NEW YORK, NY.- The Indo-American Arts Council’s 8th Annual Erasing Borders Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora features work by 43 artists whose origins can be traced to the Indian subcontinent. This group of multinational and intergenerational artists, chosen by curator Vijay Kumar, reflects a broad range of life experiences and aesthetic values. The artists interpret diverse subject matter—figurative, abstract and conceptual—in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, video, sculpture and installation. The resulting works often meld Indian and Western ideas about color, form and subject. This traveling exhibition is presented as part of Asian Contemporary Art Week 2011 and the opening reception at the Queens Museum of Art is scheduled for Sunday, March 27, 2011, from 2 to 5 p.m.
“I am very pleased that this year’s Erasing Borders exhibition is able to include work by 43 artists working in a wide variety of media,” says Kumar. “We are able to showcase work by established artists, as well as introduce work by new young talent to a wider audience. It has been my great privilege to be part of this ever-widening community of artists from the Diaspora.”
“This year the IAAC introduces the ‘Artist of the Year Award’ to recognize a young Diaspora artist who displays exceptional talent and creative potential,” says Aroon Shivdasani, Executive Director of the Indo-American Arts Council. “A distinguished jury of artists and professionals will select a winner, who will then be awarded a solo show in Manhattan; IAAC’s mission is to encourage and support artists in ways such as these. To this end, we are delighted to welcome our new young Exhibitions Director Tanu Jindal to our family”.
Twenty million people of Indian origin shifted countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. Implicit in the term Diaspora are the concepts of change and adaptation. Cultural dislocation can produce unexpected and powerful results. Subject matter is often drawn from the country of origin, while many of the artistic decisions and political concerns come from the artists’ newfound situations. Artists of the South Asian Diaspora are working to make themselves heard in an art world that is at once more competitive and more receptive to non-Western art than ever before. This exhibition seeks to transcend the borders that confine and control preconceived definitions of Indian and Western art.
The exhibition features work by 43 South Asian artists including: Fasihu Ahsan, Mohammed Bari, Samanta Batra Mehta, Fareen Butt, Amita Chatterjee, Sonia Chaudhary, Nandini Chirimar, Neil Chowdhury, Uday K Dhar, Reet Das, Delna Dastur, Anjali Deshmukh, Anujan Ezhikode, Aaliyah Gupta, Mansoora Hassan, Mumtaz Hussain, Tehniyet Hussain, Samina Iqbal, Nidhi Jalan, Sunita Jariwala-Gajjar, Reeta Gidwani - Karmarkar, Kulvinder Kaur Dhew, Aamir Khan Tarin , Srinivas Krishna, Shaurya Kumar , Shobha Menon, Rahul Mitra, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Kuzana Ogg, Avani Patel, Minna Philips, Antonio Puri, Talha Rathore, Rasika Reddy, Sangeeta Reddy, Pinku Roy-Bari, Tara Sabharwal, Satyakam Saha, Pallavi Sharma, Sara Suleman , Roshani Thakore , MD Tokon, Prince Varughese Thomas.
