GALLERY MISSION Sundaram Tagore Gallery is devoted to examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures. With spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City (in Chelsea and on Madison Avenue), the gallery was the first to focus exclusively on the rise of globalization in contemporary art. The gallery represents painters, sculptors and photographers from around the world. They each work in different mediums and use diverse techniques, but share a passion for cross-cultural dialogue. The gallery is renowned for its support of cultural activities—including poetry readings, book launches, music performances and film screenings—that further its mission of East-West exchange.
ANILA QUAYYUM AGHA Anila Quayyum Agha examines issues of global politics, cultural identity, mass media and gender roles in her multi-disciplinary practice. The Pakistani-American artist is best known for her immersive, large-scale light installations in which she laser-cuts elaborate patterns into three-dimensional cubes. Suspended and lit from within, the cubes cast lace-like, floor-to-ceiling shadows that completely transform the surrounding environment, alluding to the richly ornamented public spaces such as mosques that Agha was excluded from as a female growing up in Lahore. In addition to her suspended light installations, Agha also creates wall-mounted sculptural works, including her Flowers series (2018) that explores love and loss inspired by the mixed emotions she experienced following her son’s wedding and mother’s passing, events that happened in the same year. Although these works may appear decorative, they are imbued with meaning, from the floral patterns that express the beauty and femininity of her mother, to the metallic threads commonly used for wedding dresses in Pakistan. The visual elements collectively amplify the interplay between the matrimonial and the funereal, and by extension, the larger cycle of life. To produce these elaborate works, Agha laser-cuts vibrantly hued encaustic paper with intricate patterns and adorns them with light-reflecting embroidery and beads. These exquisitely detailed drawings are framed within shadow boxes, allowing light to pass through the cut-outs and cast patterned shadows in a manner similar to her large-scale light installations. The framing and shadows allow these works to transcend their two-dimensionality. Anila Quayyum Agha has an M.F.A.in fiber arts from the University of North Texas. She has exhibited her work across the globe, including in the 2018 Kansas City Biennale, curated by Dan Cameron; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts; the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; the Dallas Contemporary Art Museum, Texas; the National Museum of Sculpture, Valladolid, Spain; and the Cheongju Craft Biennale, Korea. Her work is in the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan; and the Kiran Nader Art Museum, New Delhi. In 2014, Agha was awarded the popular and juried vote at ArtPrize for her installation Intersections, a first in the history of the Grand Rapids-based competition. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, 1965 | Lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana
Ephemeral Bloom - Teal, 2017, mixed media on paper, 30 x 30 inches/76.2 x 76.2 cm
Flowers (Pea Green Square), 2017, mixed media on paper (encaustic pea-green square with brown beads in center), 29.5 x 29.5 inches/75 x 75 cm
Flowers (Three Red Squares and One White), 2017, mixed media on paper (red square with white beads in center square; second square cutout with no backing), 29.5 x 29.5 inches/75 x 75 cm
Flowers (Blue and Red Circle), 2017, mixed media on paper (encaustic blue circle with red and blue beads in center), 29.5 x 41.5 inches/75 x 105.4 cm
MIYA ANDO
A descendant of Bizen sword makers, New York-based artist Miya Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. Best known for her sublime metal paintings, Ando combines the traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, skillfully transforming sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color. The focus of Ando’s artistic practice is the intrinsic connection between the human sphere and the natural world. “My interest is in creating work that allows viewers to experience a relationship to nature and to be truly in the moment as they encounter the transitory qualities of light,” Ando says. “I want to draw people into a slowed-down environment with work that is experiential and employs the visual vocabulary of natural phenomena and transformation.” Transformation—both in the physical and the metaphysical sense—is the unifying element in all of Ando’s work. To produce the light-reflecting gradients on her metal paintings, Ando applies heat, sandpaper, grinders, acid and patinas to the metal canvases, irrevocably altering the material’s chemical properties. It’s by an almost meditative daily repetition of these techniques that Ando is able to subtract, reduce and distill her concept until it reaches its simplest form. Miya Ando has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with the master metalsmith Hattori Studio in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy. Her work has been shown worldwide, including at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California; in a show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum; at the Queens Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the American University Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Nassau County Museum, New York. In 2015, a large-scale installation, Emptiness the Sky (Shou-Sugi-Ban), was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Miya Ando has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation. Awards include the PollockKrasner Foundation Grant, 2012. Born in Los Angeles, 1973 | Lives and works in New York
