Tanzschritte, Handgesten, eine Mrdangam Trommel, ausdrucksstarke Mimik und oft sehr humorvolle Texte, dass ist die Mischung, die den aus dem südindischen Kerala stammenden Thullal Tanz so attraktiv machen. Der Freiburger Künstler Hartmut Schmidt beschäftigt sich seit über 30 Jahren sehr intensiv mit dieser bis heute populären Kunstform. In seiner Lecture Demonstration stellt er die unterschiedlichen Stilrichtungen vor und erklärt anhand zahlreicher Beispiele die Besonderheiten von Thullal. Sechs Geschich-ten wurden von ihm aus der Originalsprache Malayalam ins Deutsche übertragen, sind so nachvollziehbar für das kleine und große Publikum bei seinen Auftritten an Schulen und in Theatern.
Dekolonisierung, Postkolonialismus, Provenienz, Restitution, Rückforderungen sind aktuell heiß und kontrovers diskutierte Aspekte in der Museumslandschaft der westlichen - ehemals als Kolonialmächte aufgetretenen - Welt und der ehemals kolonisierten Länder. Nach einem Blick auf die Diskussion um die Rückgabe der Benin-Bronzen richtet sich der Vortrag auf den hierzulande eher unbekannten Dialog zwischen der Republik Indonesien und der seinerzeitigen Kolonialmacht Niederlande. Gegenstand von Verhandlungen zwischen den beiden Ländern ist ein immenses Konvolut herausragender kunsthistorischer und ethnographischer Objekte sowie Manuskripte in niederländischen Museen und Bibliotheken. Dieser Prozess geht einher mit der Aufarbeitung der kolonialen Vergangenheit und insbesondere mit der auf beiden Seiten lange verdrängten bzw. glorifizierten Geschichte der Unabhängigkeitswerdung Indonesiens 1945.
Am 14.12.2022 bietet die Abteilung für Asiatische und Islamische Kunstgeschichte eine Informationsveranstaltung für Studierende (alle Stufen) zur Summerschool in Kam-bodscha im August/September 2023 an. Geplant ist eine ca. dreiwöchige Summer-school, die in Kambodscha von Prof. Dr. Ulrike Niklas und Team durchgeführt wird. Themen der Informationsveranstaltung sind z.B. der Exkursionsablauf, finanzielle Förderung, Anrechnung für das Studium und Reisemedizin. Frau Prof. Dr. Niklas wird online an der Informationsveranstaltung teilnehmen.
Workshop on Insights into the Archaeology and Art History of Sri Lanka including lectures by Dr. Nimal Perera "Prehistory of Sri Lanka", Prof. Dr. Osmund Bopearachchi "Avalokiteśvara, protector of Mariners", Prof. Dr. Nuwan Abhayawardana "Ancient water harvesting and management systems in Sri Lanka" and Dr. Ariane de Saxcé "Giribawa, an ancient glass production site".
Online conference:Creation stories addressing the origin of Earth and/or that of humankind are presumably among the oldest narratives known in many parts of the world. Similarly, there are ancient works of art depicting creation or, for instance in South Asian art, cycles of destruction and creation. While not scientifically accurate from the point of view of modern physics or evolution theory, these stories and images of the beginnings of (life on) Earth have nevertheless been profoundly true ways of perceiving reality for many people. In a two-day conference we seek to bring together expertise on different cultural, regional and historical backgrounds, addressing questions from various disciplinary vantage points.
Lecture by Prof. Pratyush Shankar: This talk will highlight the key moments during the colonial rule in India when many princely cities, beyond the gaze of the British masters, managed to carry out many experiments in city building leading to creation of new urban fabric and public places. Many of these experiments were a result of local concerns and were centred round social, economic and cultural reforms of Indian society. What was also remarkable was that these initiatives were a work of collaboration between Indian patrons and a range of international professionals and experts. This talk will try to highlight such moments of experimentation and its resultant outcome for future city planning.
