Intersections at The University of Hawaii at Manoa

Arti Grabowski: Political Theatre

2011-04-13T19:25:00.008-10:00

Our most recent artist in residence Arti Grabowski went back to Poland on Monday. Grabowski was in Residence from March 29 - April 11. On March 30th Arti did a solo performance for the public at The Venue in Downtown Honolulu.

Arti Grabowski, Solo Performance @ The Venue

For the two weeks Arti was in Residence he ran a performance workshop for the undergraduate and graduate performance art classes. The culmination of the workshop was a group performance at thirtyninehotel.

Workshop Performance @ thirtyninehotel

Arti also went and visited Graduate Seminar, held studio visits with graduate students, and served as judge for the Sculpture Clubs "First Floor Cake War". During his two weeks of residency Arti was a presence in the Art Department who had a great impact on the students at UH. Thank you Arti for your energy and dedication.

Irma Boom: In Residence Feb 15 - 25

2011-01-29T20:49:00.003-10:00

Irma Boom, SVH Think Book

In Residence Feb 15 - 25
Lecture Wednesday Feb 23 @ 6 pm - Art Auditorium

Dutch Graphic Designer Irma Boom has concentrated on book design for most of her career. She is known for designing an experience of reading that reflects the contents and authors of her books. In 1996, she was commissioned to design SVH's centenary Think Book. It has 2,136 pages, with no page numbers or index, and is printed on a paper Boom invented to suit the haptic experience of discovery through coincidence. Her design of Shelia Hicks: Weaving as a Metaphor was awarded the gold medal for "Most Beautiful Book in the World" at the Liepzig Book Fair in 2007.

Julius Vermeulen: In Residence Feb. 15 - 25

2011-01-29T20:33:00.003-10:00

Julius Vermeulen, TNT Children Stamps, 2010

In Residence Feb. 15 - 25
Lecture Thursday February 24 @ 6pm - Art Auditorium

Julius Vermeulen is the Art and Design advisor for the Dutch Postal Service [TNT]. TNT Post has helped shape the design and cultural climate in the Netherlands since the 1920's with their award winning stamp designs and corporate communications.

Andrew Binkley: Lecture March 9th @ 6 pm - Art Auditorium

2011-01-29T20:22:00.006-10:00

Andrew Binkley, Just Being

Lecture March 9 @ 6 pm - Art Auditorium
Cosponsored by The Contemporary Museum

In 1996 Andrew Binkley attended the Kansas State Art Institute, and after two years left school in order to travel throughout China which led to his ordaining as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. Throughout Binkley's work as an artist, he has utilizes a variety of media and approaches, in particular photography and video installation, to uncover and explore our notions of time and patterns of human behavior. Drawing upon his experience as a Buddhist monk, Binkley investigates the relationship of cause and effect and our own relationship with the patterns of conditions arising and passing away. Binkley's work has been exhibited internationally and will be on display at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu at First Hawaiian Center.

Arti Grabowski: In Residence March 29 - April 11

2011-01-29T20:00:00.005-10:00

Arti Grabowski, 3 Wishes

Political Theater
In Residence March 29 - April 11
Solo Performance: March 30 @ 7 pm, The Venue, 1144 Bethel St. [Free and open to the public]
Workshops: 3/29, 3/31, 4/5, 4/7
Workshop Performance: April 18 @ 6 pm, 39hotel [Free and open to the Public]

Arti Grabowski received his MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland with a concentration in Multimedia and Performance. Grabowski is a member of Fort Suzuki Association, and has worked collaboratively for many years with "Body Snatchers" Alternative Theater. He uses his body, the audience, and everyday settings to create performances that are strong, full of energy and humor, but also wield thoughtful criticism about the effects of socialist and democratic systems on individuality.

Toshiaki Tomita : Lecture April 28th @ 12 pm - Art 101

2011-01-29T19:02:00.007-10:00

Toshiaki Tomita, Rainbow in the Wind

Thursday April 28 @ 12 pm- Art Building Rm. 101
Lecture

Toshiaki Tomita received his BA [1994] and MFA [1996] from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Tomita explores the intersection of art and life through narration, story telling, and socially engaged artwork. He works across media in performance, installation, photography, video, drawing and painting. Tomita has exhibited internationally in Japan, Denmark, China, Korea, as well as conducted workshops with communities in Japan, Denmark, and Norway.

Ritsuko Taho & Toyomi Hoshina: Symbiotic Environments

2010-11-07T15:14:00.004-10:00

Ritsuko Taho and Toyomi Hoshina are in Residence at UH Manoa from November 5 - 9.

Their exhibition, Symbiotic Environments will be on display in the Commons Gallery and Architecture Gallery from Nov. 7 - 19.

Opening reception is Monday Nov. 8 at the Commons Gallery at 5 pm. This will be followed by a panel discussion at 6 pm in the UHM Art Auditorium with the artists as well as Mary Babcock, James Jack, and Gaye Chan.

Ritsuko Taho and Toyomi Hoshina bring the interrelation of nature and culture to the forefront
of art.
Taho received her MFA in Sculpture from Yale in 1985 and Hoshina received his PhD in painting from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1984. Their work is often composed of organic matter such as leaves, plants and soil; but moves beyond the convention of the "natural environment" to include the complexities of social environments.

Afruz's interview with Noe Tanigawa

2010-11-05T11:30:00.001-10:00

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Afruz Amighi

2010-11-04T12:31:00.004-10:00

Intersections second visiting artist of the fall 2010 semester Afruz Amighi arrived this week and will be in residence at UHM from November 1-12.
Afruz Amighi will be giving a public lecture on Wednesday November 10 @ 6 pm in the UHM Art Auditorium.

Amighi is fascinated by pattern and shadow. Her work often references Islamic screens, hanging lamps, and other architectural fragments that then cast shadow and light on her relationship to present day Tehran, the city in which she was born.

The artist recently received her MFA from NYU [ 2007], and currently lives in New York. She won the prestigious Jameel Prize [ for contemporary artists inspired by Islamic craft traditions] in 2009.

Heather Rowe: The Framed Guests

2010-11-03T21:49:00.012-10:00

Intersections first visiting artist of the fall 2010 semester, Heather Rowe, created an installation, The Framed Guests, during her residency at the UH Architecture School Gallery. Students were also given the opportunity to work alongside the artist, helping Rowe in the installation process. The Framed Guests was on display from October 14 - November 5 and was recently reviewed in the Star Advertiser, click here to read the article.
While at UH Heather Rowe also gave a public lecture on her work, conducted a walk through of her exhibition for graduate seminar, and held individual studio visits with graduate students.

Below are images of Rowe's installation The Framed Guests.

