INTERVIEW 1 - Violence Blooms

Photographs: © Richard Bolai

Adele Todd is a Trinidad based artist. She has done works in a variety of mediums since she completed her studies at the Pratt Institute. Her venues for shows have been untraditional and often provocative. She is most fascinated by elements of violence and eroticism and addresses them in her work. She is also a teacher and she regularly follows this blog and occasionally does projects with her students involving posts on this blog.

Vinod Dave came across her recent exhibit “Violence Blooms” while surfing the net and was struck by its impact. In the resulting interview, Ms.Todd reveals the inner depths of her work and provides insight into its various facets with candid frankness:

Vinod Dave: You were inspired nearly four years back, while you were in china, by some curtains embroidered with flowers. This long time between inspiration and actually creating something seems remarkable. Is this how you always work or this was so only in this project?

Adele Todd: In a day there are many things to consider, preparing my class work for my teaching, doing a project as a freelance designer and taking care of a three year old. Despite the best intentions, sometimes some work takes much longer than expected. Naturally many drawings are done and much thought is given to how to proceed and for me, I also always ask the question why? Why create this? What is it about this topic that makes me want to make the effort to commit to it?

VD: Also because of the time consuming nature of embroidery, may be?
AT: Embroidery has been proven to be my present medium of choice, along with Performance. There is much to recommend it, the color, the texture, the history and to me, the cotemporary possibilities. I am not limited to embroidery.

VD: Do you consider your work ‘feminist’ or ‘feminine’ and since you use mediums most used by females in the traditional way?

AT: I have no interest in considering my work ‘feminine’, Caribbean or any other cultural terminology. I learnt the techniques of embroidery in private primary school and high school, and did not apply them again until adulthood. So the desire to work with the material as a soft material did not come from romanticizing the thread and cloth, but from a desire to use the technique to send clear messages about a subject matter, in this case, domestic violence.

VD: Embroidery also has an inherent element in it related to decorative arts or crafts. How do you justify the subject of violence that may be considered in conflict with the decorative?

AT: That is wholly where the interest lies. I enjoy contradiction in art. I find greater regard for subtle observation, where the appearance of the sublime is subverted.

VD: When I mention ‘decorative’, what I mean is the medium’s traditional purpose. However, violence could be very ‘decorative’ or “attractive” at moments. I remember one senior American artist (Irving Kriesberg) asking me the same question after seeing my print news media based work dealing with social violence. My work at that time had element of splattered enamel paint on manipulated news photographs of actual human violence (that actually happened somewhere). My answer to him at that time was: violence commands people’s attention as much as pretty elements do and I want my work to do just do that. Are you in agreement with this or you having something beyond this theory?

AT: This is so true. It is very disturbing that particularly in American culture, a culture that is exported to much of the world through television, movies and the Internet, that violence is sound tracked and enhanced by beautiful looking people acting roles. Violence and sex are very immediate triggers. As a graphic artist, aware of selling, I cannot help but observe these two elements.

Sex and Death is that all there is? Of course not, but they sell very well. What’s funny is that this isn’t new, it has always been so. From the Laocoon Group by Agesander, Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Delight (which I have interpreted as wearable art by the way) to Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarrentino. I suppose they stay with us because of that fact. They cause the strongest impulses in us all. I must ask you now, what do you think?

(PS: My recent work that can be seen in Connecticut, I used existing imagery from our local newspapers to look at crime. I broke the theme up into four sections, police, criminals, victims and the justice system. Today I have observed many artists using print media to inform their ideas, I am one of them. The immediacy of the imagery, whether in print or on television, has a decorative element (perhaps because it is captured in photography?) It also helps one to explore a reality that you may not want to confront directly. You have access to information without going through a number of challenges. Upon that reference, you can then place your own interpretation.)

VD: I asked because I thought so in the first place. Also your training in graphic design at the Pratt – is that a driving force leading you towards using certain mediums, the way you execute and the choice of way of expressing?

AT: My training, my experiences, my observations, all influences my choice of mediums and media.

VD: Performance and self-involvement seem to be part of most of your art projects. It also becomes an act of story-telling. Is this because you want to do it that way for some reason or you are interested in mixed-media/multi-media interconnections that tend to tell the whole story from various angles without opting out anything? If so, do you thing one needs more than one aspect of expression in order to tell it in a complete way? You also divide the story telling in intervals that count as day/s.

AT: I am very excited about media, all types, used in art. I would use my cell phone to explore showing my work if I have to. Use everything to get the message across. I suppose this is because of my design background. It makes me thing of purpose all the time. So I love to engage my students in outdoor art projects or creating zines and blogs. Not everyone gets what I am trying to encourage, it is an uphill struggle would you believe it. So many people complain that artists are not taken seriously, they can’t get a show etc…but that’s all they do, complain. So, really creative art does not come from this region much, and when it does, it is imitative. A mix of media expands choices, expands possibilities. For me, I like to say, I go where the idea demands me to go. I plan on doing a short DVD of older women talking about their sexual lives for a body of work on female sexuality called ‘Stain”. I am looking at the fact that although we live in a less sexually oppressive world, women can still find themselves on the wrong side of the moral sexual divide.

VD: Violence Blooms, at first looks completely organic, then ‘decorative’ (like flowers blooming on plants). Then as one observes closely, elements of violence emerge. That bears potentials of awe and shock strategy. Was this your purpose using this strategy for a reason?

AT: It was exactly my purpose, and when I was in China and got the inspiration from of all things, a Buddhist temple curtain, I paused and reflected for some time on the contradiction.

VD: The initially blooming decorativeness turns into shocking violence. I think that way of suggesting violence has more power than bringing one directly to a scene of blood stained dismembered bodies.

AT: I think so too. The plan was to create four of these floral targets, using all of our familiar red flowers.

With the viewer either connecting them from a distance as a large red mass, then on closer examination seeing the floral detail and finally seeing the violence hidden among the blooms. This is how I feel about crime in my country. It is my statement.

VD: Many of your works also pulsate with a ‘crime scene’-like quality. Is living in a crime saturated environment behind that element? We all live in a crime-infested environment no matter where we live in the world today. Is Trinidad (that is where you live, right?) more intense in this area or it is just like any other part of the world that would have been the base for your art?

AT: For many of us in Trinidad and Tobago, population 1.3 million,5,128 square kilometers, crime was gradual, shocking and still difficult for most of us to come to grips with. For little islands, the drug culture that helps spawn a percentage of crime was the first point. I can remember as a child, if there were five murders in the year, that was completely shocking. Car accidents were the major discussion regarding death.

It does not help that murders are on the front pages very often in our media, so there is sensationalism and a glamorization factor to it that our media seem oblivious to changing. But lately, I see them trying a bit more to push such things down a bit and to focus on more edifying things.

VD: You also talk of thieves. Thieves can be sneaky and often non-violent. You seem to be very aware of crime in general. Is your definition of crime more personal or political? Your work seems to be dealing with the personal rather than general. Or is that more of a social commentary Can you comment on this?

