Urban-Art Bangladesh Tour

syndicated from Mohammed’s blog

http://aerosolarabic.wordpress.com 

 May 29, 2007 

UK based charity organisation, Muslim Aid is embarking on an exciting tour of Bangladesh, following their success of the tour with Jermaine Jackson of the region.

Muslim Aid will be supporting the acclaimed UK-based artist, Mohammed a.k.a Aerosol Arabic, in taking his groundbreaking style of urban graffiti art, with Islamic script, to the streets of Bangladesh.

British urban artist, Mohammed Ali, will be touring Bangladesh and taking his unique fusion of graffiti-art to a whole new world by spray painting his spiritual -urban-art murals in three cities across the country.

He will be visiting Muslim Aid beneficiaries, and working with orphans, the needy and the poverty stricken urban youth of Bangladesh, in creating the unique “spiritual murals” across the cities, Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong in well known districts of each city. He will also deliver seminars speaking about his art to the people of Bangladesh.

The tour will take place between August 10th- 20th beginning in the capital city of Dhaka. Venues will be announced on the website: http://www.aerosolarabic.com/bangladeshtour

In the midst of all the difficulty and plight experienced by Muslim Aid beneficiaries, the aim is to uplift the spirit in the poorer parts of Bangladesh, where people will be given the unique opportunity to create art through the aerosol can, guided by Mohammed.

Gandhi by Shahabuddin Ahmed

i would like to do a series on just Shahabuddin Ahmed residing now in Paris. His roots most definetely is anchored in Bangladesh. He has exploded into the international art scene and on the lips of many a art critic. take a look at one of his works of art tilted “Gandi”.

TITLE: Gandhi

ARTIST: Ahmed Shahabuddin

WORK DATE: 2006

CATEGORY: Paintings

MATERIALS: Oil on canvas

SIZE: h: 162 x w: 130 cm / h: 63.8 x w: 51.2 in

STYLE: Contemporary

PRICE*: Contact Gallery for Price

A Canadian Nomad exhibiting in DHaka

The 2nd Solo Exhibition of Denise Hudon Arsenault kicked off with a bang at the inauguration ceremony. The show was inaugurated by Her Excellency Barbara Richardson, the honourable High Commissioner of Canada on the 11th of May @ the Art Club Bangladesh Gallery in Gulshan, Dhaka.

The Gallery was packed with people both foreign and local. Awed by the unique approach Denise takes with her works of Art. She uses all Natural materials for her paper & extraction of dyes from vegetables. Her pieces are abstract with a few Block prints on earthy, calm background colours. A true delight in the ever changing Dhaka’s happening art scene. In her speech she stated that man made, synthetic dyes are harming the environment, especially the water supply. Through her venture with eco-friendly, natural dyes she also wants to hammer the ECOLOGY message home. Louis-Georges Arsenault, Representative of UNICEF commented on Denise’s work & her life. There were many dignitaries present at the Gallery from various fields, mostly from the Diplomatic Circles in Bangladesh & also various Development agencies among others as well as a handful of Local Art lovers.

The Art Club Bangladesh Gallery is nestled in a nondescript apartment building on RD# 104, House # 4; Suite # 3B. In between Privilege Club & Manarat International School & College. Opp. Shikdar Hospital & Omni MUsic & Books. One can’t imagine the beauty of the exhibition space as one enters a Flat after disembarking the elevator. One feels transported to New York, i feel. To the Chic galleries lining her high-streets. Exclusive, as if secret. We were served with Refreshments & local tid-bits like Samosas, Chingaras & Kebab Rolls in canape shapes.

The exhibition will remain open to the Public from the 12th to the !8th of May… 11am – 8pm. Open for all. Drop by & be overwhelmed.

You may contact ART CLUB BANGLADESH GALLERY @ artclubbd@gmail.com or visit us at Suite #3B; House #4; Rd# 104; Gulshan 2; Dhaka. Bangladesh. visit our website @ https://artclubbd.wordpress.com

<?php
$postnum = 1;
$showadsense1 = 1;
$showadsense2 = 2;
?>

Shahabuddin Ahmed – bohemian bangladeshi Artist

Artist		Ahmed Shahabuddin

Shahabuddin Ahmed is a world renowned painter born in Bangladesh in 1950. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, later moved to Paris. He has shown his works extensively across the globe. In 1992 he is one of 50 Master Painters of Contemporary Arts, an award bestowed on him at the Olympiad of Arts, Barcelona.

