Arahmaiani “Shadow of the Past”
Tyler Rollins Fine Art
This event has ended.
Tyler Rollins Fine Art presents Shadow of the Past, a solo exhibition of new work by Arahmaiani. The public is cordially invited to the opening reception on Thursday, September 15, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, with a performance by the artist at 7:00 pm as part of Asia Contemporary Art Week’s evening of events in Chelsea.
One of Indonesia’s most seminal and respected contemporary artists, Arahmaiani has long been internationally recognized for her powerful and provocative commentaries on social, political, and cultural issues. In the 1980s and ’90s, she established herself as a pioneer in the field of performance art in Southeast Asia, although her practice also incorporates a wide variety of media, including video, installation, painting, drawing, and sculpture. Since 1980, her work has been included in over one hundred solo and group exhibitions around the world. Her first solo exhibition in the United States, at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in 2014, presented the first ever survey of over 30 years of her performance work. These performances foreground a long and enduring personal and spiritual journey, a process whereby nothing is spared, all is equally scrutinized. They constitute an ongoing exposé of mechanistic thought, beliefs, actions, and policies that plague humanity, manifested in her peaceful, symbolically rich, and often hauntingly beautiful ceremonies, collective marches, and texts that instigate individual and collective vigilance against ignorance and injustice. They point to a common humanity that transcends divisions. Through her performances and other artworks, she acts as a formal and conceptual medium for communication, connectivity, and cooperation between individuals, communities, and nations.
In recent years, a particular focus of Arahmaiani’s work has been on environmental issues in the Tibetan plateau region, where she has been actively collaborating on-site with Buddhist monks and villagers to foster a greater environmental consciousness through an array of ongoing community projects. Shadow of the Past marks the first solo exhibition devoted to her artworks inspired by her ongoing experiences in Tibet. It features two new installation works, videos, and a series of monochromatic paintings, each focusing on themes of spirituality, the interconnectedness of humanity and nature, and the cycle of life and death, all with a particular focus on the feminine element. During the opening reception on September 15, she will debut a new performance integrated into one of the installation works.
Arahmaiani’s works have been performed and exhibited widely in museums and biennials throughout the world, including: the Venice Biennale (2003); Biennale of the Moving Image, Geneva (2003); Gwangju Biennale (2002); Bienal de São Paulo (2002); Performance Biennale, Israel (2001); Biennale de Lyon (2000); Werkleitz Biennale (2000); Bienal de la Habana (1997); Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, Australia (1996); and the Yogya Biennial (1994). In New York City, she was included in the landmark 1996 exhibition, Traditions/Tensions, at Asia Society, as well as Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. Her performances and other artworks have recently appeared in institutions in the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and Indonesia.
Media
Schedule
from September 15, 2016 to October 29, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-09-15 from 18:00 to 20:00