AT: A friend of mine has a theory that one must be careful not to make self fulfilling prophecy in your work. It has come home to me in my life, the life of my friends, it does seem that observing a particular thing makes it grow in attention. Yet, as an artist, we never know what our role means ultimately. I started to work in 1998/9 in earnest because I could not see myself creating sweet potboilers that sell extremely lucratively by the way and help many artists live quite well. I saw so many things that needed addressing, and it was my upset that compelled me forward. It was not a judgment on those who want to create pretty things. I just felt that we as a country also have a space to explore the present as we move forward.

VD: I sense in a subtle way elements of eroticism in many of your work. Is that intentional? Do you see a comparative relation between the erotic combat and the actual violence?

AT: The erotic is something that I am looking at much more. It is interesting that you mention it. Going so far into violence demands a retreat or I should say, a reversal or rebounding. It is a hard, wearying topic, and there are other things that consume the mind. My carnival portrayal of one of Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings, was such a diversion. I wanted to observe the male by playing up male genitalia, unseen in the history of our masquerade for a woman to do. I am very interested in the idea of this type of observance.

VD: This work has unusual exhibition space. Is it a public forest or a private garden? Do you often have concerns about where to exhibit because many of your work would not fit into a regular gallery setting?

AT: I do indeed have difficulty with places to show, and so I have become radical about it. I have decided that I will show anywhere I can.

VD: Your embroidered line often resemble to dripping blood stains. Is that for the subject enhancement? Thread, fabric, and needle – all these have delicate balance with femininity and at the same time you electrify them with something as harsh as violence. Does the act of embroidery itself stand for violent act of piecing or stabbing? Do you identify yourself (since you many times become part of your work, almost performing the art work) with the violent human nature in its rawest form when you create? Does the act of creation and destruction become almost one when/if you do?

AT: The technique just seems right. When I began with looking at domestic violence, I did a great deal of research into the topic. I concluded that men featured prominently in the abuse, so I asked myself what happens with boys as they grow to manhood. What informs their aggression? For me, I like to understand the subject. I read everything I can, from newspaper articles to treatise from psychological journals…whatever it takes. I firmly believe that your work reflects honesty.

In Performance, getting inside the thinking of the thing is also extremely intimate and emotional. When I did my piece, “..When you dream wedding,” I recall wondering whether the impact would be strong enough, and one of the ladies who was working on preparing the space for me to do my work walked into the room, and I revealed the cutlass (a long knife) and she instantly stepped back and was visibly shaken.

It was that reaction that made me fully aware of the power of Performance. So in other words, you cannot involve yourself in your work and hope to stand apart from it, even if you think you are not part of the experience.

VD: I myself seem to be obsessed with this subject, hence, I ask too much about aspects and nature of violence in your work. Hope you do not mind that. How does it feel to be a woman and behind this act (since traditions teach us otherwise - that women are more nurturing than ‘destructive’)? Also I notice reading about Trinidad as a vital location for the Caribbean art, majority of artists are dealing with violent subject matter in their work. Does this have to do with the area’s social environment as a violent one in particular or is it more general in a sense that the whole world as a society is violent?

AT: When I started working like this, no one was doing it. People came to my show and where quite surprised by the subject matter. Some wanted to know whether I was a victim. However, now, the wolf has been at too many doors for artists to ignore such subjects.

Also, when I started researching violence, boys and men dominated the question, but in only ten years women and girls have gone from victim to instigators in violence as well. As populations increase and resources shrink, this subject shall remain a very concerning one. The writer Octavia Butler and others who portray the future as harsh should not be proven right, but we seem unable and unwilling to prevent this reality from becoming possible. However, I really hope that we can succeed in leaving a better world for our children and their children.

VD: You talk about violence as part of growing up (in boys growing up into adulthood)

somewhere. Do you say that as a cultural aspect or this is a gender issue? Is your work aimed at social change? Do you think it is possible to change anything via art?

AT: How wonderful it would be if my work could do so on a larger scale. It is a large part of why I persevere. It must be known that some of us did not just sit back and throw up our hands at what we saw in our society.

I strongly believe that Art can change the world. It may be overtly simplistic to say, but in some ways, didn’t America buy into the graphic design staging that went along with selling Barack Obama? Certainly he was sufficiently charismatic and had the right ingredients to be chosen. But a lot of it was art and artifice, it just is the nature of our world. You have to know how to sell. The media controls so much.

VD: Certain attractiveness permeates most of your works. As I said earlier, violence has this quality too. Are you consciously relating them since many of your titles also refer to the pleasant things in life (blooms, paradise, hope etc to name a few)?

AT: Yes, the names draw you in and lull your sense of comfort and expectation.

VD: I see more of the Caribbean art only on internet. Is there some reason behind that? Is art covered in other media like the press in that part of the world?

AT: There is not enough exposure, not enough critical writing. Those who do both are a closed clique. Artists are suspicious of each others’ success (0r so it can seem). Our government does not spend a great deal on exposing artists. Although this year with the Summit of the Americas in which many head of government attended including the American president and the American Secretary of State, there was a great show of putting up large murals of artists work. But naturally all of it was about culture, so you saw pastoral scenes and people playing our national instrument and attractive abstract paintings. I am not knocking this, artists were so happy to be acknowledged. But the hard edged contemporary group was completely ignored.
I would consider myself among them, It is true that my work may not be easy to make a mural of, but then, no one approached me with a brief either.

Vinod, thank you for the opportunity to discuss my work with you.

VD: Thank you for much insight.

ARTICLE 1095 - Bhutan: An Eye to History

National Gallery of Modern Art and the India-Bhutan Foundation presents ‘Bhutan: An Eye to History’; an exhibition of more than 80 photographs in colour and black and white from December 23, 2009 to January 31, 2010 at National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, India Gate, New Delhi.

Says Prof Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA: “The photography exhibition, divided into three parts includes the early photographic records of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, close ties of friendship and co-operation between India and Bhutan since the historic treaty of 1949 and a remarkable debut photographic work of His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the King of Bhutan.”


SECTION 1: HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN BHUTAN

A distinct section deals with the history of photography in Bhutan, showcasing rare pictures from the 19th and 20th century. These images, recording the British Mission headed by the Hon. Ashley Eden to Bhutan in 1864 have never been displayed before. Photographs of His Majesty Ugyen Wangchuck, the first King of Bhutan’s visit to Calcutta in 1905 and to attend the Delhi Durbar of 1911 are amongst important archival photographs being exhibited for the first time.


SECTION 2: INDO-BHUTANESE TIES SINCE 1949

The use of the photographic image to create a national narrative has several parallels across the world, but to include friends of the nation in this narrative seems to have been enthusiastically imbibed by successive generations of photographers, both in India and Bhutan. This collection focuses closely upon the visits of political leaders from India to Bhutan and the reciprocal journeys made by Bhutanese leaders to India. The selection of images looks at the genre of documentary and press photographs and the slot created by them in the official narrative of nations. The democratizing lens of the camera goes on to capture Bhutan as it steps into the new century and is increasingly visible as the newest entrant to the world’s democracies.


