JOURNEY TO A MYSTIC LAND: DASHI NAMDAKOV’S IMPRESSIONS OF ASIADrawing, Jewelry, and Sculpture, 2002 - 2014

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Dashi Namdakov works in his studio >

In the fourteen years since Dashi Namdakov first began exhibiting his work publicly, he has earned a reputation for being at once classical and contemporary, traditional and innovative. These are qualities that are not easily reconcilable, and to the Western eye, Namdakov’s work might indeed seem exotic and foreign, steeped in a mysticism that belongs to another era and cultural heritage that does not easily connect outside of itself. But his works deserve more careful regard, for it takes liberties with those very sources that one might dismiss as ancient, and he does so in a way that is sometimes subtle, occasionally irreverent, and even venturing into humor and caricature, thus keeping step with the successful aesthetic strategies of Modern and Contemporary art. Born in Transbaikal in 1967 in the region of Buryatia, the borderlands between Mongolia and Russia, Namdakov studied with Lev Golovnitsky at the Krasnoyarsk State Fine Art Institute, graduating in 1992. By 2000, he had his first solo exhibition in Siberia at the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts named after V.P. Sukachev. Since then, his work has been collected and shown by museums across Russia and Asia, including a one-person exhibition at The State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Beijing World Art Museum, and even Tibet House in New York in 2004. He has likewise received major commissions for public spaces in both the East and West, and has in recent years received more attention in commercial gallery exhibitions and art fairs in the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, despite all of this widespread exposure and celebrated scholarship through numerous catalogues and publications, his work remains somewhat elusive to American audiences. So, while this current exhibition is far from being a survey of his work, for it contains only 11 sculptures and 5 drawings, with the remainder of the 60 works in the show being jewelry or bejeweled objects, it is nonetheless exemplary of major themes and categories that inhabit his art. His point of departure is a myriad combination of motifs and characters found in Lamaism and Bud-dhism, as well as legends found in Scythian-Siberian culture and ancient traditions of China, Japan, and South-eastern Asia, like Vietnam.

< Dashi Namdakov works in his studio

Harmonic Transformation: The Art of Dashi Namdakov

One of the earliest sculptures in the exhibition, Astrologer (2002) is a perfect example of the pan-Asian, ritualistic nature of his early work. The figure, modest in scale but powerful in stature, stares upward in a com-posure that exudes power, harmonic equilibrium, and self-assuredness. The light that reflects from its silver patina surface has the glow of transcendence. One sees some of these same qualities in a later, larger-scale work entitled Meditation (2011). Yet here the body has the compacted posture of deep reflection and concentra-tion in a contorted Buddha, whose limbs seem smaller in scale than his head and body, all relaxed in a pose of introspection. His two works from the Cham Mystery Series (2009) have a completely different quality to them. The Champa empire was the chief rival of the Khmer Empire, in Cambodia, and Dai Viet, an early Vietnamese king-dom to the north. Champa’s conflicts with Dai Viet began at the end of the tenth century, as the Vietnamese pushed south to the Cham kingdom of Vijaya (today’s Quy Nhon). Namdakov’s warrior figures, which are ex-trapolated from this legendary heritage, have a quality of caricature about them, at once fierce and comical, as if they emerged from an illustrated mythological account. And yet they are meticulously detailed. The dragon and skull helmets bear intricate markings and stylization, as do their vestements, that refer back to sculptural and other artifacts that survive of the Cham people. The surface treatment of the bronzes carry intricate etching and chasing, exemplifying both Namdakov’s faithful adherence to historical detail as well as his skill in metalwork. It is a skill of drawing in metal, not just sculpting, which are two very different abilities. One is construct-ing, the other is illustrating. His facility with drawing nowhere clearer than in his densely rendered conte and charcoal works on canvas. Here, we see not only the artists skill as a draftsman, but his power as a narrator, where a single figure leads our imagination to fill out the rest of the event it was extracted from. His figures sweep across the picture plane or confront us with their empowered gaze, all rendered disproportionately as if emerging from a fantasyland or fable. His more recent sculpture, such as Victoria (2014), shows a more lyrical and graceful treatment of the figure that is also reminiscent of the Modern exaggerations of form found in European and American Art Deco of the 1920s and 1930s. Boar and Bull (both 2014) are like monumental temple guardians, with muscular, pow-erful bodies rendered in a posture of humble devotion, peaceful, yet capable of catastrophic destruction. By far the fiercest and most complex work in the exhibition is Tiger and Bird (2014), carved in lapis lazuli and cast in patinated bronze. It shows a Griffin astride a leopard, terrifying animals of mythology and legend, that seem like architectural ornaments plucked from a temple or castle warning hostile invaders to mind their intent. It is not only the ferocity of this works that impresses, but Namdakov’s facility with color. And his skills at drawing in metal and as a colorist are nowhere better demonstrated than in his jewelry, which uses precious stones and metals that are at times muted and other times dazzling. They are like artifacts of ancient cultures revived for contemporary ornament: rings, amulets, bracelets, and necklaces, many of them functional, some of them merely decorative, but all of them embodying the characteristics found in his larger scale sculpture and drawings: simplicity versus complexity; modesty versus luxury; humble versus ferocious; relic versus bursting with life and energy. At heart, Namdaakov is a storyteller, recounting tales and characters from the past in a contemporary idiom that has as much relevance in today’s world of conflict as it did in the ancient eras that inspire him.

