Swati Khurana

Current Exhibitions:

 

Me Love You Long Time is a group exhibition of contemporary art and video since the 1990s by artists from North America and particularly those working in and descendent from Southeast Asia who use various media and complicated visual strategies to upend or explore gender expression, sexuality, sex work, and new subjectivities.

 

 

Artists include: Diyan Achjadi, Reza Afisina, Tai Chi Alfonso, Nicole Awai, Hima B., Yason Banal, Anjali Bhargava, Isauro Cairo, Lynne Chan, PierSath Chath, Vanna Chin, Susan Choi, Cecile Chong, Young Chung, Jon Cuyson, Cirilo Domine, Oasa DuVerney, Richard Fung, Permi Gill, Vicente Golveo, Akintola Hanif, Skowmon Hastanan, Swati Khurana, Andrew H. Kim, Naruki Kukita, Viet Le, Sokchanlina Lim, Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., Yeni Mao, Zavé G. Martohardjono,Tala Mateo, Gabby Quynh-Anh Miller, Ivan Monforte, Gloria Shuri Nava, Hoang Tan Nguyen, Phuong Linh Nguyen, Sokuntevy Oeur, Mariko Passion, Tomiko Pilson, Johanna Poethig, Pulang Alakdan, Clifford Landon Pun, Ling Quisumbing, Vanessa T. Ramalho, Rico J. Reyes, Larilyn Sanchez, Maitree Siriboon, SLAAAP! (Sexually Liberated Asian Artist Activist People!), Joel B. Tan, Teresa Nasty, The New Sound Karaoke with Black Waterfall & Bobby Service, Nodeth Vang, Nathan Lam Vuong, and Maria Yoon.

This exhibition is supported by a generous grant from the Lambent Foundation and a curatorial research fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Generation in Transition. New Art from India

Contemporary Art Centre (CAC),  Vilnius, Lithuania
2011.XII.09 – 2012.III.10
Curator: Magda Kardasz
Opening: Friday 9 December at 8pm
Guided tour for press: Friday 9 December at 6pm

The exhibition entitled Generation in Transition presents the artworks of a young generation of artists of Indian origin, living and working in India, as well as in America and Europe.

It is the first extensive showcase of contemporary art from this region presented in Lithuania. For about twenty years now, India has been experiencing an enormous economic and technological development, which has had a substantial impact on social structures. This change, with its positive and negative aspects, is frequently reflected in the works of contemporary artists, especially in those of the youngest ones who have grown up in these interesting times of transition.

Over the last ten years, contemporary art from India has become very popular. Big
group exhibitions have so far been shown in Europe, the United States and China. Private galleries — mostly from New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore — have built a local art-market and became important players on the international scene. Non-commercial organizations — such as KHOJ and the SARAI Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi and 1 Shanti Road in Bangalore, as well as art-schools are opening up spaces for independent ideas and projects.

The show focuses on young- and youngest-generation artists in an attempt to capture the condition of the mind and spirit of a generation trying to redefine itself, to find a place for itself between a sense of attachment to the national tradition, history, and an increasingly globalized and technologized reality.

Artists invited to participate in the exhibition: Jaishri Abichandani, Prayas Abhinav, Ravi Agarwal, Ashish Avikunthak, Sarnath Banerjee, Devendra Banhart, Ansuman Biswas & Jem Finer, Nikhil Chopra, Baptist Coelho, Shezad Dawood, Rohini Devasher, Gauri Gill, Shilpa Gupta, Tushar Joag, Vishwas Kulkarni, Swati Khurana, Anay Mann, Piotr Młodożeniec, Rakhi Peswani, Prajakta Potnis, Prasad Raghavan, Gitanjali Rao, Akshay Rathore, Malik Sajad, Sharmila Samant, Mithu Sen, Charmi Gada Shah, Tejal Shah, Yashas Shetty, Bharat Sikka, Janek Simon, Praneet Soi, Kiran Subbaiah, Anup Mathew Thomas, Navin Thomas, Nandini Valli Muthiah

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Wave Hill Winter Workspace Award Recipient

February 15 – March 27 2011

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Glyndor Gallery is transformed into studio space for artists during the Winter Workspace Program. Nine artists who represent an array of artistic practices will be in residence over two, six-week sessions. This is a rare opportunity for New York artists to work in proximity to our collection and landscape, and to be in the serene winter environment on a daily basis. Three artists will be preparing for their Sunroom Project exhibitions that occur later in the year. Artists will open their studios and lead hands-on workshops giving the public a behind the scenes view of the creative process.

