Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Contemporary South and Southeast Asia art courtesy the Guggenheim

Focusing on contemporary art practices from South and Southeast Asia, ‘No Country’ courtesy the Guggenheim in collaboration with UBS charts creative activity and processes across three distinct geographic regions. The first show of a multi-year artistic initiative, it tries to engage with the region on its own specific terms, critically.

Featuring recent acquisitions in sculpture, painting, film, video, installation, and work on paper, the exhibition sets out to re-evaluate the region and its countries on basis of its cultural relationships, affinities, negotiations and influences, offering a glance into the diverse contemporary art practices. The idea is to present the latent possibility of grasping them beyond their geographical and political boundaries.

Artists from Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India feature in the show. The Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator (South and Southeast Asia), June Yap, spells out in an essay that challenging romanticized perceptions of the region, the artworks on view lay bare a complex set of conditions that resulted from the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, and which bear the historical traces of colonization and the often-traumatic birth of nations.

These works explore universal themes of national identity and community, cultural knowledge, power, and faith such as ‘The boy who got tired of posing’ and Shilpa Gupta’s sculptural piece that documents the data about the fenced border existing between Pakistan and India. Amar Kanwar will also feature in the group exhibition will move to Singapore and Hong Kong’s Asia Society where the Guggenheim Museum team will work in collaboration with curators to adapt it to the local audiences.

An internationally renowned art museum and one of the most significant architectural icons of the 20th century, the Guggenheim Museum is at once a vital cultural center, an educational institution, and the heart of an international network of museums. Visitors can experience special exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, lectures by artists and critics, performances and film screenings, classes for teens and adults, and daily tours of the galleries led by experienced docents. Founded on a collection of early modern masterpieces, the Guggenheim Museum today is an ever-growing institution devoted to the art of the 20th century and beyond.

No comments:

Post a Comment