To the left is Kurt in 1966, the popular rock-star professor of UCLA; to the right, as he looked in 2010, after 40 years of teaching.
Kurt von Meier (1934-2011) taught for forty years, within the California University system and in New Zealand. His unique teaching style combined with his encyclopedic knowledge of world art and culture deeply influenced both his students and his friends. At times he found himself at the center of controversy, but he never let it distract him from his higher purpose of truth-telling. His humor, creativity, crazy wisdom and kindness opened doors to perception for many that might otherwise have remained closed.
This video presents the exhibition of Kurt's remarkable teaching collection, and is narrated by Kurt von Meier. Click image to view.
Much of the material in this website has not seen the light of day for 40-50 years. Kurt's original manuscripts or carbon copies of them have been scanned and converted to digital text, making them now available to the world to read once again. Kurt was prodigiously creative and reams of material have been reviewed and added to this website. In some cases, photographs, links to images and other web files have been added, an elaboration Kurt surely would have approved.
There is a lifetime of learning and acquired wisdom here, a treasure-trove for scholars and students alike. Kurt studiously documented his own life, or as he might put it, explored the artistry of self-referential paradox, retaining and storing shreds of evidence most of us would set aside and discard. These documents, photos, curiosities, copied articles, newspaper clippings, receipts, daily notebooks, postcards, audio tapes and so forth he placed in named manila folders, and these in turn were placed in cardboard storage boxes. Why he felt compelled to so thoroughly organize, save and store the evidence of his being is unknown, yet, it is from this material, the Half-Vast Archives of von Meier, that most of the contents of this website are drawn--Kurt von Meier's life, mind and heart hereby presented as a web-based art piece. He must have known this would happen.
In the late sixties, Kurt went from UCLA rock-star professor to Napa Valley Krypto-Tibetan sage and Sacramento State University Art Department Chair. The photo above is from the mid-seventies, and shows Kurt at his most content: totally engaged in documenting Dharma.
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