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the Banyan Tree
Beneath
The Banyan Tree - An Exhibit of Indian Art and Paintings.
From
November 17, 2002 through January 6, 2003, the Lowe Art
Gallery, in collaboration with the South Asia Program and
the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, will
present the exhibition, Beneath the Banyan Tree: Ritual,
Remembrance, and Storytelling in Performed North Indian
Folk Arts. The exhibition will focus on four major forms
of performed North Indian folk art that capture the intersection
of ritual, performance and art in the living traditions
of North India.The art forms include:
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(1)
terracotta and brass (cire perdue) sculptures that represent
the deities and serve as offerings to them;
(2)
pata, storytelling scrolls made and performed in West Bengal;
(3)
women’s paintings from the Mithala region of Bihar,
which create auspiciousness for their life cycle rituals
and tell the stories of the gods and goddesses that enliven
lives there;
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(4)
Rajasthani par, or large scrolls which are used by singers
to tell epic stories in the western state of Rajasthan.
With
this exhibition, we seek to present the folk arts that represent
the traditions of the South Asian immigrant community, as
well as the dialectics between art and performance and between
traditional and contemporary expression. We focus especially
on the voices and imaginations of those still living in
rural communities in northern India as they reach out to
and become involved in the western worlds to which some
of their kin have migrated. That a Bengali pata now deals
with the atom bomb speaks to the intersection of the worlds
of India and the U.S., and to the importance of linking
these voices through this exhibition.
The
exhibhition is open to the public from November 17, 2002-January
6, 2003 at the Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery. The hours
of the exhibition are: Tuesday-Sunday 12:00-5:00PM; Wednesday
12:00-8:00PM. For the Thanksgiving weekend, beginning November
26th, please call before visiting. After December 2, the
art gallery will resume its original schedule.
