Date: 18/03/2004
06/06/2004
| 
The Pac of Milan is continuing its programme after the multimedia show of Laurie Anderson with the exhibition ‘Richard Long - Jivya Soma Mashe A meeting in India’, the fourth appointment for the PAC under the artistic direction of Jean-Hubert Martin. The project originated when the celebrated land artist Richard Long met, in India, the master of the traditional art of the Warli tribe, Jivya Soma Mashe. It is curated by the writer and art critic Hervè Perdriolle who lived in India for many years and reaffirms Jean-Hubert Martin’s interest in non western art and dialogue between cultures.
In February 2003 Richard Long passed some time in the state of Maharashtra. He visited a number of villages and met Jivya Soma Mashe and the people of the Warli tribe. While he was there he created various works documented by a series of photographs on display in the exhibition. The two artists, highly appreciated in their respective cultures, were, however, unable to communicate with words, because Mashe only speaks the Warli language so they communicated above all through their art.
The artistic dialogue established between the works created in India by Richard Long, who used natural materials such as rice, ashes, water, or designed archetypical forms with earth, and the narrative paintings by Mashe performed with cow dung and acrylics continues in the exhibition mounted in the rooms of the PAC. Despite their differences, the works of the two artists reveal an affinity between their formal languages. For example circles and spirals occur constantly in both Mashe’s paintings and in Long’s installations. Mashe and Long also have in common an extreme sense or respect and sensitivity towards the earth, landscapes and nature. And there is another element that these two artists belonging to such different cultures share: they use the medium of art to throw a bridge between time and space, between past and present.
From the beginning of the nineteen seventies, when the Indian government started to show a greater interest in the traditional art of tribal communities, Warli art and the extraordinary talent of Jivya Soma Mashe started to gain growing visibility as Mashe is still little known in the West.
The Warli tribe lives about 150 kilometres from Mumbai (ex Bombay) and still today speaks a language which has no written form. It is famous for its mural paintings of supernatural beings and scenes of everyday life. They are painted entirely in white, by applying a mix of rice dough, water and gum resin, which acts as a binder, on the terra cotta walls of huts which are in turn constructed with the simplest materials: branches, clay and cow dung. A bamboo stick is used as a “brush” to trace motifs, based above all on the figures of circles, triangles or squares. Usually these paintings are performed exclusively on ceremonial occasions: weddings, harvest festivals... Jivya Soma Mashe was the first to step beyond the borders of this ritual practice, not just by painting everyday, but also by tracing his motifs on canvas.
The exhibition contains a series of works by Jivya Soma Mashe on paper and painted on canvas dated from 1997 to 2003 and performed using white acrylic paint and dung. Large size works by Richard Long are displayed, created using mud and acrylic paint on wood panels dated 2003 together with a series of photographs that document the works created by the artist during his stay in India. Long has also created works especially for the exhibition. A documentary film is shown together with the works, entitled “Stones and Flies. Richard Long in the Sahara”, made in 1988 by the director Philippe Haas. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta with texts in Italian and French.
During the exhibition the PAC’s educational section will provide guided visits for the public as well as organised workshops and activities for children, families and schools with a programme of initiatives entitled Mud, magic paths and circles! organised with the support of the COOP Lombardia Group. There will also be the third edition of PACinConcerto, appointments for contemporary art and music, based on Indian music and its relationship with western music, and Contemporary appointments, a cycle of conferences on contemporary art with a particular focus on land art.
The exhibition is produced in co-operation with the Museum Kunst Palast of Düsseldorf.
Produced with the support of TOD’S and The New York Times Magazine and the co-operation of the British Council
|
back