Leang Seckon

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Leang Seckon

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FORMS OF SURVIVALJens Hoffmann

The history of modern Cambodia is fraught with strife. Gaining independence from French colonial rule in 1953 left the nation free but vulnerable. Struggling against the influence of Communism and the devastation of the region by the United States’ war against Vietnam, Cambodia battled to remain independent throughout the 1960s. The Popular Socialist Party—led by the now-revered King Father of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk—was overthrown by the ruler’s own military leader, Lon Nol, under whose regime Cambodia became a battleground in the war, to devastating effect. Made a pawn in the battle between North and South Vietnam, Cambodia was rocked with air raids by US military planes. Communist sympathies coalesced in the form of the Khmer Rouge, which battled against its own countrymen in a civil war following the US withdrawal from Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, and party leader Pol Pot replaced Lon Nol.

The new Communist leader renamed the nation Democratic Kampuchea, but democracy was hardly the reality for the people of Cambodia. Pol Pot’s ‘reign of terror’, which lasted from 1975 through 1978, is remembered as a time of violence, poverty, displacement and mass murder. As genocide gripped the nation, many groups were targeted: the educated and professional classes; Cambodians with Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese ancestry; adherents of Buddhism and Islam; and anyone unable to work. Pol Pot and his regime went after the young and old alike; even those within the Communist Party were not immune from persecution and death. During this time—the era of the Killing Fields—more than 20,000 mass graves filled with bodies of slain Cambodians. While estimates vary from source to source, it is believed that between 1 and 2 million Cambodians faced their deaths during Pol Pot’s regime.

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that recall these earlier traumas—traumas that are both personal and culturally shared. For Seckon, his narrative-based works of art are a form of remembering, memorialising and, perhaps, attempting to exorcise the demons of this past. While many contemporary artists are playing the role of the quasi-documentarian, turning to photography, narrative cinema and archives as means to explore cultural and personal histories, Seckon’s lush paintings stand apart. Embracing a myriad of materials and techniques—from sewing, to collage, to painting—and populating his canvases with symbols and ornamentation, Seckon forges his own path that pulls from many art histories. The resulting works are rich, tapestry-like compositions that cast gruesome stories from the artist’s history in colourful, fable-like vignettes.

In The Elephant and the Pond of Blood (2013), a viscous field of red predominates, rising up from the work’s bottom edge. Seckon’s paint reveals an underlying layer made up of collaged incense wrappers, most all featuring an image of the Buddha. Set amidst this red morass, a skeletal Buddha-like figure seems to sink towards the bottom. Treading through the crimson field at the top of the painting, an elephant—a symbol of strength and vulnerability, royalty and war—carries two passengers. Not quite human (one bears the head of a dog, the other, a tiger), these ominous figures point in a forward direction, teeth bared, set against a background of swirling darkness shot through with gold. As Seckon explains, these figures represent those who inflicted genocide on the Cambodian people. Beneath them, buried but visible in the pond of blood—an image drawn from a story of Buddhist hell—are remnants of the culture that they sought to eradicate.

The Khmer Rouge did more than slaughter more than a seventh of the small nation’s citizens; the rest were robbed of their personhood. As survivor Teeda Butt Mam recalls:

They told us we were VOID. We were less than a grain of rice in a large pile. The Khmer Rouge said that the Communist revolution could be successful with only two people. Our lives had no significance to their great Communist nation, and they told us, “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss”.1

After four years of manipulation, degradation and genocide, Cambodians finally welcomed some relief. In 1978, a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia pushed the Khmer Rouge into hiding amidst the country’s jungles, putting an end to the mass killings. Over the next decade, however, another civil war kept the country in turmoil, with fighting between the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese army and a guerilla group led by Norodom Sihanouk, the former king. It was not until 1991 that the Paris Peace Treaty was signed, putting an end to the war. Sihanouk returned as the head of state, and the seeds of democracy began to sprout with the assistance of the United Nations.

This history weighs heavily on the back of Cambodian artist Leang Seckon. Born in about 1970 to a civil war, Seckon’s childhood was coloured by air strikes, genocide and fear. For the artist, his family and his nation, the violence of this era exists as a skin that is not easily shed. Cast in reds, blacks, blues and golds, Seckon’s densely painted and collaged surfaces are replete with symbols

Leang Seckon The Elephant and the Pond of Blood

2013

Mixed media and collage on canvas

200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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to kidnap him from his village. While he was able to escape, many others were not—they became child soldiers who later turned on their families, neighbours and countrymen.