The first session, from January 4 through February 13, includes Ruth Marshall, Claudia Weber, and Marion Wilson, with open studios on February 13, 1–4 PM.

The artists in the second session, from February 15 through March 27, are The Friendly Falcons and Their Friend the Snake (Jeffrey Kurosaki and Tara Pelletier), Meghan Gordon, Swati Khurana, Max Liboiron, and James Walsh, with open studios on March 26, 12–4 PM.

Artist-led workshops and tours are held throughout the winter, find out more on the individual artist’s page or on our calendar or download press release.

All events are free with admission to the grounds; some events require registration as space may be limited.

SUPPORT FOR THE WINTER WORKSPACE PROGRAM IS PROVIDED BY the New York State Artists Workspace Consortium Technical Assistance Fund, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties. Additional support for Wave Hill’s Visual Arts program is provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation and The Greenwall Foundation.

May 5, 2010
Dearest friends,

I hope you are doing very well. I’d like to share some interesting developments (art-wise) in 2010. In January, I had a great time with family and friends in my new favorit-y city Mumbai, while having an exhibition at Chaterjee & Lal. I have some links to press from that exhibition below. I came back and moved studios to one that is a block away from my apartment, and there will OPEN STUDIO event this Saturday May 8 (info below). And I will be showing two new embroideries, made in collaboration with my grandmothers, in a group exhibition curated by Meenakshi Thirukode at the Guild Gallery, NYC. During which, I will be doing a collaborative performance on May 20 with my grandmother Mrs. Pushpa Khurana, many of you may know as “Mama”, who is turning 80 this month (!). Also, in the spirit of collaboration, I have been thrilled to be working with Neeraj/Lotus Visuals and Parijat Desai, an excitingly brilliant choreographer, on projections for Parijat Desai Dance Company’s performance of ‘Songs to Live For” on June 5 & 6 in Tribeca, NYC. And finally, I am honored to have been selected as an Artist-in-Residence at The Cooper Union School of Art Outreach Program this Summer. My work from the residency will be shown at the Summer Program Exhibition, tentatively scheduled for August 11th – August 25th, 2010. And please stay tuned for very exciting UnSuitable Girls project with photographer Anjali Bhargava–anouncement coming as the weather gets hotter!

Thank you for your interest and support. I have included links, more details and images below.

Best wishes,

Swati

Here are the links to the press on the “Love Letters & Other Necessary Fictions” exhibition at Chaterjee&Lal this Spring.
Timeout Mumbai <http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/art/arts_preview_details.asp?code=101>
DNA <http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_matrimonial-art-a-unique-form_1331257>

The Open Studio at 610 Dean Street (between Carlton and Vanderbilt), Brooklyn.
Saturday MAY 8.
There is no cover and open bar, and it goes from 7-midnight. I will definitely be there from 8-10pm, and it is “family friendly” until 10pm.
8 artists will be opening up their studios: David Pierce, Eric Snowden, Swati Khurana, Matthew Kirby, Caroline Falby, Frederick V Nielsen, and special guests Albert Shelton and Rafi Katz. In addition, Kalae All Day will be performing. http://kalaeallday.blogspot.com

“Structures within an Intervention” Exhibition
May 18th – June 18th 2010
“Lesson 1″ performance May 20, 2010 details below
The Guild Art Gallery, New York
45 W 21st Street, 2nd Floor
Buzzer #39, New York, New York 10010
212.229.2110

The Guild Art Gallery presents “Structures within an Intervention” a curatorial project by Meenakshi Thirukode that includes artists Rajkamal Kahlon, Swati Khurana, Vandana Jain, Michael Buhler Rose, Afruz Amighi, Mariam Ghani, Fawad Khan, Redo Pakistan (Fatima Hussain and Hamja Ahsan), Divya Mehra, Aninditta Dutta and Nidhi Jalan. The project seeks to challenge preconceived structures. both, within the immediate purview of what constitutes a ‘gallery exhibition’, to broader issues of place and cultural identity within the contemporary art world. This is being orchestrated by collaborating with individuals and collectives who have created their own branded identity in an effort to create frameworks that range from curatorial endeavors to publications, performances and discussions. These individuals, who operate under an “institutional alias” include Town Hall Meeting (Christopher Steigler and Dina Shalouv), Ad Hoc Vox (Colleen Asper and Jennifer Dudley), Shifter (Sreshta Rit Premnath), Greshams Ghost (Ajay Kurian) and Parlour (Leslie Rosa Stumpf and Ciara Gilmartin). Each of them have been asked to interpret, re-contextualize or just react to the contexts the curator has created. These have been labeled Interventions. During the duration of the show Interventions will take place at a predetermined date. The extent to which the nature of these interventions will be publicized is dependent on the amount of information each Intervenor is willing to disclose. Rest assured, however, that they will take place at the said dates and timings listed below.

