For the fourth consecutive year, the MNAAG is associated with the contemporary art fair Asia NOW and welcomes the work of four artists: Bae Bien-U, Anne de Henning, Wifredo Lam and Ram Rahman. Their works are presented in a dialogue with those of the permanent collections, and invest all the spaces of the museum.
The MNAAG presents the photographs of Korean artist Bae Bien-U(born in 1950), in the Korean permanent collections. For some forty years, his works with a universal language have above all reflected the concern of the Korean people to live in harmony with nature. Bae Bien-U excels in black and white photography where nature seems to be in perpetual motion. He captures the movement of the trees as if they were moving towards an elsewhere that his framing does not suggest. His photographs evoke the tradition of ink, calligraphy, as much as the singularly strong presence of forests in Korea, in the literary painting of landscapes. The series on the Alhambra, produced between 2006 and 2008, is presented on the second floor of the museum, alternating between landscapes and architectural views, atmospheric effects and play of light.
On the 2nd floor, the exhibition Bearing witness to history in motion: Anne de Henningattests to the history of the creation of Bangladesh, from the conflict which broke out in March 1971 until its independence a year later on April 7, 1972. Exhibited for the first time in 2021 in Dhaka to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of Bangladesh, Anne de Henning's photographs had never before been presented to the public. They are presented for the first time in Paris. Anne de Henning embarked in February 1969 on board the Trans-Siberian armed with two cameras – for black and white and for colour, in order to cover the Vietnam War at the age of 23. She is one of the pioneers of war photojournalism, one of the few women to risk her life to document the unstable situation in Asia in the 1970s. When protests began in March 1971 in eastern Pakistan,
If the painted work of Wifredo Lam(1902-1982) is known for her proximity to several avant-garde movements of 20th century artistic modernity (Cubism, Surrealism, CoBrA), her ceramic work is less familiar to the public. The museum presents an unpublished series of 15 ceramics, an intimate confession of his childhood spent in the Chinese community of Cuba, in dialogue with a selection of Chinese porcelain from his own collections, in order to illustrate the link between Lam and the inherited literate culture. of his father, of Chinese origin. Wifredo Lam produced some 300 pieces between the 1960s and 1970s, using a variety of techniques, of great playful creativity – sgraffito decorations, the superimposition of enamels with a compressor gun or the integration of pieces of glass glued with slip . They are, like his paintings, populated by spooky characters. The artist finds a new creative breath while pursuing his exploration of the unconscious and the spontaneity of gesture.
In the Riboud Gallery on the 1st floor, the MNAAG presents the Street Smart series by contemporary Indian photographer Ram Rahman (born in 1955). The artist has captured all the vibrant visual culture of Indian streets, with its curious juxtapositions of
advertisements, movie posters, political slogans, religious icons and graffiti that abound on Indian streets. His use of black and white photography creates images that resemble collages. These chance assemblages, often on a grand scale, are the backdrops against which daily life in this street theater unfolds, capturing the chaos, irony and humor of Indian public culture. This haphazard folk art reflects aspirations, cinematic dreams, and comments on current political issues, history, and mythology in unlikely combinations of hand-painted images, posters and offset panels, proliferating digital imagery , which are all elements of this pop culture that has survived the sanitizing homogeneity of global consumerism.
Curator
Sophie Makariou, president of the MNAAG,
general curator
Claire Bettinelli, production manager for
exhibitions and contemporary collections
Ruxmini Reckvana Q Choudhury
Nicolas Trembley