Gold Byars.

Surely, you think, the Spellcheck on my computer is dysfunctional, offering yet another series of quirky alternatives to the simple word of “bars”. And, with that thought, several images spring to mind: perhaps the portly, black-hatted businessman grabbing those shimmering liquid-sunrise blocks and hoarding them, grasping at material objects with a wild look of desire in his beady eyes. Think again.

Byars, in fact, is the name of one of the first artists whose work can be seen at the Third Mind exhibit in the Guggenheim Museum. And the gold — well, that pertains to the massive installation currently on view, a three-walled room of gold lead, crystals and Plexiglas titled The Death of James Lee Byars. Byars sought to challenge the steretypical associations that gold evokes — greed, malice, corruption, etc. — by constructing a room that would literally indicate that his death (and the life that preceded it) is transcendent and has meaning beyond gold coins. Indeed, when you look into this work of art , you see your own reflection in dark color spots peering back, questioning the value of the golden surroundings and urging you to step back from the material world and venture forth into the ethereal, spiritual realm. Shortly afterward, yet another creation of Byars’ is revealed in accordion folds — a work named untitled object that consists of a black, continous line drawn through a 200 foot scroll. Byars — a man who converted to Buddhism and spent the last of his days trodding gently in black and gold robes around Japan — thus establishes that atmosphere of Zen mindset and fresh, conscious art contained within the exhibit.

The gallery is incensed with Eastern influence, filled with the whispering of wrinkled ancients sitting upon mountaintops and humming meditative mantras. Buddhism — the primary force that inspired the desperate, depraved artists as youths in an increasingly dark, polluted and wretched society — embodies many forms when interpreted by its American followers.

Asian calligraphy requires a peaceful state of mind and a steady hand. The fulfillment of such criteria is evident in the selected pieces (out of six hundred) of Robert Motherwell’s “gestural abstractions” in The Lyric Suite (1966), where the ink is transferred to papers in a myriad ways as it strives to fit into the artist’s direct brushstrokes. Jackson Pollock, who was heavily influenced by Eastern culture, experiments with the viscosity of Asian-manufactured paint by covering canvases in fluid red forms, suprising deviations from the black-and-white norm of his more famous paintings. Byars, in a piece titled simply performance art (exhibited as a white cube of identical white sheets) engaged in a type of calligraphy of the body by unfolding the papers and allowing the encircling environment and elements of dust, wind and human exhalation to determine the markings on the surface of the sheets. Mark Tobey, affected deeply by the materials and mentality of the East, developed a form of light-on-dark draftsmanship called “white writing” that reverses Western norms of artistic convenience.

The art of deep meditation accompanied by spontaneous, inspired expression is also embraced by the compositions in this exhibit. Fluxus, a whole movement that would concentrate on in-the-moment, civilian art provides a few valuable contributions to the exhibit. In small prompts such as one of many notecards under the category “word events”, the recipient is told to “Exit” (G. Brecht, Spring 1961) and no more than that, while others indicate repeated actions (opening/closing doors, sitting on chairs, etc.). John Cage structured his creative output on a personally developed system of “chance operations” based on random selections by the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes, that would determine the volume, sound, density, etc. In a score titled “Water Music”, there are commands to “pour water” located near treble clefs and ledger lines – but, the score mentions, this should be done to correspond with the audience’s behavior and reaction. John Cage welcomed the changing world by molding his pieces into evolving works that couldn’t ever be identical – his scores are dynamic, independent items are rejuvenated and reinvented with every performance.

The exhibit, though mainly focused on mid-20th century art, also nods respectfully towards prominent past and current artists. Mary Cassatt and James Whistler paintings are on display, exhibiting Asian influences in the form of drypoint drawings and compositional techniques. Meanwhile, some works have been reinstalled spiecifically for this gallery, such as Bill Viola’s remarkable Room for St. John on the Cross (1983). Dream House, a joint project by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, is a time-based installation that combines the high frequencies of ragas and optical filters to create an environment that makes you feel as if you’ve stepped into a pair of 3-D glasses.

The exhibit also takes care to draw attention to the Eastern influence on American literature: a corner dedicated to the Beat generation presents several of photos of their travels to the Orient. Tucked behind a windowpane are some pages from the book The Third Mind (1965), whose name was borrowed for the exhibit. The book itself was created by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs as a manifesto of their “cut up” technique that compelled the reader to perceive a whole despite the seeming disarray of the torn, fragmented contents. One of the pages from the book features a wealth of symbols — ampersands, hieroglyphs, pseudo-calligraphic shapes mix with the demand to “rub out the words”, repeated over and over in typewriter font along the top corners.

A large scroll with one continuous line begins the exhibit, and towards the end a creation by John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg rounds out the edges — Automobile Tire Print (1953), a work that involved driving the tires of a model A Ford through black paint and over a long white piece of paper. In this and many other parallels, one finds that The Third Mind exhibit draws upon an interaction between East and West, seeking to consolidate this globe into a circle with no beginning or end. Like the ubiquitous Indian mandala, The Third Mind exhibit is continuous, concentric and perhaps, in its own expertly curated way, has achieved harmonious completion.