johannes Itten's preparatory course at the Bauhaus and the modern phenomenon of yoga and meditation in museums. The aim of the work is to identify the main methods and results of the reception of meditation and yoga by the German-speaking artistic environment. Within the framework of the study, the creative practices of the artists were correlated with the formal categories and concepts of the philosophical and religious systems of the East for their understanding and analysis in a broad cultural and social context. The result of the study was the identification of heterogeneous and individualized ways of perceiving the ideas of yoga and meditation, covering not only the formal properties of works and the way the creative process is organized, but also the creative goal-setting of artists. Keywords: meditation / yoga / zen buddhism / german art / spirituality