In celebration of South Asian art
The third Dhaka art summit is declared a success
A sampling of South Asia’s most avant-garde arts went on display last week as the Bangladeshi capital played host to the third Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), which is billed as the biggest event for contemporary arts in South Asia.
As the largest non-commercial and research-based exhibition platform for South Asian Art, DAS offered a cornucopia of diverse arts including paintings, video, installation, photography, performance, architecture, film, critical writing and panel discussion.
The event, which ran from February 5 through Monday, saw more than 600 global art connoisseurs, curators, researchers, critics and enthusiasts turn out for the event along with 300 leading artists, curators, and writers from across South Asia.
“To develop DAS as a research platform, we invited curators from different institutions like Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim, and the Kunsthalle Zurich to extend their work deeper into South Asia. Works from the National Gallery archive, the National Museum of Bangladesh, and various private collections are also on display at the exhibition,” said Nadia Samdani, president of the co-organiser, Samdani Art Foundation.
“Many enigmatic things happen around us and we don’t know the reasons for them. Some images simply evoke pure joy and a sense of beauty in our hearts,” said actor, entertainer and politician Asaduzzaman Noor,
“This inexplicable yet easily communicable feeling helps us understand art. We are proud to be a part of the world’s largest display of South Asian art in Bangladesh thanks to the noble initiative of the SAF. The DAS offers a unique opportunity for artistic exchange and interaction between our artists and the artists of the world. I think, this exchange will help our arts and artists reach beyond border,” he added.
The six curated exhibitions at DAS included 17 “Solo Projects”, curated by the SAF’s artistic director Diana Campbell Betancourt; “Rewind” (highlighting 12 South-Asian master artists active before the 1980s); “The Missing One”, curated by Nada Raza; “Mining Warm Data” curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt; “Architecture in Bangladesh”, curated by Aurlien Lemonier; “Performance Pavilion: Shifting Sands Sifting Hands”, curated by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh; and “Soul Searching”, curated by Md Muniruzzaman.
There were also durational performances, films, panel discussions, book launches, a children’s workshop and a critical writing ensemble held in collaboration with the Office of Contemporary Art Norway and Pro Helvetia-Swiss Arts Council.
“Through the showcase of art and its diverse facets in this platform, Bangladeshi art reaches the international arena, augmenting country’s image. I hope the number of foreign tourists will double at the 2018 summit,” said Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon.
DAS was organised in conjunction with Unesco’s celebration of February 21 as the International Mother Language Day, which was initiated in 1999. This year, a sculpture based on the Language Movement by Mrinal Haque is on a month-long display in front of the United Nations in New York.
“This is the best and the largest art summit of Asia and we take great pride in it. We will continue to support it all the way,” said Ama Muhit, the Bangladeshi finance minister who is also an art connoisseur.
