Artists on Art: Spring 2007

Contemporary Artists Meet Himalayan Art at K2, Friday evenings at RMA
RMA and ArtAsiaPacific collaborate: individual takes on looking at Himalayan Art

RMA (Rubin Museum of Art) is inviting contemporary artists to give informal talks and tours of the Museum’s galleries on Friday evenings from March 16 to May 25, between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. there is no charge to visit the galleries.

Organized by ArtAsiaPacific, Artists on Art invites speakers from the international and New York contemporary art scene, ranging across generations from artists such as Charwei Tsai, Derrick Adams and Marc Handelman to Jaishri Abichandani, David Abir, Sheela Gowda and Susan Kleinberg, as well as Chinese choreographer Shen Wei. Each artist will interact with and informally discuss their impressions of the richly colorful, largely figurative work that makes up the body of this ancient art form from the Himalayas and surrounding regions. Artists on Art launched successfully in Spring 2006 with participants including Shahzia Sikander, Guy Ben-Ner and DJ Spooky.

Artists on Art is one of four programs taking place at the museum on Friday nights. In addition to Artists on Art there are theater programs at 7 p.m., Cabaret Cinema at 9:30 p.m. and either a DJ or live music in the K2 Lounge.

From its inception, the Museum has made it a part of its mission to demonstrate the many connections between Himalayan art and contemporary sensibilities. Kiki Smith initiated a project that included over 100 artists in designing prayer flags that were strung from the roof of the Museum the day it opened in October 2004. The first program at the Museum was a discussion on art and impermanence between Joan Jonas, Arlene Shechet and Julian LaVerdiere. An exhibition of contemporary art titled "The Missing Peace: Contemporary Artists Consider the Dalai Lama" is scheduled for the spring of 2007.

Pat Steir - Pat Steir (b. 1938) is a printmaker who has exhibited her work extensively since the 1970s. Steir has taught extensively in New York and California, and was a founding member of Printed Matter book store, also an organization that has helped define the meaning of artist books. She lives in New York and Amsterdam.

Friday, March 23, 7:30 pm: Yoko Inoue

In 2000, Yoko Inoue graduated with an MFA from Hunter College, New York. Inoue, born in 1964, creates installations that investigate the interface of spirituality and commerce, and believes that advertising fosters patterns of consumption and desire. Her work also seeks to address Japanese and American traditions that result in a dialogue about the complexity of cultural meaning. She resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Friday, March 30, 7:30 pm: Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet’s work is inspired by Buddhist iconography, growth and enlightenment in a variety of forms and materials. Known for her installations that reinterpret monuments, temples, and cities using innovative processes, she always relates the images back to her Eastern influences. Shechet’s installations are meditative spaces filled with a myriad of constructed vessels and as with Buddhism, her art is very much about the journey. Shechet lives and works in New York City.

Friday, April 6, 8:30 pm: Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic is a performance artist who investigates and pushes the boundaries of physical and mental potential. Abramovic's art is not sensationalism but a series of experiments aimed at identifying and defining the limits of control over her own body; of an audience's relationship with a performer; of art and by extension, of the codes that govern society. Abramovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and currently lives in Amsterdam.

Friday, April 13: No tour

Friday, April 20, 7:30 pm: Lee Mingwei

Lee Mingwei has continually focused on themes of trust and self-awareness in projects that create a potential for active exchange. Intrigued by parallels between art-making and prognostication, both of which draw on observation and intuition to reveal possibilities. Lee Mingwei creates projects that test the limits of when and where such transformative experiences may take place, and has sensitively framed aspects of everyday life into experiences of potential discovery and renewal. Lee Mingwei was born in Taiwan, currently lives and works in New York City and Berkeley, California.

Friday, April 27, 7:30 pm: Kamrooz Aram

Painter Kamrooz Aram was born in 1978 in Shiraz, Iran, and is a graduate of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and Columbia University. His current works are inspired by a blend of musical composition, traditional Persian imagery and Sufist literature. He is represented by Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery and currently resides in New York City.

Friday, May 5, 7:30 pm: Chitra Ganesh

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Chitra Ganesh received a BA in Art-Semiotics and Comparative Literature from Brown University (magna cum laude) and an MFA from Columbia University. Over the past years, her work has appeared in Fatal Love, Queens Museum of Art, 2005; Subcontingent, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, 2006; One Way or Another, Asia Society, New York, 2006; and will appear in Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves, ZKM, Karlsruhe. Ganesh has also received wide critical support with ten reviews in The New York Times and articles in Flash Art, Marie Claire,
Art Asia Pacific, Art in America, Art India, Newsweek, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, among others.

Friday, May 11, 7:30 pm: Tenzing Rigdol

Born in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1982, Rigdol is a 2004 graduate of the University of Colorado at Denver with a degree in painting, drawing, art history and philosophy. He was the recipient of a scholarship to study Tibetan classical painting in Dharamsala, India. At a young age he was admitted to the School of Tibetan Thangkha Painting where he studied under the guidance of Master Phenpo Tentar and Tenzing Gawa. He also studied traditional Tibetan carpet design in an affiliated institute of Tibetan Children's Village, a school founded by H. H. the Dalai Lama.

Friday, May 18, 7:30 pm: Heman Chong

Heman Chong is an artist, a curator and a science fiction writer based in Berlin and Singapore. He received his M.A in Communication Art & Design from The Royal College of Art, London (2002). His practice involves an investigation into the reasons and methods where people imagine the future and how it can be represented as a series of conceptually generated objects, situations and texts. His solo exhibitions include: "The Silver Sessions", Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2003); "Snore Louder if you can", The Substation, Singapore (2004); "Vexillogy, Cartography and other Stories", Ellen
de Bruijne Projects (Dolores), Amsterdam, Holland (2005), "Philip", Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland (2006); "The Sole Proprietor and other Stories", Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China (2007); "Common People and other Stories", Art In General, New York, USA (2007). The artist represented Singapore in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). He has also participated in the Scape Biennale, Christchurch (2006), the 5th Busan Biennale (2004), the Jarkarta Biennale (2003) and the 10th India Triennale (2001). Heman Chong is represented by Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou, China). He is currently Artist-in-
Residence in Art In General and his exhibition, "Common People and other Stories" will open on 30 May 2007, combined with an artist talk at 6.30pm on the premises of Art In General at 79 Walker Street, New York.

Friday, May 25, 7:30 pm: Clive Murphy

Irish artist Clive Murphy has been based in New York since 2005. Working through the mediums of sculpture, installation and drawing Murphy’s practice draws from the peripheries of visual culture, mining diverse sources such as porn spam, folk art, evangelical sermon titles, found audio cassette tape, technical drawings and fairground inflatables. He appropriates and reconfigures familiar signifiers in order to explore their wider cultural resonance, uncovering new ground for the proliferation of diverse meanings. He received both his B.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Ulster, Belfast and has exhibited extensively abroad including Berlin, London, Prague, Shanghai and Ireland. Most recently, Murphy completed residencies at The Drawing Center, New York and Mercer Union Gallery in Toronto. He has upcoming solo exhibitions scheduled in Belfast, London and Minneapolis as well as an international residency program at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. His first solo exhibition in New York, entitled "Scapes", opened at Magnan Projects on May 10.

Click here to view the Fall 2006 participants.