Asia Society India Honours Three ‘Game-changing’ Artists
The Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India celebrate artists who make a major contribution to contemporary art and inspire empathy.
Sohrab Hura, The Lost Head & The Bird (2016–2019). Single channel video with sound in variable loop, 10min 13 seconds. Courtesy Experimenter.
Jyoti Bhatt, Hamra Abbas, and Sohrab Hura were honoured at the Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India last night.
Baroda-based Bhatt was commended on his printmaking, essay writing, and photography. His archive of tribal and rural visual art was described as historically significant.
After living for many years in Berlin and Boston, Abbas recently returned to Lahore, Pakistan. Her work includes marble-inlay sculptures, miniature silk paintings, and light installations.
New Delhi-based artist Hura uses film, photography, sound, and text in a practice described as akin to journalling. Hura's work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Ishara Art Foundation, among others.
The Asia Arts Game Changer Awards India are a spinoff of the Asia Arts Game Changer Awards, which honoured Swiss collector Uli Sigg, Chinese artist Zhang Huan, Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli, and Indian-American artist Zarina Hashmi at a virtual gala on 5 May.
Past Asia Arts Game Changer awardees include: Cai Guo-Qiang, Bharti Kher, Lee Ufan, Takashi Murakami, and Shahzia Sikander.
Outside of visual arts, The Asia Game Changer Awards last year celebrated pop group BTS, Indian celebrity chef Vikas Khanna, Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma, South Korean entertainer Miky Lee, philanthropists Joe and Clara Tsai, and tennis champion Naomi Osaka.
This year, they will honour Asian Americans making a transformative impact on society at a ceremony held on 28 October. That focus follows a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in the wake of the pandemic.
'At the height of brutalisation against Asians in the West, hardly any art publications have expressed support to our communities,' said curators Li Zhenhua and Danielle Shang in an interview between eight Asian art professionals and Ocula Magazine earlier this year. —[O]
