Art Basel and BMW have announced that Astha Butail has been selected as the winner of the sixth BMW Art Journey. Butail was selected from a shortlist of three, including Julian Charrière and Lin Ke, whose work was presented at the Discoveries sector for emerging artists at this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong.
Butail, who is based in Gurgaon in India, was chosen for her proposal In the Absence of Writing, which will focus on memory and living traditions passed down through teaching and oral poetry. Butail says the project will be ‘an homage to the intangible oral traditions that are still alive today’, and plans to travel between cities in Iran, Israel, the UK and India to investigate the Zoroastrian Avesta, Jewish Oral Torah and Indian Veda traditions by ‘observing and recording their different memory techniques and interviewing scholars and practitioners.’ Art Basel and BMW will collaborate with the artist to document the journey through print publications, online and social media.
The awarding jury included Claire Hsu, Director, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; Bose Krishnamachari, President, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India; Matthias Mühling, Director, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Munich; Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator of Asian Art and Senior Advisor, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Pauline J. Yao, Curator Visual Art, M+, Hong Kong.
In a joint statement, the jury said: ‘We were struck by [the proposal’s] sensitivity and range, and how it expands upon the artist’s prior practice of investigating her own history and identity…The journey brings together ethnography, spirituality, and sociology. We were especially taken by Astha Butail’s interest in tracking down endangered oral traditions, which she will document with the tools of an artist and interactions with scholars and spiritual leaders.’
9 June 2017
