Pansodan Art Gallery Weblog

The best time in history

2012-02-19T09:08:00.000+07:00

This is the best time in history to be a complete idiot.

David Weinberger

Paintings by San Oo, available from Pansodan Gallery.

Zwe Yan Naing : Solo show

2012-02-08T15:13:00.001+07:00

Opening on 14 February is the exhibition of Zwe Yan Naing's paintings.

Many of Zwe Yan Naing’s images have been of the same woman, a woman from his dreams. He has painted her coyly holding an umbrella, accompanied by lotus, meditating underwater, meeting President Obama. Most often she is young and fair, with thick thanakha cooling her cheeks, but she also seems to be the same old woman sapped by a feeding baby, and a few other places as well. He does paint other images, too. Find out what at Pansodan Gallery from 14-20 February 2012.

Art အပေါ် ခံယူချက် . . . . . ?
ရသ တမျိုးမျိုးကို ဖော်ဆောင်မယ်
ရသ တမျိုးမျိုးကို ခံစားမယ်
ဘယ်ရသမျိုးကိုပဲ ဖြစ်ဖြစ်
ခံစားသုံးသပ်မှုတိုင်းဟာ art ဖြစ်နေမှာပါ။
My beliefs about art?
It is to reveal many different sensations,
To bring out many different feelings,
Whatever they are
Every feeling is art.

You have arrived

2012-02-04T11:25:00.000+07:00

You have reached Pansodan Gallery, a project of Aung Soe Min and Nance Cunningham. If you come to Yangon, do come by to say hello. We are a friendly gallery which welcomes people who just come to talk about art equally to collectors, artists, casual buyers, poets, and friends. Particularly come by on Sunday mornings for espresso from Burmese coffee beans, or just to hang out.

The background image of this blog is a painting by Kin Maung Yin.

Recent Pansodan scene, photographed by Carlos Sardina Galache, click here to read the article if you know Spanish

From the Sitt Moe Aung show at Pansodan Art Gallery October 2011 — spectators rest their eyes and exercise their tongues.

The authors have copyright to all the writing on this blog. Pansodan Gallery owned copyright of all images when they were published, with the exception of a few images which are courtesy of others, as mentioned in the posts. Where possible, links to images which do not belong to us are embedded in the image or caption.

Confront or avoid? Resolve or ignore?

2012-02-04T11:20:00.000+07:00

သတၱိဆိုတာ လိုအပ္ရင္ အသံုးခ်တတ္ျပီး အခက္အခဲေတြကို ရင္ဆိုင္ေျဖရွင္းတဲ့ လက္နက္ပါဘဲ။

သတ္တိဆိုတာ လိုအပ်ရင် အသုံးချတတ်ပြီး အခက်အခဲတွေကို ရင်ဆိုင်ဖြေရှင်းတဲ့ လက်နက်ပါဘဲ။

Courage is a weapon that is used when necessary to confront and resolve problems.

Paintings by Soe Naing, available at Pansodan Gallery.

With no disrespect to the truly committed

2012-02-03T13:07:00.001+07:00

When you are asked to do something for the greater good, maybe ask yourself what is greater, and what is good.

..Alex Haslam

Art by Sanchaung Ko Ko Aung and Yè Min, available from Pansodan Gallery.

See the full gallery on Posterous

What do you see in the mirror?

2012-02-01T14:34:00.000+07:00

Privilege is invisible to those who have it.

..Michael Kimmel

And he went on to explain about a conversation with two women. 'What do you see when you look in a mirror?' he asked one.

'I see a woman!' she answered. She was white.

He asked the other. 'I see a black woman.'

'Oh no,' Kimmel thought, 'I see a human being.'

Hot season retreat in Maymyo, by Tin Maung Oo (Mandalay), available from Pansodan Gallery.

Inside history

2012-01-30T09:20:00.000+07:00

Sothis is what it is like to live inside of history. Your exhaustedheart was always on the verge of something, breaking in despair, orbursting with gratitude, and your soul stretched in ways that weren'tpleasant but made you feel very alive.

..AnneGisleson

Paintings by U Chit Pe illustrating scenes from the life of the Buddhist-era Maha Bandula. Very fine carriage for 2500 years ago. The pictures were painted in the 1930s. Learn a little bit more here.

Kin Maung Yinistics

2012-01-28T17:30:00.000+07:00

We cannot get enough of Kin Maung Yin, his infectiously friendly personality, and his insistently fresh paintings. So let's have another show. Starting 27 January 2012, through the 31st. At Pansodan Gallery on Pansodan Street of course.

Uncomprehended realms

2012-01-27T09:52:00.000+07:00

Don't try to erase the things that have already been established. Try to go beyond them into realms that we have not yet understood.

