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"Eighteenth Annual New Guinea Asmat Art Festival to Get Underway"
1999-10-11 until 0000-00-00
Festival of Asmat Art and Culture
Agats, Irian Jaya, , ID Indonesia

The eighteenth annual Festival of Asmat Art and Culture is scheduled to begin on 11 October, 1999 in Agats, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Similar events in years passed have enjoyed attendance by museum curators, anthropologists, art experts and enthusiasts from around the globe.

The Asmat inhabit the swampy jungles of the southwest coast of New Guinea. Having limited but increasing contact with western cultures during recent years, they continue to practice many of their traditional customs. The Asmat are recognized internationally for their rich and powerful wood sculpture, which has provided influence to western artists including Picasso, Chagall and Mattisse.

The creations of first prize recipients at the Festival will join the permanent collection of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress and several hundred of the finest works will be sold at auction to the highest bid. The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress was established at Agats in 1973 with a mission to provide the Asmat a venue for the preservation of their art, as well as, a place where new generations of Asmat could study their cultural past.

Salt Lake curator and Asmat art expert Steven Chiaramontewill once again be traveling to the remote jungle area to attend the annual Festival and Art Auction. Chiaramonte has studied extensively among the Asmat people and the Chiaramonte Collection of Asmat Art is among the largest private collections in North America. In recent years Chiaramonte has curated three exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on campus at the University of Utah. The most recent exhibition Ambassadors from the Jungles Edge featured six Asmat wood carvers who traveled to Utah earlier this year, presenting a dynamic program describing their art and culture. More than 400 people attended this once in a lifetime event in Salt Lake City. Numerous objects from the Chiaramonte Collection remain on exhibit at the Museum, several of which have joined the Museums permanent collection.

A respected expert on Asmat art, Chiaramonte has been again invited to serve on an international jury charged with evaluating more than two thousand objects proposed by Asmat artists for inclusion in the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress. Four jurors will assess the artists work in six style categories, awarding prizes to those judged the finest representation of their intended style. Chiaramonte relates, The Museum provides a near-perfect blend of art, ethnology and cultural experience so very dear to the Asmat. Under the expert stewardship of the Bishop Alphonse Sowada and Curator Yufentius Biakai, it provides a catalyst for the Asmat, young and old alike, to find glory in their past while encouraging the sustenance of their culture so vital to existence in this difficult region.


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