In each of his paintings, Seckon uses vivid imagery to translate the stories of Cambodia’s trauma; and through these, of his own survival. While for the artist these paintings are a form of therapeutic release from the memories that continue to haunt him well into adulthood, the question of how to approach, interpret and take in these images becomes a complex one. Laden with history, with trauma, with death—though certainly not lacking in distinct, unsettling beauty—Seckon’s narrative paintings pose difficult questions about consumption, complicity, pain and survival. How do we approach the work of Leang Seckon? As viewers far removed from the histories embedded in his canvases, what are we to do with the images that he places before us? As author Susan Sontag might phrase it, how are we to look at other people’s pain?

Writing after the 2004 death of the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida, gender theorist Judith Butler ruminates on life, death and the nuances of survival. Her essay, ‘On Never Having Learned How to Live’, is, in essence, one philosopher’s eulogy to another; though, in a fashion characteristic to both, it focuses on language and its many possibilities. At the crux of Butler’s essay is a consideration of the idea of survival—a term that for both her and Derrida seems to hold multiple meanings. Butler cites Derrida’s final interview, and begins with his confession: that he never truly learned how to live. And yet, it is not the bodily act of living or dying that

The dog and the tiger reappear in Seckon’s composition, Hell of Tuol Sleng (2014), standing in, again, as symbols of violence and evil. This time, they flank three human heads—the three men, Seckon says, who led the Khmer Rouge prison at Tuol Sleng, a former school transformed into a prison for dissidents during Pol Pot’s reign. Tuol Sleng saw the imprisonment and death of between 17,000 and 20,000 people during this time. Former government officials and soldiers from the previous regime were amongst its first prisoners; though later, Pol Pot’s own army began to self-cannibalise as well, turning in paranoia against members of their own ranks. Seckon’s depiction of the prison is rather direct: we see the barbed-wire fences, the many darkened doors that led to cramped cells and torture chambers. We see the faces of several victims, floating in the top-left corner; and around the edges of the image, crowded together, we see implements of torture—hooks, a scythe, knives and a barrel used for immersing prisoners in water. Crowding the centre of the image, we see dense rows of human skulls, reminding us of the thousands of people who were killed and buried near the prison.

Seckon returns again to allegory in Flooding Pot, Falling Gourd (2014). Like in The Elephant and the Pond of Blood, Seckon’s perspective offers a view below the earth’s surface, its blood-soaked dirt transformed into a vibrant red field. Underneath the earth, specters of a child soldier and a slain woman appear. At the top of the image—above ground—a dark giant, ornamented in gold, pulls a child from his mother’s arms; the two struggle for the child over the open mouth of a well. Pulled from Buddhist teachings, this story of mythological struggle serves as a metaphor for Seckon’s own experience as a child, when a soldier tried

Leang Seckon Hell of Tuol Sleng

2014

Mixed media and collage on canvas

200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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[W]hen one writes a book for a large audience, one doesn’t know to whom one speaks, one invents and creates outlines, but they no longer belong to us. Spoken or written, all these gestures leave us: they start to act independently of us, like machines or, at best, like puppets [. . .]. At the moment that I allow ‘my’ book to be published (no one makes me do it), I begin to appear-and-disappear, like some unteachable ghost who never learned how to live. The trace that I leave signifies to me both my death, either to come or already past, and the hope that it will survive me. It’s not an ambition of immortality, it’s structural; it is the constant form of my life. Every time I allow something to go forth, I see my death in the writing. The extreme test: one expropriates oneself—one gives oneself away—without knowing to whom one confides the thing one leaves. Who will inherit it now and how? Will there even be inheritors?3

As Derrida releases his words, which he considers to be part of himself, into the world, they enter into an ambiguous, peopled ether. No longer in control of these words, Derrida experiences this release of a part of himself as a simultaneous death and affirmation of life. The words are no longer his own, but their presence in the world marks a kind of endurance.