SECTION 3: WORKS BY KING OF BHUTAN

The final section displays the debut photographic oeuvre of His Majesty the King of Bhutan. Popularly known as the People’s King, His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck has traversed the length and breadth of his country, often by foot. His photographs are both an objective record and personal testimony of his empathy and engagement with his nation. Bhutan remains an idyll, and these transparent pictures are not airbrushed with sentimentality or morphed to disguise lurking shadows.

The exhibition has been curated by Pramod Kumar KG, with support from Lily Wangchhuk and Namita Gokhale. The India Bhutan Foundation, co-chaired by Pavan K. Varma, Indian Ambassador to Bhutan, and General V. Namgyal, Bhutanese Ambassador to India, has extended invaluable support as has the Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.

The charm of the exhibition, thus, lies not just in being able to travel back to a period in history that will never come back, but also get an invaluable sociological document from decades ago.

ARTICLE 1094 - Shelly Jyoti & Laura Kina

New Delhi: “Not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”, an Englishman in the Bengal Civil Service is said to have commented. In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated, in the West, with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India. Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Indian artist SHELLY JYOTI and USA-based artist LAURA KINA’S new works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges in the exhibition titled Indigo: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina from December 23, 2009 to December 28, 2009 at Open Palm Court Gallery, India Habitat Centre New Delhi. While the preview of the exhibition was held at Red Earth Gallery, Vadodara, Gujarat on December 15-16, 2009, it would also be displayed at Nehru Art Centre, Mumbai from January 12, 2010 to January 18, 2010.

Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina decided to collaborate in 2008-2009, considering their mutual interest in textile history, pattern & decoration. They began by thinking about the intersections of their own ethnic and national positions in relation to fabrics. For this exhibition in particular, Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery and embellishments along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago, IL.

The exhibition comprises of around forty new works (including five site specific installations) in mediums like hand embroidery on khadi, acrylic on fabric, hand stenciled Sanskrit calligraphy and textile embroidery on canvas.

Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives use indigo color vegetable dyes, traditional heritage symbols of Sanskrit calligraphy, and hand embroidery of the coastal Gujarat region. These works consists five installations, nine azrak prints on khadi indigo and ten canvases in coastal Gujarat embroidery. Her narratives are inspired by the social, economic and political situations affected by the tyranny of British colonial indigo planters on native farmers and Mahatma Gandhi’s subsequent intervention, the Champaran Movement in Bihar. Her choice of tribal embroidery is equally strategic as it brings interconnection of different communities ethnically and culturally.

Explains Jyoti about her works: “I worked with ninth generation Azrak artisans in Bhuj in the interiors of Gujarat on khadi fabric using ancient indigo resist printing technique while utilizing contemporary prints and ideas of 2009. The use of azrak printing on khadi utilizes indigo techniques, which are used by khatris, the immigrants from Sindh and Baluchistan during 1600 C.E. Through this process I examine the implications of personal, political and cross-cultural choices of these communities”

Jyoti’s work interprets the politics of indigo in the period 1600-2009 as sculpture, installation and paintings. For instance, one corner of the gallery will feature the installation titled Ballad of blue farmers: ryots of Champaran that displays 10 human structures of 15” height, corded in twisted indigo cotton rope with metallic chains perched on black acrylic painted wooden buttons conveying how the native farmers were oppressed for Eurocentric need by colonizers in eastern India.

She explains: “The indigo plantations became deltaic obsession with the British after World War I. The sculptures hanging from top to bottom at different levels suggest their continuous demands to free them from ‘tinthanka’ land revenue system as this was leading to families in debts and eventually deaths. The metallic chains around the farmer are suggestive of slavery and oppression till Gandhi’s intervention in 1917-1918 when he awakened the natives of Champaran to their birthright of freedom.”

Another installation titled Homage: ballad of woeful tales display printed disks of 7’’ diameter with sets of 15 different contemporary indigo prints which map the story of ryots of Champaran suggestive of their sorrowful tale inscribed in each circle. There are 86 hanging disks installations attached to one another suggesting hundreds of years of subjugation.

Her triptych works on canvas titled An Ode to Neel Darpan are inspired by Nil Darpan play written in 1860 by Deen Bandhu Mitra. The presence of hawk is symbolic of colonisers’ cruelty on zamidars and farmers to grow indigo crop. The lotus represents the planters who subjected atrocities on farmers as intemediatories. The depiction of worms is suggestive of poor farmers and slavery that were forced to grow indigo crop and live life of oppression and tyranny.

By employing artisans from fair trade women’s collectives such as Shurjan: Threads of Life to create hand embroidery elements that are incorporated into her paintings, Jyoti has contributed to providing sustainable means of income for some of India’s under privileged women. As such, her paintings draw upon India’s colonial history but are also engaged with contemporary economic interchanges.

Shelly Jyoti, a visual artist, independent curator, fashion designer, poet and researcher, lives and works in Vadodara, India. She is trained in fashion design and clothing technology at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi and has completed her Masters degree in English Literature from Punjab University in Chandigarh.

Her writings and paintings have been published internationally. Her works are in collection with Sahitya Akademi, the journal of Indian English literature. She is an advisory board member of Disha, a non-profit organizations dedicated to helping children with autism, and Socleen, a non-profit environmental organization.

Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series, on the other hand, focuses on imagery from her immigrant neighborhood. Devon Avenue is a Chicago South Asian/Jewish corridor which boasts two honorary street titles - Gandhi Marg and Golda Meir Blvd. and is lined with Islamic and Jewish books stores, jewelers, ethnic grocery stores, spice shops, restaurants, sari shops and eye-brow threading salons, travel & tour services, cell phone/electronics/luggage shops, and a kosher ice cream stand. The overall effect is mid-century “All American” while at the same time clearly “other.”

Created using indigo dye and khadi fabric (two materials long associated with Mahatma Gandhi and symbolic of India’s Freedom Movement from British colonization), and a generous dose of Gujarat-style mirrored bling and Jewish tzitzit inspired tassels, her samplings of Chicago’s Devon Ave. poly-cultural street signs have been hand embroidered by artisans from MarketPlace: Handwork of India, a fair trade women’s collective based in Mumbai. The use of the word the word “sampler” in the series title refers to embroidery samplers and sampling as in appropriation. Kina’s work raises issues of labor, authenticity, and positionality.

Explains Laura Kina: “In a cumulative work of the same title as the series, Devon Avenue Sampler, I sewed a patchwork canvas of dark blue fabrics and denim reminiscent in form to Edo and Meiji period Japanese boro quilts that were made from mended patchworks of indigo fabrics. On this collage-like construction I hand painted the iconography from the hand embroidered works along with additional imagery from street signs in my neighborhood. My family is Okinawan, originally from Hawai’i, and my great-grandparents used to wear indigo kasuri fabrics while working on the sugar cane plantation. This series let me think about indigo in relation to my family’s past agricultural life and present life as an urban artist and convert to Judaism.”

