Gonkar Gyatso: Three Realms Review in SMH

Congratulations to Simon Wright and the Griffith Art Gallery. This fantastic review by John McDonald of the Gonkar Gyatso exhibiton, Three Realms, was published in the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend.

An excerpt of the review appears below. Please click through the the SMH site to read the review in it’s entirety.

Gonkar Gyatso: Three Realms was shown in Brisbane’s three major public venues after the QAG: the University of Queensland Art Museum, the Griffith University Art Gallery and the Institute of Modern Art. This was the first time these institutions had ever managed to work together – a historic event in its own right. The realisation of the project is a tribute to the curator, Simon Wright, of Griffith University Art Gallery, who had the initial idea and put in the sleepless nights.

The Institute of Modern Art component was held between August and October last year. Griffith has one impressive installation that takes up the entire gallery, while the University of Queensland museum contains the largest and most varied body of work.

The ”three realms” that Gyatso has negotiated are his youthful days as a committed communist, studying in Beijing; the period when he returned to Tibet, rediscovered his roots and became an artist-in-exile, across the border in Dharamsala; and his move to London, where he studied at St Martins and Chelsea, emerging as a truly international figure, albeit still an exile.