Event Time: 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Location: The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, Manhattan
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will celebrate the Indian festival of Diwali with a special program for visitors of all ages on November 2 from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. Diwali, the annual Indian “Festival of Light,” signifies the victory of good over evil within every human being. The Museum’s celebration, which will feature dance performances, is presented by the Museum’s Multicultural Audience Development Initiative and is free with Museum admission. It is hosted by the Multicultural Advisory Committee and Committee Member Lal K. Motwani, Chairman of the National Federation of Indian-American Associations.
* Miss India New York 2013 Prachi Modi will perform a solo dance during the event.
* Members of the East-West School of Dance will tell the story of Diwali through a performance in the Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
Visitors are invited to view the Museum’s Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, including the installation Ragamala: Picturing Sound (Gallery 251, on view until December 14).
Installation on View
A ragamala, translated from Sanskrit as “garland of ragas,” is a series of paintings depicting a range of musical melodies known as ragas. Its root word, raga, means color, mood, and delight, and the depiction of these moods was a favored subject in later Indian court paintings. The celebration of music in painting is distinctly Indian.
Created as loose-leaf folios, typically 36 or 42 in number, which were stored in a portfolio, ragamalas circulated within the inner court circles that commissioned them. Viewing these paintings was a pleasurable pastime for courtiers and their guests and the ladies of the zenana. These ragamalas were also painted as murals in the private quarters of palaces, though few of these have survived. The exhibition features Indian paintings and musical instruments from the Museum’s collection.
The Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia
These 15 galleries present the Arts of India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, from the earliest civilizations to the 16th century. Areas of particular strength include Buddhist stone and bronze sculptures from the Kushan dynasty (1st to 3rd century A.D.); Kashmiri and Pala period sculptures (6th to 13th century); Hindu bronzes from the Chola period (9th to 13th century); an unparalleled collection of early Southeast Asian metal sculptures; and monumental stone sculptures from the Angkorian Kingdom in Cambodia and Thailand (9th to 14th century). Nepalese and Tibetan religious imagery (8th to 19th century) is exhibited on the third floor, along with Indian art temporary exhibitions, which often include Indian paintings.
Upcoming Event
On Friday, November 14, 2014, at 7:00 p.m., virtuosic Indian vocalist Kaushiki Chakrabarty will perform music from South and North Indian vocal traditions. Tickets, which start at $40, may be purchased at metmuseum.org/tickets (212-570-3949).
About The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world’s largest and finest museums, with collections spanning more than 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe. Located at the edge of Central Park along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Metropolitan Museum welcomed 6.2 million visitors last year.
The Multicultural Audience Development Initiative began more than 10 years ago at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It reflects the Museum’s founding mission to educate and inspire by reaching out to all of its constituencies, including the many diverse communities of the New York tristate area. Its objectives are to increase awareness of the Museum’s global collections and programs, to diversify its visitorship and Membership, and to increase participation in its programs.
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October 31, 2014
Image caption: Lady Holding a Sparkler (detail), ca. 1800. India (Punjab Hills, Kangra). Ink, opaque watercolor, silver, and gold on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1918 (18.134.2)
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