“Please”, Seckon writes, “look at this painting”. These words—both inviting and entreating—are repeated in several of the artist’s descriptions of his works. Please look at this painting: he asks us in with a sense of urgency and intimacy. Please look at this painting—come and see the things that he has seen, feel the weight of what he has experienced. As simple as his language is, as straightforward as one can muster—

pulls her attention, but rather the idea of what it means to survive despite either of these biological states. She writes:

[Derrida] is clear about the finality of death, but he returns to the task of affirming what he calls survival, ‘la survie.’ He references Walter Benjamin who, in The Task of the Translator, makes a distinction between überleben (survival) of a part, surviving death, as a book can survive the death of its author or a child survives the death of a parent, and fortleben, living on, continuing to live, the continuation of life itself. ‘Survival’ carries these two meanings, continuing to live, but also, he emphasizes, living after death.2

It is not the usual afterlife that Derrida anticipates. Instead, he defines a continuation of life that is not dependent on death as such. For Derrida, it is in the sharing of oneself—for him, through language—that constitutes a survival; this form of survival is enacted each time something is released into the world. In Derrida’s estimation, each act, each utterance, inscribes a trace, releases a specter of sorts into being. Survival, in this form, is part and parcel of existence, an integral part of life.

As consumers of his words—either written during his lifetime or re-read infinitely after his passing—Derrida’s readers become his uncertain heirs. Butler quotes Derrida at length here:

Leang Seckon Flooding Pot, Falling Gourd

2014

Mixed media and collage on canvas

200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Please look at this painting—his callout to us functions in a complex way. With this simple request, Seckon asks for our attention, and he implicates us into the fabric of his narrative.

As Derrida did each time he published a book, Seckon extends himself into the world through his paintings. It becomes our act of looking, reading, absorbing and understanding Seckon’s works that serves to complement and complete his catharsis. By transferring the burden of his past into the realm of the unknown, indefinable public, Seckon moves to externalise the trauma that he felt in his childhood and continues to relive. Though the artist has stated, simply, that he knows that the acts of painting, sewing, symbolising and narrating these traumas are unable to heal the past of Cambodia, he does enact another form of survival—survival of the form that Derrida explicates above. As viewers of Seckon’s work, we become his inheritors; in some ways, perhaps, his burden becomes shared.

Jens Hoffmann is a writer and exhibition maker based in New York. He currently is Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions and Public Programs of The Jewish Museum in New York.

1. Teeda Butt Nam, ‘Worms from Our Skin’, Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors, compiled by Dith Pran, Yale University Press, 1997.

2. Judith Butler, ‘On Never Having Learned How to Live’, Differences, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 27–34, 2005, p. 30.

3. Jacques Derrida, as quoted in Butler, p. 31.

WORKS

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The Reputation of a Good Person Lives On (Die with Honour, Live with Memory)2011 Mixed media on canvas150 x 130 cm (59 x 51 in)

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Parasol of the Moon2012 Mixed media on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Falling Umbrella2012Mixed media on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Parachute2012Mixed media on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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The Elephant and the Pond of Blood2013Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Flooding Pot, Falling Gourd 2014Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Hell of Tuol Sleng2014Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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Ghosts in Hell 2014Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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Offering2014Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Bang Skol (Blessing to Heaven)2013Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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Hell on Earth2014Mixed media and collage on canvas150 x 150 cm (59 x 59 in)

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Brown Stars Jolie2014Mixed media and collage on canvas150 x 150 cm (59 x 59 in)

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Death of Rama by White Arrow 2014Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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Mother of Asia2013 Mixed media and collage on canvas150 x 150 cm (59 x 59 in)

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World Born 2013Mixed media and collage on canvas200 x 200 cm (79 x 79 in)

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Tea Shop of King Sihanouk2014Collage on canvas150 x 150 cm (59 x 59 in)

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Indochina 2014Mixed media and collage on canvas 200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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Desire (Kiles)2014Mixed media on canvas200 x 150 cm (79 x 59 in)

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King Sihanouk’s Funeral 2012Mixed media on canvas50 x 40 cm (19 ¾ x 15 ¾ in)

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My Life 2013 Mixed media on canvas40 x 50 cm (15 ¾ x 19 ¾ in)

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Phnom Penh Today2013Mixed media on canvas40 x 50 cm (15 ¾ x 19 ¾ in)

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Preah Vihear—Place of Shiva2008Mixed media on canvas50 x 40 cm (19 ¾ x 15 ¾ in)

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Future of the New Generation2013Mixed media on canvas42 x 52 cm (16 ½ x 20 ½ in)

ABOUT

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LEANG SECKON

Born in the early 1970s in Prey Veng Province, Cambodia, Leang Seckon lives and works in Cambodia.

