LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90036 tel: (213) 857-6111 internet: www.lacma.org/
		• The Three Graces: Music, Painting, and Poetry in the Art of India April 4 - December 6, 1999
			This exhibition of 51 works from the museum's permanent collection will feature about 40 Indian opaque watercolor paintings personifying various ragas (musical modes and melodies). The paintings are from various courts throughout India and range in date from the 16th to the 19th century. In addition to the illustrations of ragas, there will also be several paintings depicting musical themes and social situations, as well as a number of images of the Hindu god Krishna playing his flute of divine rapture by which he entrances his followers to join with him in eternal devotion. As an introduction to the long heritage and importance of music within the South Asian cultural tradition, there will also be three stone sculptures of musicians ranging in date from the 3rd to the 16th century. Indian music is traditionally classified by emotional and structural content in a system of families consisting of a male raga with five wives (raginis) and often sons (ragaputras) and daughters (ragaputris). They are typically correlated with and performed at various times of day and in different seasons. The imagery associated with ragas varies considerably within India from region to region and even within the same region depending upon the specific musical, pictorial, or temporal tradition involved. The exhibition will present illustrations of an extended raga family, examples of various ragas and raginis from the same series to show their relationship, and comparisons of the same raga from different regions showing both similar and disparate iconographies. The exhibit was curated by Stephen Markel (Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art).
		• Images from a Changing World: Kalighat Paintings of Calcutta June 10 - August 30, 1999
			This exhibition, the first American exhibition on Kalighat painting, will include approximately 125 works of art. Seventy-three of these are dynamic watercolor paintings by the Kalighat artists of 19th- and early 20th-century Calcutta, and the remaining are rendered in a variety of media. The exhibition will be divided into three parts: "The Art of Nineteenth-Century Calcutta"; "The World of Kalighat Paintings"; and "The Kalighat Legacy." Calcutta in the 19th century was a dynamic, cosmopolitan city. It was not only the political capital of British India, but also the leading intellectual and cultural center of India. Several disparate art styles were practiced simultaneously in Calcutta during this period. Traditional Islamic and Hindu works of art were still being created in limited numbers by artists descended from the great masters of the imperial and provincial court ateliers, but the political impotency of the Mughal dynasty and most of its subordinate courts caused a collapse of the sustained artistic patronage necessary for the production of works made in the labor-intensive and costly traditional techniques. Kalighat painting, which began to flourish around 1825, was a creative reaction to multiple influences, both indigenous and foreign. It most essentially was developed out of the Bengali tradition of narrative scroll painting, which was modified and simplified to churn out images quickly to meet the available market opportunities made available by addressing current social issues. Kalighat painting in its beginning phase was an innovative artistic expression, whereas other styles contemporaneously practiced in Calcutta were primarily imitative of foreign or earlier traditions. Kalighat painters produced religious and cultural images and also ones dealing with important contemporary social issues through satire and metaphor. Kalighat painting, despite its eventual artistic displacement, proved to be one of the more influential forces in the modernization of Indian art. Its vibrancy and emancipation far better expressed the dominant social issues of the emerging nation, and its indigenous heritage provided inspiration to artists seeking more "politically correct" forms of expression during the nationalistic formative era of India's independence. The exhibition was curated by Stephen Markel (Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art).
		• The Art of Twentieth-Century Zen: Paintings and Calligraphy by Japanese Masters September 29, 1999 - January 2, 2000
			This is the first exhibition in the United States to feature painted and calligraphic works by Japanese Zen masters of the past 100 years. It will include 71 scrolls, screens, and objects by 14 of the most prominent Zen masters of the 20th century. The art produced by these Zen masters is both dynamic and functional. There is a direct connection between painting and calligraphy and Zen teaching, as seen in the subject matter of the paintings, such as major Zen figures and scenes of enlightenment from the past, and the calligraphic inscriptions of short Zen texts. It has long been believed in East Asia that brush and ink reveal the true character of the artist. Therefore, viewing a painting or calligraphy is a form of communication with the inner spirit of the person who created it. Zen masters believe that visual art can express and transmit what they call "Zen Mind" in a more direct manner than words alone. The most important Zen teachers of this century have all created painting and calligraphy in order to express their vision to their followers, and to leave a record of their teachings to future generations. Zen art has long been acknowledged as among the priceless legacies of Japanese culture, but previous studies and exhibitions have focused upon works from earlier centuries. Twentieth-century Zen brushwork, however, is of special interest as a fully traditional form of Japanese visual art that has continued to flourish to the present day. This exhibition will reveal why there has been such a steadfast continuation of past Zen traditions in visual art during a period when many other forms of art were undergoing major changes in Japan. It will also focus upon fascinating variations and transformations of early subjects and styles in the painting and calligraphy of the most important Zen monk-artists of this century. This exhibition was organized by the Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond, and co-curated by Audrey Yoshiko Seo and Stephen Addiss. LACMA Coordinating Curators are Robert Singer (Curator) and Hollis Goodall (Associate Curator of Japanese Art). The exhibit will travel to the Spencer Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (January 29 - March 11, 2000).
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