Mongol Zurag “The Art of Everyday”

Sapar Contemporary

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Curated by Uranchimeg Tsultemin Ph.D., Edgar and Dorothy Fehnel Chair of International Studies and Assistant Professor of Asian Art at Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University

Sapar Contemporary is delighted to present the first exhibition dedicated to Mongolian Zurag art in New York City featuring two of the most prominent representatives of this style, D. Uurintuya and Ch. Baasanjav. Mongolian traditional style of painting rooted in a Buddhist pictorial tradition is known as Mongol Zurag (literally: Mongolian picture). This tradition was instrumental in maintaining the cultural identity for Mongolian artists during the period of socialism in the twentieth-century. It was largely suppressed prior to 1990, when Mongolia opened its doors to the world after seventy decades of socialist regime as Asia’s new democratic, multi-party country. Mongol Zurag subsequently was further developed in this century being boosted by contemporary changes of Mongolia’s economy and politics.

Uurintuya Dagvasambuu (b.1979) is a Mongolian contemporary artist trained in a traditional style painting Mongol Zurag at the Institute of Fine Arts, Mongolian University of Arts and Culture graduating in 2002. She began exhibiting while a student since 2001 and showed her solo exhibitions in Ulaanbaatar in 2006 and in 2018. Uurintuya participates in Mongolian Art group exhibitions at home and internationally, which include Las Vegas (2006), Beijing (2008), Hong Kong (2011), Shanghai (2012), Fukuoka, Japan (2012, 2014), London (2012), Düsseldorf (2012), and Queensland, Australia (2015). Uurintuya’s development of traditional motifs, subject matter and pictorial language into unique representations of Mongolian contemporary quotidian has been recognized in Mongolia as her works were often selected as the winners of “The Best Work of the Year” prestigious awards bestowed by the Union of Mongolian Artists annually to only a few artists.

Baasanjav Choijiljav (b. 1977) is a Mongolian contemporary artist trained in a traditional style painting Mongol Zurag at the Institute of Fine Arts, Mongolian University of Arts and Culture in 2000-2005. His solo exhibitions began in 2006 with the works that dwelled on the topics of Mongolian history. Baasanjav is a pioneering artist who began using the traditional motifs outside of their original context and iconographic meaning for addressing political and environmental issues of Mongolia’s neoliberalism. He has shown in Mongolia and internationally since 2005: Hong Kong (2011), Shanghai (2012), Ukraine (2011), London (2012), South Korea (2015). His solo exhibitions were shown at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan (2013), Barcelona (2007), Gwangju, South Korea (2018) and his native Ulaanbaatar (2006, 2019).

Uranchimeg Tsultemin, Ph.D. specializes in art of Mongolia and Tibet. As an Assistant Professor at the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture (1995-2002), she has curated Mongolian art exhibitions internationally: Tsukuba, Japan (1997), New York, NY (2000), Bonn, Germany (2001), Hong Kong (2011), Shanghai (2012), and published on Mongolian art.She received her Ph.D. in History of Art from UC Berkeley in 2009 with the dissertation on Mongolian Buddhist art of the 17th - early 20th c. titled “Ikh Khüree: A Nomadic Monastery and the Later Buddhist Art of Mongolia.”Recently she served as a Lecturer at the Department of History of Art at UC Berkeley, a Visiting Associate Professor at National University of Mongolia, and also is the John W. Kluge Postdoctoral Scholar at Library of Congress. In 2014-15, she is working on Mongolian Buddhist art and texts funded by the American Council of Learned Societies. Dr. Tsultemin is currently the Edgar and Dorothy Fehnel Chair of International Studies and Assistant Professor of Asian Art at Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University.