EDUCATION

1997–2002Royal University of Fine Arts, BA in Design, Cambodia

1992–1996Royal University of Fine Arts, Bachelor Degree in Plastic Arts, Cambodia

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011Shadow of the Heavy Skirt, Centre Culturel Français, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2010Heavy Skirt, Rossi & Rossi, London, UK

2009 See You Later Pt. 1, Galeria 346, Phuket, Thailand

2008Char Joul, Centre Culturel Français, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Skin, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

My Feeling from the Buddha, Café Living Room, Phnom Penh, CambodiaCollages, FCC, Angkor, Cambodia

2007New Collages, Amansara Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Huos Samay, Art Café, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

My Feeling from the Buddha, Amansara Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

2006Changing the Face of Culture: Collages, Amansara Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Tik Ey Kom Arl Ho, Amansara Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Tik Ey Kom Arl Ho, Linga Bar, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Jonghan Hoi, Amansara Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Leang Seckon, Retrospective, Mutrak Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2005Kuntrup UU, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2003Attak, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2002Apey Mutrak, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013WE = ME Asean Art Exhibition and Symposium, Silpakorn University, Wang Tha Pra Campus, Bangkok, Thailand

Phnom Penh: Rescue Archaeology: Contemporary Art and Urban Change in Cambodia, ifa-Galerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

Phnom Penh: Rescue Archaeology: Contemporary Art and Urban Change in Cambodia, ifa-Galerie Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Leang Seckon and Palden Weinreb, Art Stage Singapore, Singapore

2012Earth | Body | Mind, Kathmandu International Art Festival 2012, Kathmandu, Nepal

Thematic Exhibition, Shanghai Biennale 2012, Shanghai, China

Victory! Triumph in Classical and Contemporary Asian Art, Rossi & Rossi, London, UK

2011 Leang Seckon and Tsherin Sherpa, Art Stage Singapore, Singapore

What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?, Rossi & Rossi, London, UK

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2009Fukuoka Triennale, Fukuoka, Japan

Global Hybrid, Meta House, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Teuk Khmean Charon or Still Water, Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Geometries Virtuelles, Centre Culturel Français, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Forever Until Now, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong

The 5th International Art Festival 2009 / The Greater Mekong Sub-Region Art Sans Frontiers / Queens Gallery Art Exchange Festival 2009, Chiang Rai, Luang Prabang and Bangkok, Thailand

Mekong Organisation for Mankind, ASEAN Contemporary Art Exchange, New Zero Art Exchange, Yangon, Myanmar

2008I Love PP, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Strategies from Within: An Exhibition of Vietnamese and Cambodian Contemporary Art Practices, Ke Center for the Contemporary Arts, Shanghai, China

Naga, installation, Siem Reap River, Cambodia

Underlying, TADU, Bangkok, Thailand

2007Com Haic Thaim, The Art House, Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Recycled Fashion Show, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Group exhibition, Art House, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Crew, silk exhibition, Siem Reap, Cambodia

2006Review of Cambodian Art, Sala Art, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Spirit Learner, Artist-in-Residence Programme, VBNK, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

4 Cambodian Artists, Art-2 Gallery, Singapore

Reflow: Exhibition of Paintings & Photographs, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2+3+4, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2005Contemporary Art Exhibition, Visual Art Open, Sunrise Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Folk-05: Lokal Global, Galleri Lista Fyr, Norway

Group exhibition, Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong

2004Centre Culturel Français, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Mekong Jitney, Java Café & Gallery, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Guide, Centre Culturel Français, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2003Residency tour and group exhibition, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Group exhibition, New York, New York, USA

2001Group exhibition, School of Plastic Arts, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