Laura Kina is an artist and scholar living in Chicago, IL. She is an Associate Professor of Art, Media and Design, Vincent de Paul Professor, and Director of Asian American Studies at DePaul University. She earned her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a 2009-2010 DePaul University Humanities Fellow. Her Devon Avenue Sampler series is funded in part by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and a University Research Council Grant from DePaul University.

The exhibition is a must-see as it throws light on the history of indigo, from its torrid colonial past in India to the indigo-dyed Japanese folk kasuri fabrics, from boro patchwork quilts and the working class blue jeans in the United States to the blue threads of a Jewish prayer tallis!

EXHIBIT 68 - N/A v0.0 CURATED BY SIDHANT BHAGCHANDANI

N/A v0.0
AMANDA WONG, BERNARDE & MUXTSCHEFAIRE, CHOKRA & WARRA HUGH
CURATED BY SIDHANT BHAGCHANDANI
DECEMBER 17, 2009 - JANUARY 29, 2010
OPENING 17 DECEMBER 2009 6-9 PM
LIVE PERFORMANCE BY CHOKRA AT 8 PM
SALT ARTSPACE

N/A v0.0 for SALT

N/A v0.0, a group exhibition curated by Sidhant Bhagchandani, opens at SALT ARTSPACE on December 17, 2009. The exhibition features print works by Amanda Wong, book installations by Bernarde & Muxtschefaire, a performance by CHOKRA and large scale paintings by Warra Hugh. N/A v0.0 imbibes fractured notions of applied collectives and curatorial vision as traditional constituents in constructing the applicable/non-applicable for emerging art spaces in a programming sequence. The exhibition demonstrates a surface-zero engagement with the non and the applicable as deliberate iterations of negation which claims in a conscious contemporary construct “all that isn’t, as is.”

© Sidhant Bhagchandani 2009

SALT

SALT is a contemporary community art space offering a flexible gallery, performance and gathering venue as a platform for creativity, collaboration and public engagement. Through projects, programs and exhibitions, SALT aims to facilitate connections between artists and the community to flavour and preserve the spirit of everyday contemporary culture. Located in New York at 27th and Broadway in historic Tin Pan Alley, SALT is supported by The Gallery Church and venue rentals.

SALT ARTSPACE
1160 BROADWAY, 5th FLOOR
NEW YORK NY 10001
TEL: 917 475 1769 ext 12
W-F, 10 AM – 5 PM

www.saltartspace.org

ARTICLE 1093 - GALLERY ESPACE PRESENTS A MEGA ART EVENT ON “MAGIC REALISM” AS ITS 20th YEAR CELEBRATION

New Delhi: Something fantastic, something out-of-the-ordinary will strike our mundane existence this year end. It might be ‘too strange to believe’ that a mammoth event of international standards - that includes in its gamut video art, painting, photography, site-specific installations, performance art and sculpture - is all set to cast its ‘magical’ yet ‘real’ spell on Delhi! Blurring the defining lines between real and unreal, Gallery Espace chooses famous German art critic Franz Roh’s depiction of reality in art as the theme for its 20th anniversary celebration art show. Magic Realism! Roh described it as a form in which “our real world re-emerges before our eyes, bathed in the clarity of a new day”.

To be held at Lalit Kala Akademi from December 9-18, the show aptly named, Lo Real Maravilloso: Marvelous Reality is rooted in the theme of magic realism and draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Laura Esquivel, Salman Rushdie, Joanne Harrism, Mikhail Bulgakov, Milan Kundera and Louis de Bernieres.

Being held to commemorate 20 path-breaking years of the gallery during which it launched artists like Subodh Gupta, G.R Iranna, Manjunath Kamath, Tanmoy Samanta and Ashim Purkayastha who are today celebrated and internationally acclaimed for their innovative art practices, this unprecedented event has been conceptualised by Delhi based journalist/filmmaker/curator Sunil Mehra and will also witness parallel events like curatorial walks, artists talks, slide shows et al in what is perhaps the first such private initiative of this magnitude.

Here’s one art gallery that has braved the economic slump to give to art aficionados an art exhibition that showcases a wide spectrum of art practices including painting, sculpture, video art and installation, performance installation as also photography and digital art, to establish the organic connectivity of diverse art forms.

Destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic, the artist, write, painter, performer is the archetypal insider/outsider: what he can communicate is his/her own perception of reality.

MARVELLOUS REALITY…

And Reality is a fascinating palimpsest of myth, mind and memory where artists play freely with medium, form and content to set out on a journey of the imagination.

Thirty-six artists from all over the world - including painters, sculptors, performers, video artists and photographers - set out to discover a magical world in which the real and the imagined, the mythical and the metaphorical, the fact and fantasy merge seamlessly together. In the process, they create an extraordinary “Other World”, that Louis Carroll once evoked so beautifully in - "And what did they draw?" said Alice.
"Treacle... All manner of things- everything that begins with an M -... such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness...."

The exhibition include works by Amit Ambalal, Anandajit Ray, Anila Rubiku, Bandeep Singh, Baptist Coelho, Barbara Ellmerer, Bharti Kher, Bhupen Khakhar, Chintan Upadhyay, Desmond Lazaro, Dhruvi Acharya, Ebenezer Sunder Singh, Gargi Raina, Gigi Scaria, Iranna GR, Ishan Tankha, Jagannath Panda, Lavanya Mani, Louise Gardiner, Manjunath Kamath, Maxine Henryson, Michael Müller, Nikhil Chopra, Parvaneh Etemadi, Pushpamala N, Ranbir Kaleka, Rina Banerjee, S. D. Hari Prasad Achari, Sheba Chhachhi, Shilpa Gupta, Sohrab Hura, Sonia Mehra Chawla, Sutapa Biswas, Tanmoy Samanta, Tara Sabharwal and Waswo X. Waswo.

Renu Modi, Director, Gallery Espace says: “Since the time the gallery started in 1989, our USP has always been to put together highly specialized, medium based shows. Time and again, Espace has cut across boundaries by exhibiting works of different nationalities, genders and cultures. Espace has always tread the unconventional path and introduced to the Indian art market new genres like sculptures and drawings when they were relatively unknown mediums. It is apt, therefore, that Magic Realism is the theme of our 20th anniversary show and I am excited to show such a wide array of disciplines all under one roof.”

According to curator Sunil Mehra: “There seemed no room left for romance and imagination, for myth, memory and metaphor in art. Somewhere in the process of chasing concepts and making art that conforms to current fashionable cultural theorists’ constructs, we are losing out the critical ingredient of art, which is Magic, which is the untrammeled mind that inhabits multiple universes at the same time.”