Images are courtesy of the artist

2010-10-04T13:19:00.002-10:00

Heather Rowe, Tenuous Arrangements [installation detail] , 2010

Heather Rowe

Residency: Oct. 4 - 15

Lecture: Wednesday, Oct. 6 @ 6 p.m., Art Auditorium

Cosponsored by Inter island Terminal and the UHM Architecture School

Exhibition: UH Architecture Gallery. Oct. 14 - Nov. 5. Opening Oct. 14th @6pm.

Heather Rowe is a New York sculptor. She has recently shown in the Whitney Biennial, Andrea Rosen Gallery, and P.S.1 in New York. Her minimalist sculptural installations draw inspiration from both cinema and architecture. With common construction materials, Rowe creates abstract structures that suggest three dimensional translation of film frames. Her hybrid constructions also refer to our culture of prefabricated building- Home Depot, strip malls, and housing tracts. They often focus on transitional spaces such as corridors, stud-walls, windows and doorways- the architectural " sets" for our consumer fantasies.

Lynne Yamamoto and Alison Moritsugu

2010-09-01T15:43:00.006-10:00

Alison Moritsugu, InvRepeat

Lynne Yamamoto, Sweating Bone China [ detail], 2009

Lynne Yamamoto and Alison Moritsugu

Layover Lecture: Sept. 29th @ 6 p.m., the ART Auditorium

Cosponsored by The Contemporary Museum

Yamamoto and Moritsugu are both participating in The Contemporary Museums Artist in Residence program this year. They will be doing site-specific works in June 2011 on the TCM grounds. These two internationally recognized, Hawaii-born artists join us to talk about their recent work. Both have become well known for considering the history of Hawaii and its altered landscape and arts traditions. Lynne Yamamoto will give us insights into her quietly evocative installations of crochet, embroidery, and porcelain ceramics. Alison Moritsugu will talk about her Luminist landscape paintings of edenic nature made on cut logs and her recent experiments with wallpaper decorated with repeating patterns of invasive species.

Afruz Amighi

2010-09-01T15:22:00.009-10:00

Afruz Amighi, Angels in Combat [detail]

Afruz Amighi

Residencey: Nov 1-12

Lecture: Wednesday, Nov. 10th @ 6 p.m., Art Auditorium

Cosponsored by Shangri La

Afruz Amighi's work explores the often-tumultuous social and political history of Iran. Though Amighi was born in Tehran, she currently lives and works in New York [ she received her MFA from NYU in 2007]. Highlighting her own absence from the people and events of Iran, she casts a unique perspective on its history. In her series, 1001 Pages, Amighi creates intricate shadow pieces utilizing a stencil burner to hand cut thin plastic sheets used for refugee tents. Amighi was awarded the Jameel Prize in 2008 for 1001 Pages. She joins us to talk about her recent work.

Ritsuko Taho and Toyomi Hoshina

2010-09-01T15:13:00.007-10:00

Toyomi Hoshina " Looking for the Sun at Night" Installation 2010

Ritsuko Taho " Green Villa" Eichigo- Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan, Permanent Installation 2003

Symbiotic Environments

Ritsuko Taho and Toyomi Hoshina

Residencey: Nov. 5-9

Exhibition in the Commons Gallery: Nov. 7 -19

Lecture and Opening: Monday, Nov. 8th @ 5 p.m. in Commons Gallery and ART 101

Cosponsored by Sustainability Initiative of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, College of Arts and Humanities, Waikiki Parc Hotel, and the Japan-American Society of Hawai'i

Internationally renowned artists from Tokyo, Toyomi Hoshina and Ritsuko Taho bring the interrelation of nature and culture to the forefront of art. Their work, often composed of organic matter such as leaves, plants, and soil, moves beyond the conventions of what is considered the " natural environment" to include the complexities of social environments.

FALL INTERSECTIONS

2010-08-24T16:05:00.000-10:00

Upcoming events:

Lynne Yamamoto and Alison Moritsugu
Layover Lecture: Sept. 29th, 6pm ART Auditorium.
Cosponsored by The Contemporary Museum

Yamamoto and Moritsugu are both featured artists in this year’s Biennial of Hawaii Artists at The Contemporary Museum. These two internationally recognized, Hawaii-born artists join us to talk about their recent work. Both have become well known for considering the history of Hawaii and its altered landscape and arts traditions. Lynne Yamamoto’s through her quietly evocative, installations of crochet, embroidery and porcelain ceramics. Alison Moritsugu through her Luminist landscape paintings of edenic nature made on cut logs.

Heather Rowe
Residency: Oct. 4- 15
Lecture: Wednesday, Oct. 6 @ 6pm., Art Auditorium
Exhibition at the UH architecture school, opening the week of Oct. 11th.
Cosponsored by Inter island Terminal and the UHM Architecture School

Rowe’s sculptural installations draw inspiration from both cinema and architecture. With common construction materials Rowe creates abstract structures that suggest a three dimesional series of frames of the film sequences. Her hybrid constructions that refer to our culture of prefabricated building – Home Depot, strip malls, and housing tracts, often focus on transitional spaces such as corridors, stud-walls, windows and doorways.

Afruz Amighi
Residency: Nov. 1 – 12
Lecture: Wednesday, Nov. 10th @ 6pm, Art Auditorium
Cosponsored by Shangri La

Taho Ritsuko and Hoshina Toyomi:
Residency: Nov. 8-19
Exhibition: Relational Environments
Opening and Lecture: Monday, Nov. 8th, Commons Gallery

Fakataha Pasifika with Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi- April 6 - 28, 2010

2010-03-28T17:14:00.009-10:00

Fakataha Pasifika [weaving Pasifika together] is a three week celebration of the connections between Tonga, Hawai'i, and the islands of the Pacific through explorations - led by Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi- into the ancient art of lalava and it's modern expressions.

Fakataha Pasifika Schedule of Events:

Tuesday April 6th: Classroom Presentation, UH Manoa Dept of Art and Art History, Oahu

Wednesday April 7th: PUBLIC EVENT- 6pm, lecture, UH Manoa Art Auditorium, Oahu

Saturday April 10th: PUBLIC EVENT- 10 am - 12 noon, and 2 pm - 4 pm [two sessions], Sculpture demonstration and workshop, UH Manoa Dept of Art and Art History, Oahu - space limited pre-registration required- email Meganb7@hawaii.edu

Monday April 12: PUBLIC EVENT - 4 pm lecture and presentation, UH Hilo, room UCB 127, Hawai'i Island.

Tuesday April 13th: Classroom presentation, UH Hilo, Hawai'i Island

Wednesday April 14: PUBLIC EVENT- 6:30- 8:30 p.m., Evening Seminar, East West Center, UH Manoa, Oahu.