Matthew Drutt, Curator

Sculpture

< «Tiger and Bird» 2014, ed. Unique Grinded and carved Lapis Lazuli; cast and patinated bronze97 х 141 х 62 (+25h base) cm

«Tiger and Bird» 2014. Detail >

«Victoria» 2014, ed. 1/8 >Сast and patinated bronze226 х 50 х 140 cm

< «Victoria» 2014. Detail

«Astrologer» 2002, ed. FP 3Cast, stamped and patinated silver 15 x 19 x 13 cm

< «Boar» 2014, ed. 2/8Cast, stamped and patinated bronze79 х 39 x 83 cm

«Boar» 2014. Detail >

«Bull» 2014, ed. 2/8Cast, stamped and patinated bronze88 x 73 x 117 cm

«Lama with Kettle – Drums» 2003, ed. 15/20Cast, stamped and patinated silver18 х 11 x 8 cm

«Grace» 2014, ed. 2/2Grinded and carved onyx; cast and patinated bronze 130 x 214 x 70 cm

«Madonna with a Bird» 2011, ed. 5/8 >Cast, stamped and patinated bronze160 х 70 х 55 cm

< «Madonna with a Bird» 2011. Detail

«Meditation» 2011, ed. 6/8Cast, stamped and patinated bronze144 x 115x133 cm

«From the Cham Mystery series» (Cham Dragon) 2009, ed. 6/8Cast, stamped and patinated silver24 х 11 x 9 cm

«From the Cham Mystery series» (Cham Skulls) 2009, ed. AP 1Cast, stamped and patinated silver15 х 6 x 8 cm

Jewelry

«Taurus» 2004. NeckpieceGold, mammoth tusk

11 x 11,9 x 3 cm

«Little Tiger» 2004. NeckpieceGold, diamond, sapphire 7 x 2,3 x 1,9 cm

«Excitement» 2004. NeckpieceGold, diamond, garnet, sapphire

8,5 x 2,85 x 2,3 cm

«Head of Horse» 2004. NeckpieceGold, citrine, emerald 6,6 x 2,2 x 1,7 cm

«Steppe Nefertiti» 2004. NeckpieceGold, diamond, ruby, amethyst

7,2 x 5 x 2,3 cm

«Spiral» 2004. BraceletGold, sapphire, pearl, turquoise7 x 6,3 cm

«Garuda» 2004. Armlet Gold, diamond, ruby, amethyst

9 x 4,5 x 8,4 cm

«Truth» 2004. BraceletGold, ruby 7,7 x 7,4 x 2,1 cm

«Truth» 2004. BraceletDetail

«Africa» 2004. RingGold, diamond, sapphire5 x 1,2 x 7 cm

«Capricorn» 2007. RingGold, diamond, ruby, sapphire

5 x 2,7 x 2,5 cm

«Lion» 2007. RingGold, diamond, ruby, sapphire 4,4 x 3,2 x 1,8 cm

«Lemur» 2007. RingGold, diamond, pearl

2,8 х 2,4 х 2,8 cm

«Chameleon» 2007. Neckpiece Gold, amethyst, ruby, diamond 6 x 4,7 x 2,5 cm

«Skull» 2009. RingGold, amethyst, ruby, diamond

6 x 4,7 x 2,5 cm

«Argamak» 2007. Neckpiece Gold, diamond, tourmaline5 x 4,5 x 1,6 cm

«Panther» 2006. Neckpiece Gold, diamond, garnet, citrine

4,7 x 4,3 x 1,1 cm

«Falcon» 2010. Neckpiece Gold, spinel, sapphire, diamond4,7 x 2,6 x 1 cm

«Idol» 2004. Neckpiece Gold, mammoth tusk

11,1 x 2,9 x 2 cm

«Guardian of the sky» 2004. Neckpiece Gold, mammoth tusk9,5 x 3,6 x 1,9 cm

«Eternity» 2004. Neckpiece Gold, pink spinel, sapphire, beryl, citrine

14 x 9 x 1,5 cm

«Cockroach» 2004. Miniature Gold, silver, bronze, diamond, ruby, sapphire12,5 x 12 x 5 cm

«Beetle mustached» 2004. Miniature Gold, silver, bronze, emerald, sapphire

12 x 5,5 x 4,5 cm

«Spider–Beetle» 2004. Miniature Silver, bronze, diamond, amethyst12 x 5,5 х 4,5 cm

«Spider–Beetle 2» 2004. Miniature Gold, silver, bronze, emerald, ruby, citrine

12 x 5,5 х 4,5 cm

«Water strider» 2004. Miniature Gold, silver, bronze, ruby, sapphire 11,4 x 9 x 3,3 cm

«Beetle-deer» 2004. Miniature Gold, silver, bronze, emerald, sapphire

8,7 x 6,7 x 6,5 cm

Drawing

«Horseman with lance» 2012Charcoal on Canvas - Framed150 x 199.5 cm

«Horseman with bow» 2012Charcoal on Canvas - Framed150 x 199.5 cm

«Warrior with mask» 2012Charcoal on Canvas - Framed150 x 199.5 cm

«Warrior» 2012Charcoal on Canvas - Framed150 x 199.5 cm

«Levitation» 2012Charcoal on Canvas - Framed199.5 x 150 cm

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New York, 2015

Photos of artworks:© Peter Mallet & © Halcyon Gallery

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