Online conference by the Department of Asian and Islamic Art History, University of Bonn (Germany) and the School of Arts, University of Roehampton (UK). Welcome address – 2:00 pm (UK), 3:00 pm (Germany), 6:30 pm (India): University of Roehampton: Prof. Ann R. David University of Bonn: Prof. Dr. Julia A. B. Hegewald and Prof. Dr. Claudia Wenzel. Panel 1: Chair: Arunima J R, Speakers: Sandra Jasmin Schlage (University of Bonn, Germany), Anuradha Ramesh (VISTAS, Chennai, India), Giridhar Raghunathan (University of Roehampton, UK). Panel 2: Chair: Aryamba Sriram, Speakers: Dr. Varada Pandit (University of Mumbai, India), Shambik Ghose (Leeds Beckett University, UK). Panel 3: Chair: Sripadma Ganapathi, Speakers: Dr. Swetha Sundaran Mangalath (St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, India), Dr. Ayla Joncheere (Ghent University, Belgium). Keynote by Dr. Avanthi Meduri, Reader, School of Arts, University of Roehampton, UK: 5: 15 pm (UK), 6:15 pm (Germany), 9:45 pm (India).
Public lecture by Prof. Ryan R. Overbey: The Great Peahen Queen of Spells (Mahāmāyūrīvidyārājñī) is a dynamic Buddhist scripture containing lists of gods and demons, apotropaic spells, and protective rituals. This scripture and its artistic manifestations grew over time, with various forms of Mahāmāyūrī emerging in South, Central, and East Asia from the early centuries CE up to the present. In this lecture we will explore two aspects of the development of the Māhāmāyūrī corpus over time. First, we will examine the ways images of Mahāmāyūrī transformed as they moved from South to Central and East Asia. Second, we will investigate some ritual manuals and visualization instructions extant in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan sources. Comparison of these materials will allow us think critically about the relationship between art and ritual in the Buddhist traditions. Picture: Tokyo National Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Lecture by Dr. Sidh Losa Mendiratta: As civilizations’ most complex material expressions, cities have flourished and withered over the centuries. Among the world’s ruined cities, Old Goa holds a unique place. Following its thriving development as the Estado da Índia’s main port city during the 16th century, this cosmopolitan and commercial hub entered a long period of decline, mirroring the woes of the Portuguese Empire. In this presentation, I will describe how Old Goa’s archaeological and heritage structures were perceived from the late 19th century onwards, and how some of them were preserved and used during the final years of Portuguese colonial rule. Highlighting the handful of archaeological excavations in Old Goa, I will address how recent research allows us to form a clearer picture of the erstwhile port city, and to reassess its significance, not only for the fields of Architectural and Urban History, but also for the larger narratives of Asian/European cultural encounters.
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Finbarr Barry Flood: Asymmetrical Dependencies in a Maritime Cosmopolis: Reading a Medieval Iraqi Image Cycle. One of the most celebrated extant medieval Arabic manuscripts is an illustrated copy of the Maqāmāt (Assemblies) of Abu Muhmmad al-Qasim ibn ‘Ali al-Hariri (d. 516H/1122 CE), a popular text subject to frequent copying. Many of the images in the 634/1237 copy of the Maqāmāt exceed its specifications, extending the purview of the text in ways that reflect the impact of oral and textual lore concerning the Indian Ocean. My talk will focus on the most extensive image cycle within the manuscript, which narrates a sea voyage and shipwreck on a mysterious island. It will explore the ways in which various kinds of asymmetrical dependencies are depicted in the images.
Public lecture by Dr. Lianming Wang: "Transoceanic Trade Repictured: Coromandel Lacquer Screen and the Mobile Image in Global Exchange." This talk responds to the ingenious concept of the ‘image vehicle’ (Bilderfahrzeuge) coined by Aby Warburg, highlighting its potential and valence for studying the global migration of the image. Departing from a Coromandel lacquer screen with the portrayal of the Dutch paying tribute, now kept in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, the discussion centers on the recurring theme of the transoceanic tributary trade found on a wide array of material surfaces.