Friday April 16: Classroom presentations, Tongan language classes, UH Manoa, Oahu

Saturday April 17: Workshop for cultural practitioners and artists at Kahuwai in Puna, Hawai'i Island

Sunday April 18: PUBLIC EVENT - 9:30 a.m. to noon, workshop, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park, Kona, Hawai'i Island

Monday April 19: Classroom presentations, Kanu o ka 'Aina Hawaiian Academy, Waimea, Hawai'i Island

Fakataha Pasifika is sponsored by Intersections, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, and Pasifika Foundation Hawai'i

Sculpture Workshop with Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi

2010-03-15T17:09:00.004-10:00

Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi is this spring semesters Artist in Residence. Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi will be in residence from April 6 - 28, 2010. He will be giving a free public lecture on Wednesday April 7, 2010 - 6 pm- in the UH Art Auditorium.
On April 10, 2010 Tohi will be holding a sculpture workshop at the UH Art Department Woodshop.
Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi has dedicated the last twenty years of his career to studying the complex geometric patterns of lalava lashings. Tohi states" I believe lalava patterns were a mnemonic device for representing a life philosophy. Lalava patterns advocate balance in daily living and were metaphorical ties to cultural knowledge." In this workshop he will demonstrate his techniques for exploring lalava patterns in contemporary media. Participants will have the opportunity to apply his methods in building their own small sculptures.
This workshop will be held:

April 10,2010
10 am - 12 pm
UHM Art Dept Woodshop [rm 103]

Sign up is limited to 15 people.
To sign up email: Meganb7@hawaii.edu.
RSVP by April 2, 2010

Walid Raad's Artist Lecture Online

2010-02-03T12:45:00.007-10:00

Revisit Walid Raad's artist lecture by viewing the video excerpt above. Walid Raad was a visiting artist and scholar at UH from October 18th - 24th, 2009. For more information about Walid Raad visit: http://www.theatlasgroup.org

Art Work: A National Conversation About Art, Labor, and Economics

2010-01-19T16:45:00.006-10:00

The UHM Art Department is collaborating with internationally recognized Temporary Services, an independent, Chicago based art collective. Art Work features a newspaper written by artists, activists, and academics on the topic of working amidst depressed economies and how that impacts artistic process, compensation, and artistic property. The exhibition will also include local responses to the current economic climate. Art Work will be on display in the UHM Commons Gallery from March 21st to April 2nd 2010. Stay tuned for selected lectures and activities.

Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi- April 7th- Artists Lecture

2010-01-19T15:44:00.006-10:00

Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi is Intersections featured artist in residence for the Spring Session, in collaboration with the Center for Pacific Island Studies, and Pasifika Foundation, Hawai'i. His visit will be from April 6th to April 28, 2010. He will give a lecture on April 7th at 6pm in the Art Auditorium.
Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi was born in Ngeleia Nuku'alofa Tonga, and emigrated to Aotearoa/ New Zealand in 1978. He has been a full time artist and sculptor since 1992 and is firmly established as one of the leading contemporary Pacific visual artists. Working across a range of media, including stone, wood, steel and digital imagery, he seeks to expand upon and delve deeper into the mysteries of the ancient Tongan art of lalava. His work transforms technology of the past into modern representations of identity and experience.

Joan Lebold Cohen - Wednesday March 17th

2010-01-18T20:29:00.008-10:00

On Wednesday March 17th 6pm, at the Law School classroom #2, Joan Lebold Cohen will give a lecture on a number of high profile female artists from China in Half the Sky: Chinese Women Artists in the 1990's and the Millennium.

Joan Lebold Cohen is an art historian and photographer who specializes in Chinese Art and Film. Her travels to China commenced soon after Nixon's visit and she lived there during the dramatic, post Cultural Revolution period of 1978-81. Her book The New Chinese Painting 1949-1986 introduced the recent generations of Chinese artists to the West. Joan Lebold Cohen is co-author with her husband, Jerome Alan Cohen, of China Today and her Ancient Treasures[ 3rd ed. 1986]. Joan Lebold Cohen is currently a research fellow at Harvard University's Fairbanks Center for East Asian Studies.

Fay Ku- Wednesday March 10th

2010-01-18T20:16:00.005-10:00

Fay Ku will have a solo exhibition at The Contemporary Museum of Hawaii in Honolulu FACE ALL EYES, EYES ALL HANDS from February 11 to May 16th 2010. Intersections has invited the artist to come talk about her work on March 10th, 6 pm in the Art Building Auditorium
Ku was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1974 and immigrated to the United States shortly before her third birthday. She has an MFA from the Pratt Institute. Her intimate and precise draftsmanship opens up a fantastic world of personal folklore that examines the tension between whimsy and aggression. She composes her psychological narratives of young female protagonists engaged in alluring, but often disturbing situations, with a fluid of graphic sensibility and brilliant color patterning.

Claire Park - March 2nd -Fibers Studio Visit / March 7th- Lecture

2010-01-18T19:59:00.009-10:00

On Tuesday March 2, 2010 at 10 am Claire Park will be visiting the Fiber Studio to speak about her work and process. On Sunday March 7, 2010 at 2 pm, Claire Park will be presenting her thoughts and research related to her book Creating with Reverence: Art, Diversity, Culture, and Soul at the East West Center Gallery.
Claire Park is the Head of the Color and Fiber areas at Pima Community College in Tucson, AZ.
Her lecture inspires us to expand our cultural perspectives and form a dynamic creative foundation through reflections on artists who are committed to life giving values including: Maria Martinez, a Pueblo Potter, the wood workers of Kyoto, Japan, painters from Australia who honor their aboriginal ancestry, the weavers of Chiapas, Mexico, DIY and leading contemporary artists. Audiences are invited to refine insight on the relationship of creativity to a continuity of generations, concepts of time, the significance of beauty, craftsmanship, our daily lives and spiritual well being.

November 5th Artist Talk : Charles Yuen

2009-10-26T20:46:00.005-10:00

On Thursday November 5th Charles Yuen will be giving an artist talk at 5 pm in Rm 101 of the UHM Art Building.

Charles Yuen lives and paints in New York City. He is a recent recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. One person exhibitions in New York City have been at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Art in General, Metaphor Contemporary Art, LeoTony Gallery, and the Asian American Arts Center. Reviews of his work have appeared in numerous publications including Art in America, the New York Times, Time Out, and Art Papers. Originally from Hawaii, he enjoys a rich mix of cultural influences and iconoclastic humor in his art.

Intersections Call For Nominations

2009-10-23T20:10:00.004-10:00

Who do you think would make a great Intersections visitor?

