ASIAN ART
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BRONZES AND SURPRISES IN NEW YORK SPRING SALES Archaic Chinese bronzes were stars of the show during Asia Weeks Sales in March this year. Top lots from both Christie’s and Sotheby’s at the Spring sales were late Shang-dynasty Chinese archaic bronzes. Christie’s single-owner sale, Shang: Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes from the Daniel Shapiro Collection, on 18 March, offered lots from China’s formative Shang bronze culture from a renowned American collection formed over a span of 25 years. The late Shang-dynasty lots on offer comprised four bronze ritual wine vessels, including a trumpet necked slender vessel, gu; a bulbous vessel, pou; a rectangular formed vessel with lid, fangyi; and a vessel in the form of a fierce tiger, gong. Leading the sale was the Luboshez Gong, which sold for US$8,604,000 (est US$4-6 million). An important bronze ritual wine vessel dating to the 13th-12th century BC, the vessel combines a pouncing tiger with a standing owl forming a powerful mythical creature. The name stems from Captain SN Ferris Luboshez, who acquired the object in
Shanghai in 1948. Few similar examples are known, however, one of which is in the Harvard Art Museums. The other vessel in the collection to achieve selling for over one million dollars was a ritual wine vessel with cover, the fangyi, which has a distinctive rectangular shape with tapered sides and a delicately rounded lid that is decorated with taotie masks and flanked by a pair of long-tailed birds and confronting dragons divided by subtle flanges. This vessel sold for US$1,110,000. At Sotheby’s, in the Important Chinese Art sale on 17 March, an important documentary archaic bronze ritual food vessel, gui, also from the late Shang dynasty, probably circa 1072 BC, sold for US$5,434,500 million (est US$600-800,000). That was more than six times its high estimate – and was the top selling lot of Asia Week for the auction house. Sotheby’s catalogue notes comment that the Shang period (circa 1600 to 1045 BC) is China’s first historic dynasty and the first era from which written documents are preserved that
The Luboshez Gong, an important bronze ritual wine vessel and cover from the late Shang dynasty, Anyang, 13/12th century BC, length 29.8 cm, sold for US$8,604,000 at Christie’s, New York, in March this year
corroborate the period’s historicity. Such documentation is known only from the time of the last nine Shang kings, beginning with Wu Ding (proposed reign dates circa 1250 to circa 1192 BC), when the capital was at Anyang, Henan. Historic
Chinese, Japanese & South East Asian Art Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers
Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 May
documents come mainly in the form of inscribed oracle bones that were used for divination; but besides oracle bones, a few bronzes were cast with ancestor dedications, which can also mention historic events. The gui from this sale is one of these
NEWS IN BRIEF
Inside
TAKASHI MURAKAMI AND THE MARKET IN NFTS
In the fast-moving world of digital work created as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) Takashi Murakami has decided against selling his newly-minted digital artworks as NFTs, explaining that he wants to take more time to better understand the blockchain technology before moving forward. Murakami announced last month that he would be launching his first-ever digital artwork through popular NFT marketplace OpenSea. The Japanese contemporary artist, known for his signature flowers, initially put up 108 designs for sale. It seem that out of nowhere, these are popular blockchain assets that crypto enthusiasts around the world are paying top dollar for. Sotheby’s have just announced that their first sale of NFTs where thousand of buyers bought work by the anonymous artist Pak’s US$500 cubes, which were made in an open edition. The auction house’s first-ever NFT auction totalled US$17 million.
SAMSUNG COLLECTION, JAPAN
A rare and large gold and silver-inlaid bronze tapir-form vessel, zun, Yuan/ Ming dynasty, 13th-15th century £50,000-£80,000*
Scan the QR code to view the auction catalogue www.roseberys.co.uk Email asian@roseberys.co.uk for more information 70/76 Knights Hill, London SE27 0JD | +44 (0) 20 8761 2522 *Plus Buyer’s Premium +VAT (30% inclusive of VAT)
rare vessels of historic significance. The historic event inscribed on the vessel is a well-known military expedition of the Shang against the Renfang, also known as Yifang, an enemy tribe in the east, which is also recorded on three other bronzes: the famous rhinoceros-shaped zun from the Avery Brundage collection in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The 34-character legend on the gui follows a characteristic pattern, which begins with a cyclical date and ends with a calendar date. And the surprise of the week was at Sothebys, where a Ming-dynasty (1368-1644), Yongle-period (r 14031424), blue-and-white ‘floral’ bowl sold for US$721,800 (est US$300500,000), following a bidding battle between four bidders. It was originally purchased for just US$35 at a Connecticut yard sale. It is delicately potted form is in the shape of a lotus bud, lianzhi, or chicken heart, jixin and has a diameter of 16 cm. Just six companion bowls are known, with most held in museum collections in the world.
A group consisting of 12 South Korean arts organisations and eight former Ministers of Culture is lobbying the Korean government for the use of cultural assets as in-kind tax payments to prevent the overseas sale of the art collection of the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee (1942–2020). Lee’s heirs are due to pay a record-high inheritance tax of KRW11 trillion (US$ 9.8 billion) by the end of last month (April). The country’s most influential businessman, Lee, who died in October 2020, amassed around 13,000 art objects, comprised of antiques, and modern and contemporary art, with an estimated worth of over KRW 3 trillion (US$ 2.7 billion). The group of cultural leaders, which also includes the Korean Fine Arts Association and Korean Museum Association,
2 Profile: the sculptor Nairy Baghramian 6 Stories from Storage: Curators’ choices from Cleveland 8 Babur and the creation of the first Mughal gardens 10 Iranzamin, the first show of the Powerhouse’s Persian collection in Sydney 12 Indian Painting, from the Deccan, in Switzerland 14 From the Archive: Sumatra, Isle of Gold, held in Sinagpore 16 Contemporary Moroccan art in Spain 17 Documenting the Silk Road 18 Exhibitions: Blue and White ceramics, Modern Indian Art, Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon, and photography from Egypt 19 Yayoi Kusama, Indian textiles, and Chiharu Shiota 20 Gallery shows in Brussels, Los Angeles, and New York 21 Auctions previews, Hong Kong 22 Auctions revoiews, New York 23 Islamic Arts Diary
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
NAIRY BAGHRAMIAN by Olivia Sand
For a long time, sculpture has been a medium primarily defined by weight, volume, surface, scale, texture and mass, amongst other things. To consider additional parameters coming into play – and being the driving force of the creative process – is a rather recent development in sculpture. Nairy Baghramian (b 1971 in Iran) follows this new mindset, as she is determined to keep challenging our approach to this medium, as well as looking at other artistic disciplines, before integrating some of these features into her practice. A defining aspect, for example, is to be found in dance: when observing the human body moving on stage, it can perform countless poses that although seemingly unstable, nevertheless keep their balance. Why should such equilibrium not be within reach when dealing with the complexity of a sculpture? As some artists paint, write, sing, or dance to express themselves, and to address issues of their time, Nairy Baghramian does this with sculpture, making us look at the possibilities of the medium from a different perspective. Currently based in Berlin, she is an artist bringing meaning to every aspect of her practice, from the selection of materials to the way the piece is mounted, entitled, and ultimately installed. As the following conversation emphasises, Baghramian pursues her leitmotif: to challenge and even disorient the viewer, to take the medium of sculpture where it does not fulfil expectations. Asian Art Newspaper: You took a variety of diverse subjects during your studies ranging from art history to theatre, cinema, dance, and architecture. Ultimately, what made you lean towards sculpture? Nairy Baghramian: In 1984, I fled Iran
as a teenager and arrived in Berlin before the wall came down. Despite the pressure and urgency, it was fascinating to deal with a new language. In addition, I felt very drawn to the intense theatre and dance scene in the city, where
impressive figures such as Heiner Müller (1929-1995), Einar Schleef (1944-2001), Yvonne Rainer (b 1934), Merce Cunningham (1919-2009); and later Michael Clark (b 1962) and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (b 1960) were performing. As a film aficionado, I absorbed films by Paradschanow (1924-1990), Tarkowski (19321986), Kiarostami (1940-2016), Forough Faroukzad (1934-1967) and Kurosawa (1910-1998), followed by German-language movies directed
Nairy Baghramian, Clark Institute, Williamstown, US. Photo: Tucker Blair
NEWS IN BRIEF released a joint-statement in March calling for the country’s National Assembly to ‘immediately amend in-kind tax payment laws’. Described by the group as a unique opportunity for the Korean public to enjoy these masterpieces, the group believes that housing Lee’s collection in domestic arts institutions will also elevate the status of the country’s museums. Lee’s collection of Korean antiques, including 30 deemed as National Treasures by the South Korean government, will likely be donated to institutions such as Seoul’s National Museum of Korea, due to a law that prohibits the overseas sale of domestically produced antiques. The family’s decision regarding the collection’s fate will be announced in due course.
MORI ART MUSEUM REOPENS
The Mori Art Museum has reopened at the end of April, after three month’s of renovations. To make the museum more convenient to visit, while helping to prevent the spread of Covid-19, they are introducing a new ticketing system involving online ticket purchase and QR code verification. Admission pricing has also been updated, with new prices for Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and for advance purchasing online. To mark the reopening of the museum exhibition, a new exhibition has been organised: Another Energy: Power to Continue Challenging - 16 Women Artists from #AsianArtPaper |
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Around the World. The exhibition features powerful works by women artists from across the globe ranging in age from 71 to 105, with individual careers spanning more than 50 years and has been curated by the Director of the museum Kataoka Mami and Martin Germann, an independent curator. More information on www.mori.art.museum.
DECCANI PAINTING, HYDERABAD
To complement the article on Deccan art on page 12 and 13 of this issue, there is a presentation entitled Rocks in the Frame!, which is a conversation on rocks in Deccani art by Navina Haidar Haykel and Kathleen James-Chakraborty with the moderator Abeer Gupta. It discusses the Deccani landscape and its importance in regional art and in a wider concept, such as in Chinese and Persian art, and its representation in the great epics. The video, Rocks in a Frame!, explores artistic encounters with Deccani rocks, mountains and landscapes. It can be found here https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bI9vNoviptg For more information on this project for Hyderabad visit www.otherkohinoors.com
TASWEER PHOTO FESTIVAL, QATAR
The first edition of this photographic festival runs until 30 May in Qatar. The festival’s mission is to amplify diverse photographic practices and
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dialogues, and to support the creative growth of photographers based in the Western Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. Running for two months, the Tasweer festival present broad programme of exhibitions, awards, commissions, collaborations, presentations, and workshops. The biennial event, which is led by director Khalifa Ahmad Al Obaidly and artistic director Charlotte Cotton, includes three exhibitions dedicated to global photographers and image makers. For more information on the exhibitions and surround cultural events, visit www.tasweer.qa.
THE HIRSHHORN GARDEN PROJECT AND SUGIMOTO
Hiroshi Sugimoto has been tasked to create a design for a complete renovation of the Hirshhorn Museum’s sunken sculpture garden. The artist had already transformed the museum’s lobby and coffee shop in 2018. In late March this year, the museum announced today the completion of a sixth public consultation meeting for the revitalisation of the area. The proposed design will be the first comprehensive update to Gordon Bunshaft’s 1974 campus since landscape architect Lester Collins’ modifications to the Sculpture Garden in 1981, adding muchneeded infrastructure repairs in addition to improvements to visitor amenities such as shade and seating. The date of a seventh public
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meeting, during which the public will be invited to view a mock-up of the proposed stacked stone, will be announced soon. A final design is expected to be submitted by the Smithsonian to the NCPC and the CFA for approval this year. More information on the project and additional resources can be found at https://hirshhorn.si.edu/ sculpture-garden-revitalization/.
UBUD WRITERS AND READERS FESTIVAL INDONESIA
It has been announced that Ubud Writers & Readers Festival returns for its 18th year, from 8 to 17 October 2021, online and on-site. Drawn from a Balinese-Hindu philosophy, Mulat Sarira (interpreted in English as SelfReflection) is the spiritual principle of examining one’s actions, thoughts, and values to ultimately build the deepest sense of selfunderstanding and interconnectedness in pursuit of Dharma, the Truth. The Festival will explore self-reflection, cultural introspection, and human rights: examining who we are, what unites and divides us, and what drives our actions. Along with the theme, UWRF also returns to the artwork created by an acclaimed Balinese artist Teja Astawa. His distinctive traditional Kamasan style art represents human stories that are told in classic and bold natural settings. For more information, visit https://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/ about/.
People 3 by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) and Michael Haneke (b 1942), but also productions by John Cassavates (1929-1989) with Gena Rowlands (b 1930). The writings by Frieda Grafe (19342002) fundamentally shaped my broader understanding, as well as the blending of disciplines such as film, theatre, dance, painting, performance, and sculpture. Language opened up to me as a tool and I enjoyed the fact that after a performance in the theatre, everything was suddenly gone. I liked that radical temporal fusion of theatrical negotiations on stage and its literally complete disappearance afterwards. I liked this ephemeral element, too. With regards to sculpture, an exhibition in a small institution in Berlin two decades ago proved to be significant. The works in the exhibition were strictly text based, evidently carrying out political issues with a notable absence of painting, or sculpture. Aware of the historical and hierarchical weight of those two mediums, I kept wondering, in the context of this exhibition, why the political aspect in sculpture or painting was erased? In my opinion, there was something problematic about sculpture and I was affected by it: I wanted to know what it was, as perhaps there was something unwieldy hidden in it, undefined, maybe even an interest in the gap in class, or in the allocation of a hierarchy between genres of art. Maybe I was also drawn to sculpture, at that time, because it was three-dimensional, allowing me to circle it and look at things from different perspectives. In the end, it requires you to look at things from a different angle, to question again and again, thinking two or three times about the same thing, it is about not being safe in your own observations and their historically unchallenged allocations. The works and their reading should always be in flux – as we all are, too. AAN: When you started out as an artist, did you feel something was missing in sculpture, or did you have the desire to communicate a message through sculpture? NB: Back then, the contemporary
visual art scene in Berlin was quite manageable and, at that time, hardly any art was produced here. Rather, it was a very political environment that was primarily defined by language and content. That attracted me, but the more I became involved in the visual arts, the more I was under the impression that both painting and sculpture were sometimes stigmatised within that environment. That provoked me and
Knee and Elbow, 2020, marble, cast stainless steel. Elbow: 155 x 175 x 65 cm; Knee: 59 150 x 290 x 75 cm, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: David Murphy
also triggered my curiosity. It sparked the question as to what extent sculpture and form could continue shaping socio-political discourses. The fact that sculpture was frowned upon and treated like an outsider in the schoolyard made it even more exciting for me. AAN: Your work is primarily based on the human body. What draws you to this specific physicality rather than a random shape taken from nature or your surroundings? NB: To me, the body is also a
random shape. It cannot be isolated from the context in which it moves and through which it is being shaped. If you are questioning the socio-political or the gender discourse, there is no getting around the body. I do not see the random shape of something being opposed to the body as a complex thing. Therefore, the shift between these two is important. It is like a dialogue that has to happen.
AAN: Fragility and instability are key aspects of your work. What intrigues you in these concepts? NB: Not questioning stability always
puzzles me. When it comes to political cohesion in society, I am in
favour of an attitude that is not too rigid, at the risk of being more fragile and unstable. This balancing act gives me the freedom, but also the obligation, to look at things closely, avoiding the static. From that considered position, I can look to the centre, allowing me to define what the centre actually means. It has nothing to do with this cliché of overestimating the idea of instability as a position that is so interesting. It is about allowing yourself to know where the periphery is, all the more so as the distance does not exist without the periphery. Therefore, I am not obsessed with the beauty of instability. I am just taking it as something that is there. That, of course, also leads me to think about what stability is – and who is occupying the centre? AAN: As per its definition, art carries an aesthetic aspect. Is beauty an important factor in your work, or is the priority to challenge or even disorient the viewer without fulfilling expectations? NB: Lulling and seducing the viewer
with beauty is clearly not what I am striving for. I do not see the viewer as an object that I either want to hold on to, or that I want to educate. Maintainers (H), 2019, cast aluminium, painted aluminium, cork, Styrofoam, pigmented paraffin wax, 235 x 410 x 280 cm., courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Cathy Carver
To me, the body is also a random shape
For me, it is more about reinforcing the viewer as a subject, free to evaluate things by themselves, or simply to walk past them. As a result, back in 2008, I called one of my first solo exhibitions Walker’s Day Off. In the show, I primarily worked with the supposed emptiness of the transitions between rooms, thus affecting the viewer’s subsequent expectations. To some viewers it was irritating, but I always felt more attracted to the periphery than the centre. As in most of my solo exhibitions, I ended the walkthrough of the exhibition with a photo entitled The Conceptual Artist’s Smoking Head, alluding to the fact that, for a moment, I wanted to relieve the viewer of the explanation of conceptual art. In my opinion, art is not here to be loved: it is about disorienting, taking people’s minds to somewhere else. Basically, art is as beautiful – and as ugly – as everything else. AAN: Your work represents a temporary state: the pieces almost feel like a still image, in slow motion in our fast-paced world. Do you agree? NB: What interests me is the
moment between two moments, which I neither perceive as static, or as movement. Perhaps, it has more to do with an ambiguous thought.