.. Brian Greene

Soe Naing seems to wake up in the morning impatient to continue painting the realms he has in his head. Available from Pansodan Gallery.

With paint, with ink, or just with with ideas

2012-01-26T11:26:00.000+07:00

Maung Maung Thaik : Little birds

I was, after the fashion of humanity, in love with my name, and, as the educated young commonly do, i wrote it everywhere.

..Goethe, Poetry and Truth, 1811

Maung Maung Thaik : Beating hearts

Originals of book covers, available from Pansodan Gallery

The water that never runs dry

Wealth on the page

2012-01-25T13:11:00.001+07:00

There is no greater wealth than wisdom, no greater poverty than ignorance.

..Ali Ibn Abi-Talib

Watercolours by Ba Htay Kyi, available from Pansodan Gallery.

See the full gallery on Posterous

It's never over

2012-01-24T14:34:00.000+07:00

Tobe defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest onone's laurels, is defeat.

..JózefPiłsudski

Art by Zwe Yan Naing, available from Pansodan Gallery

El Galerista (English)

2012-01-20T23:48:00.000+07:00

The Gallery Owner of Rangoon, by Carlos Sardiña Galache, published in FronteraD. Click here for original article. This article has been slightly edited for the Web. All photographs are by Carlos Sardiña Galache.

Inside Pansodan Gallery

On the first floor of a dilapidated building in downtown Rangoon,a narrow staircase leads up to a small space that probably hold more contemporaryart per square meter than anywhere else in the city: the Pansodan Gallery. Unlike other galleries,
such asthose at Bogyoke Aung San market that only sell paintings with “exotic” themesto satisfy the wildest orientalist fantasies of tourists, Pansodan reveals anart scene far richer than one would expect in a country like Myanmar (Burma) —mired in poverty, isolated for years from the rest of the world, and tightlycontrolled by one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world.

Art by Ye Min

In its three years, the gallery, open every day of the weekuntil six in the evening, has become a meeting place for artists and artenthusiasts. Burmese and foreigners all visit the gallery, not only to buy orsell pieces of art, but to have a tea, exchange ideas, attend a poetry reading,or simply to relax for a short while. The gallery’s owner, Aung Soe Min, is a gentleand kind man that welcomes visitors with Burmese hospitality, and alwaysrelaxed and happy to answer any questions.

Aung Soe Min was born 41 years ago in a small town incentral Burma. Testifying to the country’s isolation, he says he never met aforeigner until he was twenty-five years old. After studying engineering, hespent several years in the publishing business and began collecting books. Todayit has one of the largest libraries of Burma, and is visited by scholars fromaround the world.

Art by Ye Min

In the late 1980s, after the collapse of the regime ofGeneral Ne Win and his “Burmese Way to Socialism,” there was a slight culturalopening when the military junta that succeeded tried to attract foreigninvestment. “The country was changing and I tried to take advantage of this tostudy everything I could,” says Aung Soe Min. He also tried to make films, butcouldn’t always get the necessary permits, which, combined with a lack of officialsupport or distribution, made it a nearly impossible undertaking.

During those years, Aung Soe Min met numerous writers andartists, and seeing that that the country lacked the “infrastructure and marketnecessary for artists to distribute their works,” he decided to open his owngallery in 2005. It took him three years, but in 2008, after overcoming manyobstacles and using the profits he made from selling “three especially valuablepaintings” he was able to buy a property on downtown Pansodan Street, close tothe old colonial neighbourhood at the heart of the city, and open his gallery.

Art by Sai Htun Oo

“At that time there were several galleries in Rangoon, butthe majority catered exclusively to foreign clients. Burmese people did noteven visit many of these galleries, or if they did it was only whenaccompanying a foreigner. What I’m trying to do here is create a space that’sopen to the whole world,” says Aung Soe Min. His purpose isn’t only to “sellpaintings, but also awaken Burmese people’s interests in the arts. When peoplesay that I promote artists, I say no, I’m promoting a public.”

According to Aung Soe Min, works from some two hundredartists are for sale at the Pansodan Gallery, which is not hard to believesince every day new paintings appear on the walls or scattered around thefloor. “Artists will often come in and tell me they need money urgently. Theybring me a painting, and if I like it I buy it myself and then try to resellit. Most other galleries, on the other hand, usually don’t pay artists untilthey sell their works,” he explains.

It’s not easy being an artist in Burma. The poverty, lack ofopportunity, and scarce knowledge of or interest in contemporary art makedeveloping an artistic career far more difficult than in other countries. Oneof the young artists that displays his work at the Pansodan Gallery, Ein AyeKyaw, made a hard living painting by commission, especially traditionallandscapes after studying zoology and fine arts at the University of Rangoon.He decided to devote himself professionally to art five years ago when he saw aman painting on his street and thought “he’s the only person that really lookstranquil and happy.” That man became his first teacher.

