GALLE RY M ISSION 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 S I A N O W PA R I S Sundaram Tagore Gallery is pleased to present work by six artists whose diverse practices challenge conventional perceptions of Asian art. Three focus on the body, examining issues of identity, gender and consumerism. Thai artist Kamolpan Chotvichai produces provocative self-portraits in which she literally strips away portions of her anatomy based on the Buddhist principle of anatta (no self); Tayeba Begum Lipi, from Bangladesh, constructs glittering objects of femininity made of razor blades and safety pins in a commentary on the condition of women; and Kim Joon, based in Seoul, examines the Korean obsession with luxury brands and concepts of desire through digitally rendered nudes. The three other artists in this exhibition focus on formal concerns, exploring elements of traditional culture using the minimalist visual language generally associated with Western art. Indian-born Sohan Qadri incorporates Tantric symbolism and philosophy into vibrantly colored, intricately carved paper works; Japanese-American artist Miya Ando, descended from sword makers, infuses metal canvases with spiritual themes; and Hiroshi Senju, the Japanese painter based in New York, renders waterfalls and cliffs by combining elements of Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. All of these artists exemplify the gallery’s core mission, which is to encourage the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures.
TAY E B A B E G U M L I P I Tayeba Begum Lipi creates paintings, prints, videos and installations articulating themes of female marginality and the female body. Her sculptural works re-creating everyday objects including beds, bathtubs, strollers, wheelchairs, dressing tables and women’s undergarments use unexpected materials, such as safety pins and razor blades. This purposeful and provocative choice of materials speaks to the violence facing women in Bangladesh, as well as referencing tools used in childbirth in the more underdeveloped parts of the country. In 2002 Lipi co-founded the Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh’s first artist-run alternative arts platform dedicated to organizing exhibitions, encouraging intercultural dialogue and providing residencies for local artists. Tayeba Begum Lipi completed a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, in 1993. In 2000 she was an artist-in-residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. She was awarded a Grand Prize at the 11th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2003, Dhaka; and was the commissioner for the Pavilion of Bangladesh at the 54th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, 2011; and one of the curators for the Kathmandu International Art Festival 2012. Lipi has exhibited at Alliance Française, Paris and the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Dhaka. She also participated in the 14th Jakarta Biennale 2011, the Colombo Art Biennale, 2012, Sri Lanka, and Dhaka Art Summit 2012. Her work was most recently on view in Artist as Activist: Tayeba Begum Lipi and Mahbubur Rahman at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Born in Gaibandha, Bangladesh, 1969 | Lives and works in Dhaka
Comfy Bikinis, 2013, brass safety pins covered with electroless nickel immersion gold, stainless steel and glass, 14.2 x 35.8 x 48 inches/36 x 91 x 122 cm
Trapped – 6, 2013, stainless-steel razor blades and exposed drawing on mirror-polished stainless steel, 29.9 x 29.9 inches/76 x 76 cm
Trapped – 5, 2013, stainless-steel razor blades and exposed drawing on mirror-polished stainless steel, 29.9 x 29.9 inches/76 x 76 cm
Trapped – 1, 2013, stainless-steel razor blades and exposed drawing on mirror-polished stainless steel, 30 x 20 inches/76 x 51 cm
My Mother’s Dressing Table, 2013, stainless-steel custom-made razor blades, 37.4 x 18.5 x 39 inches/95 x 47 x 99 cm
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; died 2011 | Lived and worked in Copenhagen and Toronto
Prana, 2004, ink and dye on paper, 39 x 55.1 inches/99 x 140 cm
Uma IV, 2010, ink and dye on paper, 39 x 27.6 inches/99 x 70 cm
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 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
Cliff #27, 2015, acrylic and natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 68.9 x 37.8 inches/175 x 96 cm
Waterfall, 2016, natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper mounted on board, 51.2 x 63.8 inches/130 x 162 cm
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 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; 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
Ebony-Balenciaga, 2008, digital print, 47 x 47 inches/119 x 119 cm
Fragile-Villeroy & Boch, 2010, digital print, 47.2 x 82.7 inches/120 x 210 cm
Adam & Eve, 2011, digital print, 39.4 x 15.7 inches/100 x 140 cm
M I YA A N D O 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. The resulting works explore the duality of metal and its ability to convey strength and permanence, yet in the same instance, capture the fleetingness of light and the transitory nature of all things. 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; and in an exhibition at the Queens Museum, New York. In 2015, a largescale 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 recently nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation. Awards include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2012. Born in Los Angeles, 1978 | Lives and works in New York
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Indigo Line, 2015, urethane and pigment on aluminum, 48 x 48 inches/122 x 122 cm 27
Hamon 40.40.6, 2015, urethane and pigment on aluminum, 40 x 40 inches/101.6 x 101.6 cm 28
Green Gold Yellow Shift, 2016, pigment, urethane and resin on aluminum, 36.2 x 36.2 inches/92 x 92 cm 29
Faint Gold Gray Triptych, 2016, urethane, pigment and resin on aluminum, 48 x 38 inches/122 x 96.8 cm
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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. 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 shows include 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, 2015. Chotvichai was a featured artist in Thailand Eye at the Saatchi Gallery, London, which closed in January 2016. She has just had a solo exhibition at Sundaram Tagore Gallery Chelsea and another solo show is currently on view at Sundaram Tagore Singapore. Born in Bangkok, 1986 | Lives and works in Bangkok
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Uncertainty, 2015, C-type print and hand-cut canvas, 46.9 x 44.1 inches/119 x 112 cm 33
Karma (deed), 2015, C-type print and hand-cut canvas, 40.5 x 54.3 inches/103 x 138 cm
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Raga (lust), 2015, C-type print and hand-cut canvas, 32.7 x 50 inches/83 x 127 cm
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President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Hong Kong: Faina Derman Sales director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Designer: Russell Whitehead
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