Thursday, May 26, 2011

Artist Rima Banerjee’s hybrid, poetic compositions on view in Paris

Born in Calcutta in 1963, Rina Banerjee left India for England and then the United States with her family when she was a young child. Trained as an engineer, she obtained a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Yale in 1995 and then settled in New York. All this while she maintained a close link with her homeland largely thanks to numerous stays in Asia.

Informed by this singular background, her work tends to articulate a unique synthesis of mythologies and religions, anthropology and fairytales, exoticism and mass tourism. Challenging the order of the world in an explosive mix of imagination and materials, her delicate yet danger-tinged work gives rise to creatures that are constantly mutating, and sometimes monstrous, like metaphors of a world in a state of constant becoming.

As part of its spring-summer 2011 Indian Season Paris based Musée Guimet is presenting ‘Chimeras of India and the West’, an exhibition of contemporary work by the Indian-born American artist. Installed at the heart of the permanent collections, Rima Banerjee’s hybrid, poetic compositions enter into resonant interplay with the works held by the museum, which date back hundreds and thousands of years, offering a new angle on Asian civilizations and their complex relations with the West.

The artist’s works invariably conjure up a pantheon of demigods, of warlike female figures and fabulous animals, conveying the complexity of cultural mixes and the constant struggle for power between civilizations.

After the exhibitions by Chu Teh-Chun and Hung-Chih Peng (summer 2009), followed by Rashid Rana and Chen Zhen (summer-autumn 2010), ‘Chimeras of India and the West’ continues the Musée Guimet’s ambitious project, ‘The Manufactory of Contemporary Art in Asia’, exploring the interaction of ancient heritages and modern-day creativity. Parallel to her exhibition at the Musée Guimet, Rina Banerjee will be showing her most recent works at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, her gallery since 2005, starting on 22 May.

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