Salt Lake City, Utah -- 15 September, 1999 -- The eighteenth annual Festival of Asmat Art and Culture is scheduled to begin on 11 October, 1999 in Agats, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Similar events in years passed have enjoyed attendance by museum curators, anthropologists, art experts and enthusiasts from around the globe. Salt Lake curator and Asmat art experts Steven Chiaramonte and Angela Keeney will once again be traveling to the remote jungle area to attend the annual Festival and Art Auction.
The Asmat inhabit the swampy jungles of the southwest coast of New Guinea. Having limited but increasing contact with western cultures during recent years, they continue to practice many of their traditional customs. The Asmat are recognized internationally for their rich and powerful wood sculpture, which has provided influence to western artists including Picasso, Chagall and Mattisse.
Chiaramonte and Keeney have studied extensively among the Asmat people and the 'Chiaramonte Collection of Asmat Art' is among the largest private collections in North America. In recent years Chiaramonte has curated three exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on campus at the University of Utah. The most recent exhibition "Ambassadors from the Jungle's Edge" featured six Asmat wood carvers who traveled to Utah earlier this year, presenting a dynamic program describing their art and culture. More than 400 people attended this once in a lifetime event in Salt Lake City. Numerous objects from the Chiaramonte Collection remain on exhibit at the Museum, several of which have joined the Museum's permanent collection.
A respected expert on Asmat art, Chiaramonte has again been invited to serve on an international jury charged with evaluating more than two thousand objects proposed by Asmat artists for inclusion in the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress. Four jurors will assess the artists work in six style categories, awarding prizes to those judged the finest representation of their intended style. The creations of first prize recipients will join the permanent collection of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress and several hundred of the finest works will be sold at auction to the highest bid.
The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress was established at Agats in 1973 with a mission to provide the Asmat a venue for the preservation of their art, as well as a place where new generations of Asmat could study their cultural past. Chiaramonte relates, " The Museum provides a near-perfect blend of art, ethnology and cultural experience so very dear to the Asmat. Under the expert stewardship of the Bishop Alphonse Sowada and Curator Yufentius Biakai, it provides a catalyst for the Asmat, young and old alike, to find glory in their past while encouraging the sustenance of their culture so vital to existence in this difficult region."
Chiaramonte and Keeney look forward to again visiting their friends in the Asmat jungle. Interested readers are encouraged to attend this or future events. Chiaramonte is able to direct inquiries to further information resources on Asmat art and travel. The Equatorial Arts Gallery, home of the Chiaramonte Collection of Asmat Art may be accessed at http://come.to/asmat or the Utah Museum of Fine Arts "Asmat" page is at http://www.utah.edu/umfa/asmat.html. See also the American Museum of Asmat Art at http://asmat.org.