Monday, March 26, 2012
Desi spin
From The Hindu Sunday Magazine
The Smithsonian Institution is rediscovering India's vast contributions to civilisational achievement. In January it announced a grand celebration of Mughal art. More recently, it has tapped into the rich tapestry of the contributions of Indian migrants to America. The exhibition, titled “Homespun,” is “a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's message to Indians to spin their own cloth and wear clothes made in India, instead of using textiles from Britain,” according to Smithsonian officials.
Few other immigrant communities in the U.S. have played such a vital role in fostering that civilisational link between the original motherland and their adopted homeland as the nearly three million Indian-Americans living in the U.S. today, and “HomeSpun is the Smithsonian's opportunity to convey their history, contributions, challenges, and signal their place within the nation.”
The curator of this first-of-its-kind display is Pawan Dhingra, who was earlier an Associate Professor of Sociology and Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio.
Featuring a vast range of exhibits, public programmes and a cutting-edge website “It will establish a permanent presence within the Smithsonian complex,” those behind the exhibit said.
Labels: Art, exhibition, Indian Americans, Mahatma Gandhi, Smithsonian Institution
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Mughals at the Smithsonian
Photograph credit: The Smithsonian Institution
From The Hindu
Even if the India-United States relationship appears to
be a monochrome parade of banality in the political sphere, the
civilisational link between the two nations has never been more vibrant,
especially in the art world.
All of this forthcoming
year, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, one of the premier
organisations behind the vast, variegated art collections of this
country, will host a grand tribute to Indian art from the Mughal period.
In
a special media preview this week, the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery,
which specialises in Asian art, will display 50 masterpieces from the
15th -- 17th century period, from the times of Mughal kings
including Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. The exhibition will be called
“Worlds within worlds.”
Debra Diamond, Associate
Curator for South and Southeast Asian Art at the Smithsonian, said that
these paintings, which were “often costly beyond reckoning,” displayed a
“new naturalism” in their composition, blending Indian and European
influences. A portrait of a son of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal typified
this style, she said.
The display, aptly named the
“Indian Summer,” will be part of a broader, year-long tribute to Asian
art that will also include a “Japanese Spring,” featuring seminal prints
such as Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and a major work by
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. This will be followed up with a
third exhibition of artwork under the title of “Arabian Autumn.”
Diamond
emphasised the Sackler's sustained interest in displaying Indian art
and noted that contemporary Indian art may be featured in future
exhibitions in 2013.
Even as the Sackler celebrates
its 25{+t}{+h}anniversary, the gallery announced to media that it had
received a boost from a $5 million gift from Dame Jillian Sackler, the
New York-based philanthropist and widow of Arthur M. Sackler, after whom
the Gallery is named. The gift will be used to establish an endowment
to support the position of the Director and programmes at the Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art.
Labels: Mughal art, Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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