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Kasumi February 2.2.3, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 11
Kasumi February 2.2.6, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 12
Kasumi Mist Red 2.2.3, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 13
Alchemy Shou Sugi Ban 2.2.1, 2018, silver nitrate and charred redwood, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm
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Beni Iro Crimson 4.4.1, 2018, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 48 inches/122 x 122 cm
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Kasumi Blue Purple Shift, 2018, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 18
Kasumi Mist Gold Turquoise, 2018, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 19
October Cloud 5.5.1, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 60 x 60 inches/152.4 x 152.4 cm 20
October Cloud 2.2.3, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 21
Oct 10.18 Cloud 7, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm
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Oct 10.18 Cloud 9, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 24
Oct 22 4.4.3, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 48 x 48 inches/122 x 122 cm 25
KIM JAE-IL Korean artist Kim Jaeil (born 1969) produces perforated sculptural paintings cast from resin. Raised and educated in Seoul, Kim Jaeil works in a manner similar to an earlier generation of artists who lived through the Korean War. Beginning in the 1970s, those artists began producing abstract works in a conscious shift away from the realist painting style favored at the time. This influential era of artistic development in South Korea marked the early stages of the Dansaekhwa (monochromatic painting) movement, which challenged the prevailing aesthetic of traditional Korean art. Produced using minimal palettes with a focus on negative space, this non-figurative style of painting emphasized process and materiality, as well as inner exploration over visual expression. Although Kim’s work references pioneering Dansaekhwa figures such as Park SeoBo and Chung Sang-Hwa, he cites Western art, including relief work by American artist Lee Bontecou and the spatial theories of Italian painter Lucio Fontana, as his primary influences. To create his punctured, cast-resin works, Kim uses his own unique process of intaglio, a centuriesold printing technique that incises a form into a surface. He begins by sketching a composition on a flat surface. Once it’s finalized, Kim builds a form out of clay in three connected layers, into which he pours resin. Once hardened, Kim carves the resin structure and applies acrylic paint, producing a mesh of circular pockets illuminated with vibrant, light-reflecting hues. Each painting can take up to a month to produce, depending on the size and complexity. Kim’s compositions vary. Some are inspired by forms found in nature, such as waves or stars; others are more abstract, such as Vestige (Space Blue), a configuration of circles shaped by hundreds of carved dimples highlighted in jewel-tone blue and purple pigment. The result is an optical illusion created by the convergence of the cubic and planar layers, with the negative space accentuating the hollowed-out forms. Kim’s luminous hollows, strung together by an unseen connective tissue, compel the viewer to examine the work closely to discover its hidden depths. For the artist, these mystical spheres encapsulate both the microstructure of human cells and a galaxy of stars across the sky. Born in Seoul, Kim Jaeil has a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Hongik University, Seoul. He has exhibited his work in numerous solo and group exhibits throughout Europe, Asia and the United States, including at the Seoul Museum of Art; the London Art Fair; Art Cologne; Fountain Art Fair, New York and Miami; and Art Osaka. He is the recipient of the Special Prize in the Misul Segye Art Contest, awarded by the Seoul Museum of Art. Kim lives and works in Seoul. 26
Vestige (Halo Silver), 2018, acrylic on fiberglass resin, 59.1 x 59.1 x 1.8 inches/150 x 150 x 4.5 cm 27
ZHENG LU The gravity-defying sculptural works of Zheng Lu are deeply influenced by his study of traditional Chinese calligraphy, an art form he practiced growing up in a literary family. Zheng Lu uses language as a pictorial element, inscribing the surface of his stainless-steel sculptures with thousands of Chinese characters derived from texts and poems of historical significance. To create his metal sculptures, the artist begins with a plaster base. He then laser-cuts characters into metal, and in a fashion similar to linking chainmail, uses heat to connect the pictographs so that they can be shaped to the support. The resulting works are technically astonishing; their fluid, animated forms are charged with the energy (qi) of the universe, belying their steel composite. Zheng Lu graduated from Lu Xun Fine Art Academy, Shenyang, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 2003. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, while also attending an advanced study program at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris. Zheng Lu has participated in numerous exhibitions in China and abroad, including at the Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Moscow; Musée Océanographique, Monaco; Musée Maillol, Paris; the National Museum of China, Beijing; the Long Museum and the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. In 2015, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, one of the leading institutions in the region. His most recent large-scale solo exhibition, titled Re-sist-ance, was on view at the Long Museum in Shanghai in 2016. Born in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia, 1978 | Lives and works in Beijing
