SU N DARAM TA G O R E G A L L E RY
G A L L E RY M I S S I O N 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.
A R T PA R I S 2 0 1 6 Sundaram Tagore Gallery brings work by Chun Kwang Young, one of Asia’s most celebrated artists, to Art Paris. Widely recognized as a pioneer in contemporary Korean art, his highly tactile, monumental compositions are built up with hundreds of small pieces of Styrofoam wrapped in tinted antique mulberry paper. Inspired by traditional medicinal herbs bundled in paper packages, his works are rooted in Korean culture while articulated in contemporary visual language. In addition to this solo presentation, the gallery will be showcasing work by a range of international artists, including Kim Joon (Korea), Sebastião Salgado (Brazil), Golnaz Fathi (Iran), Sohan Qadri (India), Ricardo Mazal (Mexico) and Kamolpan Chotvichai (Thailand).
M I YA A N D O A descendant of Bizen sword makers, New York-based emerging artist Miya Ando was raised among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan. Ando is half Japanese and half RussianAmerican and grew up within two distinct cultures, spending her childhood between Japan and Northern California. She received a Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. After university, she apprenticed at the master metalsmith Hattori Studio in Japan and in 2009 did a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy. Combining traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, Ando skillfully transforms sheets of burnished steel and anodized aluminum into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with subtle gradations of color. The foundation of her practice is the transformation of surfaces. She produces light-reflecting gradients on her metal paintings by applying heat, sandpaper, grinders and acid, 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. For Ando, the paradoxical pairing of metal with spiritual subject matter is intentional. She says: “My work is an exploration into the duality of metal and its ability to convey strength and permanence, yet in the same instance absorb shifting color and capture the fleetingness of light. It reminds us of the transitory nature of all things in life.” Miya Ando is the recipient of many awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2012. Her work has been exhibited extensively all over the world, including in a recent show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum and in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore, in 2015. Ando has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall commemorative sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Born in Los Angeles, 1978 | Lives and works in New York 6
Spring Grid 2, 2014, resin, dye and pigment on aluminum, 9 panels 12 x 12 inches each/30.5 x 30.5 cm each 7
Aka Red, 2015, pigment, urethane, resin and dye on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 8
Autumn Orange Gold Shift, 2015, urethane, pigment and resin on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 9
Faint Pewter, 2015, urethane and pigment on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 10
Evanescent Blue, 2015, urethane and pigment on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 11
K A M O L PA N C H O T V I C H A I Kamolpan Chotvichai addresses issues of identity and gender in her photo-based self-portraits. At the same time, she challenges the formal limitations of paper and canvas by meticulously handcutting her images, creating sinuous ribbons along various parts of her anatomy. Her goal is to dissolve her form, based on an understanding of the Buddhist teachings of the three characteristics of existence: anatta (the eternal substance that exists beyond the physical self); dukkha (sorrow and dissatisfaction); and anicca (impermanence). She obliterates her identity, eliminating her face and literally stripping away her physical form, in the process relinquishing attachment to her body. The artist received a Master of Fine Arts degree at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, and has since been awarded numerous scholarships and art prizes, including a Gold Medal at the 58th National Exhibition of Art (2012), Bangkok. Kamolpan Chotvichai was invited to participate in ON PAPER, a paper art workshop that was part of the ON PAPER—Paper & Nature exhibition at Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo. Group exhibitions include Anthropos Bangkok, Numthong Gallery, 2013; Anthropos: Navigating Human Depth in Thai and Singapore Contemporary Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore and New York, 2013; the 4th Young Artists Talent Art Exhibition 2013, Royal Thai Consulate-General, Los Angeles; the 2012 International Women Arts Exhibition, Lights of Women, Gwangju Museum of Art Kum Namro Wing, Metro Gallery, Korea, 2012; and Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore, 2015. Chotvichai was a featured artist in Thailand Eye at the Saatchi Gallery, London, which closed in January 2016. Born in Bangkok, 1986 | Lives and works in Bangkok
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Non-existence, 2013, c-type print and hand-cut paper, 38.2 x 61.4 inches/ 97 x 156 cm, edition 1 of 3 13
Selflessness, 2013, c-type print and hand-cut paper, 25.2 x 37.4 inches/ 64 x 95 cm, edition 2 of 3 14
Left Hand, 2013, c-type print and hand-cut paper, 24.4 x 37 inches/ 62 x 94 cm, edition 1 of 3 15