Each academic year, the Intersections Program invites artists and scholars, known locally, nationally, and internationally, in order to enliven and promote the growth of arts appreciation and awareness at UHM and on O'ahu. Intersections organizes lectures, studio visits, class discussion, as well as collaborative art projects, performances, and exhibitions that explore the relevance of artistic practice to inspire critical thinking and broaden perspectives on contemporary cultural issues. The Intersections Committee is now soliciting nominations of artists/scholars for the upcoming 2010-2012 cycle.

All nominations:

must be received by November 1^st
Should be sent electronically to intersectionscommittee@gmail.com
Please include a short written statement about the artist/scholar (this will be used as the primary basis for voting on nominees, so make sure it is concise, clear, informative and convincing)
If you are nominating a visual artist, please include 2 jpegs of their art work and links to more of their work if available.
Please include a current CV

Nominations will be voted upon by the art and art history faculty by Nov. 15^th.

Questions? Contact Jaimey Hamilton jaimeyh@hawaii.edu. 956-5253

Walid Raad: Artist in Residence

2009-10-06T15:53:00.005-10:00

Walid Raad will be in residence from October 18th - 24th 2009. Raad will give a free artist lecture on Wednesday October 21, 2009 6 pm at the UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium.

Walid Raad was born in Chbanieh, Lebanon in 1967. He lives and works in New York. Raad’s photographic work addresses the relationship between official national histories of Lebanon and international media fantasies about the Middle East.

He will speak about The Atlas Group (1989 and 2004), a project consisting of found and imaginary documents that engage the contemporary history of Lebanon, with particular emphasis on the wars of 1975 to 1990. The Atlas Group is a fictitious organization composed of fabricated personas. One of the members, historians Dr. Fadl Fakhouri, for instance, has compiled an archive that consists of all of the car bombs that have been detonated between 1975 and 1991. The evidence quickly becomes thin and absurd. These types of representations critique the authority and authenticity of official histories of nation-hood. The archive is available on the web at theatlasgroup.org, lending it an air of authenticity.

Raad is an Associate Professor of Art at the Cooper Union, New York. His works have been exhibited widely, including Documenta X (Kassel, Germany), The Whitney Biennale in 2000 and in 2002 (New York, USA), as well as Homeworks III (Beirut, Lebanon). Raad is a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of the 2007 Alpert Award in Visual Arts.

Michel Tuffery: Artist in Residence

2009-09-18T11:41:00.008-10:00

Artist in Residence Michel Tuffery has been visiting graduate studios this week to view the current work of students and share his insights with them. Pictured [top left] is Michel visiting the graduate studio of Kumi Nakajima.

On Wednesday September 16th Michel also held an afternoon portfolio review session for undergraduate students. Pictured [bottom left] is undergraduate student Sheri Lyles during her portfolio review with Michel.

Michel Tuffery: Artist in Residence

2009-09-11T11:25:00.004-10:00

Thursday September 10th Michel Tuffery visited Graduate Seminar 601 to answer questions from the previous nights lecture and to share some of his printed works. Michel will also be visiting graduate students individually in their studios for more one on one conversations and critiques of graduate student work.

Michel Tuffery Lecture

2009-09-10T08:43:00.021-10:00

Last night [September 9th] our current artist in residence Michel Tuffery held a public lecture for the community about his artwork. The lecture was followed by a BBQ for Michel who will be in residence until September 18th. While here he will be visiting graduate studios, holding a portfolio review for undergraduate students[ September 16 1-3 in the photo courtyard], and visiting classes.

If you weren't able to make it last night's lecture, Michel is giving another Lecture at UH West Oahu Campus on September 12th at 12:30pm.

Michel Tuffery: Visiting Artist In Residence

2009-08-25T19:55:00.008-10:00

Michel Tuffery will be in residence at UHM from September 8 - 18th 2009.

There will be a free public lecture by Michel Tuffery September 9th, 2009 6 pm @ the UHM Art Building Auditorium. See You There!

For more information on Michel Tuffery's work and most recent accomplishments click on the following LINK

Coming in the FALL

2009-05-12T16:26:00.002-10:00

MICHEL TUFFERY

September 8-18, 2009: Michel Tuffery

Michel Tuffery is a sculptor based in New Zealand who creates work inspired by the relationship between indigenous cultures and environmentalism.

His website is http://www.micheltuffery.co.nz/

He was born in 1966 in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand and currently lives and works there. One of the Pacific Island region's most established contemporary artists, he is celebrated for his witty and insightful comments on the cultural, environmental and political issues of the region. An artist of Samoan, Tahitian and Cook Island descent, Tuffery has been awarded several national and international art prizes, public commissions and residencies. Since gaining his Diploma of Fine Arts at Otago Polytechnic (NZ), and pursuing further Fine Arts study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Tuffery has held numerous exhibitions and performances throughout the Pacific and his work is in public collections throughout New Zealand and internationally, including the National Gallery of Australia. His work was also included in the First and Third Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibitions.

Among his most recognized works are his corned beef bull sculptures, made from recycled corned beef tins, which seek to address the social, political and environmental issues related to the cultural importation and consumption of Western style canned foods in the Pacific. Performances associated with these “bulls” have been held in New Caledonia, Auckland, NZ, and in Brisbane involving local indigenous communities. More recently, his work has also incorporated environmental and ecological issues as they relate to the survival of local cultures in the Pacific and New Zealand.

Coming in the FALL

2009-05-12T15:28:00.006-10:00

October 18-24, 2009: Walid Raad

Walid Raad lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon and New York. Raad is a conceptual artist whose work often addresses the fluidity and fabricated nature of history. In particular, he is interested in the relationship between official national histories of Lebanon and international media fantasies about the Middle East.

His work includes mixed media installations, performance, video, and photography. His most widely recognized project is The Atlas Group, a fictional online collective. Over a fifteen year period, between 1989 and 2004, he developed this fictitious group of scholars and developed a fake archive of historical documents culled from media sources that relate to the Lebanese wars of 1975 and 1991. The archive is available on the web, lending it an air of authenticity.

Raad also travels around the world performing the scholarly personas he has created, relating small, tangential events to real historical events. The archive of one of his personas, Dr. Fadl Fakhouri, for instance, compiles data on all of the car bombs that have been detonated between 1975 and 1991. The evidence quickly becomes thin and absurd. These types of representations critique the authority and authenticity of official histories of nation-hood.

Raad is an Associate Professor of Art at the Cooper Union, New York. In addition to numerous individual and group shows at major venues throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America, he has been included in Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany), Art Bassel (Switzerland), and the Venice Biennale (Italy). He is represented by the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.

Looking Forward to Next Year!

