The Rietberg Museum in Zurich and the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh have collaborated to host two separate exhibitions to showcase artworks.
While a set of extraordinary miniatures from Chandigarh is being presented in an exhibition Gitagovinda: India's Great Love Story at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich from October 2019 to February 2020, the Government Museum and Art Gallery will next year host an exhibition on Japanese prints in Chandigarh in autumn.
The Museum Rietberg in Zurich and the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh have entertained a symbiotic scholarly relationship for many decades. In the past also, miniature paintings from Chandigarh travelled to Zurich, for instance for the landmark exhibition Pahari Masters in 1990.
Nearly two decades later, in October 2019, another set of extraordinary miniatures from Chandigarh are being presented at Rietberg Museum .
In autumn 2020, the exhibition Surimono – Celebratory Poetry Prints from Japan will open at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh. This being the first time a Swiss museum exhibits Japanese art in a museum here, marks a milestone for both institutions.
The exhibition will feature Japanese prints called ‘Surimono’. Literally meaning "printed thing", Surimono designates a distinctive sub-genre in Japanese woodblock printing which flourished from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth century. Commissioned by poetry circles, Kabuki theatre enthusiasts, or specialty shops, Surimono were issued in small editions and handed out as gifts or exchanged among a limited circle of like-minded people.
Presenting a selection of 80 – 100 Surimono prints from the collection of the Rietberg Museum, the exhibition will introduce this particular genre of Japanese graphic art by highlighting the various types of Surimono and displaying the plethora of visual vocabulary as well as modes of expression and print techniques. Appreciation of these gems of Japanese graphics also provides insight into the social structure, customs, and material culture of nineteenth century Japan.
