TRIBAL SCULPTURES FROM WESTERN NEPAL

The new sculpture from my personal collection :

provenance : DAROUN GALERIJ, ANTWERPEN, BELGIUM

Here's the link to the complete photo album : http://tribalsculpturesfromnepal.skynetblogs.be/album/col...

72 cm

72 cm

72 cm

GALERIE RENAUD VANUXEM

52, rue Mazarine
75006 PARIS
Open Monday to Saturday from 14h to 19h
and by appointment
Phone : 00(+33) 1 43 26 03 04
Mobile : 00(+33) 6 07 11 50 60
Email : rvanuxem@yahoo.fr

http://www.renaudvanuxem.com/home.php

copyright : Renaud Vanuxem

Here's the presentation of an exhibition organized in the "Museo di Arti Primarie" (MAP) di Savona in the city of Genova in Italia (22 March 2012 / 30 April 2012)...

All the scuptures presented at this exhibition are from the A.M.Collection....

When, in 1954, Giuseppe Tucci passed through the west lands of Nepal while looking for the vestiges of the Malla kingdom, extraordinary wooden effigies caught his attention within ‘hut’-sanctuaries or (perhaps as protection) near dangerous bridges and mountain passes. Tucci couldn't help alighting on the survival of confronting primordial animistic beliefs that survived in majority Hindu and Buddhism areas.
He noted down that he had come into a “religious world which is starting to intensify and to rage with no dogmatic patterns but a contradictory naturalness that lead to the origin .... To a country where life is old, but nothing has changed and where the human being keep unaltered fancies and dreads, imagines and hopes which had been anywhere else transfigured or forgotten by the current of the centuries.
Only by the end of the eighties were the enigmatic figures observed by Tucci studied and collected in the West, earning increasing and serious attention among studies of the prime arts.
The West Nepal sculptures are mainly wooden, but there are also significant stone models and small bronzes. It's often hard to understand the function of these works, which – as it usually happens among prime arts - are linked to rites and worships.
According to Marc Petit the figures could be classified through three main categories linked to their function:
a)patrons of villages and houses
b)guardians of bridges, mountain passes and fields
c)temple and sanctuary sculptures
We don't know the exact identities of the represented characters; they probably aren't gods but contributors (similar to Ex voto) or protective spirits who are able to guarantee the fertility of the fields and the safety during dangerous trips.
The effigies are often represented with the hands pressed together in the gesture called Namaste, which in Nepal is the common salutation indicating gratitude and respect. The sculptures are made by unknown artists or shamans (Dhami) called by the god to serve his believers. The first creator is often linked Nature, which, supported by Wind and Water, remove the veil of the surface leading the figures to the Spirit of the Archetype.
Going down Tucci's path, we may finish saying how these figures, “perhaps like no other art, manage to express the terror of the human being facing the mystery of life and death”.

Andrea Mordacci

I WISH TO PRESENT YOU SOME PICTURES OF THE EXHIBITION.........MORE TO COMES :

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

Giuliano Arnaldi and Erika Musso

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

Here are 3 new sculptures from my personal collection i've just bought in Kathmandu :

28 cm

provenance : Shiva Parvati Handicraft, Hari Bista, Kathmandu

25 cm

provenance : Shiva Parvati Handicraft, Hari Bista, Kathmandu

31 cm

provenance : Shiva Parvati Handicraft, Hari Bista, Kathmandu

LINK TO THE COMPLETE PHOTO ALBUMS SHOWING THESE SCULPTURES :

http://tribalsculpturesfromnepal.skynetblogs.be/album/col...

http://tribalsculpturesfromnepal.skynetblogs.be/album/col...

http://tribalsculpturesfromnepal.skynetblogs.be/album/col...

Back from Kathmandu and wish to present you a few honest galleries

I would like to thank Kesang, Raju and H.Bista to let me published these pictures.....

Here are some pictures extracted from the catalog of the 2011 exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium : "Denis de Mot Paintings and Shamanistic Sculpture :

36 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

43 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

54 cm / 43 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

36 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

51 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

51 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

36 cm

copyright : T. van Hemelryck / courtesy of Mr. Piet Colaert

Here's a link to the photo album showing the pictures i've taken at the exhibition : http://tribalsculpturesfromnepal.skynetblogs.be/album/den...

Today, I would like to introduce you to a nice book focused on the wooden tribal sculpture tradition from Nepal.....In this publication are presented a lot of masks and tribal figures from the Max Itzikovitz collection photographed by H.Dubois....

References "Wood Sculpture in Nepal : Jokers and Talisman", B.Goy / M.Itzikovitz / G.Krauskopff, 176 pages, ed. 5 Continents, 2009, ISBN : 8874395094

Cover of the french edition

Here's the official presentation of the book :

The majority of the western Nepalese sculptures are showing what we are attempted to describe as the "Namaste" gesture....The Namaste greeting comes from Hinduist world and is used in all the regions of hinduist culture..... It is a customary greeting when individuals meet, and a valediction upon their parting.

A non-contact form of salutation is traditionally preferred in India and Namaste is the most common form of such a salutation. In Nepal, younger persons usually initiate the exchange with their elders. Initiating the exchange is seen as a sign of respect in other hierarchical settings.

As it is most commonly used, namaste is roughly equivalent to "greetings" or "good day," in English, implicitly with the connotation "to be well". As against shaking hands, kissing or embracing each other in other cultures, Namaste is a non-contact form of respectful greeting and can be used universally while meeting a person of different gender, age or social status.

The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra.The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. In Sanskrit the word is namah + te = namaste (Devnagari/Hindi : नमः + ते = नमस्ते) which means “I bow to you” - my greetings, salutations or prostration to you.

Namaskār (Devnagari/Hindi: नमस्कार) literally means "I bow to [your] form".

"The spirit in me respects the spirit in you," "the divinity in me bows to the divinity in you," and others, are modern interpretations, extrapolated from the Sanskrit root of namaste.It is worth noting, however, that there is no implicit mention of divinity, spirit, light, or other such concepts in the greeting.

I'm just asking : Is the "Namaste" Greetings the real explanation for the iconography of the western nepalese sculptures ?...When we know that these sculptures are probably linked with the Masta cult who's got certainly animist roots mixed with hinduist elements ?  I hope one day, some studies we'll be done to prove or to reject these explanations.....

Another nice sculpture from the A.M. Collection....A Kukri (nepalese knife) is sculpted on one side :

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection

copyright : A.M. Collection