2009-04-27T12:22:00.004-10:00

Thanks to everyone for their interest in this year's Intersections Programing! Here are a few photos from our last visiting artist, Judy Fox, working on a study of a portrait bust of UH Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw. This was a great opportunity for sculptors to learn Fox's unique technique for building a hollow body sculpture and quickly capturing a likeness. We are so grateful to the chancellor for offering to be Judy Fox's subject. It means so much that Hinshaw supports such amazing learning opportunities as Fox's week-long demonstration! Fox didn't have time to complete the piece to her usual veristic perfection. Still, the piece represents UH Intersections commitment to bringing in internationally acclaimed artists to work with the student and artist community in Hawaii.

Here is a preview of our Fall Intersections artists:

Michel Tuffery: September 7 - September 21, 2009. Tuffery is a sculptor based in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Michel Tuffery is one of the Pacific Island region's most established contemporary artists. He is celebrated for his witty and insightful comments on the cultural, environmental and political issues of the region. An artist of Samoan, Tahitian and Cook Island descent, Tuffery has been awarded several national and international art prizes, public commissions and residencies. To learn more about Tuffery's work, please visithis website at http://www.micheltuffery.co.nz/

Walid Raad: October 18 - October 24, 2009. Raad is a conceptual artist based in Lebanon and New York. Check out his ongoing art project, the Atlas Group, a fictional collaboration at http://www.theatlasgroup.org/. Raad’s visit is planned in collaboration with Shangri La. In addition to regular programming, his visit will include the development of a project based on the Shangri La site.

Judy Fox -- April 13-17th

2009-03-26T14:39:00.004-10:00

Intersections Visit: April 13th – 17th

DEMO:
She will be sculpting a portrait bust of Virginia Hinshaw, our UH Chancellor, in the Ceramics area all week. Demos start on Monday afternoon and will end in finale with a Potluck on Thursday evening at 6:30 in the Ceramics courtyard. Demo times will be posted next to her work area in the ceramics courtyard if anyone is interested in bringing their class down. For more information, please email jaimeyh@hawaii.edu

Public Lecture: Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 @ 6pm
At UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Judy Fox is interested in the longing for beauty and identity imperfectly realized. Her life-sized, hand-modeled ceramic figures suggest the lofty ideals of sculptural “nudes” in the tradition of Bernini and Michelangelo, yet revel in every aspect of nakedness: wrinkles, protruding bone, ambiguous gesture. They exist in a zone somewhere between past and present, eroticism and human flesh, innocence and experience.

Judy Fox is a ceramic sculptor working in New York. She is represented by PPOW gallery in New York, and at GalerieThaddaeus Ropac in Europe. A complete catalogue of figurative sculpture from 1990 to 2005 is available, edited by Austrian critic Barbara Wally.

As an undergraduate Ms. Fox studied sculpture at Yale and Skowhegan, then received a Masters in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. A pioneer of contemporary figuration, she started showing in the East Village in 1985, and has since participated in numerous private and public exhibitions around the US and Europe. She has guest lectured at many schools and museums.

Ms. Fox has received two NEA grants, and an award from the "Anonymous Was a Woman" foundation. She is a fellow of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and is a 2006 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

A Review of Judy Fox at p.p.o.w.

by Mia Fineman

In her installation Sphinx Chapel at P.P.O.W., Judy Fox intimately explores the riddle of the child's body as a meeting point of the erotic and the divine. Modelled in clay and naturalistically painted in delicate pink and brown casein, Fox's life-sized figures of naked children have the fleshy physicality of Duane Hanson sculptures combined with the subtly subversive sexuality of Sally Mann photographs.

Each of the seven figures (ranging from chubby toddlers to barely blooming prepubescent girls) represents a different heroic or mythological character, indicated through an economical cultural shorthand of pose, gesture, and hairstyle. Two toddlers-- a solemnly introverted Dying Gaul and a beatific Friar Tuck with a monk's fringe encircling his bald pate--welcome the viewer into the front alcove. In the main gallery, a pig-tailed Attila aims an invisible bow and arrow at a juvenile Chinese Courtesan , frozen in a seductive and intricately stylized gestural dance. An angelic, blond-ringletted Delilah and a puerile Olympia, one hand coyly draped over her bare pubis, lounge silently at the sidelines. Presiding over the group with a hieratic nobility is the Sphinx, a young girl with her back arched at an impossible angle, her arms thrown back in a kind of benediction, her blond pigtails terminating in horn-like points. While each figure seems plucked from its own private universe, they are linked to each other through a paradoxical blend of humanity and heroicism, vulnerability and worldliness.

April 25 - May 25 1996 P.P.O.W.

Mia Fineman is a New York writer.

LINK to the origianal review online at artnet.com

The Spring 2009 Intersections Overview:

2009-02-10T17:18:00.001-10:00

Ema Tavola, Leilani Kake, and Giles Peterson
Panel Discussion on Contemporary Pacific Art at Mark’s Garage, March 4th, at 6pm

Ema Tavola, Leilani Kake, and Giles Peterson hail from South Aukland, NZ and will be here in conjunction with Pan Pacific: Contemporary Pacific Art, opening at Mark’s Garage on March 3rd through March 28th . Tavola is a visual artist and curator of the Fresh Gallery Otara, a venue for contemporary Pacific Arts in Manukau City. Leilani Kake is an independent artist. Peterson teaches at Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design.

Patrick Nagatani: March 8th -19th
Lecture: March 11th, 6 pm

Nagatani is an established photographer and professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico. Patrick Nagatani’s long and eminent career can be compared to that of a magician. His images are spellbinding: full of color, multiple layers, wonder and whimsy. But with a dexterous sleight of hand, he reveals the fictions we call history and the blind faith we often have in science. Whatever Nagatani is photographing -- people, subways, internment camps, excavations, nuclear test sites -- he concerns himself with exposing the paradoxical relationship of reality and illusion.

Judy Fox: April 13th – 17th
Lecture April 15th, 6 pm

Judy Fox is a ceramicist working out of New York. Judy Fox's life-sized figures, hand-modeled with unusual attention to detail, exist in a zone somewhere between the real and the imagined, past and present, innocence and experience.

Check below for more DETAILS...

Artist Patrick Nagatani to lecture at UH Manoa

2009-01-19T12:47:00.003-10:00

March 8th -19th

Public Lecture: Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 @ 6pm At UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Nagatani is an established photographer and professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico. Patrick Nagatani’s long and eminent career can be compared to that of a magician. His images are spellbinding: full of color, multiple layers, wonder and whimsy. But with a dexterous sleight of hand, he reveals the fictions we call history and the blind faith we often have in science. Whatever Nagatani is photographing -- people, subways, internment camps, excavations, nuclear test sites -- he concerns himself with exposing the paradoxical relationship of reality and illusion.