AAN: As to that aspect, the dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer (b 1934) was an important figure in conjunction to your work. Why?
More specifically, what correlations did you establish between dance and sculpture? NB: I take the apparent simplicity of
Yvonne Rainer’s movements as a beneficial complication. The mind is a muscle. I was in love with her work, which revealed both the complexity and the simplicity of the body. She made me aware that every simple gesture, every simple idea, had its own complexity. That perhaps takes us back to the earlier question, why the human body? Simply because I thought random forms are as complex as the complex idea of the human body. Bringing these two extremes together was one of the things I learned from Yvonne Rainer. In addition, she raised many questions going beyond the formal issues of dance to deal with social and socio-political issues on the stage. All these issues were intertwined and you could not separate them anymore. Her approach echoed my early interest in questions related to power and social matters among others.
AAN: Another important figure for you was the interior designer Janette Laverrière (1909-2011). What impact did she have? NB: Janette was a dear friend and she
once referred to us as ‘sisters in creation’. From the time I had my first solo show in 2004, I have often shared my solo exhibitions with artist friends. The invitation can create realities that address issues such as gender or media inequalities. I wanted to avoid sharing direct historical positions in my exhibitions or using them as references so as not to potentially take them over. The direct and equal dialogue with an artist as counterpart is very important to me. In Janette’s case, I shared several exhibition projects with her during her lifetime. I was fascinated by her story and indomitable political stance as the ‘grande dame’ of French design, but above all, by her irrepressible creative urge as well as the power and contradictions of her objects.
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
4 People surroundings and the history of both places are radically different. When I travelled to Sardinia to see the Nivola Museum, I noticed that the whole island was based on architecture from the 1970s with many unfinished concrete buildings. As there was insufficient funding at the time, the construction of all these concrete buildings, which symbolised the promise of a new future, was frozen and the buildings left half-finished. Therefore, you are not only confronted with the site of the museum, but it also makes you reflect upon what materials are on the island. Consequently, it is not only the site, the history of the museum, or the history of the exhibitions that took place there, but it is more about taking into account multitude of things that are important when you enter a space, a site, or a location.
Side Leaps, zinc coated metal, Plexiglas, 5 gouache on paper, 118 x 435.6 x 27.3 cm, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Cathy Carver
AAN: Your work seems at the same time very real but also very abstract. How do you see it? NB: My relationship to such
categorisations is ambivalent. However, at the same time, I like to evolve in them and with them. In addition, I am in favour of the artist helping define such historical demarcations instead of accepting them without resistance.
AAN: You had a travelling exhibition at SMAK in Ghent and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where instead of a retrospective, you decided on revisiting previous pieces. How did you plan and create these shows? NB: A retrospective is always a
template and an invitation to summarise and dare to look back. I thought these exhibitions would be a good opportunity to take part in this observation of myself. Indeed, I did not show any previous works, but took them as the starting point for new works, confronting them with the changed reality. In addition, I still have the feeling that I am far too young for an historic outlook!
Staydowners, installation view Deformation Professionelle Walker Art Center, 2017, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Timo Ohler
This is best exemplified by the piece entitled Work Desk of an Ambassador’s Wife, my last project with Janette, shown in 2019 at Marian Goodman in New York. The titles she gave to her pieces already created an impact: she fully realised that calling her table Work Desk of an Ambassador’s Wife would make it hard to sell, but she never changed it. Indirectly, Janette also shaped my thinking about art as I realised that a creation did not necessarily have to be successful in order to be allowed into this world. It has its own right to exist. That takes me to the idea of the centre, emphasising that not only the centre is allowed to survive. All these elements may explain why I was so fascinated by her prototypes. I will continue having dialogues with artists in the future, and Janette was not the last.
My handling of space is site responsive, not site specific
AAN: Do you have any specific plans for future collaborations? NB: I hope they can take place next
year in Vienna, or Munich, as exhibitions are scheduled at the Secession and Haus der Kunst. It would be a wonderful occasion in Vienna, as the Secession was founded by a group of artists. When I am working with other artists, it is a very open discussion that also brings up some contradictions. As I indicated earlier, I am not that interested in pairing my own work with historical works – that is best left to art historians and curators.
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
Scruff of the Neck (UL 11, F), 2016, cast and polished aluminium, polished aluminium rods, plaster, beeswax and rubber, 257.8 x 226.1 x 116.8 cm, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Thierry Bal
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To me, it is more urgent and challenging to have an open conversation with our own generation, with our own time. AAN: Space is a continuation of your practice, emphasising the importance of the context. Considering your interest in architecture, how do you go about apprehending space? NB: I would describe my handling of
the exhibition space as site responsive, as opposed to site specific, which is often used in an inflationist way, considering how consistently the conceptual artist Michael Asher (1943-2012) interpreted this term. If I am invited to an exhibition, I do not limit my research to the architectural features of the exhibition space, but also try to bring in the larger context. The surroundings keep suggesting materials to me; that was the case with my latest work, Misfits, for my exhibition in Milan, where I relied on marble and cast aluminium. If you consider the body as sociopolitical, it is no different with material and colour. The desert is not a blank slate either. More specifically, I am not just interested in the architectural site, the walls and the room, or the threedimensional idea of the room. It also involves the travelling to places and thinking about the materials I am using. Although the concept of my upcoming exhibitions in Milan and in Sardinia is very similar, the
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AAN: How did the museums react to your decision? NB: At the beginning, it was hard to
discuss this topic with institutions because they kept wondering why, as an artist, I questioned the idea of a retrospective instead of embracing it. But in the end, we began to share the same interest that art had to move on. To me, the word ‘retrospective’ in itself was interesting, as you can think retrospectively about something and use it productively for your own practice. Looking back at my own works, I started re-questioning them, squeezing them differently. In my case, the retrospective was an excellent tool to consider what happens when thinking about a work retrospectively, without presenting it in a retrospective way. I was glad I had the opportunity to take my own sculptures towards something new, moving them conceptually upside down, to left and right, to work with them, letting them move, and not represent them.
AAN: You also have several upcoming exhibitions planned in Milan, Paris, and Sardinia. Can you briefly speak about them? NB: The exhibitions are at Galleria
d’Arte Moderna in Milan, Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris, and the Nivola Museum in Sardinia. They are planned for spring and summer 2021 and belong together thematically and all carry the term ‘Misfits’ in their title. Misfits began with the specific urban setting of the
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Galleria d’Arte Moderna, a garden open to adults, but only when accompanied by children. A series of large-scale sculptures inhabit both the museum’s interior and exterior spaces, combining the idea of play with a reflection on the aesthetic experience of inadequacy and imperfection. Therefore, dealing with the different exhibition contexts, I used marble in Milan for the sculptures on the institution’s terrace, while in Sardinia I rely on simple concrete for the work in the outside space, involving the complex material experience of the unfinished architectural building projects in the region. In the gallery in Paris, the works are shown untidily indoors and, accordingly, I used less formal materials such as wood. AAN: Beyond the projects you mentioned, do you have any other future projects you can share? NB: As I mentioned, there is the
exhibition at the Secession in Vienna. For 2022, planned exhibitions include the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Carré d’Art in Nîmes and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Looking back, the pandemic has actually been a time for me to rework things, although I believe a work of art should not be in the hands of the artist for too long, as it never finishes.
AAN: In today’s challenging times, do you feel the artist has a responsibility? NB: For me, making art is, per se,
a political and responsible act. Without art, we would be dealing with an impoverished society.
AAN: As an artist you seem to prefer to be discreet and private. Is that a deliberate choice? NB: I speak out when I think there is
need for it, but presently with the importance of Zoom to experience shows (as most physical exhibitions have been cancelled or postponed), the artist is in the spotlight again, which, in a way, makes their voice seem as if it is occupying almost too
People 5 Beliebte Stellen (Privileged Points), 2017, bronze, paint, dimensions variable, courtesy the artist, MUDAM Luxembourg, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Remi Villagi
NEXT AUCTION:
Works of Art, Antiquities 秋季拍卖
艺术品和古董
Portrait (The conceptartist Smoking Head, Stand-In), 2016, Baryte b/w print (framed), 121.5 x 193 x 5.5 cm, edition 1 of 1, 1 AP, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Timo Ohler
much space. Under these circumstances, I am longing for a balance that implicates production and inspiration, which is in relation with others, experiencing exhibitions in real time and space, sharing thoughts – and not being left behind in a virtual bubble for too long. With the artist being over-present, and hearing yourself talking (as an artist), there seems to be something poisonous about it, as you can take yourself too seriously. You almost end up finding yourself
in a video by Bruce Nauman (b 1941), left with the paranoia of yourself in that box. Now, when I am looking at myself, it appears that Bruce Nauman’s idea of that question is becoming a reality for many of us.
Nairy Baghramian’s work is on view at the Fondazione Furla and GAM - Galleria d’Arte Moderna, in Milan, May 26 - September 26, 2021 as well as at Galerie Marian Goodman in Paris, June 5 - July 24, 2021
La lampe d’Horloge by Nairy Baghramian and Janette Laverrière, 2008, brass, wood, painted wood, stained wood, mirrors, colored glass, varnished rosewood, painted rosewood, lacquer, metal lid, multipli, ink on vellum, pencil on vellum, gouache on vellum, zinc coated metal, Plexiglas, courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo: Cathy Carver
Lot 396 A large glazed Chinese horse, Tang dynasty (618-906)
May 26, 2021 LIVE AUCTION
June 21, 2021 ONLINE AUCTION
www.hermann-historica.com WATCH Nairy Baghramian discuss her work
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
6 Exhibitions
Box for storing monk’s robes, 1400s, China, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), lacquered wood with mother-of-pearl inlay, 43 x 56 x 54.7 cm, Andrew R and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, chosen by Clarissa von Spee
One of a pair of armchairs, lohan type, 1600s, China, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), rosewood, each 86 x 63.5 x 47 cm, The Norweb Collection, chosen by Clarissa von Spee
Green Tara, circa 1260s, Central Tibet, thangka, gum tempera and gold on sized cotton, 52.4 x 43.2 cm, purchase from the JH Wade Fund by exchange, chosen by Sonya Rhie Mace
Stories from Storage
A creative response to the Covid-19 pandemic from the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has allowed curators to discuss some of their favourite objects that are not normally on view. When the pandemic upended our normal lives across the world, it also temporarily delayed, possibly for years, projects that had been in development in many museums and institutions. It was a perfect moment for the CMA to reconsider their schedule of exhibitions by drawing on its own resources. So they went off to explore the vault. While the CMA has more than 63,000 objects in its permanent collection, only about 4,600 are on view in the galleries. Works remain in storage for various reasons: some are light sensitive, some have condition issues, some have contested attributions and others simply do not fit into the narratives or finite spaces of the galleries. Twenty personal stories have been recorded by curators that discuss and reflect living through these strange times. Some curators designed a story about their experience during quarantine and ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
living through a global pandemic, others delved deep into the vault to share art that has not ever been on view before. Four of the stories, which involve Asian art, are explored below. A Playbook for Solitude by Sooa Im McCormick, curator of Korean art, creates a moment of solace and inspires a dialogue about resilience, empathy, and social justice during the forced solitude caused by the global pandemic by juxtaposing historical and contemporary Korean works of art made in different periods and mediums. ‘I owe much of my inspiration for this story to Art as Therapy (Phaidon Press, 2013), by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong. This book proposes looking at works of art as insightful advisers as we experience a time of tension and confusion. In the book, an 18th-century Korean moon jar was presented as an example that expresses moral decency (Art as Therapy, p 42). Aside from being a useful receptacle, it is also a superlative homage to the virtue of modesty. It stresses this quality by allowing minor blemishes to remain on its surface, by being full of
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variations of colour and having an imperfect glaze and an outline that does not follow an ideal oval trajectory. The jar is modest because it seems not to mind about any of this. Its flaws merely concede its disinterest in the race for status. It has the wisdom not to ask to be thought too special. It is not humble, just content with what it is. By juxtaposing historical and contemporary Korean works of art made in different periods and media, I hope not only to create a moment of solace, but also to inspire a dialogue about resilience, empathy, and social justice. The minimalistic aesthetics of the CMA’s white vase nicknamed “moon jar” is more than a statement of philosophy. It is about artistic sustainability. The absence of cobalt blue underglaze reveals the socioeconomic crisis in late 17thcentury Korea, when the government enforced strict sumptuary laws that banned luxuries, including cobalt blue, to reserve the state’s financial resources. In fact, the connection that ties the selected works together is the human creative resilience that triumphed over challenging times. asianartnewspaper |
Kim Beom’s A Rock That Was Taught It Was a Bird is a political satire about military dictatorship in South Korea during the late 1970s and 1980s, when both news media and education were deployed as tools of manipulation. I hope these works of art together serve as a play-book to encourage us to shine our better selves and to stay resilient during this time of forced solitude.’ Sonya Rhie Mace, George P Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, offers a tribute to a parent who passed away in 2020. Ten rarely seen objects from India and Nepal, dating from about the 700s to the 1600s, explain and illuminate the elements of the visually complex 13th-century Tibetan thangka of Green Tara on display. ‘On 26 January, 2020, my mother, Marylin Martin Rhie, Professor Emerita of Art and East Asian Studies at Smith College, passed away in Springfield, Massachusetts. My father, my son, my husband, and I were all at her side, while I recited the Green Tara mantra: om tare tuttare ture svaha. For followers of Tibetan Buddhism, these powerful syllables remove fear,
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especially at the time of death. Steeped as she was for decades in the art and thought of Buddhism, she understood their meaning. My mother was a pioneering historian of Tibetan art, and she was my first teacher. An artist herself, she was gifted with extraordinary visual acuity and could see and explain which aspects of a work of art yield its beauty and purpose. Nearly three decades ago, she turned her inimitable powers of description to the CMA’s Green Tara in Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (Abrams, 1991). The iconic beauty of this style is nowhere more masterfully portrayed than in the Cleveland Green Tara. She sits within a temple-like jewelled shrine reminiscent of Indian architectural modes and with finely detailed décor as seen in the 12th- and 13thcentury Orissan and Hoysalan temples. The interior glows a brilliant crimson red, startlingly offsetting the olive green colouring of her firm, graciously bending body. Green Tara, the compassionate female Bodhisattva, is a little mysterious, which is implied here by the forest setting and night-time sky,
Exhibitions 7
Jar, 1700s, Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), glazed porcelain, height 35 cm, purchase from the JH Wade Fund, chosen by Sooa Im McCormick
Curators at CMA went off to explore the vault to create this novel exhibition
Repository for the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, late 1100s, Japan, Heian period (794-1185), lacquered wood with ink, colour, gold, cut gold, and metalwork, height 160 cm, John L Severance Fund, chosen by Sinéad Vilbar
charmingly sprinkled with flowers. The style has a gem-like colour, precise and even line, and fascinating detail. The jewels and textiles have a precision and clarity that make the image seem real. Despite the strongly twodimensional aspect of the painting, it appears utterly realistic and immediately apprehendable, approachable, and present. It seems as though we could touch the image with no barrier between us, even as we realise her iconic, perfect nature. (Green Tara in Widsom, p. 51). My selection of Green Tara for this project is a tribute to my mother, her life, and her scholarship. Although now in another realm, she left us with words that guide us ever deeper into wonder and understanding.’ Protection and Preservation of the Word is the theme considered by Sinéad Vilbar, curator of Japanese art. The recently restored Shakyamuni with the Sixteen Benevolent Deities presents an opportunity to display the painting likely for the first time in a generation. The story explores the painstaking conservation process, as well as its relationship to the Repository for the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, a rarely exhibited object also on view with rediscovered sacred texts it once housed. Sinéad Viber explains, ‘We recently completed conservation and research of Shakyamuni with the
Sixteen Benevolent Deities, and this exhibition presented an opportunity to display the newly restored painting. Mary Louisa Upson (née Southworth) (1859-1944) gifted the painting in 1941 to celebrate the museum’s 25th anniversary. The painting arrived mounted on a panel and framed. However, it had brocade border silks, indicating that it was once mounted as a hanging scroll. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was popular to convert hanging scroll paintings to framed ones. This not only made them suitable for display in Western architectural settings, but also was a more effective method of preserving the paintings than keeping them rolled up in a box when not on view. As late as 2014, Shakyamuni with the Sixteen Benevolent Deities was catalogued as an ‘Amida Triad’, a shorthand way of referring to the Buddha Amida flanked by two bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who work for the enlightenment of all) called Kannon and Seishi in Japan. As part of the CMA’s institutional goals to provide Open Access images of the entire collection and to create digital didactics, we researched and reidentified the painting. Based on its iconography, we discovered that it was an image of a different Buddha, Shakyamuni, flanked by two bodhisattvas called Monju and Fugen, and surrounded by 16 deities who protect an
painting on both the front and the important religious text called the back of the silk. The technique Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. allows the painter to create In Japan, Buddhists of many luminosity, intensity, and other different schools display a painting effects, but it also means that it is with this iconography for services at dangerous to remove backings for which monks read the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. fear of taking off pigments along with the lining. On top of that, the Sometimes the paintings are mounters cooked a recipe for mounted as panels, but most of the instability into their mounting: silk time they are hanging scrolls. It is convenient to store these occasional- does not adhere well to silk, so the lining was coming away, causing use paintings rolled up in a box to further losses where the original silk save space and to protect them from of the painting was missing. insects. Finally, the mounting silks were Re-cataloguing the painting and frayed and filthy, so they needed to now understanding its use spurred be replaced as part of the remounting us to take action to make it ready for process. Since our goal is to show exhibition. The original painting our visitors the painting as close to was a skilful, detailed work of the the way it would have originally mid- to late 1300s, but it had been been experienced by the community through centuries of temple use, as for whom it was created, we decided well as at least one previous to restore it to its original hanging remounting campaign with some scroll format. In the process, we negative consequences. In fact, its addressed the attendant problems. wanting state of preservation was Have a Seat! From Floor Culture to likely a major contributing factor to Furniture of Ming and Qing Dynasty its being overlooked in previous China reflects the choice of Clarissa curatorial research. von Spee, James and Donna Reid One of the main problems was Curator of Chinese Art. ‘China is cosmetic. Previous mounters had applied some visually distracting in- the only culture in East Asia that moved entirely from an original painting on Shakyamuni’s robe. It may have been the same colour as “floor culture”, as still practised in the original when they first added it, Japan and Korea, to high seats and tables, developing a unique tradition but over time it began to stand out as of craftsmanship in furniture. By different. Another major problem about the 800s, chairs had been was that the mounters lined the introduced from Central Asia to entire painting with silk. A Buddhist China. Chinese furniture makers painting specialist created the work did not use glue, nails, or screws, using a technique that involves
components adopted from traditional architecture made of wood. Restrained Chinese hardwood furniture of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, with its characteristic simple square forms, elegance, and “modern” proportions, has fascinated Western collectors and designers, including those of the Bauhaus and Wiener Werkstätte movements, since the early 1900s. Traditional Chinese furniture expresses modern Western design principles such as “less is more” and “form follows function”, as seen in chairs, cupboards, and tables designed by Marcel Breuer, Henry van der Velde, Josef Hoffmann and Mies van der Rohe. ‘Since Chinese furniture requires a large foot- print for display, this story of Chinese culture is often not told in our limited gallery space. Stories from Storage offers a unique opportunity to present a selection of the CMA’s Chinese furniture, some of which has remained in storage since being acquired more than 60 years ago.’ Until 16 May, Stories from Storage, Cleveland Museum of Art, Clevelandart.org. The CMA’s ArtLens app allows you to listen to each curator talk about their choice. ArtLens App is available to download for free for iOS9 or higher and to Android devices (5.0+).
