Jaishri Abichandani

Jaishri Abichandani (born 1969) is a Brooklyn-based artist, who was born in Mumbai, India. Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on the intersections between art, feminism, and social practice.^[1] Abichandani’s practice “straddles creating objects, actions, writing, curating exhibitions, and collective production- including founding and directing the South Asian Women's Creative Collective from 1997 - 2013, with chapters in New York City and London."^[2]

Early Life and Education

Jaishri Abichandani was born in India, raised in Queens, and works in Brooklyn, New York.^[3] Abichandani immigrated from Mumbai, India to Queens, USA in 1984, when she was thirteen.^[2]

She received a B.A. from Queens College, CUNY, an M.A. in Visual Arts from Goldsmiths College, and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts from Goldsmiths College.^[1]

Art

Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on the intersections between art, feminism, and social practice.^[1] Abichandani’s practice “straddles creating objects, actions, writing, curating exhibitions, and collective production- including founding and directing the South Asian Women's Creative Collective from 1997 - 2013, with chapters in New York City and London."^[2]

“Employing materials such as leather whips, clay, nails, paint, utensils and jewels, I make works across scale and mediums. Returning to the female body as the site of conflict and power, I am informed by feminist art history. Positions of power and themes of nationhood are critiqued, complexities and ambiguities are left unresolved while the formal approach prioritizes crafty and conceptual feminist treatments. Often referencing aesthetic theory and tropes from South Asia, I centralize female desire and agency within my work.” - Jaishri Abichandani^[2]

“With her language of intimate gestures, improbable bodily contortions and tactile expression” Deborah Frizzell writes, “the artist centralizes the female perspective in manipulations of clay, refusing a disembodied history. By helping new meanings emerge from inchoate possibilities, Abichandani allows us all to become midwives of the imagination.”^[4]

Selected Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:

Dirty Jewels, Rossi and Rossi, London, UK (2010)

Reconciliations, Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, India (2008)

Reconciliations, Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY (2007)

Group exhibitions:

A Bomb With Ribbon Around It, Queens Museum, New York, NY (2014)

The Name, The Nose, Museo Laboratorio, Citta Sant’Angelo, Italy (2014)

Enfoco/ In Focus: Selected Works from the Permanent Collection Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C. (2012)

A Bomb With Ribbon Around It, Queens Museum, New York, NY (2014)

The Name, The Nose, Museo Laboratorio, Citta Sant’Angelo, Italy (2014)

Enfoco/ In Focus: Selected Works from the Permanent Collection Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C. (2012)^[1]

Rossi and Rossi, London, UK, 2010

'Emergency Room' P.S.1/ MOMA. New York City, USA^[5]

Awards

Brooklyn Arts Council BRIC Artist’s Honoree, New York, NY (2009)

Urban Artists Award, New York, NY (2006)

Enfoco New Works Award, New York, NY (2001)^[1]

South Asian Women’s Creative Collective

Jaishri Abidichandani founded the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective in NY in 1997 and London in 2004, and served on the Board of Directors until 2013.^[1]

In 1997, Jaishri Abichandani founded the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) to foster a sense of community among South Asian women artists and creative professionals in New York City. Fourteen women, who were invited through community-based organizations such as Sakhi for South Asian Women and the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA), attended SAWCC’s first meeting in the offices of the Sister Fund. In March 1998, the collective held its first annual fundraiser and art show, “Karma Kollage,” which drew a crowd of over 300. Soon, SAWCC, the only New York–based South Asian arts organization at the time, began meeting monthly at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, providing a space for members to collaborate, network, share their work, and gain exposure.^[6]

"The South Asian Women’s Creative Collective was founded by the artist Jaishri Abichandani in New York City in 1997, when identity politics was in the air, but artists from much of the Asian diaspora were still being given the cold shoulder by the art world here. By providing strength-in-numbers support and access to resources, the collective helped move a generation of artists ahead." Holland Cotter^[7]

Curatorial Projects

"Sheherzades's Gift" Local Project, Queens, USA (2015)^[8]

"Stargazing" Rossi and Rossi, London, UK (2012)^[9]

'Shapeshifters and Aliens' Rossi and Rossi, London, UK (2011)

'Anomalies' Rossi & Rossi, London, UK (2009)

'Artists in Exile' Arario Gallery, New York City, USA (2009)

'Transitional Aesthetics' Beijing 798 Biennial, Beijing, China (2009)

'Exploding the Lotus' Arts and Culture Center of Hollywood. Hollywood. Florida, USA (2008)

'Fire Walkers' (Curatorial Consultant) Stux Gallery. New York City, USA (2008)

'Sultana's Dream' Exit Art. New York City, USA (2007)

'Queens International 2006' Queens Museum of Art. New York City, USA (2006)

'Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now' Queens Museum of Art. New York City, USA (2005)

References