Patrick Nagatani 's career as a photographer is driven by the notion that color has healing properties. In his earliest work, he became fascinated with the symbolism and emotional power of color. Many of his on-going projects deal with the notion of chromotherapy, based on ancient traditions of using color as a remedy for our individual and social ills.

A master of fabricated photo-dramas, Patrick Nagatani stages elaborate tableaux that pursue the issue of nuclear power with a sense of irony. With thorough disregard for the traditional role of photography as an objective documentation of reality, especially scientific reality, Nagatani’s narratives offer an animated, color-saturated view of the nuclear and military sites of New Mexico. Magic/Myth/Megation presents a magician next to a particle accelerator in a sardonic comment on faith and illusion in the area of scientific expertise. This image and the others that appeared in the book Nuclear Enchantment (1991) reveal Nagatani’s wry sense of humor, mastery of the constructed set, and concern for social issues.

Born in Chicago in 1945, Patrick Nagatani has made his home in New Mexico and turned his attention to this region’s atomic history in the series Nuclear Enchantment. His work has recently been presented in one-person exhibitions at The Albuquerque Museum; the California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside; CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Isla Center for the Arts at the University of Guam, Mangilao; and at the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, England, among other venues. Nagatani has received numerous honors and awards for his work. His monographs include Nuclear Enchantment (1991) and Patrick Nagatani/Andree Tracey: Polaroid 20 × 24 photographs: 1983—1986 (1987).

Patrick Nagatani is a Japanese-American who grew up in a Polish neighborhood and was raised a Catholic. His father's family lived outside of Hiroshima, Japan. Nagatani has a design background and has painted Hollywood movie sets and worked with special effects, which led to his obsession with building scale models. From 1983-1989 he collaborated with artist Andree Tracey, building and photographing extensive, theatrical "tableaux." Nagatani moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1987, where his work focused on nuclear power and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. A member of the Atomic Photographers Guild, he teaches photography at the University of New Mexico.

An evening with Judy Fox

2009-01-19T12:17:00.017-10:00

April 13th – 17th
Public Lecture: Wednesday, Lecture April 15th, 2009 @ 6pm At UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Judy Fox is a ceramic sculptor working in New York. She is represented by PPOW gallery in New York, and at GalerieThaddaeus Ropac in Europe. A complete catalogue of figurative sculpture from 1990 to 2005 is available, edited by Austrian critic Barbara Wally.

As an undergraduate Ms. Fox studied sculpture at Yale and Skowhegan, then received a Masters in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. A pioneer of contemporary figuration, she started showing in the East Village in 1985, and has since participated in numerous private and public exhibitions around the US and Europe. She has guest lectured at many schools and museums.

Ms. Fox has received two NEA grants, and an award from the "Anonymous Was a Woman" foundation. She is a fellow of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and is a 2006 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

A Review of Judy Fox at p.p.o.w.

by Mia Fineman

In her installation Sphinx Chapel at P.P.O.W., Judy Fox intimately explores the riddle of the child's body as a meeting point of the erotic and the divine. Modelled in clay and naturalistically painted in delicate pink and brown casein, Fox's life-sized figures of naked children have the fleshy physicality of Duane Hanson sculptures combined with the subtly subversive sexuality of Sally Mann photographs.

Each of the seven figures (ranging from chubby toddlers to barely blooming prepubescent girls) represents a different heroic or mythological character, indicated through an economical cultural shorthand of pose, gesture, and hairstyle. Two toddlers-- a solemnly introverted Dying Gaul and a beatific Friar Tuck with a monk's fringe encircling his bald pate--welcome the viewer into the front alcove. In the main gallery, a pig-tailed Attila aims an invisible bow and arrow at a juvenile Chinese Courtesan , frozen in a seductive and intricately stylized gestural dance. An angelic, blond-ringletted Delilah and a puerile Olympia, one hand coyly draped over her bare pubis, lounge silently at the sidelines. Presiding over the group with a hieratic nobility is the Sphinx, a young girl with her back arched at an impossible angle, her arms thrown back in a kind of benediction, her blond pigtails terminating in horn-like points. While each figure seems plucked from its own private universe, they are linked to each other through a paradoxical blend of humanity and heroicism, vulnerability and worldliness.

April 25 - May 25 1996 P.P.O.W.

Mia Fineman is a New York writer.

LINK to the origianal review online at artnet.com

Ema Tavola and Leilani Kake @ at Mark’s Garage

2009-01-19T12:03:00.010-10:00

An evening with Shahzia Sikander

2008-11-03T09:36:00.000-10:00

Public Lecture:
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 @ 6pm
At UH Manoa Art Building Auditorium

Sikander is in Honolulu as a Shangri La artist in residence.
For more information about Shangri La and its programs
visit: www.shangrilahawaii.org

Shahzia Sikander uses a variety of media to respond to the tradition of Indo-Persian miniature painting. Originally trained in the genre in Lahore, Pakistan, she appropriates its rich surface design, and introduces mythology and imagery drawn from a variety of cultures. There is no single story or moral in her work. Instead, she narrates a world full of wit,
paradox, and possibility.

She has had multiple solo shows and has been included in many group exhibitions, including Global Feminisms (2007), the Taipei Biennial (2006), and the Venice Biennale (2005). She was appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2006, and was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship from 2007-2011.

Check out her website at: www.shahziasikander.com

Read the interview by Fereshteh Daftari

For almost a decade now, Shahzia Sikander and I have worked together on exhibitions and engaged in a number of conversations regarding her appropriation of miniature painting and its multiple readings, most recently at Hunter College, New York City, earlier this year. Our first collaboration, however, dates back to 2000 when Sikander created a banner for a Projects exhibition I organised at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Where the MoMA logo would customarily announce the presence of the museum, Sikander produced a banner that displayed the outcasts of the Western canon. This is not to say that difference or identity occupy the sole focus of her attention. Her investigations are often formal in nature, but they are not devoid of ideological implication. Exempt of didacticism, Sikander pursues her projects with a subversive mindset that is neither self-righteous, partisan, nor without a purpose. She questions everything including her own propositions. In a world so easily prone to judgmental categorisations, perhaps the point of her meanderings from one camp to its opposite – from say abstraction to narration, from pure geometry to the miscegenation of ciphers and myths drawn from a variety of cultures – is a way to sabotage the hierarchy of values and the domination of any single authority. Sikander embraces and insists on the irreconcilable. Her world is one of open-ended possibilities.

Fereshteh Daftari
How do you define your relationship to miniature painting?

Shahzia Sikander
My relationship is akin to contradiction itself. Conceptually, metaphorically, as well as in terms of process, it is as much about accumulation as removal. The anchor for all my work is drawing. It goes hand in hand with erasing. Layers are built and abraded; paths are kept, their history etched in the work itself.

