March 27 - April 19, 2008
New York, NY, March 15, 2008 – SUNDARAM TAGORE GALLERY is pleased to present the work of
renowned photographer Subhankar Banerjee, who spent eight years researching and photographing deep in the Alaskan Arctic. Resource Wars opens with a cocktail reception on Thursday, March 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and closes on April 19.
The photographs, some as large as 68x86", are a never-before-seen cohesive presentation of large works of the most ecologically and culturally significant lands and oceans of the American arctic. Photos include Caribou Crossing the Utukok River, Beluga Whales with Calves, and Brant and Snow Geese with Chicks, to name a few. "The photos are extremely powerful," said gallerist Sundaram Tagore. "To work in the Alaskan Arctic is an enormous feat. But to do so with such a range of subject and style is rare. These photos show the majestic within the wild. Yet they focus on places and indigenous cultures that are disappearing. The photos are emotive and make a statement about larger ecological issues of the modern day, such as global warming."
Originally trained as a physicist and computer scientist, Banerjee left a job at Boeing to begin photographing these sights in 2001. Over eight years, he visited the arctic more than 20 times, for stretches as long as seven months. The trips were intense and exhausting. Banerjee's camera often froze and funding was difficult, as photographing in such a remote region can cost as much as $150,000 per year.
Banerjee persevered and was ultimately rewarded. He says his initial goal was to go to "a place untrammeled by tourism or industry, a place untouched by man." Over time, his idea of a "pristine wilderness" eventually evolved into a new vision. Now, he says his work "addresses how resource wars, climate change, and toxic migration have connected the lives of Northern people and animals to the lives of people in faraway lands in a rather tragic manner." He adds, "My vision is to show an aesthetic of ecology. The photographs are beautiful, yet they are layered with meaning. In some cases beauty and ecology collide in interesting ways."
In the last five years, Banerjee has had nearly 30 museum exhibitions. Of these, 23 have been solo shows. Venues include: The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., The American Museum of Natural History in New York, Palais Des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, and The Milwaukee Art Museum. Banerjee will be Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College in 2009.
In the May "Green Issue" of Vanity Fair, Banerjee's photographs will address climate change and the struggles of the indigenous communities in the Siberian arctic. His photographs can also be seen in two group exhibitions in New York: May - October at the Deutsche Bank Art Gallery in Feeling the Heat: Artists, Scientists and Climate Change and May - June at the United Nations Headquarters in Unlearning Intolerance: Art Changing Attitudes Toward the Environment. In May, Art in America will publish a review of two of his group shows from last year. In conjunction with the exhibition, the gallery has published a catalogue.
For more information, or to schedule an interview with Mr. Banerjee, please contact Anna Shen, press director, by cell phone at 1 917 907 0035 or via email at anna@sundaramtagore.com