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
8 Gardens
This image shows a panoramic view of the garden in mid-2003, a year after restoration work began. Today, the gardens are completely restored and managed by a private trust since 2008. The image shows the deterioration of the site and the damage to the upper terraces and the extent of devastation of both structures and trees as a result of the conflict since 1978. By the summer of 2003, the impact of the first re-planting in lower parts of the garden could be seen. Also visible in the foreground are the massive earth walls that have been repaired and rebuilt. Photo: AKDN
Babur and the Creation of Mughal Gardens
The Mughal emperor Babur supervising the laying out of the Garden of Fidelity in Kabul, album leaf from Baburnama, early 16th century. V&A images
The first Mughal garden was created by emperor Babur in Kabul
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The first Mughal gardens were created in Afghanistan by the founder of the Mughal dynasty – emperor Babur (1483-1530). Born in the Fergana Valley in modern-day Uzbekistan, Babur was a poet, writer, and an untiring warlord and conqueror. His love of nature and the outdoors came from his childhood, which he had spent in gardens created by generations of the Timurid dynasty (1350-1507) – he was a descendant of both Timur and Ghengis Khan. These outdoor spaces were important part of every-day life and used for various activities, ranging from personal family functions to official gatherings and for celebrating grand festivals such as Nowrouz (New Year), as well as for cultural events such as mushaira (poetry recitations), and other games and competitions. Some areas of the gardens were also reserved exclusively for women (zenan khana). There was no strict distinction between gardens and architecture, each flowed seamlessly into the other, but in palace gardens, in particular, there was a functional segregation of space, with areas designed for court and ceremonial duties becoming increasingly separated from residential quarters. The first major garden project created by Babur, Bagh-e Babur, was built outside the city walls of Kabul in the early 1500s. Babur had seized the city in 1504, after several defeats in his homeland of Samarkand. It was in Kabul that the emperor decided to change direction and concentrate on his campaigns to conquer the lands to the east and south, in present-day Pakistan and India. Once Babur made his headquarters in Kabul, he started to recreate his beloved childhood gardens. These gardens were in the charbagh style, a Persian layout where a quadrilateral garden is divided by walkways, or flowing water, into four smaller parts. In Persian, char means four and bagh garden. The style originated from the time of Achaemenid Persia, with Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Xenophon, giving extensive accounts of Cyrus the Great’s palatial city of Pasargadae (circa 550 BC), in current-day Iran, which contained this style of four gardens. Babur’s garden displayed strong Timurid influences while projecting asianartnewspaper |
emperor’s personal vision of a planned landscape. It seems he gave special attention to the location of the site, choosing an area outside the town with good views, and which had enough water to lay out water features and to grow fruit trees. Babur admired the garden for its climate and beauty and he frequently mentions it in his memoirs and repeatedly visited it. The garden was on high ground with a mile-long stream flowing through its centre and emptying into a reservoir to the southwest and was planted with orange trees and pomegranates
around a reservoir, with the whole garden enclosed by a trefoil meadow and a wall. A history of these gardens can be discovered in the Baburnama, or the ‘History of Babur’, which was created by his grandson Akbar (r 1556-1605), who ordered his grandfather’s memoirs to be translated from their original Turki into Persian, the preeminent language of the court and the administration of the empire, so that they could be widely disseminated and read. The definitive copy of the Baburnama was completed by 1589, and at least five illustrated copies were
Orange trees growing in the charbagh, showing the irrigation system for the garden, from the Barburnama, early 16th century
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Gardens 9 produced in the royal House of Books. A translation from this story of Babur’s life includes many references to gardens. A translation of particular interest says: ‘In 914 [1508–9], I had constructed a charbagh garden called Bagh-i-Wafa on a rise to the south of the Adinapur fortress. It overlooks the river, which flows between the fortress and the garden. It yields many oranges, citrons, and pomegranates. [In 1524], the year I defeated Pahar Khan and conquered Lahore and Dipalpur, I had a banana tree brought and planted. It thrived. The year before that, sugarcane had been planted, some of which was being sent to Badakhshan and Bukhara. The ground is high, with constant running water, and the weather is mild in winter. In the middle of the garden is a small hill from which a one-mill stream always flows through the garden. The charchaman [plot of grass surrounding a pool] in the middle of the garden is situated atop the hill. In the southwest portion of the garden is a ten-by-ten pool surrounded by orange trees and some pomegranate trees. All around the pool is a clover meadow. The best place in the garden is there. When the oranges turn yellow it is a beautiful sight – really handsomely laid out’. Baburnama, ff. 132–132b Although these types of gardens were mainly set out for pleasure, they also allowed Babur to display the might of his imperial power and wealth. Included in the residential element was the divankhana (a sitting place), as well as a picture hall. In addition, it made space for stables, as well as a camping place where Babur, like Timur in his gardens outside Samarkand, could erect his tents and experience the pleasure of outdoor life. The old-Iranian word for such gardens (pairi dez), surrounded by a wall, is translated into English as ‘paradise’, and expresses the notion of an earthly paradise which is inherent to them. As such, they are a metaphor for the divine order and the unification and protection of the faithful through Islam. Perimeter walls are indispensable parts of Islamic gardens: as described in the Qur’an, they guard the entrance and provide protection. Their counterparts on earth fulfil a similar function. These principles are brought to perfection in the gardens of the emperor as the ‘good gardener’. Babur also chose this favoured Kabul garden as his final resting place. The emperor’s Mughal heirs continued to see the site as important, both Jehangir (r 1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (r 1627-1658) made pilgrimages to the site and, in 1683, emperor Shah Jahan ordered marble screens to be built around the royal tomb in housed in the garden. The only mention and visual of the design for Babur’s tomb still in existence comes from an 19thcentury sketch and short description by Charles Masson, a British soldier, which was published in 1842, the year the tomb was destroyed by an earthquake. Mason described the tomb in his book, Narrative of Various Journeys, as being ‘Accompanied by many monuments of similar nature, commemorative of his relatives, and they are surrounded by an enclosure of white marble, curiously and elegantly carved... No person superintends them, and great liberty has been taken with the stones employed in the enclosing walls’. Bagh-e Babur has changed drastically from the Mughal impression of the space to the present day. Throughout the years outside influences have continued to shape the use of the site. For example, the Aga Khan Historic Cities
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Thinking about subscribing? Sketch of the Tomb of Babur, near Kabul (1842) from the book by Charles Masson, Narrative of Various Journeys
The restored Tomb of Babur in the Bagh-e Babur, Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: AKDN / Simon Norfolk
Programme describes how by 1880, Abdur Rahman Khan (1840-1901) , Emir of Afghanistan, constructed a pavilion and a residence for his wife, Bibi Halima. In 1933, the space was converted into a public recreation space with pools and fountains becoming the central focal point and, in the late 1970s, a modern greenhouse and swimming pool were added (see the image from 2003). Although the original enclosure of the Babur’s tomb no longer exists, Bagh-e Babur still remains a major historically important site in Kabul. The Aga Khan’s reconstruction of the garden includes several key components. The rebuilding of the perimeter walls, the rehabilitation of the Shah Jahani mosque, and the restoration of Babur’s grave enclosure are all important parts of the rehabilitation of the garden and aid in the ‘revival of cultural identity’. Since 2003, the focus of conservation has been on the white marble mosque built by Shah Jahan in 1675 to mark his conquest of Balkh and restoration of the Babur’s grave enclosure; The Aga Khan Trust for Culture started the project in 2002 and allocated funds to bring the garden, badly damaged by civil war, back to life. In 2003, conservation work began on the Bagh-e Babur to transform it into a vibrant, open space for the citizens of Kabul. It is now managed by an independent trust and the restored 11-hectare garden not only reestablishes the historic character of the site with its water channels, planted terraces, and pavilions, but also provides the population of Kabul with a large open space for recreation and cultural events. During the conservation work, a system of partially piped irrigation was installed, as well as several thousand indigenous trees planted, including planes, cypresses, hawthorn, mulberry, wild cherry (alubalu — allegedly introduced by Babur from the north of Kabul) and other fruit and shade trees. Based on the results of archaeological excavations, the relationships between the 13 terraces and the network of paths and stairs have now been re-established and Babur’s tomb restored. A new garden for Kabul, and paradaise regained.
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asianartnewspaper.com ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
10 Persian Art Coverlet (one of two), block printed, cotton, printed in Masulipatam, Coromandel Coast, India, 1800-1830. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovksi
Vase, floral design, glazed earthenware, Iran, 19th century. Photo: Ryan Hernandez
Plate, earthenware, Tehran or Isfahanin, Iran, 1798-1834. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovksi
Wall tile, Horseman Feeding Simurgh, glazed stonepaste, maker unknown, Shiraz or Tehran, Iran, circa 1860 (Qajar period, 1783-1924). Photo: Marinco Kojdanovski
Shoes, charogh, rawhide, cotton, metal, used by Kurdish people, Ghuchan area, Khorasan province, northwestern Iran, 1900-1970. Photo: Southa Bourn
IRANZAMIN by Michael Young Last year, the scholarly Prof Pedram Khosronejad joined the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney – known locally as the Powerhouse just one branch of MAASs – as Curator of Persian Art and Material Culture, with a dazzling and distinguished CV. Born in Iran, he possesses the dashing good looks of someone who could have just stepped off the set of an adventure film, where he could equally fill in as villain or the good guy. His initial remit at MAAS was to excavate the museum’s 1,700 items in MAAS’s Persian collection, most of which has not previously been shown. The resulting exhibition is Iranzamin (Land of the Persians), a dazzling exploration of Persian art comprising 120 objects carefully and intelligently crafted around seven themes. One wonders how many previously undiscovered gems lie waiting to be unearth in MAAS’s gargantuan basement store? MAAS’s 2021 programme, launched last month, is also the first full-year (as 2020 succumbed to Covid-19) for the museum’s new director, Lisa Havilah, who took the reins in early 2019. She was appointed after the previous director left with their career in tatters having overseen an extravagant fashion fundraiser that cost more than it raised. Havilah has ambitious plans for the Powerhouse’s future, once she has navigated the controversy swirling around the state government’s now ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
abandoned plan to move the museum to a purpose-built riverside facility in Parramatta, 23 kilometre west of the current Ultimo site in the central Sydney central business disstrict. The government attempted to bulldoze through the plan in the face of stiff vociferous local opposition. The relocation would have cost taxpayers in excess of AU$1.2 billion, making it the most expensive museum relocation in history, according to The Art Newspaper. The current collection has occupied the central Sydney site since 1988, having spent the first decade of its life (1882-92) housed in a large tin shed close to Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, a facility it shared with the Sydney Hospital morgue. Last year, the government u-turned on its plans and the future of the Powerhouse at Ultimo now looks set to be preserved in one form or another. Although a new museum – one that Havilah referred to as The New Powerhouse, when we talked recently – will go ahead at Parramatta. As a result, recent years at MAAS have proved tumultuous. Even so, Havilah was enthusiastic about the Parramatta project. ‘We have just got planning approval,’ adding that there ‘is also a conservation management plan going forward for the Ultimo building. We will retain all of the current Ultimo site’. The exhibition contains a mere fraction of the museum’s half a million objects from the worlds of the decorative arts, science, communication, transport, fashion,
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furniture, media, computer technology and engineering, and more. An eclectic mix, which is possibly best compared to that of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where design, science, and technology sit happily alongside works of art. Although the Victoria and Albert trumps MAAS with its 2.3 million items. ‘Over the past three decades visitors have only ever seen around 10% of MAAS’s collection,’ Havilah explained. Iranzamin is the first-ever survey of Persian arts and crafts from the museum’s collection and coincided with Nowrouz (New Day), the Persian New Year, which this year fell on 20 March. The date marks the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere and may well have been celebrated by upwards of 300 million people globally. Think Christmas, New Year, and Fourth of July combined – add to it fire festivities, delicious food, family gatherings, street dances and loud banging on pots, and you get the significance of Nowrouz. ‘The idea for me was to open the collection for immigrants from Iran to Sydney including Afghans, Tajiks, and from all countries that are touched by the ancient Silk Roads,’ Pedram told Asian Art Newspaper at the exhibition media view in March. Pedram has thematically underpinned Iranzamin with the mythology surrounding the number seven, a mystical number shrouded in ancient symbolism in many asianartnewspaper |
Palampore, bed hanging, hand painted Tree of Life motif using Kalamkari (pen work), glazed calico, Coromandel Coast, India, circa 1740-1780. Photo: Nitsa Yioupros
The exhibition is imbued with the mythology of the number seven
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Tile from a frieze, earthenware, Kashan, Iran, circa 1300-1350. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovski
countries around the world and one that is critically important in Islamic cultures. For example, there are seven heavens and seven hells in Islam, and pilgrims to the Kaaba in Mecca must walk around it seven times, a naming ceremony is held for babies on their seventh day of life and there are seven colours in a rainbow. A non-scientific poll conducted by the UK’s The Guardian newspaper in 2014 asked readers to nominate their favourite number. Interestingly seven came out on top, too, being a number of luck in the West. Pedram’s themes, there are seven in total, of course, are Joy and Happiness; Purification and Cleanliness; Spirituality and Devotion; Poetry and Calligraphy; Ritual and Performance; Patronage and Craftsmanship; Nature and Design, with the objects laid out behind glass, some in niches on what is like an enormously long kitchen bench that incorporates – you may have guessed – seven arches. Objects in the exhibition are used as a focus to look at themes that run through Iranian life. The exhibits explore, albeit at times somewhat superficially given the scarcity of any real informative textual support, the diverse social and cultural history of Persia, today’s Iran and how traditional arts and crafts were used in society and by its people. Iranzamin includes objects acquired from the 1880s to 2021, with a focus on the Qajar era, when the Qajar dyansty
Persian Art 11 ruled over Iran from 1789 to 1925. Hand-woven crafts, carpets and rugs, textiles, embroidery, armour, glass, ceramics and tiles, shoes and wall hanging, provide a tantalising glimpse of life in Persia during the period, with devotional pieces among the most refined. (Coincidentally Christie’s Islamic and Indian Worlds sale, on 1 April, included a magnificent large group portrait of Qajar ruler Fath ’Ali Shah (1772-1834), with 24 of his 57 sons). Fath ‘Ali Shah ruled from 1797 to his death in 1834. Apparently, he was famous for three things, it is said, ‘his exceptionally long beard, his wasplike waist, and his progeny’. One should add to that list the fact that he reportedly also had 1,000 wives. Pedram talked eloquently of craftsmen and artisans curiously omitting any substantial mention of artists as producers, which in perception at least, would elevate the work above that produced by artisans. The reason, he said, was that he kept to an anthropological and ethnographical approach. In the modern world, the show also examines the influence of Persia on culture and artists around the world, including original wallpaper prints from Florence Broadhurst, an Australian painter and textile designer, whose life was colourful beyond colourful. She travelled the world, lived a series of ever-changing vivid lives predicated on lies and subterfuge, married well, and less well, and passed herself off as a member of English aristocracy, before returning to Sydney where she started a successful luxury handprinted wallpaper business in the late 1950s. Dubbed the ‘high priestess of printed paper’ by her contemporaries, Broadhurst had created an extensive
range of innovative and bold wallpapers popular during the 1960s and 1970s. At the age of 79, she was murdered in her Sydney studio, bludgeoned to death by a piece of wood and with her fingers broken. Her murder has never been solved. But her designs live on and are experiencing a renaissance. Several of her wallpaper samples are on show that include illustrations of Persian birds and pomegranate flowers, ideas picked up from her time spent in Iran. Two photographs of Florence, from the 1920s, show a woman best described as a louche femme fatale, with smouldering, come hither eyes. She was a friend of Jacques Cadry (19102003), the first Persian-Jewish immigrant to move to Australia in 1951, who opened the Australian gaze to Persian nomadic rugs through his rug store that thrives in Sydney to this day. A rug from the Cadry collection is the only object in Iranzamin borrowed from outside the museum. Hardly the most fetching of rugs with its monochrome sandy colouration, it is none-the-less of historical importance and contains a 1950s portrait of Nasar al-Din Shah, who ruled the country from 1848-1896. Although covering the period from the 16th century to 1979, when the last vestiges of the various Shahs was swept aside by the Islamic Iranian Revolution under the control of the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, one object reaches back several centuries – to circa 1300. It is the oldest object in the exhibition, as well as, in my opinion, the most decorative piece. It is a beautiful ornate fritware tile with monumental cobalt blue calligraphy set against a background of foliage. The sinuous
Wallpaper sample, ‘Arabian Birds’, from wallpaper sample book, ‘Vol 8’, ink on paper, Florence Broadhurst Wallpapers Pty Ltd, Australia, 1973. Photo: Michael Myers Florence Broadhurst, unknown photographer, Poona, India, 1924. Image: Marinco Kojdanovksi
designs of the natural world are seen in so many of these works as well a the skills of the craftsmen who made them, who employed various techniques to evoke metaphors and allegories relating to nature. For example, a Tree of Life palampore from India was probably made for the export trade and is an extant example of how trade along the Silk Road transformed the cultures of so many countries in the region and beyond. By far the largest group are pieces that come from the 19th to mid-
