展位｜S08
地點｜韓國首爾 COEX 會議中心 C&D 廳
參展藝術家｜萊因·辛格·班德爾
▋貴賓預展 ▋
2026.09.02 (三) 11:00 – 19:00
2026.09.03 (四) 11:00 – 15:00
▋公眾展期 ▋
2026.09.03 (四) 15:00 – 19:00
2026.09.04 (五) 11:00 – 19:00
2026.09.05 (六) 11:00 – 19:00
丹之寶榮幸於 2026 Frieze Seoul 首爾藝術博覽會呈獻「尼泊爾現代藝術之父」萊因・辛格・班德爾（Lain Singh Bangdel, 1919–2002）個展，繼 2026 香港巴塞爾後首次於韓國首爾亮相。本次展出入選 Frieze Seoul 全新策展單元 Spotlight，由 Line Cultural Foundation 總監 Wonseok Koh 策展，聚焦西方經典之外，具有重要藝術史地位卻未獲充分關注的 20 世紀藝術家。展覽帶來班德爾 1960 至 1990 年代創作，透過城市、山岳與自然景觀，呈現其如何將地景記憶轉化為獨立而深具表現力的現代藝術語言。
班德爾出生於印度大吉嶺的尼泊爾移民家庭，1950 年代赴倫敦與巴黎深造，接觸立體主義、野獸派與抽象藝術等現代主義思潮；1960 年回到尼泊爾後，逐步將國際現代主義經驗與自身文化記憶交織，建立跨越地域與文化邊界的藝術語言。對班德爾而言，抽象並非對現實世界的捨棄，而是將景觀、記憶與感知轉化為色彩、形體與動勢。
《Old City》（1961）可視為其藝術語言轉向抽象的重要作品。斷裂形體、交錯線條與鮮明色塊彼此簇擁，暗示建築、街道與城市生活中被壓縮的能量；畫面游移於具象結構與抽象語彙之間，揭示其日益深化的抽象探索。
進入 1970 年代，班德爾的抽象語言更趨成熟。《Mountain and Valley》（1973）以奔放筆觸與斷裂形體，將群山與山谷轉化為充滿張力與流動感的內在景觀，使風景不再指向特定地點，而成為被經歷與銘記的感知。《Winter Storm》（1974）以強烈對比的色彩、斷裂形體與迅捷筆觸，喚起狂風、飛雪與流動空氣的動勢，將冬日風暴轉化為躁動、冷峻且充滿原始能量的自然體驗，展現班德爾成熟的抽象語彙，以及將自然景象轉化為富有表現力之情感體驗的卓越能力。
除了抽象景觀，本次亦展出《Maternity》（1963）與《Mother and Child》（1964），呈現班德爾創作中私密而深沉的一面。班德爾年僅一歲半便失去母親，這段生命經驗使「母與子」成為他一生反覆回返的主題。《Maternity》以抒情線條與明亮色彩傳遞溫柔與親密感，母性既承載藝術家對母愛的深切思慕，也昇華為普世之愛的象徵。
「山岳」與「母子」看似位於班德爾創作的兩端，前者指向自然與精神性，後者回到私密的人類情感，兩者卻同樣源於記憶與生命經驗，展現其兼具地方感知與國際視野的現代藝術語言。
班德爾亦是尼泊爾現代藝術制度與文化發展的重要推手。1962 年於加德滿都舉辦的個展被視為尼泊爾現代藝術史的重要里程碑；其後長期投入藝術教育與文化制度建設。今日，其作品已進入福岡亞洲美術館、紐瓦克藝術博物館、約旦・施尼策藝術博物館、聯合國總部及尼泊爾國家美術館等重要公共收藏。
繼香港巴塞爾後，丹之寶於 2026 Frieze Seoul 再次呈獻班德爾，透過成熟期抽象創作與具象人物作品的並置，從城市、山岳、自然風暴至母子間深沉的情感，呈現這位尼泊爾現代藝術先驅如何將個人經驗與地方記憶轉化為具有普世共鳴的藝術語言，進一步確立其在全球現代主義藝術史中的重要位置。
Booth｜S08
Address｜Halls C and D on Level 3, COEX, 513 Yeongdong-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06164, Republic of Korea
Participating Artist｜Lain Singh Bangdel
▋Preview ▋
September 2: 11:00 – 19:00
September 3: 11:00 – 15:00
▋Public Days ▋
September 3: 15:00 – 19:00
September 4 – 5: 11:00 – 19:00
Tansbao Gallery is honored to present a solo exhibition of Lain Singh Bangdel (1919–2002), widely revered as the “Father of Modern Art in Nepal,” at Frieze Seoul 2026, marking the artist’s first presentation in Seoul following the gallery’s presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong earlier this year. Selected for Spotlight, a curated section making its Frieze Seoul debut this year, the presentation is part of a program curated by Wonseok Koh, Director of the Line Cultural Foundation. Dedicated to solo presentations of 20th-century artists, Spotlight foregrounds overlooked figures, evolving practices, and significant early works, reflecting a growing interest in art-historical narratives beyond dominant Western canons.
