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Finding Qi
A Solo Exhibition of Works by Robert Oxnam.
Curated by Amei Wallach and Vishakha Desai
April 5 – May 10, 2025
Andy Tarshis Fine Art Gallery (133 E. Main St.) | 11 West Gallery (11 W. Main St.)
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About the Exhibition
East End Arts & Humanities Council, Inc. (EEA) presents Finding Qi, a gallery exhibition of artwork by internationally acclaimed Chinese scholar, long-time president of The Asia Society President and North Fork resident Robert Oxnam.
The exhibition is co-curated by Vishakha Desai a noted scholar of Asian art, also President of the Asia Society and wife of the artist, and award-winning writer and filmmaker and longtime friend of the artist, Amei Wallach. The show runs across two gallery spaces in Downtown Riverhead from April 5 through May 10, 2025. The opening reception is on Saturday, April 5 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
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About the Artist
Finding Qi (pronounced chee) showcases Oxnam’s sculpture, paintings, and photography, inspired by Chinese scholar stones and cultural concepts. “In Chinese tradition, the term Qi has many meanings, but for me, it means an invisible but palpable source of creative energy, both artistically and psychologically,” Oxnam once explained.
As an artist, in the later decades of his life, Oxnam took inspiration from the thousand-year tradition of transforming ancient, weathered stones into Chinese Scholar’s rocks, creating a contemporary take on the roots and tree trunks found on North Fork beaches. He emphasized the infinite variety of these sea-tossed shapes with sandpaper and milk paint, reshuffling place and time. He aimed to release what he called their “inner dynamism,” an approach he took from the Chinese concept of Qi. His photographs are close-up macro lens meditations on the glacial rocks at Rocky Point, and his paintings are modernized versions of Chinese splash ink paintings, but with added acrylic paints on Chinese rice paper.
“No matter the medium, no matter how various the results, what Robert Oxnam did with his art was to merge cultures and experiences into the creation of something that is both rooted and new,” notes Amei Wallach. Oxnam died at his Greenport home in April, 2024. Finding Qi honors his legacy.
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About the Curators
Amei Wallach – Amei Wallach’s latest documentary, Taking Venice, debuted in New York and Los Angeles in May, 2024, and at the North Fork Arts Center and, as a collaboration between The Church and Sag Harbor Cinema last summer. The film uncovers the story behind rumors that the U.S. Government and a team of high-placed insiders rigged the 1964 Venice Biennale, so their chosen artist Robert Rauschenberg could win the Grand Prize.
She was Chief Art Critic for Newsday from 1984-1995 and an on-air arts essayist for what is now known as PBS NewsHour during much of that time. As an art critic, Wallach’s articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Art in America, ARTnews, Aperture, Parkett, and The Brooklyn Rail. Wallach has interviewed and profiled artists Salvador Dalí, Jeff Koons, Willem de Kooning.
As a filmmaker, Wallach co-directed and co-produced the documentary portrait Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine with Marion Cajori in 2008 and directed Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here, exploring the history of the artists, born in Ukraine under Joseph Stalin, who made the North Fork home for the last 30 years.
Vishakha Desai – A noted scholar of Asian art and the life partner of Robert Oxnam, Vishakha N. Desai has been a senior advisor for Global Affairs to the President and Chair of Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University for more than a decade. Prior to joining Columbia, Dr. Desai was at the Asia Society for twenty two years, initially as the director of its museum and as Vice President for Arts and Culture programs, and then as President of the global organization from 2004 through 2012. She is known for introducing American audiences to the contemporary arts of Asia through such landmark exhibitions as Traditions/Tensions: Contemporary Arts from Asia, Inside Out: Contemporary Chinese Art, and Edge of Desire: Recent Art from India.
As President of the Asia Society, Dr. Desai was the first woman and person of Asian origin to lead the legendary organization encompassing arts, culture, policy, and education. She expanded the Society’s scope by establishing Asia21, a program for emerging leaders from Asia and the U.S. and a center on U.S.-China relations, opening offices in India and Korea, and inaugurating new buildings in Hong Kong and Houston in addition to New York.
Prior to joining Asia Society, Desai was a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in charge of Indian, Southeast Asian and Islamic arts as well as head of academic and public programs. She began her museum career as a twenty-one year-old educator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and served as a head fo family programs at the Brooklyn Museum before going to graduate school. In recognition of her distinguished museum career, President Barak Obama appointed her to the board of Institute of Libraries and Museums.
Recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, Dr.Desai received her doctorate in Asian Art from University of Michigan and holds five honorary degrees. Her books include, Life at Court: Art for India’s Rulers (1985), Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple Structures from North India, 700-1200 AD (1994), Asian Art in the 21st Century (ed. 2006), and an award winning memoir, World as Family: A Journey of Multi-rooted Belongings (2021). Her new edited volume, Politics of Visual Arts in a Changing World will be published in late 2025 by Columbia University Press.
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Exhibit Events
Saturday April 5 | 4PM-7PM: Opening Reception with the Curators
Saturday April 19 | 2PM: Chinese Roots, contemporary sensitivity, Susan Beningson in conversations with Vishakha Desai.
Susan Beningson has been a consulting curator for Chinese Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Asia Society Museum, and at the China Institute. She received her Ph. D from Columbia University in Chinese art and has published widely on traditional and contemporary Chinese art. She has also taught at Columbia University, Rutgers University, and the City University of New York. 2PM
Sunday May 4 | 2PM: Creativity, art making and Brain science: Dr. Millissa kaufman in conversation with Amei Wallach and
Vishakha Desai
Dr. Kaufmann is Associate professor of Psychiatry and director of Dissociative Disorders and trauma research Center at the Mclean Hospital o Harvard University. She and her team wok on understanding what brain regions are involved in dissociative symptoms and how they work, including creativity. She worked closely with Robert Oxnam on destigmitizing the Dissociative Identity disorder and to understand his creative energy. 2PM
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