The primary concern of his paintings is to reflect the contemporary life and times. He is an optimist and this is clearly expressed in his paintings. This optimism was firmly embedded in Shahabuddin when he has a youth was involved in the Liberation struggle for Bangladesh and had to face the various facets of life.

He has the capability to overcome the constraints of time and space. In their dynamism his paintings depict fearless human figures that cut through the difficulties of life, which provide one the reason to live. The vibrancy and force of his brushwork highlight this aspect. Above all his compositions are unmistakably musical and rhythmic. Shahabuddin’s figures seem to be enthralled in the cosmic dance at times merging with the ethereal forces.

His works are displayed in many galleries across the globe including the Museum Olympic Laussane, Switzerland and Bourn-En Brasse Museum France.

Bangladeshi artists Series – Murtaja Baseer & the Dhaka Art Scene

Art in our time

Mustafa Zaman

“The days of the art movement are behind us,” says noted artist Murtaja Baseer. However, the art scene in Bangladesh is often referred to as a thriving one. Although Baseer feels that art pursued as the goal of a group of artists has seen its demise, art as the expression of the individual has blossomed in the last twenty or so years. If the pre-independent era is marked by creative actions on the part of the pioneers who banded together to make a mark at the national level, the post–independent period is defined by the thrust towards the expansion of the horizon through various art practices.

 

Today, in the absence of group activities, where young and old have combined their might, newer idioms are being practised through individual effort. Not that the idea of artists working in groups has vanished all together; it is the spirit of pursuing a single school of thought that has taken a beating. While in the sixties the young and the aspirant modernists like Mohammad Kibria, Aminul Islam, Murtaja Baseer, Kazi Abdul Baset and many of their contemporaries set out to pursue the ‘Abstract Language’ borrowed from the West, today the younger generation artists choose to avoid such homogeneous goals. They want variations, they want newness. But, how far have they progressed in their endeavour to claim a niche of their own in the creative domain? How do they fair in the context of the rapidly changing art scene of the world? After 34 years of independence where do the artists of Bangladesh stand?
What Murtaja Baseer refers to as the art movement of their time, first made its public appearance in January 21, 1951. That was the inaugural day of the first of the two consecutive annual art exhibitions by the Dhaka Art Group, a group comprising the major artists of the country as well as the students of the Government Institute of Arts (GIA), which is now known as the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA). The show was held at the then Litton Hall, part of the Shahidullah Hall at present. “Its patron was the Prime Minister Nurul Amin himself, and the president of the Dhaka Art Group was Zainul Abedin,” says Baseer, who was then a student of elementary 1st year. The show was a combined effort by the teachers and students of the GIA. For today’s students of art academies there is no such luck of putting up a show through such collective effort where all the stalwarts of the country are active participants.

 

“The visitors used to swarm the exhibition. We, the students of the GIA, used to put up posters in different schools of Dhaka, and the teachers of those schools used to bring the students in groups in horse-drawn carts to the exhibition. We worked as volunteers to explain what water colour, lithograph or even oil colour meant,” recalls Baseer. At that period, when artistic activities were confined to a handful of students and teachers of the newly established GIA, the only art academy in the country till 1970, special care was needed to educate the public regarding art. GIA was established by Zainul Abedin with the help of Kamrul Hasan, Anwarul Haq and Safiuddin Ahmed in 1948. Its inception marked the beginning of the art movement that followed.

 

Today, the art students of the IFA can hardly imagine the need for putting up posters in the schools around

Advance-2, Shahabuddin Ahmed

Dhaka. At present, there is little activism on their part to promote art. They live in a changed situation, where the need for banding together to promote art has subsided. Today’s artists are not burdened with such duties; they can afford to invest all their energy to make art and to put up exhibitions. The movement or the organised efforts in the fifties and the sixties have certainly contributed to the situation that now exists.

“The modern art movement gained ground in the then East Pakistan, the west wing was less responsive to the influence of the West. They did not start to practice abstract art, we did,” says Baseer. Though the movement of the sixties was heavily influenced by few prominent American Abstract Expressionists like Mark Rothko or Cliford Still, it paved the way towards liberalisation. It is to this liberalisation that Bangladesh’s art owes much of its present accomplishments.

