The exhibition featured the works produced in an art camp that brought together, for the first time, fifty-two leading artists from West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh. The art camp coincided with the inauguration of the year-long golden jubilee celebrations of the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka University. It was an occasion to share experience and compare notes, display commonalities as well as differences, and generally to understand and appreciate the art practices and aesthetics of the two art centres of Bengal. Looking at the paintings, it was felt that in spite of certain similarities (the result of sensibilities that take their roots from a shared culture, language and lifestyle) there were many differences. Within the ambit of this experience it appeared that the leading trend in Calcutta art is figurative and narrative, while Dhaka is still experimenting with non-representation and folk forms. To mark the occasion, Bengal Foundation produced a 26 min documentary Through the Other Window (Anya Janala Diye) and published a catalogue titled Contemporary Works of Bengali Artists.

Participants from Bangladesh

Safiuddin Ahmed, Mohammad Kibria, Aminul Islam, Abdur Razzaque, Murtaja Baseer, Kazi Abdul Baset, Nitun Kundu, Abu Taher, Samarjit Roy Chowdhury, Hashem Khan, Rafiqun Nabi, Mahmudul Haque, Abul Barq Alvi, Syed Abdullah Khalid, Hamiduzzaman Khan, Abdus Shakoor Shah, Abdus Satter, Mahbubul Amin, Kazi Ghiyasuddin, Monsur Ul Karim, Chandra Shekhar Dey, Nazlee Laila Mansur, KM A Qayyum, Farida Zaman, Ranjit Das, Mohammad Eunus, Jamal Ahmed, Alka Mathur, Nasreen Begum, Rokeya Sultana, Dilara Begum Jolly, Sheikh Afzal, Shishir Bhattacharjee, Nisar Hossain.

Participants from West Bengal, India

Paritosh Sen, Amitabha Banerjee, Bijan Chowdhury, Shyamal Dutta Ray, Sanat Kar, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Amal Ghosh, Jogen Chowdhury, Sunil Das, Niranjan Pradhan, Shipra Bhattacharya, Wasim Kapoor, Dipali Bhattacharya, Aditya Basak, Ashok Bhowmik, Bimal Kundu, Shuvaprasanna and Paresh Maity. Art Critics Manasij Majumder, Swapan Mullick, Ratnattama Sengupta and Soumitra Das from West Bengal and Abul Mansur from Bangladesh were present in the art camp as observers.

Date: 16.04.1999 – 21.04.1999
Venue: National Art Gallery, Bengal Shilpakala Academy