1. Jan-Feb 2011

NEWS and HAPPENINGS
Upcoming Exhibition of
‘Paubha Art’ in Japan
BALGO – Contemporary
Australian Art from the
Balgo Hills
21 November – 5 December, Kathmandu
On the 21 st of November, an indigenous art exhibition,
Balgo-Contemporary Art from the Balgo Hills, was held
at the Siddhartha Art Gallery in Kathmandu, as part of
a series of events to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic
relations between Australia and Nepal.
While the exhibition, featuring artists from the remote
Balgo Hills region in Western Australia, was intended
to promote greater understanding and awareness of
Australia’s indigenous cultures, the artworks consisted
of paintings and etchings, besides presenting a range
of stories demonstrating the strong connection that
the Aborginal people have with their traditions. - USS
2nd January – 22 March, 2011
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan –
the Museum well known for its unique
Art collections from all over Asia and
its active efforts to promote Asian Art
tradition and the contemporary Asian
Art, is organizing a special exhibition
of ‘Paubha Art’ of Nepal, between Jan
02 through March 22, 2011 in the Asia
Gallery B of the Museum. This exhibition,
the fifth in the series of the exhibition
“Contemporary Asian Artist”, is seeking
to showcase how this unique medieval art tradition has developed with new
materials and methods such as oil and chiaroscuro of Western Paintings,
while being traditional and religious paintings. The exhibition will feature
about fifty paintings including 15 paintings from the collections of the
Museum itself painted by the some of the eminent Paubha painters of
Nepal today, namely, Uday Charan Shrestha, Dinesh Charan Shrestha, Lok
Chitrakar, Deepak Kumar Joshi and Prem Man Chitrakar among others.
To coincide with the occasion, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is also making a
special publication on the ‘Paubha Art’, which will include an analytical essay
on the Paubha tradition and its current nuances written by Madan Chitrakar
– artist and art writer of Nepal, in addition to the descriptions of the exhibits.
It is widely believed that the exhibition will remain a unique opportunity to
showcase this rich artistic tradition of Kathmandu Valley in Japan and would
greatly help understand the Nepalese culture. – Madan Chitrakar
Let’s talk
about ART baby!
www.spacesnepal.com 22
17 th . December, 2011, Kathmandu
A work of art, as Madan Chitrakar rightly
puts it, is merely a physical object created
by an artist as a product of his or her natural
instinct, which, in the long run, and in the
absence of its creator, would be left to make
dialogues with the viewer irrespective of the
time it is viewed and judged. And to this date,
these lifeless, yet timeless works, continue to
be glorified and debated upon.
“So why do we need to talk about ART?”
further writes Madan Chitrakar, an artist and
an art critique, in his opening lines as he
introduces Sujan Chitrakar, the
artist advocating the statement –
“Let’s talk about ART baby!”
The answer is simple Sujan says,
and explains thus: “...I believe art
to be the output of a fundamental
human characteristic. The
appreciation of art and the
production of art are both
essentially human, but art suffers
from a misunderstood elitism...
what I want to do is bring out the
fact that art is all around us and
January-February 2011
we should talk about art. As an artist, I think it
is my responsibility to bring this out into the
public and show that art could be accessible
and should be everywhere. Thus ‘Let’s talk
about Art, baby’.”
Sujan Chitrakar is an artist, an educator, a
thinker and above all a staunch ART – activist.
His solo exhibition, which he prefers to refer
to as ‘Collaborative Solo’, took off at the
Siddartha Art Gallery, amidst a very large
audience - probably the highest number ever
seen in an art exhibition! - USS