The “18th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2018”, the largest fine arts festival in Asia, will begin at the National Art Gallery of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in the city today.
President Md. Abdul Hamid is expected to inaugurate the month-long exhibition and also deliver a speech at the Jatiya Natyashala auditorium of the Shilpakala Academy in the afternoon.
The Cultural Affairs Ministry and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy will jointly organize the exhibition which will continue till end of the month.
According to the organizers, the exhibition will display two and three dimensional artworks like painting, prints, photography, sculpture, installation, performance art and new media art.
This year 483 artworks by 465 artists from 68 countries will be put on display at the exhibition.
The participating countries include Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, The United States of America (USA), Mongolia, Peru, Stein, Italy, Ireland, Egypt, Kenya, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Moscow and Germany.
The exhibition will be open for all from 11 a.m. to 8 .p.m every day. Apart from the exhibition, two seminars and cultural functions will be held on Sep 2 and 3.
The exhibition is the most prestigious and biggest art festival of Bangladesh as well as the oldest international art biennale event in Asia. From the beginning to 2014 the event was the platform only for artists of the Asian and Pacific region.
In 2016, the organising committee of the exhibition has decided to expand its glory throughout the world. As a result artists from 55 countries from around the world had participated in the 17th edition. And in this year participating countries number 68 including Bangladesh has broken the previous record.