20th centuries, which were produced as a result of patronage and devotion. One of the most striking of is a Shia banner of block-printed in cotton, circa 1800, which mourns the death in the 7th century of Iman Hussain, Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, and which would be displayed on special occasions. Ultimately, although Pedram plays it safe in Iranzamin and does not stray far from his self-imposed thematic approach which perhaps embraces an additional all-embracing
theme thrown in for good measure: Who made it? Who uses it? I want it! I could not agree more, as everything in Iranzamin is so very interesting. Today, rightly or wrongly, the Western world views Iran as ‘The Bogeyman’ on the geo-political stage. Look more closely though at this common perception, through the lens offered by Pedram, and the notion that the country is little more than an exporter of aggression, becomes clouded in the face of other more humanistic values. Iran has one of the oldest and most sophisticated cultural histories on earth and is considered one of the cradles of civilisation. Iranzamin demonstrates that for the decorative arts, the country remains unsurpassed with an aestheticism that must have come second nature to its practitioners. Iranzamin offers an alternative to the country’s incremental Bogeyman status, one from which we can all learn. Iranzamin is at Museum of Applied Arts and Science, Sydney, until 8 August, 2021, maas.museum
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Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Black-Hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump (detail), Calcutta, 1778, watercolour. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Black-Hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump (detail), Calcutta, 1778, watercolour. Gift of Elizabeth and Willard Clark, Minneapolis Institute of Art
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
12 Miniatures
Raga Vihagra, from a Ragamala series, Aurangabad, after 1680, 35 x 23.6 cm, gift of Eberhard and Barbara Fischer, Museum Rietberg
Sorathi Ragini, from a Ragamala series, Aurangabad, after 1680, 35 x 23 cm, gift Eberhard and Barbara Fischer, Museum Rietberg
Raga Gonda, from a Ragamala series, Aurangabad, after 1680, 36,5 x 24 cm, gift of Eberhard and Barbara Fischer, Museum Rietberg
Deccani Paintings The Deccan Plateau, an extensive region south of the Ganges Plain, in India, was not only home to a number of significant power centres such as Bijapur, Golkonda, Aurangabad, and Hyderabad, it also became one of the most varied and richest regions for Indian painting. The area’s great cultural diversity, and an intricate network of national and international political links, gave rise to a highly creative art tradition that merged elements and motifs from northern Indian painting, techniques influenced by Mughal art, and inspirations from Persia into new stylistic forms which, in turn, radiated out across India. In its role as an artistic relay station, Deccan works are not always easy to grasp in terms of style, but offer the viewer a staggering array of originality and innovation. For centuries, the Deccan, or large parts of it, was under the rule of Muslim princes. The urban culture was also Muslim, while the rural population was predominantly Hindu. Nevertheless, religious separatism did not prevail, quite the opposite in fact: the population itself was strongly mixed, and a lively back and forth was the general rule, with immigrants arriving from other regions of India, the Middle East and East Africa. Thus, the region was already ‘global’ before the term had been coined by the modern world. Along with the Mughal empire and princely states of Rajasthan, the Deccan is one of India’s great independent art regions and classifications, with the paintings being particularly appreciated, whether book illumination, single folios, or ragamala series. The Deccan School was developed between the 16th and 17th centuries with the early centres of their growth being Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golconda.
The attack of an elephant, 1650-1700, 26 x 19,6 cm, bequest Alice Boner, Museum Rietberg
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Initially the schools of painting developed independently of the Mughal influence, but by the late 17th and 18th centuries, Mughal influence can been seen in the art. The diversity of the region’s culture is also echoed in its painting. The result is an art that is as fascinating as it is stylistically inconsistent – a trait which does not always make it easy for researchers and collectors. The Museum Rietberg’s collection comprises around 60 works, many of which are presented to the public in this exhibition for the first time, with the aim to trace the history of Deccani painting from 1600 to 1800. In the 17th century, courtly Deccani painting is characterised by a great openness to foreign motifs and the techniques of Persian and Mughal-Indian painting. Knowledge was spread by itinerant artists such as Farrukh Beg, a Persian-born painter, who was active at the Mughal court around 1600 before working for the princes of Bijapur, or the painter Muhammad ‘Ali, who preceded him. Later, more and more works from Safavid Iran and northern India began to reach the south. But the Deccani artists were not only receptive to foreign ideas for their work, the incorporated influences from other
Diversity and inconsistency are both traits of Deccani painting
Asian Art Newspaper
painters, or when they worked directly for other patrons, who had influenced the art of their neighbours in turn. Muhammad Khan, for example, worked for Sultan Muhammad ‘Adil Shah (r 1627-56) in Bijapur and can later be traced to the court of the Persian Shah ‘Abbas II (r 1644-66). Even better known is Rahim Dakkani, who very probably worked in Isfahan in the late 1680s. Deccani features and motifs are also found in Mughal painting of the 17th and increasingly the 18th century. Even early Pahari painting, created in the Punjab hills at the foot of the Himalayas, adopted Deccani motifs at the beginning of the 18th century. The painting style of the Bijapur School has always been highly regarded by scholars: the almost 50year reign of Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II (r 1580-1627) is still considered the ‘Golden Age’. Even the sultan himself appeared as a musician and poet: he combined the Islamic and Hindu worlds of thought in his work and tried to attract the best artists to his court. Bijapur witnessed an open embrace of Hinduism and Sufism and the formalisation in 1583 of Sunnism as the state religion, which lasted until the end of his tenure. The paintings of his time are characterised by their great lyricism – this becomes especially evident when compared to the often invoked ‘realism’ of Mughal painting. In Golconda state, the princes were even more devoted to Persian and Mughal art. From the outset, their painters were in a lively and constant exchange with Iran: on the one hand, the Golconda artists took up Persian models; on the other, their works inspired painters in Isfahan. From 1640, however, they increasingly began to explore themes, styles and techniques of Mughal painting.
Miniatures 13
Raga Hindola, from a Ragamala series, Aurangabad, after 1680, 37 x 22.2 cm, gift of Eberhard and Barbara Fischer, Museum Rietberg
These include portrait painting and a tendency towards lightly toned brush drawings. The Golconda style is more ‘robust’ compared to Bijapur, with occasional touches of irony and eccentricity. These princely schools of painting came to an end with the complete subjugation of Bijapur in 1686 and Golconda in 1687 by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. There then follows a period of transition under Mughal domination, in which a kind of free art market develops – with both former and new players. This transition period ends in 1724 with the founding of the new principality of Hyderabad that was independent of the Mughal empire. This subjugation of the Deccan in 1686/87 by Aurangzeb, made not only the princely houses and their workshops disappear, but also the decisive points of reference that are indispensable for an art-historical classification. The region also entered a period of transition. This is why Deccani painting at the time of Mughal rule (until 1724) are mostly attributed as ‘Aurangabad’. In 1653, Prince Aurangzeb had made the city of Fatehnagar in the north of the Deccan, which was under Mughal administration, his headquarters and renamed it Aurangabad. From here,
he led his conquering campaigns against southern India. From 1682, the city served as the seat of government for his own empire, which now encompassed almost all of India and, from 1724 to 1763, it was finally the capital of the independent principality of Hyderabad. By this time, many highranking army officers and wealthy civil servants were stationed in Aurangabad and the city attracted many artists from neighbouring areas and from the former princely workshops. A synthesis between patrons and artists occured and many styles and different talents came together to serve this new market. In the 18th century, after the fall of Bijapur in 1686 and Golconda in 1687, the Deccan became a separate administrative unit within the Mughal empire. Aurangzeb also moved the capital of his empire into the region, to Aurangabad. In 1713, Emperor Farrukh Siyar (r 1713-19) appointed Asaf Jah I (1671-1748), who had served as governor to various Mughal rulers, as Nizam al-Mulk (Administrator of the Empire), and thus administrator of the six provinces of the Deccan. In 1724, he founded the Asaf Jahi dynasty and with it the independent principality of Hyderabad, which existed until 1948.
His fourth son Asaf Jah II (r 17621803) moved the seat of government from Aurangabad to Hyderabad around 1763. The city went on to develop into an important cultural centre, which it remains today. With this loss of independence, the centrally organised patronage of Deccan artists collapsed. With the strengthening of the regional government under Asaf Jah I (Mir Qamar-ud-Din Siddiqi) and his successors, however, painting again received increased courtly support. This, as well as the fact that painters worked for a broad audience, including the non-princely, led to an artistic and stylistic diversity within Deccan painting that is as exciting as it is complicated – in terms of art history. It means that geographical classifications can only be made for this period cannot be fully attributed without reservations. Therefore, works produced in the north of the Deccan between about 1670 and 1724 can generally be classified under the category of Aurangabad. At the same time, some experts generally assign works from the period after 1700 to Hyderabad. However, it is known that painting continued in Golconda, for example, which is only a few kilometres away from Hyderabad. This means that Hyderabad often refers not only to the city itself, but also to the entire territory of the principality of the same name. This encompassed both central and eastern Deccan and at times reached as far as the southern tip of the subcontinent. Similar to Aurangabad, Hyderabad is thus not infrequently used as a collective term for works of Deccan painting from around 1710/20 to the early 19th century. These profound political changes were accompanied by major migratory movements. Already during the Mughal transition period, the presence of nobles from regions north of the Deccan is attested – a fact to which many scholars also attribute corresponding influences in painting. At the same time, people (including artists) emigrated northwards from the Deccan. This in turn explains Deccani elements in paintings from Bikaner (Rajasthan) to Lahore (Punjab). The final layer and complication to add to this mix are the Europeans (especially the British and French), who also took part in painting, either as customers or by bringing European art with them and thus influencing local traditions. For their part, historical collections in European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden, London and Paris prove that Deccani painting found its way to the West as early as the first quarter of the 18th century. From the second quarter of the 18th century, much of the art production was concentrated in the principality of Hyderabad and its eponymous capital. A characteristic of the painting from this era is the manifestation of a stylistic diversity in which influences from other Indian regions and migrating artists are reflected. Nevertheless, certain traits and peculiarities can also be identified. Many paintings follow a strict symmetry and order, which is even noticeable in textile patterns and especially in geometrically arranged flower beds. Even the leaves of the trees are perfectly arranged. Furthermore, there are strong contrasts between immaculately white walls and highly ornate marquetry, stucco work and fabrics. This aesthetic refers to the art of the Mughal court under Muhammad Shah (r 1720-48), where paintings
Patamanjari Ragini, from a Ragamala series, attributed to Kishan, son of Muttam musavvir, 1775–1800, 29 x 20 cm, bequest Alice Boner, Museum Rietberg
with similar characteristics were being created. There are certain attributes that help the view identify a painting from the area. For example, how architecture is depicted in the paintings also plays a fundamental role in their creation – domes are a very characteristic ornament of Islamic mosques in the Deccan. Many paintings also show terraces that can only be entered via several steps and are skilfully staged by the painters in terms of perspective to suggest a spatial effect of depth. Finally, the appearance of twocoloured skies, whose colour gradients are designed by means of horizontal stripes, are particularly striking in these paintings. Works from in or around Hyderabad are characterised not only by a stylistic and motivic diversity, but also in terms of quality. The fine execution of some paintings clearly indicates that workshops were working in the immediate vicinity of the Nizam (the title of the ruler of Hyderabad), and in close contact with the court. In addition, however, there must have been a free market of sorts that produced for an audience from the larger urban environment. Certain motifs were produced here in large numbers and in a less sophisticated manner. Other paintings to consider are the series of paintings called ragamala that are common in all Indian painting styles. As there is no equivalent of the theme outside India, it is difficult to translate their essence, which encompasses painting, poetry, and music. The term ragamala is composed of the words raga and mala. Mala can be translated comparatively easily as ‘garland or ‘chain’ and can be used in the context of a sequence of images and also as series. The translation of raga can be ‘colouring’, but on the other hand, another reference to music is more difficult from a Western perspective. Raga comes from Indian music theory and refers to a sequence of usually five to seven notes. For each raga, these now follow certain ascending or
descending sequences and evoke a certain mood (rasa: literally ‘taste’) in the audience, or rather, they ‘colour’ a certain state of mind. Each raga is also composed of different basic moods (eroticism, heroism, pity, anger, comedy, fear, horror, astonishment), one of which always predominates. The ragamala paintings are not a visual transmission of these moods, but refer iconographically to literary sources in which the visual imagination of the ragas is described in contemplative verses. The best known and probably most widely received in painting is the work of Kshemakarna, a priest from Rewa (central India, in the present-day state of Madhya Pradesh, bordering the Deccan to the north). His Ragamala was probably written around 1570 and is based on older models. Kshemakarna describes a system of six ragas, to which five raginis are assigned, whereby the raga is understood as the head of the family and the ragini as the wife; the couple is blessed with ‘children’ to form a ‘extended family’ consisting of 86 ragas. In the Deccan, too, there is a multitude of images from ragamalas, but in keeping with Deccani stylistic diversity, different traditions also come together with regard to the ragamalas. Scholars believe that one possible explanation for this confusing diversity is the fact that painting shifted to Hyderabad. The painters there were confronted with a new system of Kshemakarna ragamala, hitherto unknown to them. Since it contains far more ragas than the versions with which they were familiar, they had to fill in the gaps with fragmentary information and thus came up with entirely new, inventive images. The exhibition draws all these themes and considerations together, to provide the viewer with an informative and thought-provoking visual essay on the world of Deccani paintings. Deccan, until 15 August, 2021, at Museum Rietberg, rietberg.ch
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
14 From the Archive / Sumatra Crown of the Sultan of Siak, gold, diamonds, rubies, Siak, Riau province, before 1895. Collection of National Museum of Indonesia
In 2010, The Asian Civilisations Museum organised Sumatra Isle of Gold to tell the story of an ancient crossroads in Asia - the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Known in ancient times as the ‘Island of Gold’, Sumatra was an early point of arrival for trade, new religions and ideas in Southeast Asia. Gold and natural resources made it a land of wealthy chiefs and princes and home to the powerful ancient Srivijaya kingdom. These cross-cultural exchanges have created the unique and diverse Sumatra of today, known also for its natural attractions, such as Lake Toba. The exhibition explored this rich heritage through over 300 works from the collections of the National Museum of Indonesia, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Asian Civilisations Museum and private collections. Located between India and China, Sumatra is a natural crossroads for trade. Rich in natural resources, including gold, it was a land of wealthy chiefs, princes, and traders. The island was also the point of arrival for new religions and beliefs which spread across Southeast Asia. Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam all arrived via Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants and missionaries. The island’s strategic location and wealth of natural resources, including gold, pepper, and aromatics, naturally made it a busy entrepôt for trade. It also became the seat of power for one of Southeast Asia’s greatest maritime empires. Strengthened by close ties with China, the powerful Srivijaya kingdom (13th to 17th centuries)
Figure of Avalokiteshvara, stone, Musi Ulu, Palembang, South Sumatra, 8th/9th century. Collection of National Museum of Indonesia
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
dominated much of Southeast Asia. This trade with foreign influences came via trade with India, with Hindu-Buddhist traditions and beliefs influencing the island’s coastal communities. As early as the 3rd century BC, Sumatra was known among Indian sources by its Sanskrit name, Suvarnadvipa, or ‘Gold Island’, in reference to its rich gold deposits, especially in the central Minangkabau highlands. The island’s strategic position along the Straits of Malacca and its wealth of natural resources attracted some of the earliest settlers and traders in Southeast Asia. The legacy of these influences on Sumatra were all explored in the exhibition through objects ranging from Bronze Age artefacts of the early Austronesian communities, to Hindu-Buddhist materials from the maritime kingdom of Srivijaya. The Chinese presence increased during the 13th to 14th centuries and can be seen in the unique material cultures of the Peranakan (local born) communities. This influx of settlers continued and the Chinese, who had traded and lived in Sumatra for centuries, were soon an established part of the community, working as artisans, businessmen, administrators and tax collectors, amongst other professions. At the same time, Islamic sultanates, which had established themselves in the coastal areas, and developed their own traditions of court arts and royal regalia, were also on display. With the decline of the Srivijaya kingdom, the Islamic sultanates had begun to establish themselves from the 13th to 16th centuries and with the spread of Islam came cultural influences in architecture, textiles and clothing, and the courtly arts. Also part of the island mix of communities were the remote tribes, such as the Batak and Nias, who supplied natural resources to the coastal trading centres. The tribes also showed signs of interaction with and trade with their neighbours through their jewellery, ritual objects, and sculptures. In the final section, European influence during the colonial period left its mark both on Sumatran courts and centres of trade, as well as the tribal communities. These foreigners sought pepper and gold, as well as camphor and benzoin, ingredients used in perfumery and incense-making. The Portuguese and the Dutch arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively and a European influence left its mark on both the royal courts, as well as on the remote tribal communities who were converted to Christianity.
