Indian and Bangladeshi Art Debut at the Venice Biennale - Scene Asia - WSJ

Indian contemporary art made its debut at this year’s Venice Biennale, a show that tops the agenda of art lovers worldwide. The Biennale, which takes place in Italy’s lagoon city every two years and is now in its 54th edition, opened to the public on Saturday.

But India is not alone: Another South Asian country is having its own, quieter Venice debut–-Bangladesh.

Speaking to India Real Time on the day of the inauguration, Paolo Tamburella, co-curator of the country’s pavilion, says lack of resources and poor communication, normally make it “very difficult” for Bangladesh’s contemporary art to have global reach. He says the country’s presence at the Biennale, which is on till November, now gives it “the possibility of being inside an international arena.”

'Gods of Angkor' Sculptures on Display at the Getty - Brentwood, CA Patch

Cambodian sculptors created profound bronze castings of Hindu and Buddhist deities during the Angkor period of the Khmer Empire, between the ninth and 15th centuries.

The Getty Museum pays homage to these master sculptors with the exhibit “Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia,” which runs through Aug. 14.

“Gods of Angkor” features 26 magnificent sculptures and artifacts, a collection that includes some of the finest and most beautiful Cambodian bronze art in existence.

“We are delighted to give visitors to the museum this rare opportunity to see these exquisite Khmer bronzes on the West Coast, particularly given the local presence of the largest Cambodian community in the United States,” David Bomford, acting director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful to our colleagues at the National Museum of Cambodia for lending us so many important pieces for this exhibition.”

As Cambodia's former capital, Angkor once formed the heart of a large sphere of influence that extended over much of mainland Southeast Asia. Artists used bronze to give form to the Hindu and Buddhist deities worshiped in Angkor and throughout the Khmer Empire.

Some of the highlights of the exhibit include a crowned Buddha from the 12th century and a figure of Ganesha—a son of Shiva born with an elephant's head on a boy’s body—from the 13th century

Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor & His Legacy, an ongoing exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum

Thousands of warriors, exotic animals, and even an entertainment troupe - no one gets a send-off the way China's first emperor did. Even in death.

One can glean as much from Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor & His Legacy, an ongoing exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum. The show, comprising 100 artefacts loaned from some 12 museums from China's Shaanxi province, marks the first time authentic - not replica - pieces of the famous terracotta warriors will be shown in Singapore and the region.

Terracotta Warriors is also complemented by Life After Death, an adjacent exhibition by Singaporean artist Justin Lee featuring his familiar pop art-rendered versions of the warriors previously seen at the National Museum Of Singapore. A free downloadable iPhone app also lets viewers interact with the exhibition by way of augmented reality.

While there are only 10 of these grand clay life-sized sculptures on display - a result of the Chinese government's recent decision to limit the numbers of figures to be loaned for any single show - the complementary artefacts attempt to make up for the lack of visual impact by way of contextualising.

Accidentally discovered in 1974 outside Xi'an by a group of peasants attempting to dig a well, archeologists have now unearthed 1,900 of an estimated 8,000 unique, life-sized clay figures of soldiers and horses.

The pits from which the warriors were dug up are part of Emperor Shi Huangdi's massive tomb complex stretching over an area of 56.25 sq km. The mausoleum itself - built by an estimated 700,000 people and approximately the area of two football fields - has yet to be excavated. "There's an aura of mystery that surrounds it," said Kan Shuyi, museum assistant curator and co-curator of the show.

Divided into three sections, the exhibition begins with a look at the pre-dynastic reign of Shi Huangdi and ends with a sampling of artefacts from the Han Dynasty that followed.

In the peripheries of China proper, the Qin Kingdom was initially looked down upon by the then-dominant kingdom of Zhou and known mostly for breeding horses for the latter's kings, said Kan.

But as the delicately ornate pieces, including an exquisite ceremonial dagger with a gold and turquoise hilt, reveal, these uncouth, uncivilised horse breeders were apparently anything but.

"Their craftsmanship and aesthetic levels were very high," said Kan.

The select pieces on display here, which include a larger-than-normal general, a charioteer, an infantryman and a horse, among others, weigh between 150kg and 200kg each. And while the pieces are mass-produced in makeshift local as well as palace kilns, Kan pointed out the great attention to detail that make each piece virtually unique.

Emperor Shi died in 210 BC at the young age of 49 but, preoccupied as he was with the idea of immortality and life after death, construction of the tomb complex began even before the dynasty was established - at the very beginning of his kingdom of lowly "horsebreeders".

Remarked Kan: "It's a very massive entourage for the afterlife."



Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor & His Legacy runs from tomorrow to Oct 16 at the Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place. Museum tickets at S$8. The exhibition's iPhone app can be downloaded from iTunes. Visit www.acm.org.sg for details.

Tehran Times : Three pages of Quranic carpet on show in Tehran

Three pages of Quranic carpet on show in Tehran
Tehran Times Art Desk

TEHRAN – Three pages of the hand-woven Quranic carpet, the first of its kind in the world, is currently on display at the calligraphy exhibition by the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member countries.

Comprised of 76 two-sided leaves of 70x45 centimeters, the entire book took six years to accomplish, as was reported in a press release on Friday.

The students of the Carpet Faculty of Tabriz Islamic Art University have woven the entire Holy Quran in the form of a book whose pages are small carpets.

The verses of the Holy Quran are woven in silk and the other sections in wool. The entire Quranic carpet is currently kept at Tabriz Faculty of Fine Arts.

In February 2011, the entire book was unveiled at the presence of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

After the Behzad Museum of Art and History in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and Babur Gardens in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tehran is now hosting this exhibition of calligraphy artworks.

Entitled “The Land of Sun”, the exhibit opened here on June 15 displaying artworks by the calligraphers from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Turkey.

Masters of calligraphy including Gholamhossein Amirkhani and Mohammad Heidari from Iran, and Rashid Bat from Pakistan are among the artists whose works are on display at the showcase.

The exhibit will run until June 26 at the Diplomatic Gallery of the ECO Cultural Center located on No.10, Naz Valley, off Aqdasieh Ave.

Hindustan Times

In 2000, crossing over from Afghanistan to travel to Central Asia brought the “unknown” countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan alive for Delhi-based photojournalist Dilip Banerjee. “Earlier these seemed like mythical destinations to us. The people were so warm and hospitable — like one of

the customs officials who helped us jump the queue — that I’ve gone back many times in the last decade to explore their culture,” he says.

Banerjee formed a ‘friendship tour’ with his motley group of friends — two doctors, a railway officer, a zoology professor and a corporate honcho — and raised funds for their road trip. “We got five lakhs from a Hyderabad-based businessman and covered nearly 3,000 kms, touring villages, sightseeing...” Post 9/11, there have been several changes he says.

“More fundamentalist groups and make-shift mosques have come up. More people are going to pray.”

Banerjee also found Indian influences to be strong there. “Though language is a barrier, one of the villages welcomed us with a spontaneous namaste and started singing mera joota hai japani! They love our films and songs — a Hindi film dubbed in the local language is a staple part of television programmes.”

A Date With Central Asia is on till June 22 2011 at Azad Bhavan Art Gallery, New Delhi, 011-23379310.