A Review of "Anonymous - Contemporary Tibetan Art," at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art - NYTimes.com Shelley and Donald Rubin Private Collection "Mahakala" (2013), acrylic and oil, by the artist Gade. There was no McDonald's in Lhasa when the Rubin Museum in New York mounted an exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art in 2010. In a catalog essay accompanying that show, however, H.G. Masters wrote that it wouldn't be so shocking to see a fast-food restaurant in that cultural center of Tibetan Buddhism. After all, the "collision of traditional architecture, culture and commerce with the aesthetics, iconography and branding of an arch-modern corporation is one of the defining experiences of 21st-century life." This analysis feels pertinent when looking at "Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art" at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, N.Y., which expands upon the 2010 exhibition at the Rubin, and features many of the same artists. Drawn largely from the collection of Donald and Shelley Rubin, who also founded the Rubin Museum, "Anonymous" shows the quirks of a show assembled primarily from a private collection. In the 2010 catalog, Mr. Rubin wrote that the couple bought their first traditional thangka - a painting on silk or with embroidery - in 1975, and their first contemporary Tibetan art works in the mid-2000s. Four 17th- and 18th-century thangkas from the Rubins" collection are included in "Anonymous" to create some brief sense of context. But Tibet has an elaborate history. Lying at a critical juncture along the Chinese-Indian border, the area has been invaded by everyone from the Mongols to the British and more recently, China. Many of the artists in "Anonymous" now live outside Tibet - even some who lived in Lhasa at the time of the 2010 show. The "anonymous" leitmotif was added to highlight how traditional Tibetan art was largely unattributed - unlike Western art - and now provides some protection for artists or their families who could face reprisals for political critiques in their work. Although there is still no McDonald's in Lhasa, you sense the McDonald's effect in this show. To participate in the globalized art world, artists often have to speak the lingua franca of art. The downside of "global art" is a homogenizing effect, such that much of the work here uses techniques familiar from conceptualism, installation art, minimalism and particularly Pop art - expressed, however, with a Tibetan accent. Ang Sang's "Faces of the Buddha" (2011) is a black-and-white canvas with a Buddha figure built up from images of Che Guevara, Superman, Michael Jackson, Barack Obama and Pop Art's uber-icon Marilyn Monroe. Kesang Lamdark's "Dorge Drakkten and Kiss" (2012) juxtaposes two faces with tongues out: one is the Tibetan protective spirit Dorge Drakkten, the other Gene Simmons of the band Kiss, known for his painted face and tongue-waggling antics. Even Ronald McDonald makes an appearance, along with Mickey Mouse, in Gade's "Mahakala" (2013), a work that remakes a traditional Buddhist mandala using contemporary popular references. Phurba Namgay, who is from Bhutan, lives in Atlanta now, and his paintings include ancient-looking dragons perched alongside a rocket emblazoned with "USA" and a Humvee. Rabkar Wangchuk lives in New York and his painting "Spiritual Mind and Modern Technology" (2013) features a Buddha head with yellow taxicabs speeding under its chin. Most of the work here is "political" in that it comments on the effects of globalization and consumer culture. A few others look at political repression: Tenzing Rigdol, who now lives in New York, made "Melong" (2013), a collage of photos juxtaposing Tibetan protesters and dissidents against Chinese officials, and "Unhealed" (2010), a photograph showing the artist's back tattooed with a map of Tibet and the dates of important political events, with acupuncture needles stuck in for emphasis. Losang Gyatso's grid of black-and-white portraits, enlarged to near-abstraction to protect the identities of protesters in recent uprisings in Tibet, comments on the phenomenon of self-immolation - there have been more than 100 cases in Tibet since 2009. Like traditional Tibetan thangkas, the contemporary paintings here are often dense with imagery - but they create a cacophony (perhaps simulating the overload of modern-day consumerism) rather than encouraging spiritual meditation. Some respite can be found in the videos, most of which are made by anonymous artists. The curators sent out an open call for video on the Internet, but in the end, most of the videos were hand-delivered to contacts in the art world, rather than submitted through the Web site, suggesting the sensitive nature of disseminating images of contemporary Tibet. The dozen or so videos here include a fascinating street documentary and a trip down a river that reveals, without really showing off, the natural beauty of Tibet. Two works feel torn from the pages of early video-performance art: in "Scripture Noodle" (2009), the anonymous artist cuts pages from a sacred text into "noodles," cooks them in a wok with onions and peppers, and eats them out of a Styrofoam container; the undated video "Self" shows different people blowing up a text-emblazoned balloon until it pops. Unlike, say, the 20th-century African portrait photography the Dorsky showcased in its last exhibition, which showed an extraordinary degree of ingenuity, the work here is unlikely to be a game changer for global art - that is, the art made, exhibited, bought and written about by a certain group of people who flow like a gyre to different art centers around the world. Most of the paintings here are competent - often crafted with skills acquired through traditional Tibetan training - but not on par with the extraordinary thangka paintings hanging near the entrance, which originally inspired the Rubins. Instead, "Anonymous" is interesting because of the questions it raises, like, who is the audience for new Tibetan art? At what point do artists no longer living in Tibet become merely "Tibetan-born" artists? And should we even continue to look at art through the lens of nationality? After all, "Anonymous" reveals that even places where there is no McDonald's experience the collision of traditional aesthetics and multinational corporations, and all forms of culture are affected. Mickey Mouse and Michael Jackson therefore serve as metaphors, not just for global branding and iconography, but also for the homogenization of art itself. "Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art" is on view at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz, through Dec. 15. For information: (845) 257-3844 or newpaltz.edu/museum. Correction: August 30, 2013 An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect abbreviation of a writer's given name. He is H.G. Masters, not Hg.