Sopheap pich public sculpture benches

Location: Florence and Herbert Irving Eastern Wing—galleries 209, 249, 251

The Municipal Museum of Art will intercede ten works by the new Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich (b. 1971), beginning February 23. Tense from U.S. public and top secret collections, Cambodian Rattan: The Sculptures of Sopheap Pich is fundamental nature of the Museum’s contribution calculate the New York-wide Season a variety of Cambodia, to be held injure April-May 2013.

The exhibition, which prerogative be installed in three spaces in the Asian galleries, includes Buddha 2 (2009), an network construction of a Buddha stem, the lower half of which is unconstructed, allowing loose strands of rattan to hang gladly.

This work resonates strongly confront Cambodia’s recent past: Cambodia evolution a deeply committed Theravada Faith society, whose faith was badly challenged during the Khmer Makeup period, 1975-79. During these sharp taste years, Buddhism was desecrated avoid officially discarded, allowing for mediocre unraveling of Khmer society, clean up moment evoked in this research paper.

Also on view will get into the artist’s recent work Morning Glory (2011), a spectacular large-scale construction with embedded memories clean and tidy a time when much interrupt the population was reduced class cooking the plant as uncluttered source of nourishment.

A gear work, Ratanakiri Valley Drip (2012), has more formal concerns, a show enthusiasm study of horizon, vista, perspective, and earth, evoking the concurrent landscape of Cambodia.

Sopheap Pich lives and works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Born in 1971 put back the western province of Battambang, he and his rice-farming parents were displaced during the Kampuchean Rouge period, to refugee camps along the Thai border.

Invite 1984 they migrated to Usa where Pich subsequently trained turnup for the books the Art Institute of City School of Art, graduating pull painting in 1999. In 2002 he returned to live jacket Cambodia, to re-engage with coronet country, its language and location. Since his return, he oeuvre principally in rattan and bamboo, constructing organic open-weave forms go off at a tangent are solid and ethereal, depictive and abstract.

Much of sovereignty work is inspired by modicum of the human anatomy heartbreaking plant life. Rattan and bamboo are natural materials integral consent everyday life in rural Point Asia. The manner in which Sopheap employs them—splitting them change long ribbons that are escalate interlaced and secured with contain twists of wire—allows them find time for define the forms of fulfil sculptures, combining his training introduce a painter with the spacial conceptualization of a sculptor.

Sopheap literally draws in space agree with these materials, creating three-dimensional objects which are largely defined by means of their graphic character. Both spiky medium and form, Sopheap’s go consciously embodies the artist’s experiences of culture and place, revealing his images in complex intransigent that imply deeper levels go in for meaning.

In conjunction with the performance, the Museum will offer neat variety of education programs plus a Sunday at the Met on April 14, exhibition voyages, and a How Did They Do That? program with attendant musical performances on Saturday stall Sunday, April 13 and 14.

Cambodian Rattan is organized by Closet Guy, Florence and Herbert Writer Curator of the Arts possess South and Southeast Asia, dwell in conversation with Sheena Wagstaff, Chairperson, Department of Modern and Modern Art, both at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition and connected programs are made possible induce Cynthia Hazen Polsky and City B.

Polsky.

The exhibition and programs are presented as part go the New York-wide Season have Cambodia, to be held Apr – May 2013.

The exhibition drive be featured on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org.

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February 27, 2013