Interventions
May 18th: Opening Night: Intervention 1: Town Hall Meeting (Curatorial Collaborators): 6:30 – 8:30 pm.
An investigatory survey where Town Hall Meeting will have a set of questions to ask guests, artists and other art professionals that are out and about that evening. THM will be referencing the writings of Ranciere, Gayarti Chakravorty Spivak, Said, Vinyak Chaturvedi, and others, all with the aim of linking their ideologies with the activities of artists functioning in today art world. This Intervention will take place in an area that statistics have shown, is the most frequented during an opening despite its seeming air of distance at other hours from the visitor- The Reception Desk where the food and wine spread is laid out.

May 20th: Intervention 2: Ad Hoc Vox (Collaborators): 6 – 8 pm, 7 pm Reading.
Ad Hoc Vox’s Colleen Asper and Jennifer Dudley have chosen a classic text from the Western canon and, rather than translating it into another language, will translate it within the tradition of the English language in a way that nevertheless dramatically alters the text. They chose Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Dudley will make a drawing translating the modern text into Old English and Asper will translate the text using a quote of Saint Augustine’s, where he described wanting to write in such a way that all the words were apprehended at once, as that is the way he imagined god reading—outside of linear time.
Intervention reception starts 6 pm. Colleen Asper and Jennifer Dudley will do a reading starting 7 pm.
Performance: Swati Khurana and her Grandmother will perform “Lesson 1″ where they will knit an embroidery piece together. The performance will start a few hours prior to the reception and continue into the evening.

May 25th: Intervention 3: Shifter (Individual): 12 – 8:30 pm
Shifter (Sreshta Rit Premnath) proposes the following Intervention
Between Dog and Wolf:

time: The intervention or interruption will take place for periods of about 1 hour, interspersed throughout the duration of the show at the discretion of the curator.
materials: Several flashlights, mp3 player/ cd player and speakers.
action: The gallery lights are to be turned off. A one hour lecture by Trin T Minh-ha (provided by me) is to be played in the gallery. For the duration of the lecture, guests are invited to view the show with the help of flashlights. In her lecture, Minh-ha explores questions widely raised in our time regarding the migrant self, boundaries, and multiplicity. She attempts to describe a color which requires a different kind of hearing to imagine. A color in all its racial, gendered and artistic connotations. This intervention invokes the time of twilight, described in French as “entre chien et le loup.” This time of murky visuality when people disappear and ghosts awake, is also a time of transformation, a time of becoming. As individuals who confront and engage the problems of identification, how do we proceed with clarity, yet maintaining criticality in regard to how we identify ourselves.

June 1st – 3rd: Intervention 4: Greshams Ghost (Individual)
Greshams Ghost (Ajay Kurian) has not disclosed details of the Intervention. The curator waits and continues to follow up on occasion.

June 15th: Intervention 5: Parlour (Curatorial Collaborators): 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Parlour (Leslie Rosa Stumpf and Ciara Gilmartin) have proposed an Intervention that includes inclusion of works by other artists. In essence the installation will be reworked and re-contextualized in the process. Join us for the opening reception.

TRIBECA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
presents
PARIJAT DESAI DANCE COMPANY
in
Songs to Live For
http://www.parijatdesai.org/eventdetails.php?id=41
Saturday, June 5, 2010, 8p
Sunday, June 6, 2010, 3p/7p
$10

Parijat Desai, Aditi Dhruv, Kiley Durst, Belinda He, Mohan Kulasingam, Cori Marquis, Riyo Mito
Projection designed by Swati Khurana and Neeraj Churi

As part of their residency at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Parijat Desai Dance Company will perform in the venue’s Theater 2 this June. PDDC will present two new works in development at TPAC, Songs To Live For and Make Space.

Songs To Live For, a dance theater work based on Hindustani vocal music, explores the profound longing evoked by this thumri and khayal in particular. Responding to the quality of the music—its spacious vocals and rhythmic punctuations—Desai draws on released movement from postmodern dance, and weaves in classical gesture in new ways.

