16th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh

Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy National Art Gallery

December 1-31, 2014

Concept:
Artists across Asia, confronted with the new realities are now showing a definitive tendency to dovetail their personal strategies with the global surge for the new media. Inclined as they are to voice the difference in a climate where artistic expressions are regularly being utilised to bridge art, society and environment, they are looking to create works that are not only socially engaged but also embedded in the diction of the current digital age.

Being a developing nation, Bangladesh has never had any reason to show restraint in allowing artists to explore the entire spectrum of aesthetic modalities available to them. Rather, through both national and international art events, the diversity in art-making through the use of new technologies has always recieved primacy. Today the country is a hub of young talents who are constantly making efforts to expand their artistic horizon by employing new techniques to shape contemporary aesthetic goals. This 16th edition of Asian Art Biennale is geared towards encapsulating such path-breaking ceative trends that gripped the entire region. The theme itself reflects the drift of our time and it is through this theme that current trends and developments are expected to evolve.

Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh, since its beginning in 1981, has attempted to display the kaleidoscope of various artistic endeavours of our time in which continuity and change come together. The geographical parameter is important only in a generic sense and also for identification of sponsorship in this pioneering venture. It was inevitable that with time other regions that share, more or less, the same artistic impulses and face the same challenge of forging an identity of their own, would be included in the exhibition as has happened in recent years.

Asian Art Biennale is proud to showcase the artistic heritage and contemporary aesthetic trends in Asia. It is the organizers firm belief that with each Biennale, a new milestone will have been crossed showing progress achieved by established and young artists in dating with both continuity and change through then work modernity while maintaining their attempt to embrace a commitment to tradition.