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Watercolour painting of the mythical buraq by Teungku Teungah, Aceh, before 1907. Collection of Museum Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology), Leiden
SUMATRA Isle of Gold
Vessel, bronze. Kerinci, Jambi Province, circa 300-500. Collection of National Museum of Indonesia
Hand-drum (rebana) with Chinese phoenix and qilin motifs, wood, goat hide, lacquer, Palembang, South Sumatra, 20th century. Collection of Provincial Museum of South Sumatra
Shoulder cloth with garuda motifs, silk and gold-wrapped thread (songket) weaving Bangka-Belitung, Southeast Sumatra, early 20th century. Collection of the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
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From the Archive / Sumatra 15
Boat prow ornament, carved wood, pigments, Ulu Langkat, East Sumatra, before 1877. Collection of National Museum of Indonesia
In the introduction, ‘Prehistory’, the exhibition explored the huntergatherer communities that had arrived by boat from South China and settled in Sumatra about 6,500 years. These communities practised ancestor worship and created bronzecast objects for ritual purposes. A large Bronze-Age vessel decorated with motifs such as hooks, spirals and plaited bands, indicating that it might have been used as a burial item, or as status goods. The iconic motifs found among many early Southeast-Asian artefacts found from that period. This vessel, from Jambi in East Sumatra, was the oldest object in the exhibition at over 2,000 years old. Early coastal communities in Sumatra probably absorbed HinduBuddhist traditions from India during the early centuries of development, forming the basis for the Srivijaya kingdom, which eventually became an important centre for the study of Buddhism. A highlight from this section, entitled ‘Indian’, focused on a figure of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, which was particularly popular in Sumatra at the time. The stone sculpture displays the talents of local artists who integrated such imported Indian images successfully with local styles. The Hindu-Buddhist traditions of Sumatra’s Srivijayan rulers are reflected in a number of religious icons that came from Palembang, where the empire was first established. Trade with India also influenced Sumatra’s textile traditions, through imported fabrics and techniques adapted from Indian weaving traditions. Large 17th-century Indian trade cloths were worn by aristocrats, whilst the sumptuous songket weaving tradition produced luxurious gold cloths that are still treasured heirlooms today. Songket comes from the Malay verb menyongket, meaning ‘to embroider threads’ with gold or silver. These threads are wrapped with fine gold or silver tape and are woven on top of a woven material creating a design that appears to float above the surface. A shoulder cloth from the exhibition featured a stylised garuda, a large bird-like mythical creature with
Hindu-Buddhist origins. Evidence of early trade with China came to light with the discovery of a 9thcentury shipwreck at Belitung Island off the southeast Sumatran coast. This Arab dhow carried a cargo of some 60,000 objects, mostly ceramics, as well as gold, silver and bronze, and is thought to have been bound for Persia with diplomatic gifts, with some of its cargo possibly intended for Sumatra, or elsewhere. In later years, Chinese ceramics in Sumatra became well-regarded foreign imports and were highly prized as status goods, heirlooms, and even used for rituals. Subsequent periods of trade and settlement in the region resulted in sizeable Chinese communities especially in coastal areas such as Palembang, where they became well-known for their skills such as lacquermaking. Using forms and designs inspired by Chinese porcelain and silverwork, the Chinese lacquermakers traded their wares together with other local products. Their influence can be seen in the traditional Chinese symbols that were often adopted by other communities as decorative motifs, such as the phoenix and dragon (representing the empress and emperor), fish (fertility) and Buddhist emblems. Peranakan or ‘local born’ communities were a result of intermarriages between the Chinese and locals helped to spread their traditions, which can be seen through the crossadoption of both Chinese and local designs and techniques in textiles, clothing, jewellery and other materials on display. The rebana, a type of local hand-drum, incorporates traditional Chinese symbols such as the Chinese phoenix and qilin (mythical beast) motifs. In the Islamic section, a highlight was a crown made for the Sultan of Siak. As the Islamic sultanates established themselves along Sumatra’s coastal areas, elaborate traditions were established alongside a rich variety of court arts. An important feature of the court was the royal regalia – which became treasured heirlooms, or pusaka, that enhanced the legitimacy of their rulers, as can be seen in the regalia of the Sultan of Siak. A famous crown embellished with three lotus flowers, rubies, and diamonds is thought to have been made for Sultan Assyaidis Syarief Kasyim I Abdul Jalil Syariffudin, who ruled until 1889. Finally, with increasing European presence in Sumatra from the 19th century onwards, items displaying a curious mix of European influences and local motifs were created for local use and for export were also on display. In the last section was a watercolour painting from part of a series of illustrations depicting colourful ritual processions that is full of surprising details drawn from multiple cultures. The buraq is a mythological creature said to have carried the Prophet Muhammad on his night journey to heaven, described as having a white body with the wings of an eagle and the tail of a peacock. In painting displayed, the buraq wears European shoes together with traditional anklets, and carries Islamic royal regalia in a canopy on its back. The flying birds above it are similar to the phoenix found in Chinese culture. The date palm tree on the left is reminiscent of the Tree of Life motif, commonly found in Southeast Asian and South Asian culture. Sumatra: Isle of Gold, on show from 30 July to 7 November 2010 at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
16 Exhibition
Moroccan Trilogy1950-2020
Red Talisman (1967) by Ahmed Cherkaoui, oil on canvas, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
This sweeping survey of the culture of Morocco from the 1950s to the present day, running from in a unique collaboration with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art – Qatar Museums and Qatar Foundation. The show features more than 250 works by 60 artists, including a series of important works from the collection of Mathaf, as well as archival material drawn from private and public collections. The exhibition presents a visual dialogue that reflects artistic production at three historical moments from independence to the present day. Divided into three chapters, using historical timeframes defined by major societal shifts, the exhibition examines the interdisciplinary domains of art, literature, film, architecture, theatre, and music and their personal and professional networks. Each chapter of the trilogy is intended to provide a nonexhaustive historical reading of these diverse, interconnected forms of expression, both intellectual and artistic, the generations of artists, and their relationship to sociopolitical struggles for freedom. Through artwork, archives, and publications, this exhibition provides a new expanded framework for reading art histories in Morocco that is non-linear, transnational, and political. The first chapter covers the period 1950-1969, during the struggle for independence and following 40 years of French and Spanish colonial rule, presenting historical works that defined new tendencies of anti-colonial art practices in the 1960s, including a radical revision of the Fine Art Schools with a futurist perspective. After 40 years under the French and Spanish protectorate, the first period covers an extremely agitated phase that extends from the years of independence until 1969. During that time, the artistic field was articulated around the debates aroused by the appearance of the nationalist movement and the imperious need to construct a discourse of identity. These two aspects made up the conceptual background to modern Moroccan art in the 1960s and 1970s, when artists started to question the traditional artistic academicism transmitted through art teaching in Morocco. ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
Warriors (1962) by Farid Belkahia, mixed media on cardboard, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Artists in this section include Farid Belkahia (1934-2014), one of Morocco’s most important artists of the post-independence era. Trained in Prague and Warsaw, he worked primarily with traditional techniques, he draws on the cultural heritage of Morocco in his work – painting, metalwork and leather. Avant-garde for his time, he remains an imposing figure in the history of Moroccan modern art and a leader in Casablanca’s fine arts school in the 1960s. Chaibia Talal (1929-2004), was a self-taught artist, who looked at women in society through her personal experience and depicted life scenes from her village in a unique way that made her conquer the top echelons of the international art
world. Mohamed Melehi (19362020) consistently contributed to the Moroccan art scene from independence until his passing in 2020 at age 83. The second period covered is from 1970-1999, and encompasses the socalled Years of Lead, and is among the most violent in Morocco’s recent history, including the uprisings of 1981 and 1984 as a consequence of the political and economic crisis. These were years of great internal conflict, there emerged a constellation of alternative publications, festivals and biennials, often independent. The voice of dissidence, especially active in literature, poetry and theatre, was spread through the magazine Souffles, until it was banned in 1972, and after that through Intégral and Lamalif. Also appearing in that period is a nonacademic and non-intellectualised art represented by self-taught men and women with links to a living artistic dynamism, as in the case of Chaïbia Talal and Fatima Hassan. This chapter introduces some the most experimental works that remained for decades, as many artists and intellectuals worked in secret or adopted strategies of resistance to the market and the established podiums, while the state initiated art festivals in major cities. The 2nd Arab Biennial took place in Rabat in 1976, and was followed by the Asilah Festival, which is still taking place today. Artists in this section include Mohammed Kacimi (1942-2003), who created work that reflects on the human condition and the struggle for freedom. Latifa Toujani (b 1948) is among the feminist artists, who collaborated åwith feminist writer Fatima Mernissi, and participated in the artists’ encounters in the 1st Arab Biennial in Baghdad in 1974, and took part in a pan-Arab art event in solidarity with Palestine. Leila Kilani (b 1970), is a director, screen writer and producer who was born in Casablanca, creates films that reflect on the political and socio-economic nature of different places, often set in her home country. She is best known for her documentaries – Nos Lieux Interdits (2008) reveals aspects of this historical period in Morocco, and explores memory and trauma related to people’s disappearance and torture during the Years of Lead. The third and final period covered, from 2000-2020, focuses on the work of artists and activists, marking the rise of populist political parties,
Sevisses (1961) by Farid Belkahia, mixed media on paper on wood, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
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Aljazeera (2007) by Mounir Fatmi, antenna cable on wood, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
the Casablanca terrorist attacks in 2003 and the Arab Spring, defining an era of radical change, mass uprising and technological development. The generation of artists who emerged during this period broke away from their predecessors. The Generation 00 artists look at social realities with immediate and live updates about the world, work with new media practices, and operate in a postinternet world. They created new spaces in Tangiers, Rabat, Casablanca and inspired a new generation of Moroccan artists and authors now working on a global scale. Mounir Fatmi (b 1970) is an artist based in Paris, whose provocative installations address social, political and environmental issues. Fatmi employs a variety of unconventional media in his work, appropriating familiar objects such as VHS tapes and agal headbands – such as in his Aljazeera work – for use in conceptual narratives. Yto Barrada (b 1971) is an artist who creates art as a learning process. Her multi-paths practice is based on investigating urban life and their zones of uncertainty, ecologies and their creative gardening. She produces photographs, films, sculptures and installations that explore the social, political and historical conditions in her home city of Tangier. Hicham Benohoud (b 1968) produces work that ranges from painting to new media, but photography occupies a central place in his interdisciplinary practice, making the link between identity politics and power relations. Younes Rahmoun (b 1975) is one of the most important Moroccan artists of Generation 00 that emerged internationally in the early 2000s. His artistic practice is inseparable from his religious and spiritual beliefs, his abstract works reveal his interest in repetition and meditation. Yassine Balbzioui (b 1972) plays with conventions and shifts between media, leading the viewer to question
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the notions of sincerity and society based on appearances. His paintings are marked with animals and birds, comparing their similarities to human habits and characteristics. For this exhibition, Balbzioui has created a monumental wall painting with multiple scenes, a Don Quixote riding a zebra, a man sleeping with bananas, and a disproportionately long horse with multiple characters as fantasy riders. Sara O’Haddou (b 1986) was born in France in an Amazigh family, and her work explores notions of heritage and transnational identities, through research and experiment between a quasi-scientific and poetic practice, addressing the challenges facing the artisan crafts communities around the world, including in Morocco and Japan. Safaa Erruas (b 1976), is a Moroccan artist known for her subversion of domestic materials and the presence of the colour white in her work. The exhibition also includes works by artists who worked as outsiders and developed unique and poetic vocabularies. Tangier was an international creative centre of the Beat Generation and anti-war movements, and has been a base for artists such as Khalil El Ghrib and Abbas Saladi. El Ghrib (b 1948) teaches in Tangier and lives in nearby Asilah, working with everyday and organic ephemera and found objects, such as bread and newspaper, to explore the degradation and decay of matter. Abbas Saladi (1950-1992) explored metaphysical universe through drawing and painting of his visions. The exhibition was organised within the framework of the programme for cultural cooperation between Spain and Morocco in the field of museums. A book accompanies the exhibition. Moroccan Trilogy, until 27 September 2021, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, museoreinasofia.es
Photography 17
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This outdoor exhibition in London is by Christopher Wilton-Steer and documents the photographer’s journey along the Silk Road in 2019. Over a period of four months, he travelled 40,000 km overland by car, bus, train, ferry, horse and camel from London to Beijing traversing 16 countries. The photographer started his journey from London’s King’s Cross, and it is where the show is staged. The Silk Road is the name given to the numerous trading routes that connected China and the West and was first established during the days of the Roman Empire. For several centuries, it facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas, religions and technologies across thousands of miles, shaping and changing the world as we knew it. While it lost its prominence to new maritime trade routes by the 1600s, its legacy still endures. Today the controversial Belt and Road Initiative, the US$900 billion double trade corridor being established by China to reopen channels between China and the West, can be seen as its 21st century successor. The exhibition comprises a series of over 160 photographs that invites the viewer to take a journey from London to Beijing, encountering many of the people, places and cultures along the ancient trade route. The exhibition’s linear design creates a physical route for the viewer offering them the chance to travel by proxy. With galleries closed due to the lockdown, this outdoor exhibition — which allows for social distancing in these Covid-19 times — aims to offer visitors cultural stimulation when museums and cultural centres have been shut due to restrictions enforced by the pandemic. Moreover, with the current overseas travel restrictions in the UK, the exhibition opens up a world of far-flung destinations that are currently inaccessible to appeal to the viewers’ imagination. WiltonSteer explains, ‘At a time when we are unable to travel, I hope that this exhibition will provide visitors with an escape from the UK into other worlds far away’. The aim is to celebrate the diversity of cultural expressions found along the historic route, and to highlight examples of how historical practices, rituals and customs live on today, but also to reveal some of the connections
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THE SILK ROAD A LIVING HISTORY
between what appear at first glance to be very different cultures. It also seeks to engender interest and understanding between distant cultures and challenge perceptions of less well known and understood parts of the world. Photographs from Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, China and elsewhere are featured in the show. Visitors can access additional content including videos and music via QR codes on each panel of the exhibition. The exhibition is the brainchild of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), which together with its sister agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), the Aga Khan Foundation has been active in Central Asia for nearly 30 years, and for almost a century in India and Pakistan. Working alongside governments, the AKDN has been a long-term partner in the development of Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and, more recently, Kazakhstan. In the last 30 years, the AKDN has invested and channelled several billion dollars into the economic, social and cultural development of Central Asia with the promotion of pluralism and women’s
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empowerment central to those efforts. Some examples of AKF and AKDN’s work along the Silk Road are documented in the exhibition, such as the Vanj cross-border bridge between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. This is one of six bridges constructed by AKF to help improve connectivity between these two historically linked regions. Agreements between the respective governments allow traders to sell goods in specially designated markets on one or both sides of the bridges. Afghans can also cross these bridges to receive critical health care saving them a long and arduous journey through the mountains to the
The photographs are a way to escape lockdown London
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nearest Afghan hospital. Another photo shows Karimkol, a fruit and vegetable farmer from the Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan. As part of its food security work, the AKF supports farmers like Karimkol to expand their nurseries so that they can in turn support other farmers in this remote and mountainous region. Another facet of AKDN’s work is the preservation of historic buildings, such as Khaplu Palace in northern Pakistan. Built in 1840, it is the finest surviving example of a royal residence in the region. By the early 2000s the palace had fallen into disrepair with livestock living in some of the rooms. Working alongside local government, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture began restoration work in 2005 and the palace re-opened as a museum and heritage hotel under the Serena Hotel Group in 2011. The restoration of the palace created dozens of jobs in the hospitality sector and has helped open the area to tourism. The restoration work has received numerous awards including a UNESCO Heritage Conservation Award in 2013. The importance of tourism promotion is underscored with a photograph documenting
the opening ceremony of a new tourism centre in the Pamir Mountains of Eastern Tajikistan, in which a girl in traditional Tajik clothes dances. As part of its economic inclusion efforts, AKF supports the sustainable development of tourism in the region for the benefit of local communities. Established in 2008 with the support of the AKF, and the Pamir Eco-Cultural Tourism Association (PECTA) – which operates the tourism centres – creates job opportunities for local people and encourages the preservation of historical heritage, natural resources and wildlife while supporting tourists to visit this remote and breathtakingly beautiful region. The Silk Road: A Living History runs until 16 June on Granary Square in London’s Kings Cross, and is free to the public. Restrictions permitting, there is a full programme of publicly accessible talks and workshops at the Aga Khan Centre. There are also plans for an Aga Khan Foundation Silk Road Bazaar in the nearby Canopy Market area. For information and event updates, in regard to Covid-19 restrictions, visit kingscross.co.uk
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1 Cultural resoration work in Pakistan undertaking by the trust 2 The Karakoram Highway (KKH) goes to the Pakistan-China borde – at 4,700 metres above sea level. 3 Built in 1840, Khaplu Palace is the finest surviving example of a royal residence in Baltistan, an autonomous region in Pakistan’s mountainous northeast. The palace combines the local style with influences from neighbouring regions including Tibet, Kashmir, and Ladakh. For over 100 years, it was the seat of the Raja of Khaplu – now it is a 21-room heritage hotel under the Serena Hotel Group 4 The 15th-century caravanserai called Tash Rabat in eastern Kyrgyzstan. 5 One of the ceilings of Khiva’s Tash Hauli Palace in Uzbekistan 6 The Mausoleum of Oljaytu in Soltaniyeh, Iran. In Soltaniyeh, the Mongol general Oljaytu (r 1304-1317) established the new capital of the Ilkhanid dynasty, where he constructed an enormous mausoleum for himself. All images AKDN/Christopher Wilton-Steer
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
18 Exhibitions
BLUE AND WHITE BUDDHA AND SHIVA, LOTUS AND DRAGON
Ginger jar with landscape panels, porcelain, blue and white glaze. Gift of James and Joanna Davidson
This exhibition aims to break old traditions in museum exhibition practice and explore new ways of presenting objects in the collection to their audience. The theme explores blue-andwhite porcelains across their Asian collections, showing over 200 items from the Art Gallery of Great Victoria’s (AGGV) collection, curated by Heng Wu, the AGGV Curator of Asian Art. This type of porcelain’s main decorative feature comes from a cobalt blue pigment, which is used to decorate a plain white body that was first manufactured in China during the 14th century. After its introduction to the world through global trade, these blue and white ceramics were hugely successful. This demand meant that the style was imitated and innovated around the globe and he particular style of ceramic has been a global product ever since, appreciated and
collected by people around the world. In the exhibition, the theme is explored by showing porcelain from the China, Japan, the UK and European countries such as The Netherlands, with pieces dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. A contemporary section of the exhibition also includes blue-and-white works of different medium and artistic forms made in the 20th and 21st century – all selected from the AGGV’s collection. Examining the rise in demand for blue and white porcelain as an important, global product that contains diverse cultural traits in both its birth and development is emphasised in the show. Wu explains, ‘This exhibition is our initiative in experimenting with new curatorial approaches to our permanent collections by breaking the boundaries that have been artificially placed on these collections, such as Asian versus Canadian, or historical versus contemporary. Each object has multiple layers in its cultural identity. As curators, our job is to, through curatorial work, reveal and present the richness of the cultural identity of our collections, and to make them more accessible and appreciated by our audience’.
