NYAB Event - Amar Kanwar Exhibition

Amar Kanwar Exhibition

This event has ended.
At Marian Goodman Gallery
Media: Video installation

The artist will present two multi-channel installations, "The Torn First Pages," 2004-2008 and "The Lightning Testimonies," 2007, both of which will have their New York premiere in this exhibition.

Born in 1964 in New Delhi where he lives and works, Kanwar has distinguished himself through films and multi-media works which explore the politics of power, violence, sexuality, and justice. His multi-layered installations originate in narratives often drawn from zones of conflict and are characterized by a distinctly poetic approach to the social and political. In retracing history through images, ritual objects, literature, poetry and song, Kanwar creates lyrical, meditative film essays that do not aim to represent trauma or political situations as much as to find ways through them. Kanwar's work looks deeply into the causes and effects and how they are translated into everyday life and cultural forms.

"Imagine the formal presentation of poetry as evidence in a future war crimes tribunal. Imagine nineteen sheets of paper floating forever in the wind…" -- Amar Kanwar, on "The Torn First Pages"

"The Torn First Pages" (2004-2008), a 19-channel film installation in three parts that will be on view in the North Gallery, is presented in honor of the Burmese bookshop owner Ko Than Htay who was imprisoned for 'tearing out the first page' of all books and journals he sold and which contained ideological slogans from the Burmese military dictatorship. The Torn First Pages is also an ode to the thousands engaged in the struggle for democracy in Burma, following the paths of Burmese activism in exile. The films directly, elliptically and metaphorically encounter resistance and the struggle for a democratic socity, contemporary forms of non violence, political exile, memory, and dislocation.