Opening Reception: Thursday, August 6th, 2009, 7pm – 9pm
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, August 6th – Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Venue: Elizabeth Foundation For The Arts, Project Space
323 West 39th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenue)
2nd Floor, New York, NY 10018
On View: Monday – Saturday, 11:00am – 5:00pm

New York, NY- July 31st, 2009: The Indo-American Arts Council, (IAAC) is proud to present Erasing Borders 2009: Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora curated by Vijay Kumar. The exhibition explores the themes of cultural dislocation, memory, exile and spiritual inheritances implicit in the word; Diaspora. The exhibition comprising of 27 contemporary artists is a mix of painting, drawing and prints, photographs, C-prints, photomontages and videos; sculpture and installation. The show opens at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts on Thursday, August 6th 2009 with an opening reception from 7pm - 9pm. The show will travel to the Queens Museum of Art and the Gallery at Penn in the coming months.

This community exhibition explores and draws from the experiences of artists whose origins can be traced to the Indian subcontinent. Cultural dislocation often produces unexpected and profound results; memory collides with exile, culture engages with adaptation to understand the powerful and often disturbing concepts of change and assimilation. The artists confront issues of sexuality, terror, disease and multiple identities to weave together existence in a globalized context while subject matter is often drawn from the country of origin, many of the aesthetic values and political concerns come from the artists' newfound situations. The result deserves a new "ism", a new journey to an old destination.

"Quite a few of the artists--both abstract and figurative--describe their work (or the impetus behind it) in spiritual terms, and many of the works comment directly on environmental and political issues. Khalil Chishtee's figures are made out of plastic bags. Jagdish Prabhu has 'drawn' his figures in soot (carbon), the much maligned but primal substance… (whose)...'fluidity and etherealness embody the ephemeral nature of existence.' Pritika Chowdhry's installation titled "What the Body Remembers" is comprised of sculptures' that investigate the potential of the… fragmented body to invoke collective narratives of trauma', says, Vijay Kumar.

The exhibition features works by Niyeti Chadha Kannal, Nandini Chirimar, Khalil Chishtee, Neil Chowdhury, Pritika Chowdhry, Anjali Deshmukh, Anujan Ezhikode, Indira Freitas Johnson, Asha Ganpat, Ina Kaur, Adil Mansuri, Divya Mehra, Samanta Batra Mehta, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Jagdish Prabhu, Antonio Puri, Alka Raghuram, Gautam Rao, Amin Rehman, Tara Sabharwal, Pallavi Sharma, Mumtaz Hussain, Reeta Gidwani Karmarkar, Haresh Lalvani, Alakananda Mukerji, Veru Narula and Prince Varughese Thomas.

For the 2009 Exhibition Schedule, catalogue and further information, please visit or contact: Amina Ahmed, IAAC Director of Exhibitions: amina@iaac.us

Upcoming Exhibition Dates: Erasing Borders 2009 will travel to
The Queens Museum of Art: September 13th - October 18th
The Gallery at Penn: October 13th - December 13th

Our Special thanks to the Consulate General of India, NYSCA, DCA, Dowd Gallery, Crossing Art, Elizabeth Foundation For the Arts, Queens Museum of Art, Pennsylvania College of Technology, India Abroad and Rediff.com, and the Navila Group.

About the Indo-American Arts Council:
The 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. We work cooperatively with colleagues around the United States to broaden our collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. Our 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 here. For more information, please visit

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High resolution pictures are available upon request