The gallery began working on the show way back in early 2007 when curator Sunil Mehra touched base with around 28 artists worldwide “whose art practices and sensibilities would respond and react to the theme”. That list has now grown to include works of 36 artists amongst whom are internationally acclaimed names like Anila Rubiku from Albania, Sutapa Biswas from United Kingdom, Rina Banerjee from New York, Bharti Kher, Ranbir Kaleka, Chintan Upadhyay, Jagannath Panda, Manjunath Kamath and Shilpa Gupta among others.

Sunil Mehra is excited not only about the expanse of the show but also that he has been able to rope in Mark Prime (Mumbai-based British designer) to convert the three storeyed LKA into a space of real enchantment!

“His design sense is subtle and not gimmicky with a focus on being uncluttered,” says Mehra explaining what to expect from the show. So you would need to walk through a especially created ambience to come face-to-face with Waswo X Waswo’s hand-made Krishna image, or just gape at huge tree sculptures by Chintan Upadhyay which will be suspended from the ceiling. Manjunath Kamath’s life-size fire glass automobile wrenching white rabbits into exhaust fumes will share ceiling space with Chintan’s work while Baptist Coelho’s site-specific installation will witness shafts of air blowing an aeroplane in and out of its mouth. And wait there’s more. Shilpa Gupta’s interactive videowork is stunning: raise your hand and another hand from the sky will come to meet it; move forward and a hundred bird shadows will take flight as you advance while performance artist Nikhil Chopra’s ghost images make one wonder if there are any boundaries between the real and the fantastic.

ARTICLE 1092 - Art4Barter 8 opens at Ven & Vaida Dec 4 in Philadelphia

"Arahant" graphite on paper by Jay Varma

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Bartering may be the answer to bail us out of our current crisis. Although artists have historically been bartering as much as possible it is more relevant now than ever before. It can provide a solution to survival for so many of us and create a new vision for society.
The artists that are participating are from diverse backgrounds and varied genres and will present their works for barter. No works shall be sold for money but rather for services and goods. The exact service or good that the artist requires will be on the label next to their art. For example, if an artist were to ask for dental work or other medical procedures in exchange for their art, the visitors will get a chance to meet those requests or offer something different for the artist to consider. This gives the community an opportunity to barter for those items that are missing from the artists’ lives. The irony is that art is missing from the lives of many people too because it is treated as a luxury item. This system will not only inspire people to trade with artists, musicians, writers, dancers, amongst others, it will also make society less judgmental about valuing art or different services. When this becomes the norm, bartering will be a respectable activity and will create relationships between people from different trades.
Society will be able to provide opportunities to artists that were inconceivable before this. The seven exhibitions preceding this one were tremendously successful. Bartering is a way of dealing with hard financial times and is a win-win situation. The development of this project relies on the support from venues that can connect artists with members in the community that are able to fill the needs of the artists.
Participating Artists: Margo Allman, Erica Brown, Genevieve Coutroubis, Robin Frey, Maria Nevelson, Quentin Morris, David Stephens, Jay Varma, Brett Walker and Kay Wood.

ARTICLE 1091 - From the Auction Block to the Artist's Pocket

NEW YORK—Earlier this month, the modern and contemporary art market seemed to show some signs of recovery as auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips de Pury & Co. generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. However, as Sara Friedlander, a specialist at Christie’s, pointed out from behind an auction block on Nov. 13, the Friday following almost two weeks of sales, “None of that money went to artists.”

Friedlander was addressing a crowd of a few hundred people assembled in artist Ryan McGinness’s fifth-floor studio in lower Manhattan, eager to bid in what was billed as an “artist-direct” auction organized by the artist and his friends, which included art adviser Cristin Tierney. Unlike the previous fortnight’s affairs, all of the auction’s proceeds, which eventually totaled $51,300 (squarely within its $47,000–$57,000 estimate), were to go directly to the participating artists, all of whom were in some way connected to McGinness.

The evening also featured other unique aspects: McGinness’s own work was among the work on offer, and, though the artist was in Amsterdam on business, he followed along (and bid) via an Internet video connection. This was, in other words, a permissive atmosphere, perhaps best exemplified by the sale’s registration process, which required none of the customary credit checks and bank statements seen at the major auction houses. Potential buyers needed only to provide a credit card number.

The greatest surprise, though, may have been the joy on many of the bidders’ faces as they vigorously competed for the evening’s prizes, goading one another to bid higher — it was for a good cause, after all — pushing most of the works into or beyond their estimates. Yorgo Alexopoulos’s bright blue and green print of a lone mountain range soared past its $3,500 high estimate, for example, stopping at $4,000, while Romon Yang’s effervescent abstract print on Indian handmade paper, Praefectus Astana, beat its $1,000 estimate as dueling bidders sent it $1,300.

Fittingly, McGinness’s offering, one of his trademark, multi-colored circles, measuring two feet in diameter, finished as the evening’s top lot at $11,500 (est. $12,000–$14,000), with Marc and Sara Schiller, founders of the street art documentary group the Wooster Collective, snapping up the bargain. “How could you not support this great cause?” Mr. Schiller asked. “We followed the Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, but this is really unique.” Ms. Schiller noted that the pair owns works by McGinness, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Swoon, and many of the artists offering work in the sale. “This was a great opportunity,” she explained.

McGinness, for his part, plowed funds earned in the sale of his work into acquiring other pieces hitting the auction block, as did José Parlá, who competed intensely for some of the 15 works that sold, ducking out of the room only when his Name and Note (2009), an acrylic and oil painting, came up on the block, selling for $7,000 (est. $10,000–$12,000).

Bidding proved equally fierce for smaller works and lesser-known artists, as a screen print by Todd James estimated at $250–$350 soared to a remarkable $1,500. Number 36 of an edition of 150, the print could normally be purchased for approximately its low estimate, though bidders seemed inspired by the evening’s event, perhaps bidding for the story they could one day tell about the work’s unusual provenance.

McGinness’s effort could be read as an update on Damien Hirst’s 2008 adventure in the auction world, when he cut out his dealers and sold almost $200 million in fresh, new work at Sotheby’s. Here, McGinness seemed to take the process one step further, excising the auctioneer from the market, as well. The artist, though, was more circumspect. “We were not trying to subvert or replace the auction-house system,” he explained a few days after the sale. “In fact, we were an auction house — but of a different sort.”

Indeed, despite the impressive haul on the evening, none of the lots offered by McGinness and company would have made it into the evening sales at any of the big three auction houses, even in this down market. If any group was subverted or replaced in this scheme it was probably art dealers, who would ordinarily work to develop the careers of these emerging artists, taking their customary 50 percent cut of the sale price. Here, McGinness helped boost these artists’ stature (and swell their pocketbooks) through his association — for free.

For McGinness, the event was most about correcting collectors’ misunderstandings. “The creation of this party was more of a reaction against collectors who claim to be supporters of the arts when, in fact, they are supporters of the art market,” he continued. “That is a big difference many fail to recognize. Putting collectors directly in touch with artists pushes true patronage one step closer in the right direction.”

