Page 268 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

CONCEPTUAL ART AND NEW TRENDS 265

their installation works. Although Shilpakala
Academy, a public institution of art and culture,
does not discourage the new installation and
performance artworks in their major exhibitions
such as the National Art Exhibition and Young
Artists’ National Art Exhibition, etc., the
Academy has a predilection for the conventional
arts. Institute of Fine Art, Dhaka provided
institutional patronage for the new trends in its
Annual Exhibition of the year 2000, where most
of the installations created by the students were
based on media and development issues such as
political injustice, environmental pollution,
arsenic pollution, etc. Though the exhibition was
an encouragement for the new trends, it had no
effect on the Institute’s regular curriculum.
Apart form the patronage by the institutions engaged in art education and promotion, fig. 6.15 Tayeba Begum
a few other initiatives can be noticed. One such notable organization is Britto Art Lipi, Toys are Watching
Trust. Though many of the contemporary artists have created works in the new trend, Toys-2, oil painting,
Mahbubur Rahman and Tayeba Begum Lipi can be considered comparatively regular burkha, wooden shoe
among them (figs. 6.9, 6.15). Both of them became interested in unconventional format, chair; polyester
creation since 1994. They started creating different installation and performance resin, Alliance
works for/ or alongside various national and international exhibitions, on their own or Francaise, Dhaka, 2002
in collaboration with young art students. From 1997 to 1999, these two artists
regularly worked on different solo or joint installation and performance art projects at
home and abroad. But the year 2000 was a turning point for them. In this year, they
participated in a number of residencies and workshops having been invited by
different institutes in Germany and Finland. Jay Koh, an artist of Asian origin, had an
instrumental role in this. Apart from gaining more experience in different non-
traditional arts like installation and performance, Lipi and Mahbub had direct
experience of contemporary European arts in these tours.
In 2001, Pooja Sood, coordinator of an Indian artists’ group called Khoj, came to
Bangladesh. Invited by Khoj, four Bangladeshi artists, Abul Mansur, Shishir
Bhattacharjee, Tayeba Begum Lipi and Mahbubur Rahman participated in their
seminars and workshops in India. Khoj is essentially an all-Indian organization
established and run by artists to encourage artworks of the new trend. Triangle Art
Trust an England-based art coordination organization inspired the creation of Khoj
International. Eminent sculptor Anthony Caro and art collector Robert Loder
organized the first workshop of Triangle Art Trust at Munroe in New York in 1982.
Later, Triangle started taking initiatives to promote new trend art outside the
developed world – in Africa and Asia. It is because of Triangle’s initiatives that groups
of artists in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan began to form independent organizations in