AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY – TAASA Review September 2010

Life, death and magic – 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 13 August ­ 31 October 2010 Life, death and magic assembles some of the finest and rarest works of Southeast Asian animist art, showing the ancient and enduring links between the arts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and East Timor.

The exhibition features dramatic sculpture, jewellery and textiles revealing the power of art made for rituals of life and death from prehistoric to recent times. A series of talks will take place in association with the exhibition: Lucie Folan, Curator Asian art speaks about the art of the Yami people from Taiwan on 9 September at 12.45 pm Robyn Maxwell, Senior Curator, Asian Art, and curator of the exhibition will discuss art and the cycle of life in ancestral Southeast Asia on 14 September at 12.45pm. Textile conservators from the NGA will give a general overview of the conservation of Southeast Asian textiles and cover a number of different conservation treatments on 21 September at 12.45pm and 12 October at 12.45pm. Dr Hwei-F’en Cheah, Lecturer, Art History, ANU, will discuss the ritual textiles from Sumatra on 19 October at 12.45pm. Professor James Fox, Professor of Anthropology, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific will lecture on Life from death: sacrifice for creation' on 21 October at 12.45pm.

Niki van den Heuvel, Exhibition Assistant, will discuss the sumptuous gold objects made for the veneration of ancestors in the exhibition on 23 October at 2.00pm...