Public lecture by Dr. Gerald Kozicz: The Triloknath Temple of Tonde holds a special position within the topographical and religious landscape of the valley where the Chandra and Bhaga rivers unite. Although the temple is located in the lower part of the valley, it is a place of Buddhist and Hindu worship and pilgrimage alike. This unusual co-existence of the two religious belief systems results from a two-fold identification of the main cult image as Avalokiteśvara or Śiva. I will aim to reconstruct the significance of the site for the cultural landscape of the Western Himalayas.
Vortrag von Dr. Petra Rösch zu "“The programme of this museum is ART!” - The first catalogue of the collection of the Museum for East Asian Art in Cologne by Alfred Salmony". This year, the first catalogue published by the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne achieves its centenary. This catalogue on early Buddhist and Han-period stone sculptures was published in 1922 by Alfred Salmony, academic assistant and since 1924 deputy director to Frieda Fischer-Wieruszowski. This talk will briefly introduce the work and life of Alfred Salmony and the history of the MOK. Some stone sculptures published in Salmony’s catalogue will be discussed in the light of academic approaches of the early 20th century, which differ from present day art historical methods.
Am 05. April hält Frau Prof. Dr. Julia A. B. Hegewald im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung des Zentrums für Religion und Gesellschaft (ZERG) und des Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS; Research Area C) den Vortrag “Vira-Saiva and Jaina Rivalries in Medieval South India: Creating and Overcoming Structures of Dependency”.
Junko Matsubara is a dancer and dance teacher born in Tokyo and living in Germany for the last decade. Junko dances in a variety of dance styles, but today she is going to demonstrate the basics of Butoh. Butoh is a contemporary Japanese dance form which evolved during the 1960s and 70s. This art form was initiated by Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–86) and it gained international recognition from the 1980s onwards. Butoh dance is highly experimental and often challenges social norms.
Over the last decades, videogames have developed into a transregionally successful entertainment medium and increasingly recognized space of cultural and artistic expression. But in what ways are they also spaces of political imagination and play? In this presentation, I will revisit the development of gaming culture in Japan, starting with early arcade machine, and gradually diversifying into so-called AAA titles, indie games, social games, and games as services, which finally have radically changed the concept of a game work. Considering a range of examples, I suggest that the location of play has shifted from games, to other digital spaces.
Prof. Dr. Julia Hegewald, Dr. Petra Linscheid und Prof. Dr. Nikolai Grube Materielle Kultur macht das Thema Abhängigkeit auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen „greifbar“. Einerseits können Objekte selbst Instrumente sein, um Abhängigkeitsverhältnisse zu etablieren und zu verstärken. Bilder und Kunstwerke können Zeugnis von sozialen Praktiken ablegen, die mit extremer Ungleichheit verbunden sind. Aber es ist auch die Art und Weise, wie Ressourcen genutzt sowie Güter produziert und konsumiert werden, die tief in soziale Asymmetrien eingebettet ist. Daher können die Beziehungen zwischen Menschen und ihrer materiellen Welt einen analytischen Rahmen für die Untersuchung von Abhängigkeiten bilden. Schon allein, welche Kleidung eine Person trägt und welche Nahrungsmittel sie isst, zeigt ihre soziale Stellung in einem System asymmetrischer Abhängigkeiten an.
Was wird durch chinoise Maskeraden direkt und indirekt ausgedrückt und kommuniziert? Und was spiegeln sie über die Beziehung Europas und Asiens während des 18. Jahrhunderts wider? Fest steht, dass chinoise Maskeraden nur eine Facette der komplexen und vielschichtigen Beziehung zwischen Ost und West darstellen. In ihnen drückt sich in künstlerischer Form ein bestimmter Aspekt der europäischen Asienrezeption und des asiatischen Einflusses auf die europäische Kultur aus. Ein Vergleich mit anderen künstlerischen Ausdrucksformen der europäischen Faszination für Asien verhilft zu einem größeren Verständnis dafür, in welchem Umfang, Rahmen und insbesondere auf welcher Ebene ein Austausch zwischen Asien und Europa stattfand. Dabei werden Erscheinungsform und Funktion von chinoisen Maskeraden mit dem Aspekt der Transkulturalität in Verbindung gebracht und anhand von Bildmaterial veranschaulicht und diskutiert.
