Invitation

The Exhibition

Closing Reception

Queens Museum

Reeta Karmarkar

Vijay Kumar

Bivas Chaudhuri

Satish Joshi

Siona Benjamin

Tara Sabharwal

Nitin Mukul

Ela Shah

Vinod Dave

Nandini Chirimar

Antonio Puri

Anna Bhushan

Delna Dastur

Niyeti Chadha

Alka Mukerji

Yamini Nayar

Press Release

Photos

Reviews


Queens Museum of Art Queens Museum of Art
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY 11368-3398
718.592.9700
www.queensmuseum.org
Contact: Krista N. Saunders
               718-592-9700 x221
               ksaunders@queensmuseum.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    
THE QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART AND THE
PRESENT ERASING BORDERS: PASSPORT TO CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART
   
ARTISTS OF SOUTH ASIAN DESCENT CHALLENGE PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS OF INDIAN AND WESTERN ART IN THIS POIGNANT EXHIBITION
  
Queens, NY (January 17, 2007) - Erasing Borders: Indian Artists in the American Diaspora, on view at the Queens Museum of Art from February 4 through March 4, 2007, presents a diverse collection of work produced by 16 artists whose origins can be traced to the Indian Subcontinent. A multi-generational selection of artists negotiates Indian and Western approaches to art making. Each artist has developed intensely personal interpretations of the traditional genres of painting, photography, sculpture and prints, landscape, abstraction, Indian miniatures, postmodernism, surrealism, and political history. Together, the works can be seen as an effort to transcend the borders that confine and control preconceived definitions of Indian and Western art.
  
The third annual exhibition of its kind organized by the Indo-American Arts Council, Erasing Borders articulates the interests and concerns of diaspora artists living in contemporary society. Not unlike their predecessors, they have also drawn on subject matter from India while referencing the political conditions of their current environment. They examine issues such as AIDS, poverty and South Asian identity in a post-9/11 world. These artists also grapple with the religious, sexual and ethnic dimensions of this complex reality.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, 20 million people of Indian descent relocated to different countries. Erasing Borders demonstrates how adaptation, an inextricable feature of diaspora, has been employed as both a mode of survival and an artistic strategy amidst geographic and cultural changes. Following India's independence from British rule, Indian artists abroad had to contend with traditional mores in a modern environment. Ultimately, these artists created their own language of expression by blending Indian aesthetic tropes with the newfound demands of their minority status.
  
Erasing Borders also enriches the dialogue between today's diaspora artist community and a flourishing contemporary art scene in India. Exhibition curator Vijay Kumar observes, "This is a high time in the Indian contemporary art market...with dealers, buyers and investors busy in their business techniques…and artists with cell phones stuck to their ears... I am thinking about our little exhibition Erasing Borders, showing work from a small diaspora artist group living in the United States. Whether our art has any effect on what's going on in Indian art today or not, we are telling our stories through our talents." While past traditions were often a point of departure for earlier generations, contemporary Diaspora artists must also embrace and reinterpret an India that is more modern than ever.
  
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Siona Benjamin Reeta Karmarkar
Anna Bhushan Vijay Kumar
Niyeti Chadha Alka Mukerji
Nandini Chirimar Nitin Mukul
Bivas Chaudhuri Yamini Nayar
Delna Dastur Antonio Puri
Vinod Dave Tara Sabharwal
Satish Joshi Ela Shah
    
ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT
Erasing Borders: Indian Artists in the American Diaspora is a traveling exhibition organized by the Indo-American Arts Council sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts.
   
The Queens Museum of Art was established in 1972 to provide a vital cultural center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park for the borough's unique, international population. Today it is home to the Panorama of the City of New York, a 9,335 square foot scale model of the five boroughs, and features temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art that reflect the cultural diversity of Queens, as well as a collection of Tiffany glass from the Neustadt Museum of Tiffany Art. The Museum provides valuable educational outreach through a number of programs geared toward schoolchildren, teens, families, seniors and individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

The Museum's hours are: Wednesday - Friday: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday: 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Admission to the Museum is by suggested donation: $5 for adults, $2.50 for seniors, students and children, and free for member and children under 5. For general visitor information, please visit the Museum's website www.queensmuseum.org or call 718.592.9700.

The Indo-American Arts Council is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit, secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America. The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. IAAC works cooperatively with colleagues around the United States to broaden collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding.

IAAC's focus is to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India to exhibit, perform and produce their works in the US. For more information, please visit or call 212 594 3685.
 
  

  
Home   About Us
Art   Books   Dance   Fashion   Film   Music   Theatre