Definitions are critical. How one defines miniature painting in turn defines the work that claims a relationship to it. Examination of the canon and the discourse is important. New ways of looking have to happen. Persian and Indian miniature painting has been subjected to an interpretation borne out of the conditions of its complex provenance as it was often dislocated from Eastern sources and historical contexts, a phenomenon intensified during the colonial period which now presents a challenge to critical discussion. The movement from East to West has been reversed as institutions located in the Middle East and Asia are now seeking to reclaim their heritage. It is precisely the intersection of history and the provenance of miniature painting that is exciting for me as it is full of potential for artistic intervention. This shifting status also sets the work on a path to confront its own legacy, its narrative and its description. It is just as important to note that my own knowledge of miniature painting from the mid-80s in Pakistan was framed in part by studying catalogues written and printed by Western scholars and Western institutions such as the Smithsonian.

FD:
In retrospect it is quite clear that you have radically challenged the notion of miniature painting as historical objects collected by connoisseurs in the West, or its provenance as you call it. You have turned the table around and contributed to a new phenomenon I would term Post-Orientalist. Can you explain, however, what was originally rebellious in your choice to study miniature painting and defiant against which norm?

SS:
I would say against complacency. I was more than eager to locate and engage in an act that went against the grain of acceptability. Unlike now, in 1986 the miniature painting department at the National College of Art in Lahore was far from popular. At the time this type of expression was perceived as a craft-ridden, anti-intellectual form. The potential to change that status presented a challenge as well as reinvigorating dormant possibilities – pursuing this creative path was liberating in every sense.

FD:
In retrospect do you consider your choice of this tradition as complying with any larger political agenda?

SS:
At a fairly young age, my decisions and judgments were mostly intuitive and yet I gravitated towards those who were questioning the status quo. The desire to be subversive and find one’s voice is, I think, an outcome of a coming of age in the unstable and oppressive political climate of Zia ul-Haq’s military regime.

FD:
Stereotypes are stubborn; for instance, Expressionist painting simplistically associated with angst, miniature painting with beauty. How would you define beauty and to what extent do you allow it to enter your work?

SS:
Beauty is as subjective as the notion of art itself. Beauty and its subsequent context go in and out of fashion every decade it seems. I was interested in violating the preciousness of the miniature as an equivalent to what might be considered an anti-heroic gesture. At the same time I was interested in process, labour, time, traditional skills, virtuosity of technique and formalism. Despite my investment in understanding and studying miniature painting, I was equally irreverent towards its traditions, mixing them in many unorthodox ways. If we were to equate ‘beauty’ with ‘authenticity’, then a subversive attitude, one that is open to contamination, would most accurately define my relationship to it.

FD:
Can you give some examples of unorthodox processes you have applied to miniature painting?

SS:
Miniature painting has been ripe for deconstruction. Tradition has been violated through many ways, a change of scale for instance or when I paint a mural; change of medium or when I animate abstracted forms from miniatures through video projection. Animation is a whole new territory for ideas that used to reside on paper. Other ways to disrupt tradition is through the transformation of a single motif. A turban in Pursuit Curve (2004) for instance, may be a traditional form but through the device of multiplication, it releases new associations. Perceived as a sign of race, religion, ethnicity or gender, it transforms itself into an insect or butterfly while simultaneously pointing to a graphic mark that is set in motion; the vocabulary conforms to set rules but the interpretation is in flux. The same could be said about my use of the hair silhouette. It sheds its reference to Gopis (the female lovers of Krishna portrayed in Indian miniatures), to gender, and when multiplied turns into bats, floating helmets or even abstract but whimsical signs. I noticed the same kind of evolving mechanism in Modo de volar from Disparates, Goya’s print series, where the human and the mechanical, the grotesque, the absurd and the comical come together as a device for satire.

FD:
Moving on from this, let’s discuss how time is incorporated into your work.

SS:
Compression of scale does not necessarily imply a compression of time: on the contrary, small space can be more demanding as it requires a certain condensing of ideas. The pursuit of detail – not the decorative kind but of the nano – is an engagement with time. Digging deep to find the minutest of detail tends to make one see things differently. Intensive labour is one of the facets of time. Another way my image-making process evokes time is through memory, which to me always implies a certain loss. It is a different process than appropriation. The memory of an image is selective and translates into different versions of the original. A third manifestation of time is the actual removal of previous work such as when the application of a dot, or a grid composed of dots, obliterates the underlying information. This process suggests trapping of time and repeated removal of marks or layering leads to an accumulation of loss. This process is visible in several works including Perilous Order, N.O.W Rapunzal dialogues Cinderella, Hood’s Red Rider, and Red Riding Hood.

FD:
Can you walk us through some of the spaces you map out?

SS:
As with a Samuel Beckett play, in trying to capture the passage of time, the device for me is to invent the interstitial space. It is the gap, the silence, the break, the lacuna that acts as a foil to the narrative implicit in time. This particular idea has been at the core of my investigation, drawing on references from Homi Bhabha’s ‘third space’ to post-structuralist de-centred space; to political space, to transgressive space, to the space of the ideal, the fantastical, the subliminal. The focus is never on one polarity or another. What matters are the detours from both which is similar in many ways to recalling or revisiting an image through memory. For example, the animation Dissonance to Detour (2005), made for Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking at MoMA, is a search for something beyond one’s reach, something fleeting and constantly evolving. In this piece it is the coexistence of order and anarchy that define the third space.

Ambivalence as an open-ended attitude, as an impetus towards opposite directions, can be conceived of as a third space too. Another way to highlight this is through a split which creates the interim, the interstice, the pause, the interval, the separation between two positions. An example is a new video work titled Interstitial (2008). Here images of two novices merge and separate in a time frame I call interstitial – the gap between two positions.

FD:
With regard to miniature painting, one might view it is an accent or language you have cultivated and not necessarily one that has come to you naturally. This is important to mention because this appropriation should not stand as a barrier for understanding the work; it is just part of an invented/ created persona. I think that the pursuit of a source (both real and fabricated) and an itinerary away from that starting point may also be linked to the permutations of your own evolving identity. It seems disconcerting that some critics have assigned or labelled your work with a singular root. How do you consider you have been defined, and can you offer some insights on your changes in self perception, while travelling from Lahore to Providence, Rhode Island, to Houston, New York, Berlin, and more recently to Luang Prabang in Laos?