Until January 2022, at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, BC, Canada, www.aggva.ca
Nearly 70 works of Asian art collected by John D Rockeller 3rd (1906-1978) and his wife Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (19091992) between the 1940s and 1970s, are on loan from the Asia Society Museum to the New Orleans Museum of Art. There are a broad range of objects on show, including bronzes, ceramics, and metalwork that reveal the artistic achievements gained in Asian art over more than two millennia. Highlights include Chinese ceramics, Indian Chola bronzes, as well Southeast Asian sculpture. This travelling selection of masterpieces drawn from Asia Society’s permanent collection aims to explore social and artistic histories from across Asia and emphasise the visual arts’ capacity to encourage cross-cultural dialogue. When John D Rockefeller 3rd and his wife began collecting Asian art in the years after World War II, they chose to prioritise classical works that represented the great technical skill and creative breadth of Asian artistic practice. They selected objects from across the continent – Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam. The objects, ranging from everyday food wares to imperial dining
Head of Buddha, Gandharan, Kushan period, late 2nd/3rd century, schistose phyllite, Asia Society, New York: Mr and Mrs John D Rockefeller 3rd Collection. All images courtesy American Federation of Arts Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Shiva Nataraja), Tamil Nadu, Chola period, circa 970, copper alloy, Asia Society, New York: Mr and Mrs John D Rockefeller 3rd Collection
vessels and ceremonial Bodhisattvas to private devotional Hindu sculptures, come from a variety of cultural contexts and reflect the diversity of the region. From the start, the couple believed that sharing this grouping of exceptional artworks with the public could act as a catalyst for increasing understanding between the US and Asia, and create the foundation for future economic and socio-political engagement. The exhibition represents an opportunity for museum visitors to experience the unparalleled quality of the
HERWITZ COLLECTION OF MODERN INDIAN ART The Massachusetts Bay Company arrived in Salem during the 17th century, with the of first Salem’s ships sailing to the West Indies to trade salted cod and established the settlement in sea and international trade. The roots of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) date to this time and the 1799 founding of a society of captains and supercargoes who had sailed beyond either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The society’s charter included a provision for the establishment of a ‘cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities,’ created by the stipulation that the captains return from every trip with examples. One great advantage the city of Salem had at the time, along with whaling in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was that it was one of the largest American presences in 19th-century Canton, present-day Guangzhou, the source of everything exported from the Celestial Kingdom. With that, an embryonic museum began to take shape in Salem and eventually led to the PEM’s vast collection of art and ethnographic material from the northwest coast of America, Asia (particularly Chinese export porcelain), Africa, Oceania, India and elsewhere. ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
Gateway (1981) by Gieve Patel, oil on canvas. Gift of the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, Peabody Essex Museum. Photo: Walter Silver/PEM
It is because of the PEM’s interest in India that it was the recipient of the gracious Herwitz gift which is now filling the PEM’s Fadia-Deshpande Gallery of Indian Art. These words, teeming with affection, symbolise the close relationships Indian artists forged with Massachusettsbased collectors over the course of the couple’s long-standing engagement with modern Indian art and artists. The Herwitzes first visited India in 1962, intending to source materials for their leather goods business. The couple fell in love with the culture and, over the course of 30 years, collected a wide variety of objects, including some of the most impressive modern Indian paintings and #AsianArtPaper |
Untitled (1986) by Maqbool Fida Husain, oil on canvas. Gift of the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, estate of Maqbool Fida Husain. Photo: Jeffrey R Dykes/PEM.
sculptures ever assembled. Included is a collage of personal photographs of the couple in India as they worked to usher these works onto the global stage through strategic purchases and commissions. The letters and photographs shared in the Phillips Library
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Gallery (part of the exhibition) are a fraction of Chester and Davida Herwitz’s personal archive, which they donated to PEM along with 1,275 works of art and their library of more than 6,000 books. Besides the books, there is a mass of correspondence in their archive that illuminate how deeply the Indian artists themselves influenced the Herwitz’s appreciation for Indian art and helped them to develop a network of friendships to build their collection. The importance of this gift cannot be overestimated. It is not just a donation of original works of art with the usual provenance of bought from whom, where, when and for how much. Within their huge archives are extensive sets of correspondence between the Herwitzes and a spate of Indian artists. This lengthy correspondence, not only as a teaching exercise for the couple, serves as a detailed description of the creative processes undertaken by the artists themselves. It is an invaluable trove for future generations of researchers of Indian paintings. Martin Barnes Lorber Until March 2022, at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, www.pem.org
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Rockefeller Collection outside of its usual home at Asia Society Museum in New York City. In addition to investigating themes of Buddhist and Hindu sculpture, ceramics and metalwork, the exhibition also examines the Rockefellers’ connoisseurship, as well as their collecting and exhibition practices in an age when political and economic circumstances informed the reception and availability of Asian artworks in the US. Until 31 May, New Orleans Museum of Art, www.noma.org
Standing Female Figure (one of a pair), Saga Prefecture, Japan, Edo period, circa 1670-1690, porcelain painted with overglaze enamels with traces of gold (Arita ware, Kakiemon style), Asia Society, New York: Mr and Mrs John D Rockefeller 3rd Collection
DIVAS, FROM OUM KALTHOUM TO DALIDA
Oum Kalthoum sur la scène de l’Olympia, November 14, 1967 by Farouk Ibrahim. Paris, Photothèque of IMA
Over the past decades, art institutions and galleries have increasingly featured painters and photographers from the Arab world. In its most recent exhibition, the Institut du Monde Arabe has decided to go beyond painting and photography in order to stage an exhibition around the divas of the Arab world. From 1920 onwards, Egypt proved to be a most dynamic and cosmopolitan centre, a reservoir of talent with a springboard towards fame. Many of these stars have become icons whose artistic legacy is also linked to their social or political accomplishments. They can be credited for accelerating the changing status of women towards becoming more assertive and independent. In
that respect, it is important to acknowledge how progressive Egypt was, with the creation of the Egyptian Feminist Union for the Defence of Woman’s Rights as early as 1923. Beyond the celebrated singers, the flourishing cinema industry – the ‘Hollywood on the Nile’ as it was called – also contributed to widely showcase the image of fashionable, dynamic, and independent women. If some of these figures appear to be less famous abroad, others such as Oum Kalthoum (1900-1975) who revolutionised the tradition of the Oriental song, or the Lebanese singer Fayrouz (b 1934) remain iconic. With invaluable original footage, Divas sheds some light on an almost forgotten era in the Arab world, one where the creative process sparked a common Arab culture. This creative process affected all the areas of show-business, an era now gone, but to which the younger generation of artists like Shirin Neshat, or Youssef Nabil, who are also featured in the exhibition, still pay tribute today. Olivia Sand Until 25 July at Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. Check opening dates due to Covid-19 on the website, www.imarabe.org
Exhibitions 19
PAINTED STITCHES WOVEN STORIES The Museum of Art and Photography’s (MAP) online exhibition unfolds into a dialogue between interpretations of 19th and 20th century quilting techniques of kantha with modern and contemporary artists who provide visibility to its practice. To illustrate the overarching theme of the exhibition – of looking at the artistic practice of making cloth and fostering a sense of community and togetherness as an aspect of women’s labour –a connection is drawn between textiles, paintings, and sculptures through motifs, makers, patterns and techniques. With audio recordings as a key feature of the exhibition, questions are posed about 19th and 20th century kanthas and the many lives they led before entering a museum space. Kanthas of Undivided Bengal explore repurposing techniques and these techniques often leave an imprint on artists who grew up around it. The exhibition, as a starting point explores motifs but also how the kantha stitch appears, re-appears and then disappears in the work of modern artists like Meera Mukherjee, Jyoti Bhatt and Arpita Singh. Contemporary artist Bhasha Chakrabarti’s quilts provide a personal story of her relationship with her mother while challenging the histories of this craft. The exhibition is the first of four series of exhibitions over the course of two years, which will highlight cloth or textile as a medium of storytelling. Future exhibitions will unravel narratives of trade, labour, globalisation, colonialism, feminism, thrift and intimacy. The aim of the series is to connect MAP’s permanent collection of textiles, paintings, sculpture and photography with contemporary artists and perspectives.
Online exhibition at www.map-india.org. Registration is required to view the full exhibition, access through a paid membership.
Kantha from the online exhibition at MAP in Bengaluru, India
KUSAMA Cosmic Nature This large-scale and ambitious exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work at The New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG) is installed across the garden’s landscape, in and around the Enid A Haupt Conservatory and in the LuEsther T Mertz Library Building. The show reveals Kusama’s lifelong fascination with the natural world and its countless manifestations beginning in her childhood spent in the greenhouses and fields of her family’s seed nursery in Matsumoto, Japan. The exhibition includes works from throughout Kusama’s prolific career and multifaceted practice. By integrating seasonal horticultural displays, the setting further illuminates the power of nature that pervades the artist’s work. With interior access planned to begin this summer, Kusama’s new Infinity Mirrored Room will operate per New York State and City guidelines for social distancing and visitor safety. The installation, Infinity Mirrored Room—Illusion Inside the Heart (2020),
My Soul Blooms Forever (2019), The New York Botanical Garden Urethane paint on stainless steel, installation dimensions variable. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner Dancing Pumpkin (2020), The New York Botanical Garden, Urethane paint on bronze 500 x 296.9 x 297.8 cm. Collection of the artist. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner
responds to natural light through coloured glass throughout the day and seasons. Reflecting the seasonality of NYBG’s landscape, the exterior will be on view with the opening of the exhibition. A separate timed- entry ticket will be required for limited-capacity access. On display in the Library Building, Kusama’s 1945 sketchbook reveals the 16-year-old artist’s keen eye
for detail in some 50 drawings capturing the bloom cycle of tree peonies. This work is an early product of a lifelong connection with the natural world that has inspired her practice across mediums. It also portends avant-garde ideas she developed while living in New York City between 1958 and 1973, as a contemporary of Joseph Cornell, Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, and Claes Oldenburg, and continues to
explore rigorously today. The library presentation also features examples of her botanical drawings, works on paper, biomorphic collages, assemblage boxes, sculptures, and paintings on canvas depicting flora and its limitless variety of patterns.
Until 31 October 2021, at The New York Botanical Garden, www.nybg.org/kusama. For a full a full list of events, and to download the app, visit the website.
The Kusama Family, circa 1929. Courtesy of the artist.
CONNECTED TO LIFE
Connected to Life (2021) by Chiharu Shiota, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Installation view. Photo: ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Felix Grünschloß © Chiharu Shiota
The installation Connected to Life (2021) by Chiharu Shiota (b 1972, Japan) is the latest installation at ZKM in Germany. The work is a memorial to commemorate the victims of Covid-19, and a tribute to those who work tirelessly every day for the health and lives of their fellow human beings while risking their own. It comprises a cascade of 57 metal bedsteads from the ceiling to the floor and calls to mind the current images of hospital corridors. The plastic tubes filled with red colour are like the veins through which vital blood and oxygen flow. The installation also stands for the hope that human compassion and science can help us find a way out of the pandemic and
overcome its consequences. The impact of the pandemic on public life, private interactions, and the cultural sector is tangible. Closed museums, theatres and concert halls are empty without visitors. The pandemic has again brought to light the deficits in the health system, and hospitals globally are working at the limits of their capacity around the world. The death toll is still increasing daily, and new mutations make the virus harder to contain. The entrance halls of cultural institutions, such as the ZKM, are usually a place of encounter, of exchange, where visitors, students, employees, school classes and artists mingle and meet.
