Queens Museum
Coming up at the Queens Museum
Queens Museum
Exhibition: September 21 – January 4
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 21 from 4-7 PM
Anonymous is an exploration of changing attitudes towards self-expression, attribution, and identity in contemporary Tibetan art. Traditional Tibetan culture placed little emphasis on individuality or artistic self-expression. Art adhered to a formal system of production to support the transmission of Tibetan religious culture and was, by and large, created by unattributed artists who remained anonymous. However, in the global contemporary market, the creativity of the individual has become the primary basis by which we produce, interpret and consume art. Innovation and novelty are often valued more highly than technique and tradition. Attribution, the artist’s name, has become a fundamental aspect of the work. Within the new social reality as part of the Peoples Republic of China, art is becoming a vital medium of self-expression for Tibetans. Artists are increasingly focused on the experience of the individual and a cautious 21st-century visual language steeped in irony, metaphor and allusion has fully emerged.
