Sundram Tagore Gallery New York: Friday, March 4 Opening of Facing East: Asian Group Show

BARD PRESENTS EXHIBITION OF ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE NEPALESE COURT, MARCH 4 TO 18

BARD PRESENTS EXHIBITION OF ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE NEPALESE COURT, MARCH 4 TO 18

Reception for Visions of Patrimony: Photographs from the Court of Nepal (1908–1965) To Be Held on March 10

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The programs of anthropology, art history, Asian studies, history, photography, and religion at Bard College host the exhibition Visions of Patrimony: Photographs from the Court of Nepal (1908–1965) from March 4 to 18 in Woods Studio at Bard College. The show’s reception will be held on March 10 at 5:00 p.m. in Woods Studio. Laura Kunreuther, assistant professor of anthropology, will introduce the historical and cultural context of the photographs. Cristeena Chitrakar will speak briefly about how the photographs are currently used by her family today. Both the reception and the exhibition are free and open to the public.

Visions of Patrimony exhibits photographs from the collection of Dirgha Man Chitrakar (1877–1951) and his son Ganesh Man Chitrakar (1906–1985), who served as official court photographers for the Shah King of Nepal and the ruling family oligarchy of Rana Prime Ministers (r.1846–1951). The exhibition explores the dual patrimonies of two lineages of Nepalis brought together in these photographic images—the extravagantly visible ruling elite and their invisible photographers. Spanning from the early 20th century to 1965, shifts in the photographs over time correlate with the changing logic and interests of the Nepali state, as they move from portraits and political ritual to aerial photographs of the land and quaint portraits of Nepali farmers. During the Rana oligarchy, photography worked doubly to secure their rule: its very use symbolized their privileged status, and the images themselves were a means of visualizing their patrimony by documenting extended families, political and religious rituals, the consumption of foreign commodities (i.e. clothing, technology), and recreational activities (such as hunting).

The photographs displayed in Visions of Patrimony were printed in Nepal several years ago from the original glass negatives taken between 1900 and 1946 and acetate negatives taken between 1946 and 1975. These negatives make up the patrimony of the court photographers’ descendants, the Chitrakars. Chitrakar means “artist” or “painter” in Nepali. Prior to the advent of photography, Dirga Man produced paintings for the ruling elite, in accordance with his profession by birth. After learning the craft of photography, he was appointed to a permanent position as part of the “art department” of the ruling prime minister of the time, Chandra Shumsher Rana. Once the Rana oligarchy was overthrown in 1951, the photographers continued to work as visual documentarians for the state and institutions closely tied to the state. Ganesh Man, for example, took a job as official photographer during the early years of USAID, which worked closely with the government and has been one of the key financers for developing Nepal. His son, Kiran Man, now works as the director and chief cameraman for the state television, Nepal TV, the primary and most watched television channel, at least until 1990. We are fortunate to have these photographs to exhibit, thanks to Dirga Man’s great-granddaughter and Ganesh Man’s granddaughter, Cristeena Chitrakar, who is currently a student at Bard College.


PHOTO AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT www.bard.edu/news/press

CAPTION INFO: Col. Chandra Jung Thapa, 1910

PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Ganesh Photo Lab, Photographer: Dirgha Man Chitrakar 

 

Jose Barbera Retrospective Exhibition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : Jose Barbera Retrospective Exhibition

Please join us at Brilliance In Color on Friday, March 4th for our special First Friday Art Walk Exhibition.

Jose Barbera was one of the great Spanish landscape artists of the 21st century, born on October 1, 1945 in Valencia, Spain.

Barbera developed a love of art early in life and at the age of twelve he began his formal training. Barbera described himself

as a representational landscape painter. His favored subjects were the landscapes of Spain’s sunbathed beaches and ancient

mountain villages with their weathered white stucco and terra-cotta clay tile roofs and as an avid gardener he also loved to

paint beautiful rose bushes.

Barbera was without a doubt a painter with the ability to transmit the unique light of Spain into his works. When

an artist possesses such talent, technique and sensitivity, a truth emerges from his art in a manner that is natural and

simple...both fresh and spontaneous. Barbera’s unique paintings have captivated collectors the world over...from

Saudi royalty to Hollywood icons. Barbera has also been honored with several awards and many prominent exhibitions.

During the last three years of his life Barbera would travel through out Spain’s scenic countryside searching for new inspiration

in familiar places. He painted as much as he could, these were to be the last works Barbera would produce. The originals in this

special retrospective exhibition will be the last opportunity for many collectors to enjoy the unique paintings of Barbera.

Exhibition Dates: March 4th thru April 24th, 2010

Opening Event: March 4 – 5, 2010 (Fri. & Sat.)

Call the gallery for more event information: 904-810-0460

Tally Beck Contemporary Exhibits Chinese and Thai Works At SCOPE Art Fair NY

Tally Beck Contemporary


Be Takerng Pattanopas, N-O-W-H-E-R-E- No. 2, 2010 (Ink on paper, 2ft x 2ft 11 in.)