“Perhaps our kinder and gentler model will be adopted by the real auction houses,” McGinness mused. Though that seems unlikely. Even McGinness admitted that “there is no legal reason for artists to be included in subsequent sales of that work.” However, the evening proved, at least, that other market systems are possible.

Source: http://artinfo.com

ARTICLE 1090 - Yuriko Lochan: A 'Self' Portrait at Alliance Francaise

New Delhi: It’s not easy to live in a foreign land, make it your home and even more creditably, make a mark for yourself as a creative person. Yuriko Lochan has not only done all of these, but gone a step ahead by adding a refreshingly new element of nudes and self portraits on her canvases for a solo show of watercolours and acrylics titled Immanence to Transcendence at Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise de Delhi from November 27, 2009 to November 30, 2009.

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1962 and a Masters in Fine Arts from Kyoto University, Japan, Yuriko married Prof Rajeev Lochan, the present Director of NGMA, to settle down permanently in Delhi. Her work, therefore, carries frequent references to Indian philosophy and myth, and in a way that’s impossible without a deep appreciation of the Indian way of life. She has been actively participating in various group exhibitions and art camps, and has gained an enviable popularity in the art circles.

The current solo exhibition, coming after a gap of over five years in Delhi, offers a comparison between two kinds of expressions that the artist calls “Immanence and Transcendence”. While Immanence refers to works done in watercolour on Japanese paper that create a soft and subtle subconscious imagery, the latter consists of recent works done in acrylics on canvas and are replete with images that are loud yet simple in presentation and direct in expression like the language of nature.

Says Yuriko Lochan: “Since I have started to live here, I have been continuously trying to transcend any category of identification which one may think for me - as a Japanese, Indian, artist, woman, married and so on. But, it’s my aim to become truly universal, only by sheer excellence of the work which I create.” She further adds: “This universal quality is gained by always being conscious of one’s own origin yet looking out at the world with responsible, intelligent and flexible eyes.”

The current body of work in the exhibition is divided into five series namely Prakriti series (2004 – 2007), Tree of Life series (2004 – 2008), Banana Leaf series (2005-2008), ‘Self’ series & Calligraphy in ink on paper. Explains Yuriko: “My earlier watercolours are an interpretation of visual elements that India has given me, combined with the medium and technique imbued from my origin. The Banana Leaf series and Prakriti series, done on Japanese paper are kind of a mindscape. Here, I dwell in images which are more subtle, vague and soft.”

While Prakriti (the counterpart of Purusha) series consists of a woman’s glory that is representative of the elements of this world, Tree of Life series displays a dominant use of grapes which is considered as the symbol of life in Christianity. Banana Leaf series is the output of artist’s inspiration from her stay in Kerala. She says: “The experience of the beautiful place is marked with the vast impression of the Arabian sea, the air of the jungle filled with energy, and powerful but modest people living with nature. These are the motifs which lead me to create a series of paintings, surround the feeling of loneliness, sea breeze, and flowering banana trees promising a plentiful yield within no time!” The banana leaves in her watercolors are full of intricate details that are in perfect harmony.

In Yuriko’s more recent acrylics on canvas portraying the same banana leaves, the consciousness in the landscape grows into a definite viewpoint in a large work titled Shore.
The most recent ‘Self’ series, done in acrylics on canvas, are the artist’s effort to realize a new state of existence of her own ‘self’. Here, she consciously uses self- portraits not to make a socio-political statement but to represent the universal image of a woman’s existence. Her Self series is a departure from being the sophisticated, observant artist who is consciously deciphering Japanese and Indian nuances of art to become the totally relaxed, free flowing and a definitely more open ‘self’. She refrains from making her Japanese origin evident in this series, of course, other than the golden cloud on the background dominantly embellishing the main iconic image that subtly suggests the Indian traditional knowledge - Mudra.

On the other hand, her series of calligraphy in ink on paper is a spontaneous, free flowing yet controlled expression of art.

Says Yuriko: “In the large acrylic canvases, the sudden appearance of ‘self’ in the natural landscape inevitably breaks the composition into three or more panels. It is slightly different from the panels in the watercolour landscapes on Shikishi mounted paper. While in both the cases, the composition of each panel actively and consciously relates and influences each other, yet in the earlier watercolours, the panel effect was more intentional but later the purpose of using panels was thematic.”

Sums up Yuriko about her art practice in India: “The journey is not always easy. The achievement is that I am still at it! Till the time I had not realized that I could not do anything else other than painting, it was very difficult. Now that I am on my way towards finding my niche as an artist, I am a fulfilled person.”

ARTICLE 1089 - Mona Naqsh: Recent Paintings at Twelve Gates Gallery

Image courtesy: Mona Naqsh and Twelve Gates gallery

For their final exhibition for 2009, Twelve Gates Gallery is featuring recent paintings by Mona Naqsh, an accomplished Pakistani painter whose father Jamil Naqsh is considered to be the only living Pakistani modern master artist. Mona Naqsh received no official academic training in painting and instead studied underneath her father, developing her personal aesthetic in an environment that gave her free range to explore and understand her visual interests.

Naqsh has created a niche for herself by being one of the few Pakistani artists to take flowers as her subject, specifically the still-lifes she creates by arranging wild flowers in either porcelain or crystal vases. Her floral portraits are filled with the vibrancy of life the actual flowers contained when first placed within their companion vases. Naqsh has generated her own uniquely meticulous technique through the act of creation that endows her images with an ethereal quality. Her oil paintings on canvas reveal the full range of her technical abilities. The above floral portrait of orange-hued blossoms cascading up and out of a wide, circular crystal vase is a prime example of her dreamlike compositions. Petals and leaves are delicately painted with flowing strokes that create a free-form sense of being and movement; the flowers appear both part of and yet apart from our world. The crystal vase stands in stark contrast to the natural depiction of the flowers, whose crisp lines mimic the way light reflects off of the infinite facets on its exterior. The table and cloth the vase rests upon are not as crisply delineated; their subtle shades and lines are akin to the otherworldly expression of the blossoms exploding forth from the painting.

Texture is prominent is her canvas paintings through the layering of colors and juxtaposition of techniques applied to flowers and vase. The painting above is one of a few where space is virtually non-existent. In all of Naqsh’s floral portraits the emphasis is on the arrangement, which encompasses the entire picture plane, and the space it is set within is secondary, at least delineated by a line separating ground from wall. Here, while the reflection of light from the vase gives a sense of a ground, the background space is filled with a textural gradient of color that flattens the plane, pushing the floral arrangement to the front of the picture and making it pop outward. Yet the floral arrangement remains connected to the background because of the textural technique applied to the flowers’ depiction.