AWARDS

2014Meeting with Queen Norodom Monineath; received medal from the queen

2009 Finalist, Sovereign Asia Art Prize

2008 King Norodom Sihamoni personally endorsed Naga, Seckon’s installation with Kids and Rubbish

2005Finalist, Sovereign Asia Art Prize

2004 King Norodom Sihanouk personally endorsed Seckon and his artwork

2000Second prize, painting contest, HIV/AIDS World AIDS Day, UNESCO

Final selection for the 2000 International Poster Contest ‘A World of Opportunities’, UNFPA

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RESIDENCES

2013Residency at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, New York, USA

2009Residency at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan

OTHER EXPERIENCE

2013The Flowering Parachute Skirt: Gathering and Procession, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

1040 Lounge Artist Spotlight: Leang Seckon and Pete Pin, a conversation between the artists, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, New York, USA

2010Can Art, Memory and History Be Shared without Boundaries?, Leang Seckon in conversation with artist Dong Jun, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Encouraging Sustainable Design, workshop with students from the Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2008Kids and Rubbish, recycled fashion show at BHOR Art Centre, Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Delegate to Dialogue on Arts and Climate Change, Asia-Europe Foundation, Beijing, China

Designed the Naga installation and oversaw workshops with volunteers to construct and install the work for World Water Day

2006–2007Art consultant to the Rajana Association, travelling with the staff to Laos and Thailand

Many performances of songs from the 1960s with celebrated actress Dy Saveth

Performance and roundtable discussion about the political realities of contemporary art in Cambodia and Vietnam, with artists from the 2+3+4 exhibition

2005One-week collage workshop with Rajana Association staff, Siem Reap, Cambodia

2003Lecturer at Birmingham University, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Workshops with young people, Studio by the Tracks, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

2002 and 2004Lecturer at Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

1998–2001Many illustrations and collages for Cambodian daily newspaper

1998Illustrated book on HIV/AIDS for Australian Red Cross

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ROSSI & ROSSI

Founded in 1985 in London by Anna Maria Rossi, who has some forty years of experience in the field of Asian art, and later joined by her son Fabio Rossi, Rossi & Rossi specialises in classical works of art from India and the Himalayan region as well as early Chinese and Central Asian textiles. In the mid-2000s, Rossi & Rossi began working with contemporary Asian artists, with a special focus on Tibetan art. The gallery’s deep interest in both the art and culture of the past and the vibrant and innovative art being produced by Asian artists today is reflected in its international reputation for handling only the finest pieces.

Operating in the centre of Mayfair, London, and from a newly opened space in Hong Kong, Rossi & Rossi regularly stages specialist and groundbreaking exhibitions. The gallery also participates in renowned contemporary art fairs including Art Stage Singapore, London Art Fair and Art Basel Hong Kong.

As well as distinguished private collectors, the gallery’s clients include major institutions such as:

CU Art Museum, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

Glenbarra Art Museum, Himeji, Japan

Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangdong, China

Museum of Contemporary Art, Macau

Museum of Immigration and Diversity, London, UK

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, UK

Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia

Ringling Museum of Art, Florida State University, Sarasota, USA

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran

White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, Australia

World Museum, Liverpool, UK

ARTISTS REPRESENTED:

Jaishri AbichandaniFereydoun AveBenchungKonstantin BessmertnyFaiza ButtHeman ChongLois ConnerShane CottonHeri DonoChristopher DoyleGadeNaiza H. KhanAbbas KiarostamiKesang LamdarkMa DeshengErbossyn MeldibekovNortseTsering NyandakTenzing RigdolLeang SeckonTsherin SherpaTsewang TashiPalden WeinrebNicole Wong

NOTABLE EXHIBITIONS INCLUDE:

2014Leang Seckon, Hell on Earth, London, UK

Erbossyn Meldibekov, Mountains of Revolution, Hong Kong

2013Gavin Au, Homan Ho, South Ho, Vivian Ho and Nicole Wong, These Shores, Hong Kong

In-Between: 21st Century Tibetan Artists Respond to 12th–15th Century Tibetan Manuscript Covers, curated by Tenzing Rigdol, London, UK

Konstantin Bessmertny, One of You and All of Them, London, UK

Tsering Nyandak, The Land of No Heroes, London, UK

Heman Chong, The Part in the Story Where We Lost Count of the Days, Hong Kong

Ma Desheng, Selected Works, 1978–2013, London, UK

Abbas Kiarostami, Photographs from the Snow Series, Hong Kong

Liu Dahong, Childhood, London, UK

Tenzing Rigdol, Darkness into Beauty, London, UK

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2012Tsherin Sherpa, Tibetan Spirit, London, UK