Without the current pandemic they would be buzzing with life – currently they are silent. Chiharu Shiota’s inspiration often emerges from a personal experience or emotion, which she expands into universal human concerns such as life, death, and relationships. She has redefined concepts such as memory and consciousness by collecting ordinary objects like shoes, keys, beds, chairs, and dresses, and engulfing them in immense structures of threads. Here, her work has never felt more relevant. Until 11 July at ZKM, Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, www.zkm.de
ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
20 Gallery Shows
NEW FOUND LANDS The Indian Landscape from Empire to Freedom 1780-1980 Curated by Dr Giles Tillotson, New Found Lands explores landscape painting in India over a period of two hundred years, from 1780 to 1980. It unfolds a visual story that moves from an imposed colonial gaze, through Indian accommodation and adjustment, to rejection, and the profusion of new forms of imagery, rooted in the land. Starting with English artists, who travelled in India from the late 18th century onwards, to the introduction of new materials and teaching methods in the art schools from the middle of the 19th century, to the adoption of similar approaches by Indian artists as a result of the introduction of new materials and teaching methods in the art schools during the mid-19th century until the 20th century, when Indian artists sought new modes of expression, and invented a glorious array of new landscape styles. The parallel with the course of the freedom movement is no coincidence, as artists react to the conditions and events of their times. Landscape artists are acutely alert not only to time but to space, finding ever new ways to depict the land on which they stand, even as the control of it is reclaimed. Featuring 108 works, the exhibition is divided into three
Excavation in the Mazgaon Area by Baburao Sadwelkar (1928-2000)
sections to investigate the development of landscape painting from the perspective of the Picturesque, the Naturalistic, and the Free. The first section is devoted to the English aesthetic, known as the picturesque, developed in the late 18th century and the first artists to bring this aesthetic to India were Richard Wilson’s pupil William Hodges, who was in India from 1780 to 1783, and Thomas Daniell, who toured extensively through India with his nephew William Daniell between 1786 and 1793. They made countless drawings and paintings, both in India and after their return home, and published sets of
aquatints, which disseminated their vision of India more widely. That vision was of dramatic landscapes with varied terrain: towering hills and forests, deep valleys and rugged country roads. It also included buildings, for, as Richard Payne Knight expressed it, architecture should be considered as ‘a mere component part of what you see’. The picturesque approach to architecture was scenic not functional. The Naturalistic landscape is discussed in the second section and explores the rise of the first great Indian artists. It is not surprising that these artists to produce
pure landscapes – as distinct from literary or religious ones – were all associated with the Bombay School – Pestonji Bomanji and MV Dhurandhar, and their younger contemporaries such as LN Taskar and MK Parandekar. Their approach soon became a selfperpetuating tradition, joined by the likes of SL Haldankar, NR Sardesai and DC Joglekar. These artists were all born between 1850 and 1900 and were active through the first half of the 20th century, producing views of Indian scenery in a Western style. Their watercolours in particular show an obvious debt to the formulaic
principles of the picturesque as these artists explored the potential of art to render convincingly the appearance of the visible world. This aspect is well illustrated by the case of SG Thakur Singh, originally from Amritsar, who made his career initially in Bombay and later in Calcutta. The Free landscape is explored in the third section, and looks at modern works. By the early 20th century, some artists began to question the need for realism in the genre of landscape painting. Such an approach seemed to them too literal, and much too dependent on alien academic conventions. Why should landscape not be treated like
A Ruined Hindu Temple on a Rocky Outcrop in India by Thomas Daniell RA (1749-1840), oil on canvas
Untitled (Houses in the forest) by Avinash Chandra (1931-1991)
any other subject – like the human figure perhaps: not as a form to imitate, but as a source of inspiration while creating new forms? In part these artists were responding to global developments such as Expressionism and Abstraction, in part they were asserting a self-given right to greater freedom to experiment. Although what we are here calling the ‘free’ landscape emerged later, there was no linear progression from one approach to the other. Indeed they existed alongside one another. The artists represented in this section were all born between 1900 and 1947, in what was still a colonial state. Until 31 May, at DAG, The Fuller Building, New York, www.DAGWorld.com. A book accompanies the exhibition.
SAKURA This timely show is featuring Risaku Suzuki’s Sakura or Cherry Blossom series. One of Japan’s most eminent photographers, Risaku Suzuki, has been working for over 30 years capturing the natural world in both an individual and a quintessentially Japanese style. While he has created series on mountains, seas, snow, and Monet’s gardens, he has returned to the subject of cherry blossoms for over 20 years, in a manner that is at once timeless and
From the series Sakura N-4 (2002), 47 x 61 inch, archival pigment print. AP after a sold out edition of 5
contemporary. Up to 61 inches in scale, Suzuki’s Sakura are more than pretty pictures. Each individual image is a play between sky and flower, positive and negative space, line and form, as well as a contemplation of nature and the preciousness of every moment. Suzuki’s says of his passion for the blossom, ‘When I stand under a cherry tree and look up at the blossoms, I always feel as if I am floating. The blossoms continue beyond my field of
vision, each shimmering so beautifully. It is impossible to see them all. I have been photographing cherry blossoms for 20 years, trying to capture and convey this experience. I use 4 x 5 and 8 x 10 inch film cameras to make large-format prints. I narrow the depth of field to a single point and let the foreground and background go out of focus. In the Sakura series, the blossoms of the intersecting branches appear melded together as one, making it
long-standing favourite motif for Anju Dodiya, who has often depicted herself masked. Inspired by James Ensor’s work, for her Belgian exhibition she has drawn faces that are frozen, covered either with a wisp of ‘blue air’ diamond veils, or surgical masks. Drawn at dusk, at sunset, in the desert light or on the way home, these not-quite-faithful selfportraits are presented solely in their relationship to time and space, shot through with a solitude that, while oppressive, is also possibly redeeming.
Masking Diamond (2020) by Anju Dodiya
TOWER OF SLOWNESS After a five-year absence from Europe, Indian artist Anju Dodiya is unveiling Tower of Slowness, a series of around twenty previously unseen watercolours, at Galerie Templon in Brussels. At the age of 57, Anju Dodiya is one of the most respected artists on the Indian art scene. For the last 30 years, her paintings have used the self-portrait form to explore the conflicts between inner life and external reality: the anguish of creation, the artist’s frustrations with the violence of the world, the incommunicability between people. The pandemic marking this last year and the strict lockdown she was forced to adhere to in her ASIAN ART | MAY 2021 |
house-cum-workshop in Mumbai naturally resonated particularly strongly with her. The current situation acted as a catalyst for an artist whose work engages closely with questions of isolation and social marks. As she explains, ‘The past year has been an unusual one for all of us. Suddenly, we all share a common wound- the painful recognition of the uncertainty of our lives’. Her response has been to create a set of seven padded canvases cut in geometric shapes. Welcoming but visibly uncomfortable, these incongruous ‘mattresses’ cover the gallery walls with a series of portraits combined with animal skin motifs #AsianArtPaper |
which are both familiar and enigmatic. These powerfully poetic works, in a mixture of charcoal and watercolour, provide a glimpse of brief, intimate scenes, both reassuring and ambiguous. In the words of the artist: ‘Pointed and geometric forms occupy our minds while we lay on beds and soft chairs that slowly file down the edges of our thoughts. Slowness, solitude and an acute awareness of body and mind keep our emotional antennae quivering. These mattress works come out of these shadowed rooms that we inhabit’. In contrast, a series of watercolours depicts the theme of the mask, a
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Until 22 May, at Galerie Templon, Brussels, www.templon.com
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WATCH Anju Dodiya discuss Tower of Slowness
difficult to distinguish the foreground from the background. My work is about the experience of time and vision. The beauty of the sakura lies in the brevity of their blossoming, so I must rush to photograph their brilliance and vitality. I photograph sakura not as the conventional symbol of Japanese beauty but as an expression of the presence of time’.
Until 7 May, at Danziger at Fetterman, Santa Monica, www.danzigergallery.com
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Auction Previews
ASIAN ART
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Huanghuali folding horseshoe-back armchair, Jiaoyi, 17th century, height 106.6cm, est HK$8-12 million, Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May
Huanghuali bed, 17th century, in the Hevingham Hall sale, Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May
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asianartnewspaper.com Birds, Flowers and Rock by Wang Wu (1632-1690), est HK$500-600,000, Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 May
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CHRISTIE’S
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Asian Art Newspaper
Olivia Sand
Hong Kong, 24 to 28 May
The spring series of Asian Art sales at Christie’s in Hong Kong opens on 24 May with the evening sale of 20th/21st Century Art. On 25 May, there is a full day of 20th and 21st Century Asian Art auctions. Fine Chinese Classical Painting and Calligraphy is on 26 May with Fine Chinese Modern and Contemporary Ink Paintings scheduled for 27 May. Chinese Jade Carvings from a Distinguished European Collection is on 28 May, as is Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Classical Chinese Furniture from Heveningham Hall is also scheduled for 28 May. Over the past two decades, the current owner has amassed a collection of Ming- and Qing-dynasty furniture, with 26 pieces being offered in Hong Kong on 28 May. Among the highlights is a folding chair known as a jiaoyi. The literal translation of jiaoyi is ‘person in charge’. The chair dates to around the middle of the 17th century, either to the latter days of the Ming dynasty, or the early days of the Qing dynasty (the changeover was in 1644). This period is renowned as a golden age of Chinese furniture-making, above all for the supreme elegance, clean lines, and simplicity of its pieces. The finest examples – including the Heveningham Hall folding
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CONTEMPORARY VOICES
Landscape Hidden in Mist After Bi Hong by Zhang Daqian (1899-1983), est HK$18-28 million, Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 May
chair – were made of the precious wood huanghuali, a member of the rosewood family with a rich grain and caramel-like colour. The elegant work and valuable choice of wood gives a hint that the chair’s first owner was probably from the highgest ranks of society. As does the fact that folding chairs with round backs (as opposed to straight backs)
Chess Playing by Fu Baoshi (1904-1965), est HK$40-50,000, Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 May
From the Asian and Islamic Art Worlds Boating Along Blue Landscape by Yuan Yao (active 1720-1780), est HK$600-800,000, Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 May
tended to be especially highly treasured. A distinctive feature about this particular chair is the scene featuring a mythological creature carved with ingenious subtlety on the splat. The mythical creature is a unicorn, or qilin, an auspicious beast boasting a dragon-like head and a horse-like body (the latter covered with fish-like scales). According to myth, it appeared during the reign of a virtuous ruler – and on the current chair, an example can be seen turning its gaze upwards, looking at the sun. Only around 30 of these chairs remain in existence today, most of them in public institutions in China and North America, and only a handful of them in private hands.
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ASIAN ART | MAY 2021
22 Auction Results
New York Asia Week March 2021
Large-scale painting of Yeongsan (Vulture Peak) Assembly, Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), 17th/18th century, sold for US$94,063 (est US$7-9,000), Bonhams
Bonhams
Bonhams held three sales over Asia Week in New York, Chinese Works of Art and Paintings on 15 March, achieving a sale total of US$3,580,096, 218% above pre-sale estimate (US$ 1,645,200). The sale also produced the top lot of the week’s sales at Bonhams, an ingot-shaped pillow with and Imperial Qianlong inscription that sold for over 10 times its estimate. On 16 March, Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art had six of the top 10 lots sell above their high estimate. The top lot of the Indian sale was a Cholaperiod figure of Shiva Chandrashekhara from Tamil Nadu. The final sale of their series was Fine Japanese and Korean art, held on 17 March, where nine of the top 10 lots selling about their high estimate. The top lot of this sale was a large painting of Yeongsan (Vulture Peak), which sold for over 13 times its estimate.
Brass figure of Vajravarahi from northeastern India, dating from the Pala period, circa 11th century, height 19 cm, sold for US$ 400,312, Bonhams
Black stone cross-legged figure of Maitreya dating to the Northern Wei dynasty, sold for US$400,312 (est 70-100,000), Bonhams
A cream-glazed ingot-shaped pillow with an Imperial Qianlong inscription, from The Rosalind Ching Pastor Collection, sold for US$882,313 (est US$50-80,000), Bonhams
Carved white jade figure of a mythical beast, 17th/18th century, sold for US$525,000 (est US$100-150,000), Christie’s
Grey schist figure of Buddha Shakyamuni, Gandhara, 3rd/4th century, sold for US$1,950,0000 (est US$1.52.5 million), Christie’s
Under The Well of the Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), sold for US$1,590,000, creating a world auction record for the print at Christie’s
asian art | May 2021 |
Folio from The Kangra Rasikapriya: Krishna Examines A Picture of His Beloved, folio 33 x 22.8 cm, sold for US$50,313, Bonhams
US$1,590,000. The previous record was also set at Christie’s, when a Great Wave print sold at Christie’s on 22 September, 2020, for US$1,100,000. The South Asian and Modern + Contemporary Art sale, held on 17 March, achieved a total of US$4,352,125 with the top lot being an oil-on-card painting by FN Souza (1924-2002), entitled Family, which sold for US$822,000, achieving a world auction record for the artist in this medium. In the Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Works of Art sale, the top lot was a monumental grey schist figure of a Gandharan Buddha Shakyamuni, from the 3rd/4th century, which sold for US$1,950,000, bringing the total of the sale to US$7,272,750.
Art Sale achieved a total of $7.1 million – more than double the sale’s $3.3 million low estimate and nearly a 50% increase year-on-year. With a sell-through rate of 92% of lots sold, the sale marked the highest total for a Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art sale since March 2016. The sale featured 66 artists, and set seven new artist records. VS Gaitonde’s 1962 masterwork, Untitled, led the sale, selling US$1,956,000 – surpassing its US$1.2 million high estimate. A selection of Imperial jades and cloisonné enamels produced during the Ming and Qing dynasties from the Brooklyn Museum was sold to support museum collections totalled US$5.8 million – surpassing the sale’s $4.8 million high estimate, with 98% of lots sold. The top lot sold was a Qing-dynasty, Qianlong-period white and russet jade brush pot, which sold for $1,351,000 (est $1/1.5 million) from the Woodward Collection. The Important Chinese Art sale totalled $13.9 million.
Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s annual March Asia Week auctions totalled $28.2 million – surpassing the series’ high estimate of $22 million. Modern & Contemporary South Asian
Christie’s
Christie’s Asia Week sales brought in a total of US$54,490,000, with the highest valued archaic bronze during this Asia Week sales series, in the 18 March sale, Shang: Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes from the Daniel Shapiro Collection. The Luboshez Gong, a ritual wine vessel ,which sold for double its low estimate. The total for the sale was $10,139,000. The Junkunc Collection, also on 18 March, achieved US$5,951,500 with the top lot being a white jade mythical beast from the 17th/18th century.
Copper alloy figure of Shiva Chandrashekhara Tamil Nadu, dating from the Chola period, circa 1100, height 40 cm, sold for US$400,313 (est US$250350,000), Bonhams
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Blue and white ‘floral’ bowl, Ming dynasty, Yongle period, sold for US$721,800, Sotheby’s
Hexagonal huanghuali incense stand, xiangji, China, 17th century, sold for US$2,550,000) (est US$8001.2 million), Christie’s
The Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale at Christie’s on 18 and 19 March achieved a total of US$16,507,625, with 89% sold by lot. The top lot of this sale was a hexagonal huanghuali incense stand, which sold for US$2,250,000. The Japanese and Korean sale achieved US49,712,250 with the top lot going to Hokusai’s Under The Well of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, which achieved a world auction record at
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Lone Vigil (1989)by Jehangir Sabavala (1922-2011), oil on canvas, 99.3 x 149.2 cm, sold for US$721,800 (est US$450-650,000), Sotheby’s
Asian Art Newspaper
Model of a Celestial Musician from the Horyuji Temple, Asuka period (538-710), 7th century, Sold for US$50,313 (est US$35-50,000), Bonhams
Family by FN Souza (19242002), oil on card, painted in 1946, sold for US$822,000 (est US$450-600,000), creating a world auction record for the artist in this medium
Bronze ritual wine vessel and cover, fangyi, late Shang dynasty, Anyang, 12th century BC, sold for US$1,110,000 (est US$600800,000), Christie’s
Untitled (1962) by VS Gaitonde, oil on canvas, 86.3 x 76.2 cm, sold for US$ 1,351,0000 (est US$1-1.2 million), Sotheby’s
White and russet jade brushpot, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, height 18.7 cm, from the Brooklyn Museum, sold for US$1,351,000 (est US$1-1.5 million), Sotheby’s
Islamic Arts 23
Islamic Arts Diary Face of a Stranger by Dia al-Azawi (2019), acrylic on canvas, 180 x 230 cm
by Lucien de Guise
Inspiration from London to Lebanon
Some real exhibitions are happening once again, and much of the material is coming from Lebanon. Recently it has reverted to being a country in the news for all the worst reasons, but at least a ray of hope is emanating from the seaside town of Chekka. This is where the Middle East’s most famous living artist has established a studio. Dia al-Azzawi’s latest works are not on display there, though; they are at the Meem Gallery in Dubai. This is still the place that the commercial side of art is happening, rather than the creativity of chaotic Lebanon. Dia al-Azzawi is, of course, from Iraq. For most of his working life he has lived in London, but he has clearly taken the Mediterranean coast to his heart, titling the latest exhibition The Lebanon Works. They are painted in Dia al-Azzawi’s recently established studio in Lebanon. It is near one of the Middle East’s most interesting new
Imaginary Portrait by Dia al-Azawi (2019), acrylic on canvas, 270 x 400 cm
cultural venues, the Nabu Museum, which opened three years ago. Now in his eighties, his new work has a vigour that suggests the benefits of a change of scenery from dreary London to the serenity of off-the-beaten-track Lebanon. His work has always been borderless, but
Bridging Continents Towards the western end of the Islamic world, Morocco is playing to a large audience at the moment. There are not only new galleries and art fairs, but also a growing interest in this country’s rich heritage being shown in other countries. It will loom large at the British Museum’s forthcoming exhibition Reflections: Contemporary Art of North Africa and the Middle East. The press release promises ‘a rich tapestry of artistic expression… from Iran to Morocco’. Long before this takes off, a much closer neighbour to Morocco is doing, in effect, a solo show on the country. The history of culture in Spain and the Maghreb is so intertwined it was for centuries impossible to tell the two apart. Now the Museo Reina Sofia is taking on the job of analysing 70 years of Moroccan contemporary art. The exhibition Moroccan Trilogy 1950–2020 (see page 16 of this issue) is a first attempt to broaden the Madrid museum’s scope of de-colonial analysis to other territories. They have begun by looking south to the cradle of Western civilisation. Morocco is a mere 14 kilometres from Spain and is a quite different colonial experience from the others that the Museo Reina Sofia has focused on. The 70-year time frame takes us from independence to the present day and has been organised within the framework of the programme for cultural cooperation between Spain and Morocco, with collaboration from the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar.