By contrast, her paintings on paper have a crisp clarity born out of Naqsh’s methodical application of line and color. Her eye for detail comes to the fore in her depiction of light, such as the reflection off of the porcelain vase onto the bare table, and the shape and form of blossoms and veined leaves that spring forth and droop out of their container. In these images color is at its most vibrant, and the flowers are almost painfully bright with their luminosity. It is intriguing that her images on paper feature porcelain vases while her canvas paintings contain the crystal ones.

Yet it is the sole ink pen drawing that stands apart from and above the other images. Primarily black and white with a few subtle additions of color at the neck of the glass vase and within the heart of the flowers, this is a composition unique from Naqsh’s other ones. The floral arrangement is still prominently at the center, but the surrounding space has taken a more conspicuous position as part of the composition. A window, from which light filters through, can be distinguished in the upper left corner of the image. The diagonal ray of light strikes the flowers and a column in the back right of the interior, a ghostly architectural presence that adds depth to the space. There is more movement here than in any other piece, from the diagonals of the light and verticals of the column to the directions of Naqsh’s strokes as she built up the forms and contrast. This interior is her most developed one, but she also plays with abstracting it. The space is broken up into rectangular areas as if she drew the image piece-meal, focusing on one small area before moving on to the next, so there is little cohesion to the physical space which results in a flattening effect. Of course, the floral arrangement is where Naqsh truly shines, and while the background is dynamic and intriguing your eye is drawn back again and again to the delicate petals that cling to their source, faces open and reaching up and out to the light.

-Zoe Papademetriou

Twelve Gates Gallery located in Olde City, Philadelphia is run by hobbyist sculptor Aisha Khan and her partner Atif. They have been collecting South Asian art including Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani art for 10 years . They specialize in contemporary South Asian art and are dedicated to exhibiting artists with a reputation for unique work that follows in, as well as expands on, the rich history and culture of this area. In addition exhibits, they host various events throughout the year including artist talks, film screenings, and music and dance performances. This June they had the first exhibition of artists from India and Pakistan. The artists were Partha Roy, Jayant Naskar, Asif Ahmed, and Kausar Iqbal. The art gallery is more of a cultural center with book readings, talks, and music. In 2010 we're organizing an annual film festival. For more information, visit: http://www.twelvegatesgallery.com/.

ARTICLE 1088 - Claudia Hakim at NAGMA

New Delhi: To commemorate the celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between India & Colombia, National Gallery of Modern Art presents Signs of Skin; a solo show of metal sculptures by Colombian sculptor Claudia Hakim from November 11, 2009 to November 30, 2009 at National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, India Gate, New Delhi.

Says Prof Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA: “The constant factor in Claudia’s different thematic investigations throughout the diverse stages of creative process is a sense of modular construction, geometry and purity. Claudia Hakim’s sculptures, a significant milestone in Colombia’s artistic landscape, communicate a particularly rich artistic language in a clear, direct and concrete manner and are being shown in India for the first time.”

Beginning her artistic career in the late 1970s, Claudia Hakim has explored different thematic interests and always proposed precise and clear responses. In the creative process, she applies her skill and clarity to the definition of the sculptural language. She transmits her ability to see beyond appearances through the diversity of her formal creations; constructing forms by building, weaving and assembling the different elements which she later wraps and unwraps in a playful definition of her sculptural aesthetics but, always within an essential modular format.

Hence, inspired by fabric weaving, jewellery (magnified necklaces and arm rings) and textiles, the sculptor manipulates and transforms basic elements into superlative large sculptures with the use of rings, bolts, screws, nuts, springs, metallic sheets and steel mesh to create geometric shapes, triangles and circles for her present exhibition. The work proposes a variety of orderly and rigorous geometrical forms. At times, the forms are looser, they move more freely. The multiplication of forms leads, invariably, to a purist aesthetic proposal - clear, clean, defined. The tactile, sensorial appeal and the malleability of the sculptures make them even richer and more magnificent environmental sculptures.

The themes that the sculptor addresses and the new ideas that are suggested are conveyed to the visitor in a magical way, encouraging them to participate in her works. She has the capability to induce senses to the point of generating a wish to interact with it and, even to caress them, by a spatiality that generates in the observer a shuddering surprise before leading the observer to immersing in the always encouraging environment of fantasy. Perhaps the apparent contradiction that takes place between the materials and the idea, without leaving aside an astonishing result, establishes a game that has a playful intention and, in turn, an undertone of irony. In this process, the assembly of objects and the ensuing formal findings, that entangle with the most uplifting modernist tradition, has allowed the artist to move about the twists and turns of a permanent essay which is in turn, and fed by a meticulous rigor, pushes away the results of any type of formula, or of a conceptual monotony, to produce an endless number of images and insinuations.

The need to express herself through a textile language, in which she makes the eastern expression of her lineage and the Andean richness of her living environment manifest, the artist is able to establish an unsettling grammar of geometries and suggestions that bring to mind an untold number of associations with some of the large art movements in the 20th century. It is a piece of work with an exceptional refinement, which endless readings establish many possible levels of interrelations with the spectator based on a deep reasoning by the artist that, consequently, suggests a permanent reflection by the audience.

Thus, her piece of works exudes extraordinary formal freedom and suggests very long-winded paths. There is no doubt that, based on what could be defined as a visual instigation established by a series of elements apparently unusual, Claudia Hakim ends by rendering valuable, and especially audacious testimony, of the unending possibilities that matter has when related to art and, in particular, with the plasticity that, no doubt, struggles between abstraction and figuration, without losing sight, in any way, of a lucid dimension that fascinates the spectator.

Claudia Hakim is, thus, a weaver of dreams and of radiance, who works with materials that result from the industry and from the overt contemporaneousness of everything that is related to technology. She proposes, in line with the great constructivists, all kinds of geometric and luminous abstractions thanks to the masterful use of spaces or orifices. It is then, a proposal that nourishes particularly from that counterpoint offered by light and opacity and that strives to give a new dimension to the creator-spectator and creator-space relationships, based on the establishment of some sui generis environments, like immersed in a universe of fiction full of poetry, that arise from the interaction of everything that under other circumstances would have a commonplace and un-transcendental reading.

She oscillates between two artistic proposals: bi-dimensionality and tri-dimensionality. This oscillation is typical of those who craft their work on the basis of the multiplication of a basic element. Hakim understands the language of weaving, and she applies it and transports it to the realm of sculpture, where an oscillation is created between the rigidity of the material and the flexibility of the results. There are hardly any Colombian artists who can handle such extremes. The power of conviction, the passion and the creative charisma are the best weapons of Hakim’s sculptural communication. Another constant in her work is the presence of industrial materials. During the years in which she worked with fibres (1978-1990), preparing the basic modular element implied weaving the fabric. In the last two decades, her work is being made out of industrial remnants. For many, the use of industrial material involves recycling. In the hands of Claudia Hakim, industrial refuse is turned into sculptures of tremendous artistic magnificence.

ARTICLE 1087 - Romancing the Road

Gallery Ragini presents Romancing the Road, a solo exhibit of artworks by Rohit Sharma at Choko La, Khan Market, New Delhi from November 13, 2009 to December 12, 2009.

