Exhibitions / Artist Talks

NexUs organizes a number of art exhibitions and shows throughout the year. Shows organized generally focus on creating a dialogue between the audience, the artist and
the artwork regarding various socio-political as well as environment-related issues.
A few solo and groups shows are held every year to pay homage to veteran artists as well as to promote and provide exposure to up-and- coming artists.

Between the Sacred and the Sold

An Artist talk in three parts by Michael Gordon, Fulbright Researcher and Kathmandu University Artist In Residence. 

Part I: Artistic Research
Traditionally, Thangka painting offered an opportunity for the accumulation of spiritual merit in the Buddhist tradition. Today, hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to Nepal every year seeking adventure, excitement, and a land of spiritual mysticism. How do these objects reflect the rise of individualism, mass production, and secularization in contemporary Nepal? Who are the artists and how do they navigate authenticity, exoticism, and the real opportunity for financial security? And what do these practices reveal about discipline of craft in a world of instant gratification?

Part II: Studio Practice 
Inspired by the practice of Torma, he began making sugar paintings, or advertisements for emptiness, or momentary windows, or portals. He embraces ephemerality as a form of resistance, subverting attachment in a gesture of generosity and minimalist abstraction. Or maybe he just likes to feed the flies.

Part III: Questions 
Michael grew up in Denver, Colorado where he spent his childhood running around the backyard with a roll of duct tape. He received his BA from Dartmouth College and his MFA from California College of the Arts. His pieces have been exhibited in the De Young Museum in San Francisco, AICAD Studios in New York, and Abigail Ogilvy gallery in Boston.

Michael Gordon is a artist and educator working in Nepal on a Fulbright Scholarship. His current research project examines the socioeconomic, cultural, and artistic landscape of contemporary Buddhist art.

• 23rd March 2018 – 7th April

• NexUs Culture Nepal Maitri Marg, Patan · Lalitpur,, Lalitpur, Nepal 44600 Art Work conceptualized during a month long LASANAA Artist in Residency by Mark Bechtel ( New York) Press Reliease “Is a blind man’s cane a part of him?” Gregory Bateson“Any past which is an “other” for us deserves to be negated. We could even say, it deserves to be eaten, devoured, with the following clarifying proviso: The cannibal was a “polemicist” (from the Greek polemos, meaning “struggle, combat”), but he was also an “anthologist”—he devoured only the enemies he considered courageous, taking their marrow and protein to fortify and renew his own natural energies.” Haroldo de Campo This exhibition began between a lesson selling difference and a place with no address. For the first lesson, fixed lines were drawn and a prototype was produced, contingent until its death by reproduction. This is the standard form and a tribute to fidelity. In what appeared to be a rehearsal of the first act, a second lesson was delivered, but this time as a parallel translation, a foreign affect. Cutting lines were drawn, splitting the redoubling of the act, and a mise en abîme is produced exceeding the frame. The original prototype, denied its completion and corresponding aura, is devoured to be transposed instead into a population produced at a place with no address. This is an open form that extends invitation. The show is comprised of a series of translations, deviations, bestowals, obstructions, and absences. As an exhibition, it is filled with images and objects, raw material, disparate histories, and yet unformed ideas – sustenance to be devoured again. Mark Bechtel is a new artist in residence at Lasanaa and will be introducing his artwork and background as an artist, craftsman maker, and design educator. He is an Assistant Professor of Product Design who has been teaching in the undergraduate Product Design and graduate Industrial Design programs at Parsons School of Design in New York for the last twelve years. Disillusioned by the conditions of the art market, he crossed disciplines through self-education to join other disciplinary discourses as a means to return to art making in a new way. During this time, he has held multiple roles in design education, including Interim Director for the Product Design program and Chair of the curriculum committee for the School of Constructed Environments. Additionally, other activities have included acting as a panelist for an exhibition, Private Choices, Public Spaces, by the feminist architecture collective, ArchiteXX, and presenting at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference in Los Angeles.

Nepal-Gareth Prew & Moving City-Bibek Thapa

23rd Feb – 20th March

Open Studio, Performance and Interactive Talk with Artist in Residence Kate McElroy

November 15-18, 2017

Open studio, performance and interactive talk with the artist as a concluding event of Artist in Residence Kate McElroy (http://www.katemcelroy.com/).

Kate has been working on themes of connection through a variety of media including photography, performance and semi transparent materials. Her work lies on the liminal* aspects of the visible and the invisible and offers us alternatives to the reality in which we normally see.

The international artist in residence programme allows for LASANAA to offer two Nepali artists residency fellowships. Selected artists Hishilla Maharjan and Bibek Thapa work in progress will also be on display.

LASANAA’s latest art residency concludes with an exhibit – Kathmandu Post 15 Nov. 2017

More exhibitions:

• Open Studio, Performance and Interactive Talk with Artist in Residence Kate McElroy – Nov. 15-18, 2017
• Rebuilding Recaptured – Aug. 21-Sept. 4, 2017
• 5 Women Artists Collaboration with KTM Art Triennale
• The Lit: Inclusion Within