Couple (1970) by Farid Belkahia, hammered copper on wooden door, height 207 cm, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha. Copyright Farid Belkahia
The exhibition explores the diversity of artistic expression in modern Morocco, highlighting the key figures of each period from the transition to independence (1950-1969) to the so-called ‘Years of Lead’ (1970-1999), and from then to the present day (2000-2020). After 40
Composition (1967) by Miloud Labieh, collage on paper, 50 x 65 cm. Private Collection, Marrakesh © Miloud Labieh
beneath the surface are millennia of Middle Eastern history. Before moving to London in 1976, he spent eight years as the director of the Iraqi Antiquities Department in Baghdad. This is not the sort of background that artists from anywhere in the world tend to have
years under the French and Spanish protectorate, the artistic field centred around the debates of the nationalist movement and the need to construct an identity. A vital innovation was questioning the traditional artistic academicism transmitted through art teaching in Morocco. After studying in the world’s leading artistic capitals, the first generation of Moroccan artists engaged with the debates then in vogue. They later adopted abstraction as a means of expression suited to their heritage and identity. After their return to Morocco, artists like Mohamed Melehi, Mohamed Chabaa, Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Hamidi, Mohamed Ataallah and Mustapha Hafid transformed their homeland’s artistic education at the School of Fine Arts in Casablanca. This later helped to open up the country’s art to modernity with projects that combined craftsmanship with innovative artistic forms. At every stage in Morocco’s artistic development there have been new movements and artists whose importance has endured. The exhibition brings in the full diversity of forms to show how art teaches us the possibility of giving sense, imagining justice and seeking cultural, social and human progress. This segment of Morocco’s history can help us understand its present and reflect on its future.
• Moroccan Trilogy
1950–2020, at the Museo Reina Sofia until 27 September 2021
nowadays. It does seem reminiscent of one of the Ottoman empire’s greatest artists. Osman Hamdi was the director of an antiquities museum as well as being an accomplished painter, poet and intellectual. Azzawi has gone well beyond painting. In addition to the art of the book, there is tapestry and sculpture. It is the human condition that continues to fascinate him. His form of abstraction is a means of expressing perceptions in the most uninhibited manner. The paintings
he has created recently reflect his status as an Arab artist in a constantly changing region. The ancient coincides with the contemporary in drifting imagery of exile. It is refreshing to see an artist of his age and standing who continues to experiment and to seek new locations for inspiration. At least he has chosen one of the less troubled corners of Lebanon in which to do this.
• Dia al-Azzawi’s The Lebanon Works at Meem Gallery, Dubai, until 24 June 2021
North Africa via northern Paris The reach of North Africa is felt just as keenly in France. Reflecting this, the Institut des Cultures d’Islam presents, in partnership with Think Tanger and Doual’art, the Zone Franche exhibition, organised as part of the delayed Africa2020 Season. Zone Franche is a collective adventure, the fruit of a meeting between three artistic structures located in Cameroon, Morocco and France. These are all driven by the same desire to engage with the urban ecosystems that produced them. From the testimonies of many local creators and experts, Doual’art, Think Tanger and ICI have devised an exhibition in the form of an autonomous poetic and symbolic space. In contrast to the enclave it usually designates, this Free Zone explores the movement of travellers and their wares and imaginations beyond material or invisible limits. With this initiative, the ICI has become the Africa2020 Headquarters. It is hosting an exhibition and an entire multidisciplinary programme for six months in the spirit of a small temporary Pan-African cultural centre. About 50 concerts, live shows, films, conferences, storytelling, cine-snacks, activities for young audiences, artistic practice workshops and thematic tours of the Goutte d’Or (a far-fromfashionable suburb of northern Paris) honour the artists of the African continent and their interaction with the world. Among those artists are Mariam Abouzid Souali, Mohamed Arejdal, Mansour
The ‘fable of the hornbill’ is part of the ‘Zone Franche’ initiative, with brightly coloured birds perched throughout their quartier of Paris © Marc Domage
Ciss and the Kapsiki Circle.
• Zone Franche at the Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris, until 1 August, 2021 For those in search of an older, more mainstream view of the western Mediterranean’s mastery of art, there is the Chrysler
Spanish Girl Leaning on a Window Sill by Mary Cassatt, circa 1872, oil on canvas, Manuel Piñanes García-Olías, Madrid
Museum of Art. The exhibition Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 18201920 says it all. In collaboration with the Milwaukee Museum of Art this is a definitive look at the American artists who found the Iberian Peninsula irresistible. Many of the names will be unknown to non-American viewers. At least John Singer Sargent was always a celebrity in Europe, and there is a well-known woman artist in there too: Mary Cassatt. She was so highly regarded by the French Impressionists that they numbered her among the three female greats of that genre. Some of these American artists were, in effect, Orientalists while others were fascinated solely by Spain. Although there has been some attention given to American artists’ love of Spain (especially the writer Washington Irving), the subject has been given far less treatment than other aspects of the 19th century grand tour. ‘Americans in Spain’ is the first exhibition to present this important period of American art to a wide audience. It expands on previous studies by emphasising topics such as Spain’s Islamic culture and the Prado Museum as a centre of study. Some of those Americans went very much further, becoming essential chroniclers of distant Iran. Many moved no further than Spain before returning to America.
• Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820-1920, at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia, ends 16 May 2021
asian art | may 2021
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THE NEWSPAPER FOR COLLECTORS, DEALERS, MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES 15/8/05 8:34 am Page 1
ASIAN ART
NEWSPAPER FOR COLLECTORS,dealers, DEALERS, museums MUSEUMS AND • APRIL 2021 • £5.00/US$10/€10 TheTHE newspaper for collectors, andGALLERIES galleries • june 2005 • £5.00/ US$8/ €10
THE LOUVRE’S BIG MOVE The Louvre has got a march on climate change. The museum is located by the Seine, in Paris, in a zone prone to flooding – and, since 2002, the Paris Prefecture, within the framework of the flood risk protection plan (PPRI), has warned the Louvre of the risks centennial flooding could pose to the museum’s collections. Around a quarter of a million works are currently stored in more than 60 different locations, both within the Louvre palace (mainly in flood-risk zones), and elsewhere in temporary storage spaces – all waiting to be moved to the new storage location. In 2016, this risk was emphasised when the Seine flooded its banks, and the rise in water levels was so severe that museum staff had to trigger the emergency plan: a 24hour operation to wrap, pack and take thousands of objects out of the risk areas and up to higher ground away from the potentially damaging flooding. Around 250,000 works were stored in more than 60 different locations, both within the Louvre palace, mainly in flood-risk zones, and elsewhere in temporary storage spaces until a permanent solution was found. So, the most ambitious move in
the history of the museum swung into action. The cost of the project is covered by the Louvre Endowment Fund, with the total price projected to be about Euro 60 million. The answer to the problem was The Louvre Conservation Centre, located in Liévin, near Lens, in northern France. Completed in 2019, the semi-submerged building stands next to the Louvre-Lens Museum, which itself was completed in 2012. The conservation centre makes it possible to store the reserve collections together in a single, functional, space and allows for optimal conservation conditions. It also improves access for the scientific community, researchers, and conservationists. The project gave the museum freedom not only to plan, but also to have the opportunity to modernise the conservation, study, and work conditions, as well as reconsider how the reserve collections are organised. The project runs parallel to the plan to create flood-proof storerooms for each department in the Louvre itself (for works in transit, loan replacement works, etc), as well as study galleries in the permanent collections. Additionally, this will give the public access by offering, via the Louvre-
The Musée du Louvre, in Paris, is in the middle of moving its reserve collections to northern France, away from the flood plain
Lens Museum, a special interpretation programme that allows visitors to visit the storage space and artwork treatment workshops. The new research and study facility, one of the biggest in Europe, will support and help broaden the scientific reach of France, regionally and locally. Currently, The Louvre houses 620,000 works of art, of which 35,000 are on display in the museum
at any one time. There are around 35,000 works housed in other institutions and about 3,000 are on loan for temporary exhibitions. The bulk of the works of art are part of the ongoing project and are currently in the process of being moved to the centre in Liévin. The new conservation building was completed in the summer of 2019 and work began in the second half of
NEWS IN BRIEF
Mallams 1788
Chinese, Japanese & Islamic Art 23rd & 24th June 2021 CHELTENHAM CONSIGNMENTS
A pair of Yongzheng (1723 – 1735) mark and period jardinières. Provenance – Acquired in Peking in the 1930s by the vendor’s grandfather whilst working as a junior diplomat. Estimate £20,000 – 30,000
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Enquiries – Robin Fisher 01242 235712 robin.fisher@mallams.co.uk www.mallams.co.uk
that year to transport the 250,000 objects in the reserve collections to the new space. Work on the project is still continuing – currently over 100,000 works of art having been moved, including paintings, carpets, tapestries, sculpture, objets d’art, furniture and other decorative objects. The transfer of all the works is hoped to be completed by early 2024.
Inside
WORLD RECORDS FOR INDIAN PAINTINGS AT AUCTION
2 Profile: the artist Vivien Zhang 5 Diversity in Edo-period
kabuki prints The online auction on 13 March, at Saffronarts in Mumbai, achieved two world auction records for 6 Abstraction and calligraphy, on show in Abu Dhabi Indian artists. VS Gaitonde achieved INR 39.98 crore (US$ 5.5 million) for an untitled oil on canvas 8 Epic Iran is the latest blockbuster exhibition due to from 1961. In the early 1960s, Indian modernist V S open soon in London Gaitonde was working out of a small studio at the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute in then Bombay 10 Chinese Art from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, - a multi-faceted institution that encouraged the in New York interaction of various visual and performing arts, and where the present lot was first acquired from the 12 A history of the luxurious Chinese export wallpapers artist. It was at this time that the reclusive Gaitonde, known for his serene, ‘non-objective’ paintings, began 14 The Way We Eat: looking at how East Asia has engaged experimenting with the layering of pigment and the with food over the centuries manipulation of light and texture. Influenced by Zen philosophy and the principles of minimalism, 16 From the Archive: Encompassing the Globe, Gaitonde’s works from this period pulsate with an Portugal and the World in the innate lyricism as well as a sense of mystery. The 6 Kimono second artist to achieve a world record was a 1991Perhaps one of the most recognisable16th and 17th Centuries symbols of Japan, the kimono work by NS Bendre, Untitled (Krishna on Kaliya) fascinated 18 hasBurmese modern art, and influenced Western dressing and design for centuries. Bagyi Aung Soe, in Paris depicting a mythological story about an eponymous The Victoria & Albert Museum’s (V&A) exhibition, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk was sadly cut short deity, which sold for INR 1.98 crore (US$ 175,000). 20whenExhibitions in Japan, France, the museum had to temporarily close earlier this year. The museum – and Monaco and the US S H Raza’s Jaipur (1976), an acrylic on canvas work, this exhibition – are now open again, waiting for visitors to enjoy and sold for INR 5.62 crores (US$ 780,000), and F Nexplore. 22 Auction previews in London The exhibition looks at the social significance of the kimono from the and Hong Kong; gallery show, Souza’s Figure on Red and Green Background (1957) 1660s to the present day – both in Japan and the rest of the world. There Hiroshi Sugimoto in Paris sold for INR 2.76 crores (US$ 384,000). are rare 17th- and 18th-century
LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART REOPENS
kimono on display in the UK for the first time alongside pieces from contemporary fashion designers, such as Japan’s Living National Treasure Kunihiko Moriguchi. The mid-17th century is the starting point for the show, a time when a vibrant fashion culture was beginning to emerge in Japan. The increasingly wealthy merchant classes demanded the latest styles to express their affluence, confidence and taste, while leading actors and famous courtesans were the trendsetters of the day. The simple structure of the kimono focussed attention on the surface, allowing for the creation of sumptuous patterns using sophisticated techniques. The first section of the exhibition will explore these designs and shine a light on a fashion- conscious society not dissimilar to today’s, in which desire for the latest look was fed by a cult of celebrity and encouraged by makers, sellers and publishers. Kimono were first exported to Europe in the mid-17th century, where they had an immediate impact on clothing styles. Foreign fabrics were also brought to Japan and incorporated into kimono. From early times, carpets and textiles woven in Turkey, Egypt, Iran and India were brought to Europe not just as trade goods, but also as diplomatic gifts, and their technical and aesthetic excellence was widely acknowledged by contemporary Westerners. However, these textiles were not just admired in the West. In the East, Japan was another destination for these exotic goods. From the early 17th century, many Europeans and Japanese were fascinated by Indian textiles. While imitations of Indian printed and painted textiles were popular in Europe, in Japan, people still preferred to obtain original Indian textiles which surpassed their imitations in both colour and design. Yumiko Kamada, in her paper for the Textile Society of America, The Use of Imported Persian and Indian Textiles in Early Modern Japan, states that ‘it is known that as early as in the late 16th century, a handful of people, such as war lords and high priests valued imported Persian textiles and carpets.2 In spite of Japan’s seclusion policy in the Edo period, people admired imported Indian textiles to enjoy and to use. The Koodaiji-temple in Kyoto owns a coat made from a 16th-century Persian silk tapestry. This famous coat is said to have been used by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), a powerful general of the AzuchiMomoyama period (1568-1600) in Japan. The Japanese also valued imported Indian cotton and other textiles, similar to Europeans who were fascinated by them. Yamaga Soko (1622-1685), a famous Confucian scholar of the Edo period, was said to have worn a coat made of 17th-century Indian painted cotton textile. This type of Indian textile with zigzag design, which was a
23 Islamic Arts Diary
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art reopens on 1 April after a year-long closure. The museum is allowed to reopen, as it has moved into the state’s red tier, which means all museums are allowed to reopen indoor spaces at 25% capacity with safety protocols in place. Out of the six new exhibitions on view, one is Asian: a retrospective of the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Exhibitions that have been
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The Art Of THE KIMONO
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ASIAN ART | OCTOBER 2020 |
Parading courtesan by Katsukawa Shunsen (1762-1830), woodblock print, circa 1804-18, Edo (Tokyo) © Victoria and Albert Museum,
Kimono for a young woman (furisode), crepe silk (chirimen), freehand paste-resist and stencil dyeing (yuzen and kata-yuzen) and embroidery in silk and gold-wrapped silk threads with applied gold and silver (surihaku) Probably Kyoto, 1905–20 © Khalili Collection
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Outer-kimono for a young woman, figured satin silk (rinzu), tie-dyeing (kanoko shibori), freehand paste-resist dyeing (yuzen) and embroidery in silk, probably Kyoto, 1800-1830, courtesy of the Joshibi University of Art and Design Museum
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Kosode crepe silk (chirimen), freehand paste-resist dyeing (yuzen), stencil imitation tie-dyeing (surihitta) and embroidery in silk and gold-wrapped silk threads, probably Kyoto, 1710-1740, courtesy of the Joshibi University of Art and Design Museum
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typical example made for the Southeast-Asian market, was popular in the early 17th century and occasionally depicted in Japanese screen paintings as a fabric used for kimono’. This coat is still preserved in the Matsura Historical Museum at Hirado in Nagasaki prefecture. Gradually, Indian textiles became accessible to the wider population. From the late Edo period, the wealthy classes used Indian painted and printed textiles to decorate many of their personal belongings. Two tobacco pouches and pipe case can been seen in the exhibition, with the earliest covered in Indian cotton from the Coromandel Coast in India, circa 1700 to 1800.There is also an 18th-century under-kimono for a man (juban), made from Indian cottons imported from the Coromandel Coast. Rare survivors from this early period of cultural exchange, including garments made in Japan for the Dutch and kimono tailored from French brocade and Indian chintz, are displayed to reveal the fluid fashion relationship between East and West that resulted from the global trade network. During the Edo period, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century geisha were trend-setters. Their elegant clothes and manners exuded the avant-garde chic of the day (iki). They would compete with each other to have the most original and expensive kimono to become the primary arbiters of kimono fashion. The term kimono (from mono ‘thing’ and kiru ‘to wear’) came into use in the Meiji period, when the craze for all things Western led to a need to distinguish between Western and Japanese clothing. The kimono is made from full widths of specially woven kimono fabric, which is about 35 cm wide and sewn with a simple running stitch to form the garment. The length of each kimono bolt is around 11 to 11.4 meters, which is enough to make one kimono. A half-length
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