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Water in Dripping No.12, 2014, stainless steel, 82.7 x 63 x 47.2 inches/210 x 160 x 120 cm 29
Water in Dripping - Rondo, 2017, stainless steel, 46.5 x 68 x 44 inches/180 x 120 x 130 cm 30
Water in Dripping No. 7 - Condensing Flow, 2017, stainless steel, 29.5 x 17.7 x 24 inches/75 x 45 x 61 cm 31
RICARDO MAZAL Ricardo Mazal explores themes of life, death, transformation and regeneration through a multidisciplinary approach to painting that often includes photography and digital technology. The artist’s recent body of work, Violet, is a series of highly distilled color studies that amplify his longstanding process of reduction, focusing on a singular subject in what is his most refined—and personal—presentation to date. Mazal’s previous studies include a large body of multidisciplinary work inspired by investigations into sacred burial rituals. His next series was inspired by the colorful, billowing prayer flags of Bhutan. With each investigation, Mazal has honed his vision, reducing and distilling his concepts to their simplest form. Ricardo Mazal’s work is included in the collections of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez, Zacatecas, Mexico; Maeght Foundation, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France; and Deutsche Bank, New York and Germany. In 2006, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. In 2015, the artist’s work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale and he had his second solo show at Mexico City’s Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla. A retrospective, Ricardo Mazal: A Fifteen Year Survey, opened at the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, New Mexico, in June 2018. Born in Mexico City, 1950 | Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York
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Black Mountain MK 11, 2014, oil on linen, 40 x 42 inches/101.6 x 106.7 cm 33
G with White 1, 2018, oil on linen, 36 x 38 inches/91.4 x 96.5 cm 34
Violet G 5, 2018, oil on linen, 87 x 98.5 inches/221 x 250.2 cm 35
SOHAN QADRI
The late artist, poet and Tantric guru Sohan Qadri was one of the few modern painters of note deeply engaged with spirituality. He abandoned representation early on, incorporating Tantric symbolism and philosophy into his vibrantly colored minimalist works. He began his process by covering the surface of heavy paper with structural effects by soaking it in liquid and carving it in stages with sharp tools while applying inks and dyes. As a result, he transformed the paper from a flat surface into a three-dimensional medium. The repetition of careful incisions on the paper was an integral part of his meditation. Having lived and worked in more than a dozen countries, Qadri was one of India’s many post-Independence artists who formed a sprawling diaspora. He once said, “I did not want to confine myself to one place, nation and community….My approach to life has been universal, and so is my art.” Qadri was initiated into yogic practice at age seven in India, his birthplace. In 1965, he left India and began a series of travels that took him to East Africa, North America and Europe. After settling in Copenhagen in the 1970s, Qadri participated in more than forty solo shows, in Mumbai, Vienna, Brussels, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. Sohan Qadri’s works are included in the British Museum, London; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts; the Rubin Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; as well as the private collections of Cirque du Soleil, Heinrich Böll and Dr. Robert Thurman. In 2011, Skira Editore published the monograph Sohan Qadri: The Seer. Born in Chachoki, Punjab, India, 1932; died 2011 | Lived and worked in Copenhagen and Toronto
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Amisha III, 2007, ink and dye on paper, 39 x 27 inches/99 x 68.6 cm 37
Ratna IV, 2010, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/140 x 99 cm 38
Nitya, 2008, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/140 x 99 cm 39
SEBASTIÃO SALGADO
