THE GOUDA BUDDHA
The depiction of a contemporary Buddha in Gouda neither contains blasphemy nor judgment on spiritual practice. This reality is necessary to grasp some connections between waves and particles. It is a living experience born out of revelation. It is a simple inquiry into enlightenment. What exchanges between the physical body and the properties of the universe would be at the source of the emergence of consciousness? The life of the Gouda Buddha will reveal it to us.
"The Gouda Buddha"
Molded Gouda cheese, food paraffin.
H 32cm x W 26cm x D 28cm.
2021
"The Gouda Buddha"
Clay model before firing and molding.
2021
"The Gouda Buddha"
Cheese sculpture molded in brine.
2021
THE GOUDA BUDDHA
These two words, with similar sounds but divergent meanings, form a poetic osmosis. The combination produces a mental image with an evident visual synthesis: a Buddha made of Gouda cheese oozing its bright orange color.
Beyond the wordplay and appearance, intuition senses the symbol of a reality. An Eastern spiritual emblem and a Western culinary emblem are conflated. This composite vision reflects the extravagance of contemporary perception where spiritual seeking is viewed as a quest for well-being. The Gouda Buddha evokes the wisdom market. One uses the Buddha as they use Gouda.
The sculpture, thus constituted, presents either a sacred being perceived as a consumer product or a consumer product perceived as a sacred being. Can it be eaten or not? Is it a profanation of the Buddha or a sacralization of the Gouda? Am I a Gnostic or an Agnostic observer? Are we confusing the immanent and the transcendent? Should we smile or be wary?
The artwork is an enigma, the Gouda Buddha a proposition that must be overcome. It can be seen as opposition, contradiction, but a glass bell of equal aura emphasizes the integrity of the relationship, the unity of vision. For in either case, two bodies are understood for the value of their emanation: the universal consciousness for the Buddha, taste for the Gouda.
Furthermore, this olfactory sculpture humorously symbolizes the vital breath linked to enlightenment. Its material, Gouda cheese, is an impermanent product. It is made up of air bubbles, signs of emptiness. It breathes and refines to become. It is physical but exists thanks to the subtleties of its aromas. Its body will be reproduced. The metaphors linked to Buddhism are plentiful.
Therefore, the artwork pleads both for confusion and unity, and this contradictory message raises the question of being and consciousness. Man and cheese are two biological forms appreciated for their ethereal value. If the Buddha exists thanks to the quality of exchanges it practices with the Whole, so does the cheese. This illustrates that consciousness operates as much inside as outside the body, and chemical exchanges, breathing, absorption are the cause. Consumption and spirituality are not so foreign to each other.
The Gouda Buddha invites interaction, placing us between matter and ether. It demonstrates the total entanglement between fullness and emptiness, reality and the ideal, knowledge and ignorance.
Here the Buddha is a newborn, the choice of a neutral and innocent being to which we can all identify. At our birth, at our rebirths, it is an entire world that we inhale and an entire world that we exhale. Breath, we are at the rhythm of the oceans and carried away like a particle in the totality. Breaths are these perpetual back-and-forth movements between life and disappearance. They cleanse consciousness of all the dust that has arrived in the mind. They are enlightenment.
While the Buddha fasts, the Gouda ages.
Our sculpture is in the middle.