Desai uses thumri as a vehicle to investigate gender and desire. Hindustani music is rich with romantic poetry written by various poets — Sufis, Hindu bhakts, Sikhs, men, and women — and sometimes expresses queer desire. As the work develops, Desai will also look at the music’s potent history: patronage by the Mughals rulers of both Muslim and Hindu artists.

Set to electronic music by South Asian American artists, Make Space rewires the sculptural positions of bharata natyam using postmodern/modern dance techniques, and remixes classical footwork patterns in response to contemporary beats. Dancers undulate and slide their bodies, creating openings within rigid classical forms. Desai also experiments with spatial relationships between bodies, traveling those new forms out into space, into the floor, into the air.

Songs To Live For is made possible in part with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Recent News:

 

Domestic Policy: SAWCC 12th Annual Visual Arts Exhibition

November 12–December 5
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 12 | 6:30–8:30pm | Guild Art Gallery

45 W 21st Street 2nd floor, between 6th and 5th Avenues, NYC

Guest Curator: Rocio Aranda

Artists: Jaishri Abichandani, Vandana Jain, Shalalae Jamil, Swati Khurana, Asma Kazmi, Divya Mehra, Sa’dia Rehman, Gazelle Samizay, Apnavi Thacker

here is an excerpt from RocioAranda-Alvarado’s essay:

‘Domestic policies (often influenced by religious ideas) guide the laws of marriage. Within the traditions and history of marriage, additional ceremonies, rituals, and beliefs accompany the entire rite of passage. Swati Khurana’s Wedding Trousseau relates to these rituals and their influence on gender and the social roles of women. She notes: “To me,

the seductive promises of rituals comprise a huge part of domestic policy.” The marriage rituals and their power to inspire particular beliefs or to manipulate behaviors are explored throughout these images, in which the artist presents drawings of her own wedding and its anticipated events. She had given the drawings on fabric to her grandmothers and asked them, without additional instructions, to simply embroider on them. With this gesture, the entire trousseau of shawls, blankets, and saris that are hand-sewn, knit, crocheted, or embroidered is reconsidered, an additional layer to the already complex formalities of a symbolic act.’

* * * Opening Thursday January 7, 2010

Chatterjee and Lal will be presenting the first solo art exhibition of my work in India.
01/18 Kamal Mansion Floor 1
Arthur Bunder Road Colaba
Mumbai 400 005 India
http://www.chatterjeeandlal.com/contact.html

Residency at the Pace University Fine Arts Department with Asha Canalos and Ryan Roa. I will be showing four new digital collages. There will be a culminating exhibition at the Choate House Gallery in Pleasantville, NY August 24th-September 24th, 2009, with a gallery talk on Thursday, September 24th, 2-4 pm

Pace University Pleasantville Campus is 861 Bedford Rd. Pleasantville, NY and is accesible by the Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line to Pleasantville Stationn. Take exit 26 off the Saw Mill Parkway to the Taconic State Parkway. The first exit on the Taconic Parkway is for Pace University at Pleasantville – Route 117.

My “UnSuitable Girls” trophies, and photographs by Anjali Bhargava in an exhibition titled “Transnational Aesthetics.”
Opening AUGUST 15, curated by Alexandra Loewenstein & Jaishri Abichandani. The exhibition will be at Yan Club Arts Center and BTAP-Beijing Tokyo Arts Project. Other artists in “Transnational Aesthetics”: Jaishri Abichandani, India/U.S.A; Chitra Ganesh, India/U.S.A; Erika Harrsch, Mexico; O Zhang, China; Vandana Jain, India/U.S.A.; Samira Abbassy; U.K./Iran; Yamini Nayar, India/U.S.A.; Pooneh Maghazehe, U.S.A./Iran; Divya Mehra, Canada/India; Marina Zurkow, U.S.A; Mariam Ghani, Lebanon/Afghanistan/USA

http://www.theartistnetwork.org/ (from the organizer)

There is also a write-up in TimeOut Beijing

http://www.timeout.com/cn/en/beijing/aroundtown/feature/8348/young-at-art.html

* * * *

BOXING GLOVES AND BUSTIERS
Curated by Kate Gilmore
Exhibition date: July 21 – August 15, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, July 23rd, 5:00-7:00