Victory! ‘Triumph’ in Classical and Contemporary Asian Art, London, UK

Jaishri Abichandani, Nida Abidi, Anite Dube, Chitra Ganesh and Mithu Sen, Stargazing, curated by Jaishri Abichandani, London, UK

Nortse, Bandaged Landscape, London, UK

Heman Chong, LEM1, London, UK

What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?, London, UK

2011Heri Dono, Madman Butterfly, London, UK

Faiza Butt and Naiza Khan, Shifting Ground, Hong Kong

Tibetan Contemporary Art: Tantric Vision in Modern Self-Expression, Tibet House, New York, USA

Samira Abbassy, Magazehe Pooneh, Katayoun Vaziri and Anahita Vossoughi, Shapeshifters & Aliens, curated by Jaishri Abichandani, London, UK

Stories of Dreams and Realities, London, UK, organised in conjunction with the Drawing Room Gallery, Manila, Philippines

Kesang Lamdark, Son of Rimpoche, London, UK

Tavares Strachan, Sometimes Lies Are Prettier, London, UK

Beyond the Mandala: Contemporary Art from Tibet, Mumbai, India, in conjunction with Volte Gallery, Mumbai, India

Lois Conner, Beijing Building, London, UK

2010Jaishri Abichandani, Dirty Jewels, London, UK

Fereydoun Ave, The Sacred Elements: Wind, London, UK

Boys and Girls Come Out to Play, London, UK

Shane Cotton, To and Fro, London, UK

Konstantin Bessmertny, Causarum Cognitio, London, UK

Leang Seckon, Heavy Skirt, London, UK

Palden Weinreb, This World Is Flat, London, UK

Stillness and Shadows: Vintage Photographs of India, London, UK

Benchung, Colourful Darkness, London, UK

2009Tsewang Tashi, Untitled Identity, London, UK

Urban Spirituality: Contemporary Hong Kong Art, London, UK, in conjunction with Grotto Fine Art, Hong Kong

Erbossyn Meldibekov, The (Dis)Order of Things, London, UK

Anomalies: From Nature to the Future, curated by Jaishri Abichandani, London, UK

Dedron, Nearest to the Sun, London, UK

Malekeh Nayiny and Fereydoun Ave, Demons and D-Artboards, London, UK

Tenzing Rigdol, Experiment with Forms, London, UK

Gade, Making Gods, London, UK

2008Caroline Chiu, Gods and Monsters: Portraits of the Nyingjei Lam Collection, New York, USA

Naiza Khan, The Skin She Wears, London, UK

Zhou Jun, Bird’s Nest Project, London, UK

Tsering Nyandak, The Lightness of Being, London, UK

Kesang Lamdark, Plastic Karma, London, UK

Nortse, The State of Imbalance, London, UK

2007Lois Conner, Twirling the Lotus: Photographs from Tibet and China, London, UK

Consciousness and Form: Contemporary Tibetan Art, London, UK

Legacy: Contemporary Photographic Works from China, London, UK

Tibetan Encounters: Contemporary Meets Tradition, New York, USA

2006Peter Towse and Gonkar Gyatso, Oh! What a Beautiful Day, London, UK

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CREDITS

First published to accompany the exhibition:

Leang SeckonHell on Earth27 June–25 July 2014

Rossi & Rossi London

Held at: Asia House63 New Cavendish StreetLondon W1G 7LP

Coordination: Mauro Ribero

Assistance: Andre Chan Kim-ling Humphrey Xiaohan Li Cecilia Tong

Editor: Eti Bonn-Muller

Catalogue Design: THREAD - threaddesign.co.uk

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© Rossi & Rossi Ltd. 2014Text copyright © the author. Unless indicated otherwise, all images courtesy of Rossi & Rossi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any storage or retrieval system, without prior permission from the copyright holders and publishers.

ISBN: 978-1-906576-38-7Front cover:My Life (detail)2013 Mixed media on canvas40 x 50 cm (15 ¾ x 19 ¾ in)

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