The Second Annual Arts Exhibition organized by Engendered
(June 16, 2009 – New York, NY) The culture of “purdah” refers to the Hindu or Muslim system of sex segregation & literally translates to “veil” or “curtain”. Purdah2.0: Body Matters, the second trans-cultural exhibition on art, gender, and sexuality presented by New York non-profit Engendered, symbolically lifts the ‘purdah’ from the human form, and exposes the body for each artist to cite and reference as their muse.
“’Body Matters’ is a contemporary and provocative exploration of both why the body matters and what matters of the body are, have been, and could become,” says Myna Mukherjee, the Exhibition Director. “Across cultures, how do we find a visual and aesthetic language to engage with the body as simultaneously a site of refuge, resistance, tradition, freedom, sorrow, solace, desire, pain, rebellion, and rage? ‘Body Matters’ investigates the body as a site for contestations of power and violence, perception and reality, memory and loss, and finally, station and displacement – especially within urban ecologies and the ever-morphing, shifting boundaries of personal and political geographies.”
Purdah 2.0: Body Matters is running from June 25th to July 16th at the Halvai Gallery on 75 Grand Street in the hip and artistic neighborhood of Soho in Manhattan, New York. An opening reception, especially for the media, will be held at the gallery on June 30th starting at 7 p.m. Please RSVP by emailing JitinHingorani@gmail.com.
The exhibition is curated in two parts by Amina Begum Ahmed and Priyanka Mathew. “My goal was to bring together diverse artists whose stories and experiences form a narrative that excavates, personalizes, and reclaims the “body” that has been subsumed by the dominant normative,” say Ahmed. On the other hand, Mathew says her curation of artists “explores the human form as an agent and catalyst to dissect political, social, and metaphysical dialogues on sexuality, gender, and the relationships in the grey areas that do not qualify neatly in either category.”
‘Body Matters’ brings together figurative, conceptual, experiental, and site-specific works by some of the leading, iconic, and emergent trans-cultural artists from India, Pakistan, Iran, China, Morocco, and the United States, including:
Sunil Gupta
Anwar Saeed
Marcus Leatherdale
Ayesha Durrani
Abir Karmarkar
Raghava KK
Fareeda Batool
Khalil Chishtee
Dong Ming Guang
Shailja Gupta
Amita Bhatt
Srinivas Kuruganti
Amir Parsa
Pritika Chowdhry
Noelle Williams
Salman Toor
Ariane Lopez-Huici
Marco Guerra & Yasmina Alaoui
***One-on-one interviews with curator & specific artists will be made available at the Halvai Gallery during the opening reception on June 30th which will also feature an art talk between artists and curators. Interviews may also be requested during the three week exhibition. This exhibition contains sexually explicit images and is suitable only for adult audiences. For more information about Engendered and to view the artist bios and images from the exhibition, please visit www.engendered.org.