hodgkin, mezzaqui andgoya exhibited at bengal gallery andart lounge
A number of noteworthy exhibitions featuring the works of prominent international artists were held in 2012 and 2013 at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts and the Bengal Art Lounge. These included British artist Howard Hodgkin’s print and painting exhibition, Italian artist Sabrina Mezzaqui’s “The Dormancy of the Seed” and an exhibition of Spanish painter and master artist Francisco Goya’s engravings.
Howard Hodgkin is a painter and printmaker whose mastery of abstraction and colour has earned him worldwide recognition. His many honours and accomplishments include representing his country at the Venice Biennale in 1984, winning the prestigious Turner Prize in 1965, and being knighted in 1992. The subjects of Hodgkin’s works are often simple, depicting everyday moments in beautiful and vivid colours. They are representations of the artist’s emotional responses to memories and mundane details both glimpsed and experienced in his daily life. 12 of the Hodgkin’s artworks were brought to Dhaka and displayed at the Bengal Art Lounge in an exhibition jointly organised by the Art Lounge and the British Council.
Sabrina Mezzaqui’s installations at the Bengal Art Lounge brought nature and modernity together in a thought-provoking exhibition. The Italian artist received her artistic training from the Istituto Statale d’Arte and the Academy of Fine Arts, both in Bologna. She has also been exhibited at several well-known galleries around the world. “The Dormancy of the Seed” at the Bengal Art Lounge depicted the natural world through a variety of imaginative mediums. One installation, titled To Plant comprised of a dictionary opened onto a page with the word ‘Plant’ and dozens of black paper plant cut-outs emerging from within it. Another work was displayed on video showing an Italian countryside as the seasons changed.
Francisco Goya is widely regarded as one of the last great European masters of the Romantic period. However, his unique style and imaginative works also set him apart from his contemporaries, marking him as one of the first artists who worked with ideas characteristic of the later modern art movement. Goya’s art was influential for a number of great artists from later generations, including Monet, Picasso and Francis Bacon. The artist spent his early career working as a court painter for the Spanish crown but later began tackling more complex themes including war and the struggles of the common man. His paintings and prints evoke dark themes through humour and absurdist imagery. The exhibition of Francisco Goya’s selected engravings was organised through the joint efforts of the Bengal Foundation, the Inditex Chair of Spanish Language and Culture at the University of Dhaka, and the Spanish Embassy in Bangladesh.
Hodgkin, Mezzaqui and Goya’s art introduced Bangladeshi audiences to modern artistic sensibilities that could hitherto only be seen in foreign art magazines and websites. It is to be hoped that the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Bengal Art Lounge and other galleries across the country will feature more international artists in our exhibition spaces in the coming years.
A number of noteworthy exhibitions featuring the works of prominent international artists were held in 2012 and 2013 at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts and the Bengal Art Lounge. These included British artist Howard Hodgkin’s print and painting exhibition, Italian artist Sabrina Mezzaqui’s “The Dormancy of the Seed” and an exhibition of Spanish painter…