In diesem Vortrag sollen die der AIK vor kurzem zur Verfügung gestellten Tonstatuen aus Südindien vorgestellt und erklärt werden. Die Statuen wurden angefertigt von Mu. Saravanan, der seine Gattin Prof. Ulrike Niklas nach Deutschland begleitet hatte und hier sodann das traditionelle Kunsthandwerk seiner Kaste weiter ausübte – jedoch mit einem neuen Fokus. Zunächst erfolgt eine kurze Einführung in den religiösen und kulturellen Kontext der Statuen und ihrer traditionellen Schöpfer, der Töpfer von Madurai und Umgebung. Sodann wird jede Statue einzeln betrachtet und mit Bezug auf ihre Bedeutung, ihre Verwendung im Ritual und ihre Ikonographie analysiert. Im Laufe des Vortrages werden auch Themen wie Individualismus in ritueller Kunst, Zweckentfremdung ritueller Artefakte sowie Auswirkung der Modernisierung auf traditionelles Kunsthandwerk angesprochen.
Based on the analogy of “snapshots” used in philological studies to explain how the history and development of Buddhist scriptures can be traced across several languages and contexts, Claudia Wenzel first discusses some well-known specimen of Diamond Sutra texts in Chinese Buddhist art, written on paper as well as carved in stone. Over the last years, the discovery of and research on Buddhist stone carved sutra texts gave rise to new considerations about text and image in Chinese Buddhism, as patrons and donors seem to have intentionally chosen one over the other in many cases. The philological “snapshot” analogy that applies to all Buddhist texts independent of their material form can also be useful in art historical studies when iconographic image traditions are revealed.
The lecture-demonstration traces a first of its kind cross-disciplinary analysis of the theory and practise of Nāṭya. Rajyashree Ramesh draws from what she identifies as a two-fold approach to meaning therein, to examine questions on embodied meaning and meaning-making discussed in several current fields of research on embodiment. The point of departure is the notion of embodied meaning from the perspective of Linguistic Gesture Studies in relation to Hastābhinaya - the gestural depiction with hands. Moving on to an analysis of the role of emotions and their corporeal expression in establishing meaning as explicated in the treatise Nāṭyaśāstra, she draws parallels therein to Antonio Damasio’s brain research on emotions. Finally, taking a movement analytic stance that draws also from current fascia research, she will demonstrate how a bhāva-rasa continuum practised in Nāṭya exemplifies the very notion of a primordially fundamental and felt embodied meaning-making process.
This international conference brings together specialist from different disciplines, focusing on a number of regions of Asia, such as India, Nepal, Tibet, the Silk Route, China and Japan. All experts conduct research on extreme forms of dependencies, in which artists, craftspeople and their communities find themselves, as well as on the freedoms they find within their situations.
BA-Informationsveranstaltung Montag, den 04.10 um 13 Uhr, MA-Informationsveranstaltung Montag, den 04.10 um 16 Uhr, MA-Einführungsveranstaltung Mittwoch, den 06.10 von 10-13 Uhr und von 14-18 Uhr
Zum Abschluss des Semesters bieten wir einen virtuellen Besuch im imperialen Chola-Tempel in Gangaikondacholapuram (Tamil Nadu, Indien) an. Mitarbeiter von Karuppan Agencies zeigen uns Architektur und Skulpturen dieses Tempels in einer Live-Schaltung per Zoom. Die Veranstaltung wird begleitet von Frau Prof. Dr. Ulrike Niklas (Südasien- und Südostasien-Studien, Uni Köln).
