The story of the snake goddess Manasa’s epic struggle to win the homage of the recalcitrant merchant prince Chand is probably the most popular folk narrative from the eastern part of the subcontinent. Of the numerous mangalkavyas on the subject the majority were composed in the region that now comprises Bangladesh. A festival honouring Manasa…
It begins with the Swedish Academy’s announcement of the award to Dylan. Everyone is surprised, none more than Dylan himself. He goes into hiding, not taking any calls or responding to messages. Nor does he communicate anything to the wider world. He remains totally incommunicado for days on end. The Academicians break into a sweat:…
Since the death of Abdur Razzaque at the end of a long and distinguished career, Hamiduzzaman Khan has become the doyen of Bangladeshi sculptors. At 59 he is at the peak of productivity and has just mounted a garden show on the British Council premises. Kaiser Haq talks to him about his life and work…
When one thinks of the history of the stage, or the cinema, it is the celebrated actors who first surface in the consciousness. And among them, I daresay, it is the women whose presence lingers, haunts us ineluctably. Sarah Siddons, Lily Langtry, Sarah Bernhardt, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe. None of them yields in iconic lustrue…
The appearance of this handsomely produced album of reproductions offers us an opportunity to make a critical survey of the career of one of our most prolific and highly regarded artists. I am using the broader term advisedly, for though sculpture does seem to be Hamiduzzaman’s major mode of creative expression, he is a remarkably…
The Zainul Gallery at Dhaka University’s Institute of Fine Art was the recent venue of the debut show of the Hyacinth Garden Gallery. The show was given the ominous title of ‘The Tarantula’ and described in the subtitle of the catalogue as ‘A Multidisciplinary Group Exhibition.’ Symbolism seems to fascinate the moving spirits behind the…
Juneer Kibria is of course Kibria, Jr.—though, with commendable independence of spirit, he has kept the information out of the catalogue of his first solo, recently held at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts Intriguingly, the catalogue mentions that his date of birth was 21 February, but the year, though given at first has been…
At a youthful fifty-and-a-little Nazlee Laila Mansur belongs to the middle generation of our artistic community, and that means she is due for a regorous examination of her track record Nazlee Laila Mansur’s June 2005 show at the Bengal Gallery—her fifth solo since her first in 2000—afforded us an opportunity to carry out the exercise,…
If there was an opinion poll on the Bangladeshi art scene, chances are Mohammad Kibria would be singled out for steadfast commitment to art. Unlike many of his peers he hasn’t made himself visible as a social or political activist, nor has he dabbled in any aesthetic activity other than his chosen one. ‘Painter and…
A Saga of Man and Nature: The Art of Zainul Abedin, 12 December-January 7 at Bengal Gallery, the National Museum, and Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh We are quick to turn our luminaries into icons, preferably bedecked with high-sounding sobriquets, and then pretend that we need do nothing more than go through certain adulatory rituals on…