Sebastião Salgado was born in 1944 in Brazil. He lives in Paris, France. Having studied economics, Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in 1973 in Paris. He worked with various agencies including Magnum Photos until 1994, when he and Lélia Wanick Salgado formed Amazonas Images, created exclusively for his work. Salgado’s work has been the subject of numerous books including Other Americas (1986), Sahel: l’homme en détresse (1986), Sahel: el fin del camino (1988), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations and Portraits (2000), Africa (2007), Genesis (2013), The Scent of a Dream (2015) and Kuwait, A Desert on Fire (2016). Touring exhibitions of this work have been and continue to be presented throughout the world. In 2013, the book De ma terre à la Terre (From my land to the planet), a narrative account of his life and career was published, and in 2014, the documentary film The Salt of the Earth, directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, was released. Sebastião Salgado has been awarded numerous major photographic prizes. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and among other distinctions, an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In April 2016, Salgado was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, for the seat previously occupied by Lucien Clergue. In July 2016, he was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France. Lélia Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado have worked since the 1990s on the restoration of a portion of the Atlantic Forest in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. In 1998 they succeeded in turning this land into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra, dedicated to reforestation, conservation and environmental education. Born in Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1944 | Lives and works in Paris
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Church Gate Station, Western Railroad Line, Bombay India, 1995, gelatin silver print, 36 x 50 inches/91.4 x 127 cm 41
Marine Iguana, Galรกpagos, Ecuador, 2004, gelatin silver print, 68 x 50 inches/172.7 x 127 cm 42
Sourthern Right Whale, ValdĂŠs Peninsula, Argentina, 2004, gelatin silver print, 36 x 50 inches/91.4 x 127 cm 43
Ob River, Arctic Circle, 2011, gelatin silver print, 36 x 50 inches/91.4 x 127 cm
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HIROSHI SENJU Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue. Hiroshi Senju was the first Asian artist to receive an Honorable Mention Award at the Venice Biennale (1995), and has participated in numerous exhibitions including The New Way of Tea, curated by Alexandra Munroe, at the Japan Society and the Asia Society in New York, 2002; Paintings on Fusuma at the Tokyo National Museum, 2003; and Frontiers Reimagined at the Venice Biennale, 2015. He was recently awarded the Foreign Minister’s Commendation from the Japanese government for contributions to art. In May 2017 he was honored with the Isamu Noguchi Award. Public installations include seventy-seven murals at Juko-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, and a monumental waterfall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The Benesse Art Site of Naoshima Island also houses two large-scale installations. The artist has just completed forty-four fusuma for the Kongōbu-ji temple at Mount Koya, Japan. Senju’s work is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. In 2009, Skira Editore published a monograph of his work titled Hiroshi Senju. The Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa in Japan opened in 2011. Born in Tokyo, 1958 | Lives and works in New York 46
Waterfall, 2018, acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 63.8 x 63.8 inches/162 x162 cm 47
Waterfall, 2014, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 71.6 x 179 inches/182 x 455 cm 48
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CHUN KWANG YOUNG Chun Kwang Young, whose work is on view in Kwang Young Chun: Aggregations, a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, began his career as a painter. He began to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials, and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with the conceptual freedom he experienced during his Western education. Chun Kwang Young received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hongik University, Seoul and a Master of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, New York; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Society Building, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and the Seoul Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta. He was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in 2001 and in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. . Born 1944 in Hongchun, Korea | Lives in works in Seongnam, Korea
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Aggregation 18 - AP027, 2018, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 57.9 x 81.9 inches/147 x 208 cm 51
Aggregation 12 - MY024 Red, 2012, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 46.5 x 36.2 inches/118 x 92 cm 52
Aggregation 09 - JL041 Blue, 2009, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 38.6 x 51.6 inches/98 x 131 cm 53
S U N D A R A M TA G O R E G A L L E R I E S new york new york hong kong singapore
547 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 • tel 212 677 4520 • gallery@sundaramtagore.com 1100 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10028 • tel 212 288 2889 4/F, 57-59 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong • tel 852 2581 9678 • hongkong@sundaramtagore.com 5 Lock Road 01-05, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933 • tel 65 6694 3378 • singapore@sundaramtagore.com
President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Sales director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Registrar: Julia Occhiogrosso Designer: Russell Whitehead Contributing editor: Kieran Doherty
W W W. S U N DA R A M TAG O R E . C O M Text © 2018 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs © 2018 Sundaram Tagore Gallery All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.