Heute eröffnet unsere Studierenden-Ausstellung "Asian Art as Mirror of Dependencies". Es werden Objekte gezeigt, die von Amulettketten, Öllampen und Wandbehängen bis hin zu verschiedenen Sandelholzobjekten reichen. Die Ausstellung, die in den letzten Monaten unter der Leitung unserer wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiterin Karina Linke und einigen Studiereden unserer Abteilung entstand, ist inspiriert von der Abhängigkeitsforschung des Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. Corona-bedingt kann die Ausstellung nur mit vorheriger Anmeldung besucht werden. Wir bitten um Verständnis und freuen uns über zahlreiche Besucher.
The Iconography of Patañjali. Patañjali was the name of a premodern Indian sage to whom important works on Sanskrit grammar, Yoga philosophy and the medical system of Āyurveda are ascribed. In recent decades increasing attention has focused on Patañjali as the authority on and figurehead of Yoga. Believed to be the author of set of aphorisms on Yoga philosophy (the Yogasūtras), which has attained canonical status in many Yoga traditions, he is eulogized with invocations in Sanskrit recited at the beginning of Yoga classes.
Sartorial Contestations of Indianness: Guyanese ‘Indian Wear’ and the Creation of the Indian Other People who define themselves as ‘Indian’ in Guyana consider themselves as descendants of South Asian indentured laborers, who were shipped to the Caribbean to work on sugar plantations during British colonial rule and after the emancipation of enslaved Africans between 1838 and the 1920s. From this period, the Guyanese notion of ‘Indianness’ developed, largely as a result of Othering processes and in opposition to Guyanese ‘Africanness’. In this talk, I demonstrate how Indian clothing served as a means to unify and consolidate the diverse group of Indians in the colonial but also in contemporary Guyanese society, which was and continues to be severely impacted by processes of ethno-politicization and inter-ethnic conflicts.
Long-distance trade and local exchanges in the Western Indian Ocean (3rd. c. BCE - 7th c. CE) Recent researches on the question of trade in the Indian Ocean have renewed our understanding of the contacts between the Mediterranean world and South Asia. Based on ancient discoveries and new excavations on both shores (notably Egypt, Oman, India, Sri Lanka), this paper will focus on the complementarity between long-distance contacts and local networks. It will enhance the agency of local people and the dynamism of pre-existent interactions, to help in understanding the complexity of the global long-distance network.
Charya Nritya is a highly specialised dance form from Nepal. Originally, these dances were performed by the tantric priests of the Newar community as part of their spiritual practice. Therefore, the dances were only shown to selected patrons or an initiated audience. The first public performance happened during the World Buddhist Conference in Kathmandu in 1956. Since a decreasing number of younger Vajracharyas took up the traditional role as priests, some members of the community decided to teach the dances to persons from outside the original community, both from Nepal and world-wide. During this process the ritual dances of the Vajracharya community got promoted as national treasury of Nepal, similar to the classical dances of India. The lecture demonstration by Raju Shakya (dancer, teacher and dance scholar) will include practical examples and a discussion of the ritual meaning and the contemporary significance of this dance form.
The main ritual and devotional focus of the Jaina traditions are the fully-liberated teachers (jina, tīrthaṅkara). However, non-liberated renouncers are also venerated, both during their life and after death. Memorials of Digambara ascetics were commonly erected in early modern (1400-1800 CE) Western and Central India. Commemorative pillars (niṣedhikā) or carved feet or footprints (caraṇa, pādukā) were typically installed in open pavilions (chatarī). Their inscriptions constitute an important source to reconstruct the history of Digambara Jainism in the so-called ‘Muslim era’. The presentation will also focus on material and ritual aspects, and offer a comparative look at some South Indian, contemporary, and Śvētāmbara parallels. Meeting-ID: 954 1841 9387, Kenncode: 129830