Ein Aye Kyaw : Arakanese Pagoda

Ein Aye Kyaw’s paintings are of a simple, impressioniststyle that he polishes in each painting, depicting ordinary scenes or imagesthat, as he explains, draw you in without your really knowing why – an old taxiin the rain, a child playing in a park, or the strange structure of theArakanese Kingdom, a half-pagoda, half-military fort palace that came to himafter seeing an official building in Naypyidaw, Burma’s new capital that themilitary junta built in the middle of the jungle six years ago.

Art by Ye Min

Looking around the gallery, one may find the expressivesculpture by the artist Ye Min: a guitar with teeth in the sound hole bitingits own strings. The gallery also exhibits portraits of the Burmese democraticopposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which would have been unthinkable just afew months earlier. In any case, government control over the arts is not asstrict as with literature or the press. “The government simply isn’t interestedand doesn’t care about art. They don’t help us, but they don’t cause problemseither. They ignore us,” comments Aung Soe Min.

But artistic freedom is sometimes constrained by prejudiceand bias. Burmese society is profoundly conservative and does not tolerate, forexample, the exhibition of nudes, nor is it legal. At the sametime, the art world is imbued with a sense of tradition and hierarchy, turningitself into a closed shop where innovation is not always well received. Therejection of modern art forms in Burmese art dates back to the colonial era,when for many years “Western” influence was considered a threat to the culturalpurity of the nation. Painters like Bagyi Aung Soe (1924-1990), considered bymany to be the father of modern Burmese art, fought a long cultural battle forthe acceptance of artistic ideas that were looked down upon as “foreign” by thepurists. From this arose the expression “crazy art” to describe modern andabstract art.

Art by Lin Latt

This battle has not yet come to an end, but the pieces onexhibit at the Pansodan Gallery show the growing presence of contemporaryartistic styles, and that realist art lives side by side with the abstract, theexpressionist, or pop. The Burmese artistic scene is very eclectic, and has seen a slight boom inrecent years, as well as a surge in interest overseas. Several artists nowexhibit their works in neighbouring countries, as well as the United States andUnited Kingdom.

Nonetheless, very few Burmese people can buy paintings orsculptures, even though nearly half of the buyers at Pansodan are from Burma. Withthe art market so underdeveloped, people rarely buy works as an investment, atrait which differentiates them from collectors in other countries. Accordingto Aung Soe Min, for a Burmese person “buying a painting is a personaldecision.” Another peculiarity in Burma is that people like to collect, almostobsessively, the largest number of works as possible from a single artist. “Theydon’t care if they have one hundred paintings from only one painter. Often,they store the paintings and alternate them on the walls of their homes.”

Driven by his love of collecting, Aung Soe Min has embarkedon a parallel project, a history of Burmese graphic art since the colonial era.He is working together with Kirt Mausert, a young American anthropologistliving in Rangoon who also helps manage the gallery. Mausert explains that thegoal is to publish a book that “explores, through publicity and propaganda, thechanges in social relations that the country has experienced in recenthistory,” an unprecedented approach in Burmese historiography. For thisproject, they have created an archive of old photographs, newspapers, postcardsand propaganda advertisement that they have acquired at innumerable placesaround the streets of central Rangoon. In many cases, it’s the vendorsthemselves that come to the gallery to offer the materials they’ve acquired.

Mausert is convinced that the project will help shed lighton the recent history of Burmese art, especially as the vast majority ofpainters combine their personal artistic careers with other commercial worklike advertising or comics, a very popular genre in the country, however “theartistic value of these commercial works is not decreased when they do moreserious art. There is no stigma against painters doing commercial work, andboth activities influence each other.”

“The historiography of Burma has suffered many distortionsin recent years,” explains Soe Min. “In any case, it is based on the texts, notthe images produced by society, which aren’t treated with why importance whenit comes time to reconstruct history. Hardly anybody values these kinds ofthings, and I think they should be conserved in a museum.” Faced with neglectby the government, the conservation of the visual legacy of the country, aswell as promotion of cultural and artistic life, depends almost exclusively onthe enthusiastic work of people like Aung Soe Min.

Learn more about Burmese painting throughout history from Andrew Ranard's Burmese Painting: A Linear and Lateral History

It is out there

2012-01-19T16:50:00.000+07:00

Some days I look at the world and the poetry's so loud it gives me a migraine.

..Ronen Verbit

Paintings by San Oo, available from Pansodan Gallery.
P.S. Floating blossoms, or snowflakes?

A thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things

2012-01-16T11:03:00.000+07:00

The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.