SS:
This question is insightful as it opens up notions of multiple locations of reality. My appropriated (albeit altered) language of miniature painting has not been discussed in terms of its meaning for me: that is as an alter-ego, a disguise, as well as a refusal to be totally homogenised. It has been attributed to my culture, where, as mentioned earlier, this form of expression was considered devoid of any contemporary relevance – or misread as a desire on my part to be seen as ‘exotic’. For me the invented persona is effective because this simulacrum allows me to exist in different spheres. It is hard not to think about Roland Barthes’ Death of the Author. I have often felt exasperated at my work being held hostage via emphatic biographical introductions including country, ethnicity and religion. Choosing to focus on miniature painting was never about ‘cultural revivalism’ nor about a return to authenticity. In fact I gravitated towards this genre to engage in all its contextual complexities. When I started toying with the possibility of pursuing ‘miniature painting’ the reactions around me were so partisan I knew I had stumbled onto something exciting in an otherwise lukewarm academic climate during Zia’s military regime in mid 80s Lahore, Pakistan. Moving forward a quarter of a century and the questions about authenticity still ramp up the discourse of ownership. The American perception keeps the East/ West paradigm polarized. At the same time there is another type of criticism which claims that cultural authenticity can only be produced locally and not in the West. To paraphrase Homi Bhabha, this line of thinking has more to do with cultural authority than authenticity. Perhaps a good metaphor for the real and the fabricated, for this duality, is a chase where hunter and prey are entangled. The title of Pursuit Curve refers to a mathematical term for a path an object takes when chasing another object. The point of the work is the chase itself. Who is pursuing who and when does the pursuer become pursued?

Since arriving in America from Pakistan in 1993, there have been many stops in different cities and many absences also. I have worked outside of the US recently, in Berlin and Laos, and even back in Pakistan. Art remains a way of observing the world and bringing into effect a process that creates meaning for me. I am interested in recorded histories and their paths of evolution in terms of what gets culled and elaborated. What is usually left out is the space imagination fills in. Drawing upon literature, political and national histories, art history, media, language and lived experience, I find shifting geographical locations compelling. The indisputable concept of plural identity versus the assertion of a monolithic one, the fear of the other, politicised ideas of patriotism, constantly evolving truths and all the bizarre shifts between reality and perception are but some of the elements that provide paradox, humour, irony and material for me. I am just as interested in these notions now as I was in 1985 when I first started making work.

FD:
To change the subject, could you elaborate on your use of text as well as some of the major works that have retained your attention such as Sinxay, the national epic poem of Laos?

SS:
In general, I am interested in the segregation of text and image that has been the plight of many illustrated manuscripts. I am also intrigued by the contemporary perception of Arabic script which elicits fear and is stigmatised in certain circles – it is not recommended reading material on a plane. In my work, however, I revisit the tradition where text incited awe and admiration but not fear, where it was used for its visual or formal power. Although trained in calligraphy the use of text in my work often morphs into images and motifs.

Texts that continue to retain my attention range from writings by Sadat Hasan Manto – a writer whose fiction examines the dismal social climate around the partition of India and Pakistan and highlights the post-partition reality of the subcontinent – to Paul Auster’s ‘New York Trilogy’ and his notion of deceptive and shifting identities. Other memorable texts are Joseph Beuys’s lecture, Energy plan for the Western Man alongside Arundhati Roy’s Instant-mix imperial democracy (buy one, get one free) and especially the classical form of Urdu poetry of the 19th century, known as the Ghazal, a form derived from the Persian language. It was recited tirelessly and with great devotion in all literary and non literary circles. Another aspect of Urdu poetry is revolutionary poetry – a philosophical and critical launch to combat the colonial forces and mindset. Iqbal’s writings, for instance, challenge man to mobilise his potential via a journey fuelled by imagination.

I am also interested in the concept of translation because of the distance or the gap it can create from the original. I am thinking here of my understanding of the national literary classic in Laos known as Sinxay. What captivated me in the translation from the original Pali was the visual dimension of the narrative. It was a dizzying experience recalling magic realism (Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, García Márquez), on par with the Odyssey or the Hamzanama, Sinxay is an open-ended system of information which inspired several of my works including the drawing series Narrative as Dissolution (2007-08).

FD:
Can you name some artists whose works have touched you?

SS:
Many artists have resonated with me at different times. Regarding capturing loss, I admire Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke and William Kentridge. Others, such as Cornelia Parker and James Turrell, even though very different from each other, have struck me for the way their intervention impacts or transforms space in much unexpected ways. The clarity of Ed Ruscha’s and the fluidity of Raymond Pettibon’s drawings are other qualities I find relevant. Pettibon excels in tackling pop culture with as much ease as he accesses his own subconscious. Bhupen Khakar and David Hockney are two artists who were helpful for me when I began looking at the depiction of space in Persian Safavid painting. They opened up the exploration of space from a personal, psychological standpoint. Francis Alys use of repetition as a strategy is also of interest – how every repeated action, gesture or re-enactment in his work yields multiple readings.

FD:
In harmony with your creative process, your ‘chase’, you have always been just as interested in types or generic characters – such as the Gopis – as you have been in specific individuals or portraiture. Can you discuss your new work in relation to this?

SS:
By isolating the Gopi character I emphasised its potential to cultivate new associations. The split from its feminine origin is indicative of my interest in exploring the space of sexuality and eroticism within a certain overt and controlled system of representation. The introduction of anthropomorphic forms came about when I started to take apart Eva Hesse’s work as a framing device back in 1993, as well as my exploration of the feminine via Cixous and Kristeva. In my miniature painting Utopia (2003), I take the generic representations of angels from Safavid painting and juxtapose them with an American flag appropriated from Jasper Johns. Removed from context these disparate simulacra are brought together to declare an event yet to happen.

As for portraiture, most recently the Monks and Novices series (2006-08) from Laos, I use it to navigate a cultural terrain that remains inaccessible to foreigners. Using simple and inexpensive materials, graphite and paper, the portraits are intended to be intensely precise and yet ethereal. They appear both passive and aggressive. They are homage to the personality of each novice and monk who otherwise, in the gaze of tourists, are lost in a line of uniformity and anonymity. I made the drawings with the constant awareness of tourism and its negative presence, almost as a way to defend my sitters against foreign intrusion.

FD:
War and violence have been recurrent and subtle themes in your work. Now serenity in the images of the monks comes across in an unprecedented manner. Can you elaborate on a perceived spirituality in your work at a time marked by partisan religions as well as a backlash against it?

SS:
Serenity here is only surface deep; underneath is chaos. In the portraits, composed faces belie the complexity of Laos where monks and novices have had to harness economic and political challenges. The tension or encounter between the quiet and the chaotic is the pursuit of my work. I see it in all representations, foremost in our media-frenzied world. Through powerful images global media identifies, controls, edits and dictates at a dizzying speed but the instability beneath the layer of representation is fraught with contradictions. In such a world, spirituality for me is really about awareness, vigilance; transcending partisanship by constantly questioning one’s own assumptions.