G O L N A Z FAT H I Drawing on her extensive training as a calligrapher, Golnaz Fathi uses texts and letters as formal elements, transforming traditional calligraphy into a personal artistic language. She studied classical calligraphy before she established her own style of working, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Graphics from Azad Art University, Tehran, and completing further studies at the Iranian Society of Calligraphy. Fathi works in fine pen, mostly on varnished raw, rectangular, polyptych canvases, in a limited palette of white, black, red and yellow. She layers the surface of the canvas with thousands of minute marks that echo the curvilinear forms of calligraphic letters and words. These intricate lines coalesce into minimalist compositions that can be read in multiple ways—as landscapes, electronic transmissions or atmospheric phenomena. She refrains from titling her works, which allows the viewer free reign to assign his or her own interpretation. The basis of Fathi’s practice is siah-mashq, a traditional exercise in which the calligrapher writes cursive letters across the page in a dense, semi-abstract formation. The letters aren’t meant to form words or convey meaning, but rather strengthen the skill of the scribe. Fathi reinterprets this technique, drawing inspiration from Western and Eastern sources, including American Abstract Expressionism, as well as the work of Iranian and Middle Eastern modernists who pioneered the use of the written word as a pictorial element in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By skillfully combining these various elements, she has created a unique visual language with universal appeal. Golnaz Fathi’s works are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brighton & Hove Museum, East Sussex, England; Carnegie Mellon University, Doha, Qatar; the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur; the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; the British Museum, London; the Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and The Farjam Collection, Dubai. In 2011, Fathi was chosen as a Young Global Leader Honoree by the World Economic Forum and in 2015, her work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore. Born in Tehran, 1972 | Lives and works in Tehran and Paris 16
Untitled, 2013, acrylic, pen and varnish on canvas, 70.9 x 70.8 inches/180 x 180 cm 17
KIM JOON Kim Joon creates digital prints focusing on themes of desire, memory and fragility. He uses the human body as his canvas, superimposing tattoos and brand logos on hyperrealistic flesh and porcelain fabricated using three-dimensional modeling and rendering software. The artist has long been preoccupied with tattoos, a social taboo in Korean society, which he uses as metaphors for unconscious desires. Kim’s elaborate tableaux consist of tableware, fragments of idealized nudes and icons of Western pop culture, including guitars, cars and guns. Juxtaposing old and new, traditional Asian motifs and new media, he raises questions about conflicting forces of identity in Korea’s increasingly Westernized culture. By using brand logos and luxury products, he also explores society’s materialism, commodification and a loss of individuality in the era of globalization. Kim Joon’s works have been exhibited extensively across the globe, including in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore, in 2015; the Saatchi Gallery, London, where his work was featured on the cover of Korean Eye: Contemporary Korean Art, the book that accompanied the exhibition of the same name; the Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea; and the National Taiwan Museum. Born in Seoul, 1966 | Lives and works in Seoul
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RomanĂŠe Conti, 2011, digital print, 47 x 66 inches/120 x 167.7 cm, edition 4 of 5 19
Blue Jean Blues-Playboy, 2012, digital print, 39.4 x 39.4 inches/100 x 100 cm, edition 2 of 5
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Drunken-Absolut Vodka, 2011, digital print, 82.7 x 47 inches/210 x 120 cm, edition 1 of 5 22
MoĂŤt Chandon, 2011, digital print, 82.7 x 47 inches/210 x 120 cm edition, 1 of 5 23
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, Zheng Lu 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. Born in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia, 1978 | Lives and works in Beijing
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Water Dripping - Lie, 2015, stainless steel, 51.2 x 39.4 x 39.4 inches/130 x 100 x 100 cm 25
R I CA R D O M A Z A L Ricardo Mazal explores themes of life, death, transformation and regeneration through a multidisciplinary approach to painting that includes photography and digital technology. In 2004, the artist embarked on a trilogy examining the sacred burial rituals of three cultures, continents, and time periods. He began at the Mayan tomb of the Red Queen in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, then traveled to the FriedWald forest cemetery in Odenwald, Germany. His final series was inspired by the sky burials and prayer flags of Mount Kailash, Tibet’s holiest summit. Mazal conveys his experience of these spiritual sites through an iterative process of abstraction, building up the painting from photographs gathered in situ and digital manipulation. Applying and scraping away oil paint with foam-rubber blades, he creates works layered with luminous passages of color. 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 Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore and he had his second solo show at Mexico City’s Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla. Born in Mexico City, 1950 | Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York
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Pintura Violeta 3, 2016, oil on linen, 55 x 60 inches/139.7 x 152.4 cm 27