.. Alan Bennett (in The History Boys)

Paintings by Ba Htay Kyi, available from Pansodan Gallery.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Sustained

2012-01-15T20:28:00.003+07:00

We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth.

..Ray Bradbury

Portrait of Aung San by Dawei Lay

Beyond speech

2012-01-14T11:57:00.000+07:00

Itis the function of art to carry us beyond speech to experience.

..JosephCampbell

Paintings by Hein Thit, available from Pansodan Gallery

Not so much light as pure colour

2012-01-12T23:44:00.001+07:00

The land all around us and the hills into which the highway stretched were a deep intense shade of yellow that I have never seen anywhere else. As if the light, though it seemed to me not so much light as pure colour, were charged with something. I didn't know what, but it might well have been eternity.

..Roberto Bolano

I was immediately embarrassed to have had such a thought. I stretched my legs.

Paintings by Aung Naing Maung, a contemporary Myanmar artist.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Pansodan Books is launched

2012-01-12T00:07:00.001+07:00

Today Pansodan Books was registered as a publisher. We will be announcing books and documentaries about Burmese language and art in the next few months.

Paintings by Zaw Ko Ko.

Waking dazed after the reality

2012-01-10T12:17:00.000+07:00

Inever paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.

..FridaKahlo

Paintings of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis by Dawei Lay, available from Callie Enlow's Inside/Outside store.

Dawei Lay : Nargis

The man must remain obscure

2012-01-09T12:25:00.003+07:00

Dawei Lay Market Scene 3 (Heriot-Grant Gallery)

Allmy life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thoughtthat one could do good painting without attracting attention to one'sprivate life.

Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himselfintellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure.The pleasure must be found in the work.

..PaulCezanne

Saw Tin Maung Country Market

Paintings available from Pansodan Gallery in Yangon, and Heriot-Grant Gallery, shipping worldwide.

Zin Yaw Aung Gazun leaves

Myo Nyunt Khin Shopping

Eikaza Cho Hat market

Artist unknown

Tun Tun Lat Streetside market

Shwe Thein Town market

Draw, write, both, unravel

2012-01-08T14:41:00.001+07:00

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

..Jean Cocteau

Images courtesy of Blue-eyed Crow.

El Galerista

2012-01-07T14:47:00.002+07:00

From an article in Fronterad by Carlos Sardiña Galache:

En el primer piso de un destartalado edificio del centro de Rangún, unos angostos escalones de madera conducen hasta un pequeño espacio que probablemente alberga más arte contemporáneo por metro cuadrado que cualquier otro lugar de la ciudad: la galería Pansodan. A diferencia de otras galerías, como las del mercado Bogyoke Aung San, cuya finalidad es vender cuadros de temas “exóticos” para satisfacer las más desbocadas fantasías orientalistas de los turistas, Pansodan revela una escena artística mucho más rica de lo que cabría esperar en un país como Myanmar (Birmania) sumido en la miseria, aislado durante años del resto del mundo y férreamente controlado por una de las dictaduras más represivas del planeta.

Click here for the full article by Carlos Sardiña Galache, illustrated with plenty of photographs from the same, of art from our gallery (three of which are linked here). Painting by Yè Min.

It is easy when you don’t know how

2012-01-06T12:51:00.001+07:00

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

..Edgar Degas

Four paintings by unknown 20th century Burmese artist. Some of these and many more are available for viewing or purchase at Pansodan Gallery.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Concentrated simplicity

2012-01-05T21:58:00.003+07:00

There'ssupposed to be a mystery, but there isn't. The mystery is hard workand concentrated work.... The mystery is in the simplicity.

..Derek Walcott on the writing of Earnest Hemingway

Paintings of dance students waiting to perform by Win Tint, available at Pansodan Gallery.

Lazy ear, impatient eye

2012-01-04T10:25:00.001+07:00

The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.

.. W. H. Auden

Today is Independence Day in Myanmar — the anniversary of the recognition of a post-monarchy, post-colony free country. I wonder what future holidays the fusion of the familiar and novel will demand.

Paintings by Yè Win Aung, available at Pansodan Gallery. Not these particular ones — they flew out the door. But there are more.

Rearranging constellations

2012-01-02T13:37:00.002+07:00

Allhuman knowledge is precious

whether or not it serves the slightesthuman use.

..A. E. Housman

Paintings by the delightful Myo Nyunt Khin are available from Pansodan Art Gallery.

In Chiang Mai, at midnight on New Year's Eve, the sky was filled with ever-changing glowing constellations formed by thousands upon thousands of fire balloons.

This year...

2012-01-01T13:06:00.001+07:00

I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.

.. Pablo Picasso

Paintings by Than Htay Maung, available from Pansodan Gallery

See the full gallery on Posterous