Bringing together works created from the 1960s through the 1990s, the exhibition traces how Bangdel transformed memories of cities, mountains, and the natural landscape into an independent and deeply expressive modernist language.
Born into a Nepali immigrant family in Darjeeling, India, Bangdel pursued further studies in London and Paris in the 1950s, where he encountered modernist movements including Cubism, Fauvism, and abstraction. After returning to Nepal in 1960, he increasingly brought these international modernist experiences into dialogue with his own cultural memory, developing an artistic language that crossed geographical and cultural boundaries. For Bangdel, abstraction was not a departure from the visible world, but a means of transforming landscape, memory, and perception into color, form, and movement.
Old City (1961) marks an important moment in Bangdel’s movement toward abstraction. Fractured forms, intersecting lines, and vibrant fields of color cluster across the composition, suggesting buildings, streets, and the compressed energy of urban life. Moving between recognizable structure and abstraction, the work reveals Bangdel’s growing engagement with an increasingly independent abstract vocabulary.
By the 1970s, Bangdel’s abstract language had reached a new level of maturity. In Mountain and Valley (1973), sweeping gestures and fractured forms transform mountains and valleys into an inner landscape charged with tension and movement. Rather than depicting a specific site, Bangdel evokes the landscape as something lived, remembered, and internalized. Winter Storm (1974) employs strongly contrasting colors, fragmented forms, and rapid brushstrokes to evoke the movement of fierce winds, swirling snow, and shifting air. Transforming a winter storm into a restless, austere, and elemental experience of nature, the work demonstrates Bangdel’s mature abstract language and his remarkable ability to translate the natural world into an expressive emotional experience.
Alongside these abstract landscapes, the presentation also includes Maternity (1963) and Mother and Child (1964), revealing a more intimate and deeply emotional dimension of Bangdel’s practice. Bangdel lost his mother when he was only one and a half years old, an experience that made the mother-and-child motif a subject to which he returned throughout his life. Executed with lyrical lines and a luminous palette, Maternity conveys tenderness, devotion, and emotional intimacy. For Bangdel, maternity embodied both a profound personal longing for maternal love and a universal symbol of love itself.
At first glance, the mountain and the mother-and-child motif may appear to occupy opposite ends of Bangdel’s practice: one gestures toward nature and spirituality, while the other turns inward toward intimate human emotion. Yet both are rooted in memory and lived experience, revealing a modernist language that is at once deeply grounded in a sense of place and expansive in its international outlook.
Bangdel was also a pivotal force in shaping the institutional and cultural development of modern art in Nepal. His 1962 solo exhibition in Kathmandu is widely regarded as a landmark in the history of Nepali modern art, after which he remained deeply engaged in art education and the development of cultural institutions. Today, his works are held in major public collections including the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, the Newark Museum of Art, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and the National Art Museum of Nepal, among others.
Following its presentation of Bangdel at Art Basel Hong Kong, Tansbao Gallery returns to his work at Frieze Seoul 2026, bringing his mature abstractions into dialogue with his figurative works. From cities, mountains, and elemental storms to the profound intimacy of the mother-and-child relationship, the presentation reveals how this pioneer of Nepali modern art transformed personal experience and memories of place into an artistic language of universal resonance, further affirming his significant place within the history of global modernism.