22022021, Yawnghwe Office in Exile
2021 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
95.89 x 73.66 cm
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe
22022021, Yawnghwe Office in Exile by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe belongs to a body of work made in response to the Myanmar military coup that began in February 2021. The work employs traditional Burmese textiles, which have been employed by protesters harnessing the power of old Myanmar lore. It is said that women’s bodies and the garments that cover them sap men of their power. In protests of the military coup, activists have embraced this superstition and hung women’s undergarments and longyis (long skirts) on clotheslines across streets to deter soldiers from entering protest zones. Many soldiers, unwilling to harm their chances on the frontlines, refuse to pass underneath the colorful fabrics. By including these textiles, the artist is not only indexing the protest events, but referencing the nature of oppression, and the role fear plays in power struggles. The work is a cultural tableau, bearing witness to the continuing military suppression of the democracy movement. Through this work, Yawnghwe also emphasizes his position as a Burmese artist and activist living in Europe, one who has the ability to make visible the ongoing struggle of Burma’s people to a broader network through his practice.
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe comes from the Yawnghwe royal family of Shan. His grandfather, Sao Shwe Thaik, was the first president of the Union of Burma (1948–1962) after the country gained independence from Britain in 1948. Shwe Thaik died in prison following the 1962 military coup by General Ne Win. Afterward, Yawnghwe’s family was driven into exile in Thailand, then later escaping to Canada, where Yawnghwe grew up. Yawnghwe’s painting and installation practice engages politics with reference to his family history as well as current and historical events in his country. Family photographs provide the basis for a pictorial language through which the artist calls attention to events in Myanmar, suggesting that existing archives cannot reveal a nation’s entire truth. In addition, Yawnghwe’s map works chart the conflicts between opioids, revolutionary armies, minority ethnicities, mining and gas pipelines, the armament of generals, as well as state genocide against its minorities. Yawnghwe’s work intends to bring discernible order to a complex political situation.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Felipe Arturo
2012Primero estaba el mar ( First Was the Sea , 2012) is a system of equivalences between syllables and silhouettes of waveforms cast in cement...
© » KADIST
Gan Chin Lee
2019In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
© » KADIST
Daniel Boccato
2017Birdstones is a series of flat concrete slabs made from moldings of different shapes, each with two small holes...
© » KADIST
Yuki Kimura
2012Kastura (2012) is an installation consisting of 24 black-and-white photographs of the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto bequeathed by Kimura’s grandfather; free-standing structures on which they are hung; and ornamental plants...
© » KADIST
Dale Harding
2018Dale Harding’s installation Body of Objects consists of eleven sculptural works that the artist based on imagery found at sandstone sites across Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland...
© » KADIST
Zach Reini
2015Particularly shaped by his own youth in the 1990s, his recent works have incorporated things like a marijuana leaf, a dragon-emblazoned chain wallet, metal grommets, and the ubiquitous (in the 90s) Stussy symbol...
© » KADIST
Lim Sokchanlina
2018The photographic series Wrapped Future II by Lim Sokchanlina brings fences used on construction sites to enclose the surrounding areas, to different locations, lakes, valleys and forests; and places them at the center of works to obscure the beautiful Cambodian landscape...
© » ARTNEWS RETROSPECTIVE
Mary Weatherford Revisits an ARTnews Profile of Joan Mitchell – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All September 4, 2020 10:27am ©ARTnews In 1957, art critic Irving Sandler paid a visit to the studio of painter Joan Mitchell , an Abstract Expressionist known for her brushy images capturing nature...
© » KADIST
Nicolás Paris
2012Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...
© » KADIST
Marina Rosenfeld
2019The installation Music Stands: Free Exercise 7, 8, and 9 by Marina Rosenfeld consists of music stand-like structures and a corresponding set of panels and acoustic devices that direct, focus, obstruct, reflect and project sound in the gallery...
© » KADIST
Gan Chin Lee
2019In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
© » KADIST
Allora & Calzadilla
This installation combines the display of real objects with the deceptively painterly amalgamation of their content as the subject of a photograph...
© » KADIST
Robert Zhao Renhui
2014Created during Zhao Renhui’s residency at Kadist SF in 2014, Zhao Renhui began observing and cataloguing insects inspired by the scientific impulse towards exhaustive taxonomy of Sacramento-based Dr...
© » KADIST
Voluspa Jarpa
2014In her work, Fantasmática Latinoamericana, Jarpa works from photographs of five public funeral processions following the mysterious deaths of five Latin American presidents...
© » KADIST
Adrian Villar Rojas
2010The two drawings in the Kadist Collection are part of a larger series entitled Las Mariposas Eternas (The Eternal Butterflies)...
© » KADIST
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
2019Wateoma husipe / Larvas de oruga / Caterpillar larvae by Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe exemplify his most abstract work, where he choses particular elements of a living organism to create his renditions...
© » HYPERALLERGIC
Met Museum to Return 16 Looted Khmer Artifacts Skip to content Unknown artist, "Head of Buddha" (7th century), sandstone, 24 x 13 x 12 3/4 inches (all photos courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art) An ancient larger-than-life sandstone Buddha head, a bronze sculpture of a seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and a 10th-century goddess statuette from a remote temple complex are among 16 looted Khmer works currently in the process of repatriation back to Cambodia and Thailand, according to announcements by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) released today, December 15...