Monirul Islam, an artist who has been living in Spain since 1969 and who has become a

Composition by Nasima Haque Mitu, one who relentlessly trys to relate abstract principles with recognisable objects

national figure in that country, believes that “art transcends the national boundary, as colour, line and form has no national identity”. This very ethos has more or less governed the art world of Bangladesh since the beginning. However, there is this idea of regional identity or the question of producing art that carries the imprint of the socio-political reality of the country that has come to the surface from time to time. In the post-independence era, painter Shahabuddin, who has been residing in France for the last 21 years and the sculptor Rasha have provided the antidote of the purely aesthetic world of colour, line and form. These two artists, in their passion for depicting the legacy of the War of Independence, brought a nationalistic fervour to their art.

Resume of Denise Hudon

Denise Hudon

Born in 1950 in Montréal, Canada

 

Education

1968-69      Institut des Arts Appliqués, Montréal, Canada

1970-71   College in Fine Arts, Montréal, Canada

1971-73   Ecole des Beaux Arts de  Montréal, Canada  

                Université du Québec, Arts Plastiques, Montréal, Canada

1982        Ceramic Technology, Montréal, Canada

 

Solo Exhibitions

1982         Terre et feux – Société Immobilière du Canada, Mirabel, Canada

1983         Sculpture Céramique – Seigneuries Belle Rivière, Mirabel, Canada

1984         Fahrenheit- Via Design- Palais des congres, Montréal, Canada

1984         Via design– Sponsored by the Quebec Ministry of Commerce, Canada

1985         New York Art show «Accent on design » – Selected and Sponsored by the       Quebec Ministry of Commerce, New York, USA

1987         Lezards Appliqués|- Gatto Art Gallery, Togo

1988         Denise Hudon en Solo – Gatto Art Gallery, Togo

 1989        Retrospective- Gatto Art Gallery, Togo

1990         Ceramic link-   Gatto Art Gallery, Togo

1991         L’Afrique assez chaude– Gatto Art Gallery, Togo

1992         Kamiyia Kami – Sponsored by the Canadian High Commission, Ghana

Reviving Traditional Arts into Contemporary Forms

The first thought one encounters upon observing Denise Hudon’s work is that she’s an artist who goes beyond just putting paint on a canvas to express herself. She is so in tune with the “Earth”, that Denise goes deeper into ‘her’ to gather her raw materials & her inspiration. She has had a nomadic adventure through West Africa & Central Asia, where she researched & refined the arts of alchemy for her colours, extracting natural dyes from plants & also the art of making a rich textured, quick absorbing handmade paper, prepared form natural & recycled tropical fibers. She adopted traditional methods used in these cultures and revived them to contemporary forms in her works of art.

 French speaking Denise was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1950, in the heart of French Canada. With a mixture of native Red Indian blood running in her veins, she’s pulled to the earth & its treasures for inspiration. Upon receiving her formal education in fine arts she began painting murals on public buildings. Later she specialized in Ceramic Sculpture while continuing her artistic career. All along, she taught painting, ceramics & fine arts for 15 years. In the early ‘80s, while in Montreal, Hudon’s work already featured dried fibers such as bamboo stalks and waste materials.

ACB COllections 1

[rockyou id=65723670&w=426&h=320]

Religion in Art – The Old Testament

Old Testament is the name the first Christians gave the collection of Jewish holy books known as the Tanakh. A testament is a covenant, a treaty, and the Old Testament is the covenant between God and the Jewish people. God promised the Hebrews land and safety in return for obedience and worship. Paul first mentions the Old Testament in his second letter to the Corinthians. The name New Testament is introduced in the gospel to Matthew, during the Last Supper (Matth. 26:28).

The Old Testament tells the history of the Jewish people and of Israel. The exclusive treaty between God and the Israelites takes a central position. It was first established after Noah survived the flood (Genesis 9:8-17) and extended several times: first with Abraham (Genesis 15:18), later with Moses in the Sinai (Exodus 19, 20 and 24).

Art and the Bible – Zechariah

1 In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

2 The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers.

3 Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.

4 Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD.

5 Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?