Hindu Goddesses in Australia

[Guest guest]

Goddesses showing off in Australia

Neena Bhandari

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1048876

 

More about the exhibit, "Goddess: Divine Energy"

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/coming/goddess

 

SYDNEY: As Indian culture, cuisine and clothes catch

Australians' fancy, a new exhibition - Goddess: Divine

energy - opens at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

to coincide with the Indian festive season.

 

Curated by Jackie Menzies, Head Curator of Asian Arts

at the Gallery, this is the first major exhibition in

Australia that explores the many manifestations of the

divine female in Hindu and Buddhist art.

 

Menzies says, "The all-powerful Goddess has been a

source of inspiration and guidance to followers for

centuries. She protects, loves, comforts, champions,

seduces, enlightens, saves and empowers. This

exhibition is about finding the goddess, symbolising

power and compassion, within oneself to overcome

negative mind sets and spiritually sustain and nourish

one's life."

 

"The last decade has seen an enormous interest in

eastern religions and philosophies as people search for

new spiritual models that help them in today's world,"

explain Menzies, who has been involved with promoting

Indian art for over a decade.

In 1994, she curated Dancing to Flute exhibition and in

2001, A Show on Buddha.

 

"The Buddha exhibition was very popular and it inspired

me to have this exhibition. Yoga, meditation and

chakras are of increasing interest to Westerners, who are

finding all of these aspects in Indian religious traditions

more rewarding," she adds.

 

Menzies observes, "Indian festivals are a part of the

annual community calendar. This has made Indian

culture and teachings more accessible. Today, more

young Australians are visiting India and there is more

people-to-people connection."

 

The exhibition has over 150 exquisitely carved

sculptures and richly coloured and composed paintings

from India, Tibet and Nepal, dating from 2000 BC to

present day.

 

It includes two female torsos from the Mohenjodaro and

Harrapan collection, which were presented by the Indian

Government to the University of Sydney in 1958.

 

There are paintings from the Ajit Mukherjee collection

and sculptures of Shiva, Paravati and Tara from the

National Museum of Delhi; paintings of Radha and

Krishna from the Government Museum in Chandigarh;

sculptures from Bharat Kala Bhavan at the Benaras

Hindu University in Varanasi and British Museum and

Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Guimet

Museum in Paris and Metropolitan Museum in New

York.

 

The exhibition on display from October 13 to January

28, 2007, has four sections: The Divine Mother , which

has images that articulate the nurturing power of the

goddess through early fertility and nature figures;

Goddesses in Hinduism has images of Radha and

Krishna, Shiva and Parvati, the androgynous form of

Ardhanarishvara (half Shiva, half Parvati), Durga and

Kali; Yoga Tantra looks at the Goddess represented in

symbolic form through diagrammatic sonic formulae,

mandalas and chakras; and Goddesses in Buddhism

include Prajnaparamita and Tara.