Boxing Gloves and Bustiers is an exhibition of works that explore the many faces of heroic female figuration through the lens of contemporary video. The show, which was curated by artist Kate Gilmore reflects a shift in women’s relationship to power and the subsequent critique this change entails. The videos range from heroic narratives to short and snappy “music videos”, all of which evoke from the viewer empathy, intrigue and laughter.

artists: Amalie Atkins, Ronnie Cramer, Sarah Stuve, Jessica Clauser, Habby Osk, Katarina Riesing, Swati Khurana, Valerie Garlick, Yi-Hsin Tzeng, Juliana Cerqueira Leite
Yoonhye Park, Julie C. Lohnes, Kim Meijer, Jody Wood

SOHO20 CHELSEA GALLERY
511 West 25th St.
Suite 605
NEW YORK, NY 10001

http://www.soho20gallery.com/New/exhibitions.html

* * * *

I will be showing excerpts from eleven years of artwork in an exciting exhibition where artists are revisiting their practice in the context of the Asian American Arts Centre’s archive.

“Out of the Archive: Process and Progress”
Tomie Arai, Albert Chong, Swati Khurana, John Yoyogi
curated by Angel Shaw
Catalogue essay by Sarita See

Asian American Arts Centre
Exhibition Opening: Friday September 18
Artist Talk: Wednesday Oct 7 (to be confirmed)

Asian American Arts Centre
26 Bowery 3rd floor
New York, NY 10013

t. 917.923.8118
For more information: aaacinfo@artspiral.org

Directions:
Third floor above McDonald’s restaurant, bell #3
One block south of Canal Street
By Subway, B, D to Grand Street, Q, W, R, N, J, M, Z, 6 to Canal Street, and 4 & 5 to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall
By bus, M103, M15, or M9 to Chinatown

* * * *

Bangin’
Group exhibition at Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos
Curated by: Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz

Artists:

June 3, 2009 PM, 5 PM – 8 PM.
same day as the Bronx Culture Trolley.  Here is the link to the website! http://www.bronxarts.org/culture_trolley.asp

Address:
Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos
450 Grand Concourse at 149 Street
Bronx NY 10451
Tel: 718.518.6728
by subway: 2/4/5 to 149 Street and Grand Concourse

\’flō\: art, text, new media organized by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado

Opening this Wednesday, April 15, from 6-8pm

Exhibitions on view through June 27, 2009

The Center For Book Arts

28 W 27th Street, Third Floor

New York, NY 10001

(212)481-0295

TALENT PReVIEW ’09 at White Box, NYC

“5 Curators, 5 Gallerists Select 5 Artists Each”

December 13, 2008 – January 11, 2009

February 2009

Chatterjee & Lal @ ARCO Panorama, Madrid, Spain

Minam Apang, Mansi Bhatt, Nikhil Chopra, and Swati Khurana

January-March 2009
“If I Didn’t Care: Multigenerational Artists Discuss Cultural History”

Park School, Baltimore, Maryland

Artists: Negar Ahkami, Laylah Ali, Emma Amos, Elizabeth Axtman, Kate Bae, Siona Benjamin, Margaret Burroughs, Nina Buxenbaum, Keiko Ishii Eckhardt, Debra Edgerton, Wanda Ewing, Swati Khurana, Soumiya Krishnaswamy, Athena LaTocha, Isabel Manalo, Migiwa Orimo, Howardena Pindell, Karen Powell, Faith Ringgold, Deborah Roberts, Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, Joyce Scott, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Patssi Valdez, Regina Vater, Tamasha Williamson, Paula Wilson, Flo Oy Wong, and Saya Woolfalk

April 2009
“Wonder What the Others Are Upto”

Gallery Open Eye Dreams Cochin, India

Curated by Meenakshi Thirukode

Artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Anna Bhushan, Vandana Jain, Rajkamal Kahlon, Fawad Khan, Swati Khurana, Divya Mehra, Hetain Patel, and  Usha Seejarim

Lecture:

Artist Professional Development Workshop

“I’ve Got Talent, Now What?”

Saturday February 28, 2009,  2-4 PM

“Some critical markers of a successful career include gallery representation, a museum show, fellowships and awards, critical recognition. Other markers of a successful career include the time to make one’s work, studio space, or big nest egg. Come to Jersey City Museum to find out how these recognized artists have nurtured their art, sustained their studio practice, and cultivated their financial resources. Panelists include Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Sheila Pepe, Swati Khurana, and Jon Rappleye.”

http://www.jerseycitymuseum.org/calendar.cfm?calid=129