Tenzing Rigdol

Tenzing Rigdol (born 16 January 1982 in Kathmandu, Nepal) is a contemporary Tibetan artist and activist.

Biography

Tenzing Rigdol was born 16 January 1982 in Kathmandu, Nepal. He is best known for his installation in Dharamsala which consists of 20,000 kg of Tibetan soil from Shigatse. He is chiefly known for his contemporary pieces although he is also trained in the ancient art of thangka. In 2007, his piece "The Metamorphosis of Life" was sold for £10,000 (about USD 15,000). Ringdol is a graduate of the University of Colorado. He holds a master's degree in philosophy and lives in the United States.

In 2010, with the Chinese artist Zhang Hongtu, he created an art work representing Liu Xiaobo that was shown December 10 with the participation of Richard Gere for the release of Nobel Prize of peace.

Rigdol is featured in the documentary film Bringing Tibet Home by Tibetan film director Tenzin Tsetan Choklay, released in October 2013 at the International Film Festival in Busan in South Korea, which won the award of Jury des jeunes Européens at the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels in January 2014.

Rigdol is also the author of three collections of poems. In 2009, he published his first collection of poems, as announced at the Tibet House in New York. Tenzin Dickyi compared his collection of love poems Butterfly's Wings, with those of the 6th Dalai Lama.

Exhibitions

In May 2006, he participated in the exhibition The Missing Peace at Fowler Museum at UCLA Los Angeles and in September the same year in the exhibition Waves on the Turquoise Lake: Contemporary Expressions of Tibetan Art at CU Art Museum, University of Colorado at Boulder in the United States.

In 2007 he exhibited at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

From 11 February to 27 March 2009, his work was exhibited by Rossi & Rossi gallery in London and in 2010 in Hong Kong.

In 2010, he participated in the exhibition "The Scorching Sun of Tibet" in Songzhuang art colony in Beijing, China.

From June to October 2010, he participated in the exhibition "Tradition transformed", the first contemporary art exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

In 2012, he participated in the exhibition Face to Face at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel.

In January and February 2014, his work was exhibited at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum located in the University of Vermont in the United States.

In February–June 2014, he was one of two contemporary artists from Tibet and India in the New Beginnings exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Books

• 2009 : Tenzing Rigdol: Experiment with Forms, Rossi & Rossi, ISBN 1906576076

Collections of poems

• 2008 : R–The Frozen Ink, Paljor Publications, ISBN 819041741X
• 2011 : Anatomy of Nights, Tibet Writes
• 2011 : Butterfly’s Wings, Tibet Writes