Tally Beck Contemporary Exhibits Chinese
and Thai Works At SCOPE Art Fair NY

NEW YORK February 25, 2011—Tally Beck Contemporary will participate in SCOPE New York and feature artwork by Chinese artists Anne Li, Chen Ping, island6 and Thai artists Be Takerng Pattanopas and Songwoot Kaewvisit.

Tally Beck Contemporary is a Bangkok-based art consultancy that opened its New York gallery’s doors in October 2010. It aims to bring the newest and best Asian contemporary art to the rest of the world while introducing international expression into the emerging art scenes of Southeast Asia.

The artists the gallery brings to Scope this year will range from new talent to firmly established names in the Asian contemporary scene. Anne Li is a Chinese photographer, trained in Paris, whose photographs embody a crisp refinement and reveal the artist’s unique insights into humanity and formal concerns. Chen Ping, also from China, but currently based in Tasmania, plays with the border between abstraction and representation in his highly textured, monumental oils. Island6 is an artists’ collective in Shanghai that collaborates on dynamic LED pieces that provide an electronically animated commentary on Orientalism.

Thai artist Be Takerng Pattanopas is noted for his intricate pen drawings that meticulously attempt to define three-dimensional space on paper.  From Thailand’s northeastern Isaan region, painterSongwoot Kaevwisit monumentalizes Thai traditional medicine with larger-than-life photorealism.

SCOPE will run from March 2-6, 2011 at 320 West Street (across from Pier 40 and between Houston and Spring Streets).  Tally Beck Contemporary will host a cocktail reception at their booth, C28, on Saturday, March 5, 4 pm.

If you would like complimentary tickets to SCOPE NY, please email Hanting Zhu, Gallery Manager athanting@tallybeckcontemporary.com.
 

FUTUREFARMERS ARTIST COLLECTIVE TO CREATE NEW WORK FOR GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM'S INTERVALS CONTEMPORARY SERIES

FUTUREFARMERS ARTIST COLLECTIVE TO CREATE NEW WORK FOR GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM'S INTERVALS CONTEMPORARY SERIES

Public Invited to Participate in an “Urban Thinkery” through Artist-Led Programs at the Museum and Across the City of New York

Exhibition: Intervals: Futurefarmers
Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Location: Rotunda and off-site in several locations across the city of New York
Dates: May 4–14, 2011

(NEW YORK, NY - February 24, 2011) – From May 4 to May 14, 2011, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will present Intervals: Futurefarmers, the fourth installment of its contemporary art series designed to reflect the spirit of today’s innovative practices. For its Intervals project, the San Francisco–based art collective Futurefarmers is creating a site-specific installation on the Rotunda floor of the museum and organizing intimate participatory programs for the public in various spaces around the city of New York.

The exhibition is organized by David van der Leer, Assistant Curator, Architecture and Urban Studies.

The Leadership Committees for the Intervals series and Intervals: Futurefarmers are gratefully acknowledged.

Futurefarmers creates projects that are diverse both in terms of their production and their strategies of audience engagement. If anything typifies a Futurefarmers project, it is a balance of critical and optimistic thought with the use of inventive and pragmatic design elements. Recent works include antiwar computer games; an online registry of unused arable land sites in San Francisco that could be used for gardening and food production; and lunchboxes that incorporate hydrogen-producing algae. For the Guggenheim’s Intervals series, Futurefarmers is creating a ten-day “urban thinkery” centered around a shoemaker’s atelier consisting of a cobbler’s bench and shoe racks and installed in the Guggenheim Museum’s Rotunda. The atelier is an open interpretation of Simon the Shoemaker’s fifth-century Athens studio in which Socrates supposedly had extensive philosophical discussions with Simon and local youth.

The Futurefarmers shoemaker atelier is the anchor for a series of off-site actions and events taking place throughout the city. Three Sole/Soul Sermons, commissioned by Futurefarmers and written and delivered by contemporary writers, will be offered in the atelier. The collective will also host intimate public Dialogues with contemporary thinkers and participants in special interior and exterior spaces around the city, as well as conduct a series of Ink Gathering walks with special guests and small groups of enthusiastic visitors. During these walks, the groups collect sidewalk dirt, the main ingredient in a unique Futurefarmers ink that will be used to transcribe the Sole/Soul Sermons and the Dialogues for posterity in participatory urban actions called the Pedestrian Press. Three times during the project, passersby on the streets will be called upon to form the Pedestrian Press and help print the texts, using 36 specialized printing shoes, on long strips of paper that will be rolled out along New York sidewalks.

In addition, the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Guggenheim Museum, in collaboration with Futurefarmers, will offer exhibition-related programs for people of various ages, ranging from hands-on workshops entitled Making Our Own Rules (in which each participant is asked to create a system of measurement—a ruler—based on the length of his/her foot) to screenings of the film Examined Life (2008) by Astra Taylor. The full schedule of programming offered in conjunction with Intervals: Futurefarmers is listed below. All programs are free with museum admission or, if held outside held outside the museum, free. Further details will be posted on guggenheim.org/futurefarmers and will later be announced via Twitter feeds @Guggenheim and #Futurefarmers.

ArtGate Gallery/ upcoming Solo Exhibition for Korean artist Park Sung Tae

Jakarta International Stencil Art 2011 “DIVERGENCE”