Bhutan PF 30, 2016, oil on linen, 40 x 42 inches/101.6 x 106.7 cm 28
Bhutan PF 31, 2016, oil on linen, 40 x 42 inches/101.6 x 106.7 cm 29
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, the paper was transformed 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 form 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 and died in 2011 | Lived and worked in Copenhagen and Toronto
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Aloka IV, 2007, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 31
Griha, 2009, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 32
Uma IV, 2010, ink and dye on paper, 39 x 27.5 inches/99 x 69.9 cm 33
S E BASTIÃO SALGADO Sebastião Salgado has made it his life’s work to document the impact of globalization on humankind. His black-and-white prints lay bare some of the bleakest moments of modern history as well as some of the planet’s last remaining wonders. In the past three decades, Salgado has traveled to more than one hundred countries for his photographic projects and devotes years to each series in order to grasp the full scope of his topic. Breaking down barriers, he lives with his subjects for weeks, immersing himself in their environments. Salgado describes this approach as photographing from inside the circle. Each of his images is infused with empathy and respect for his subjects. The images on display comes from his most recent series, Genesis, which he began in 2004 as an antidote of sorts to the harrowing scenes encountered on previous projects. With the aim of reviving hope, Genesis pays homage to nature left unscathed by humankind. Salgado has had solo shows at the Barbican Art Gallery, London; the International Center of Photography, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Photographers’ Gallery and the Natural History Museum, London; and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Among his many honors, Salgado has been named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2015, his work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore. In 1998 Sebastião and Lélia Salgado founded the non-profit Instituto Terra, an organization focused on reforestation and environmental education. Since the 1990s, they have been restoring a portion of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Born in Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1944 | Lives and works in Paris
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Chinstrap Penguins on an Iceberg, between Zavodovski and Visokoi Islands, South Sandwich Islands, 2009, gelatin silver print, 24 x 35 inches/61 x 89 cm
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Yali Man, West Papua, Indonesia, 2010, gelatin silver print, 68 x 50 inches/180 x 125 cm 36
Women in the Zo’é village of Towari Ypy Color Their Bodies With the Red Fruit of the Urucum, Pará, Brazil, 2009, gelatin silver print, 24 x 35 inches/61 x 89 cm
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Heard of Buffalos, Kafue National Park, Zambia, 2010, gelatin silver print, 68 x 50 inches/180 x 125 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-yearold nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue. Evoking a deep sense of calm, his waterfalls, which he creates with incredible delicacy by pouring paint onto mulberry paper on board, conjure not only the appearance of rushing water, but its sound, smell and feel. 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 Beauty Project in 1996 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, London; The New Way of Tea, curated by Alexandra Munroe, at the Japan Society and the Asia Society in New York in 2002; Paintings on Fusuma at the Tokyo National Museum in 2003; and Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale curated and organized by Sundaram Tagore, in 2015. Public installations include seventy-seven murals at Jukoin, a sub-temple of Daitokuji, a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, and a large waterfall at Haneda Airport International Passenger Terminal in Tokyo. The Benesse Art Site of Naoshima Island also houses two large-scale installations. Senju’s work is in the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido, Japan. In 2009, Skira Editore published a monograph of his work titled Hiroshi Senju. The Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa, designed by Ryue Nishizawa, opened in 2011 in Japan. Born in Tokyo, 1958 | Lives and works in New York
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Waterfall, 2014, acrylic and fluorescent pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 102 x 76.3 inches/259 x 194 cm 41
C H U N K W A N G YO U N G Although Chun Kwang Young began his career as a painter, he started 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 15 - DE081 Blue, 2015, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 67.3 x 54.7 inches/171 x 139 cm 43
Aggregation 07 - 133, 2007, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 68.9 x 57.1 inches/175 x 145 cm 44
Aggregation 07 - 135, 2007, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 67.3 x 54.7 inches/171 x 139 cm 45
Aggregation 15 - JL042, 2015, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 64.2 x 51.6 inches/163 x 131 cm
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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 Director, Hong Kong: Faina Derman Director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Designer: Russell Whitehead Contributing editors: Kieran Doherty and Payal Uttam
WWW.SUNDARAMTAGORE.COM Text © 2016 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs © 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.