Rohit’s works focus on the various nuances of everyday life associated with the city roads. Says Rohit Sharma: “Every city has a way of encompassing individuals in its own way. The diversity of the Delhi is extremely spell-binding as there exists landmarks representing the ancient, medieval and modern that gives Delhi a unique identity. The roads that lead on to these landmarks have their own stories to tell. These works thus, talk about Delhi, its antiquity, rich cultural heritage and constant growth.”

Rohit’s romance of the roads has a timeless quality about it as he documents the various periods and the transition that has taken place. His fascination for minute details makes the works subtle-offering a whole new perspective to the viewer making one wonder if there is more to a road than just the destination.

The cow, that plays an integral part of the works, finds itself at crossroads within the changing urban scenario. Interplaying with the maze of the road-converging, diverging, Rohit’s cows are in a state of question, answer, conflict, dilemma and most of the time in deep meditative contemplation.

ARTICLE 1086 - Back to Darkroom

New Delhi: In an era where art photography has become synonymous with digital prints and dependent on photoshop manipulation, here is a photographer who makes the fast-vanishing dark room his studio and a Buddhist concept his muse! Investment banker-turned photographer Siddhartha Tawadey exhibits yet another remarkable collection of more than twenty photographs in his upcoming solo exhibition titled ‘TRANSIENCE - A photographic salutation to Impermanency’ at Travancore Art Gallery, Travancore Palace, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi from November 12, 2009 to November 22, 2009.

Born in Calcutta, Siddhartha Tawadey’s first creative influences came from his mother who taught him “how to look and wonder at the natural world” around him, inheriting her love of collecting and finding beauty in the smallest pebble or leaf. Though his ambition was always to be a fine art photographer, family pressures led him to pursue an MBA from Middlesex School of Business (London) and enter the corporate sector as a banker with Global Funds Solution, London. As providence would have it, a failed business persuaded him to pursue photography with a renewed passion. He studied Art Architecture and Photography from St Martin’s School of Design (London), Painting and Photography from City University (London) and Photo Fusion - Advanced and alternative Darkroom printing (London) and returned to fine art photography to express ideas and concerns from an individual standpoint with a particular theme.

Siddhartha Tawadey says: “I create from various references that I find in art; whether it be the surrealist qualities of the paintings of Rene Magritte or Salvador Dali, to the abstract expressionism of Rothko and Mondrian to the sheer beauty of a Monet and Seurat or the striking and involved imagery of Van Gogh.”

“My ideas, references and inspiration have been largely influenced by my education and work spanning continents and cities. Thus, my photographs reflect a more prosaic approach to photographic seeing - a fascination with the everyday things, with landscape, both natural and urban, repetition, shadows of memory, the layering of history, order and chaos is all present in my work.”
”There may be other, more descriptive or poetic words that may be used to define the “pattern” that connects the images, but the simplest meta-pattern is this: I take snapshots of moments in time and space in which a peace washes over me, and during which I sense a deep interconnectedness between my soul, the moment and the everyday world around me.”

“I work abstractly and non-linearly – however, my designs do have trends over time, usually with the goal of delaying recognition so a photograph may have a better dialogue with its viewer, free of labels. Recent techniques have included seeing without gravity, designing in soft focus, and using shapes to continue the photograph beyond the physical frame.”

The theme of his current show is based on Mujo, a medieval concept of Buddhism, literally meaning ‘no’ (mu) ‘permanence’ (jo) and also known as Anittya in Sanskrit, Transience encompasses the impermanent and momentary aspects of our existence and that of the things around us, including birth, growth, change, decay, death, organic forms, constructs of society and time. Transience exists in organic forms, constructs of society and time itself. The past consumes the present while we move constantly into the uncertainty of the future.

As a photographer, Tawadey, however, has moved from the figurative genre that he showed in his debut show titled ‘Silent voices of an Unseen India’ in September 2008, where he displayed an intimate philosophical exploration of time, memory and history. His second show titled ‘Un Vague de Reves’ in March 2009 set a trend of sorts with Triptychs in photography where he juxtaposed three images in one picture to portray the inner realities of the subconscious.

In the current show, through the universal language of abstraction and the use of metaphor, he reflects on his personal and universal concerns about the transience of life and nature. By creating work without the constraints of representation, the work can exist in its own right, as an object if you like, which may draw from the viewer a sensation, a memory, a collective recognition of the beauty of form, a perception of space or the purity of a line.

According to him: “Photography can be described not as capturing reality, but rather as an abstraction of time and place. What may have been real now only exists on paper in the swirl of chemicals and fixatives that hold it in place."

He continues: "What then of the photographic image that is in itself abstract? Our focus shifts from the recognizable, indexical form, to composition, tone, line and the intent? But what if the image gives us both? What if the image presents a real, recognizable form in an abstract presentation? The results are much more complex than in abstract painting because the eye is conditioned to read photographs by their surface, to take it for what it is, and therefore not question more than what the eye can see. The images challenge the viewer to these specific assumptions that we draw from the photography mediums so called reality."

For instance in one of his work, the photograph on first glance shows an eyelid but on a closer look you can see a foetus captured in those eyeballs. In another photograph, one really has to look deep and long to judge whether the eyes are of a child or a woman; the face being distorted so as to make the features unrecognizable. In yet another image, one can see two trees and an outline of a hut still intact while a strong wind is swirling pass by. The photographer tries to capture stability which is very essential in one’s relationships. For one of his photograph, the photographer had specifically gone to Dindigul, Chennai “just to capture the movement of windmills”. Other works include Elephant Boy, Mystic, Soul and Monet.

However, what remains his signature style is the desolation in each of his photographs. The lonely feeling in the vast spaces and the paradox referred to in this exhibition is that in order to be, we must change; when we cease to change we cease to exist. Everything is in movement. It is this movement that the photographer has attempted to capture through his images.

In an era dominated by digital prints, Siddhartha Tawadey still favours the traditional concept of darkroom and also incorporates photograms, which were made before the advent of photography. For him, the darkroom is where he is the happiest, as he is in control of everything – from the images taken from his 5 D Mark 2 Cannon or the F 90 Nikon that are processed by hand and then contact printed to the images which are enlarged using an old Fuji enlarger and rendered on resin coated Hahnemuhle archival paper. From scanning them on the latest technology scanners and then printing them from Epson Stylus 9880 professional wide format printer on the archival paper using the latest Epson Ultra Chrome K3 archival pigmented inks to the way he wants to play with lights of the lens, to the washing of the prints - everything gives him immense joy just to see how he can transform the photographs on to print.

Quiz him that one can do the same in Photoshop, pat comes the reply that “there is restriction in using the mouse on computer.” When asked about the difficulties he faces in his photographic journey, he quips “it’s been a Herculean task to find a darkroom or good quality printing paper in India. As each fine art print is made manually with a degree of dodging and burning, no two photographs ever come out exactly the same. I like to print on fiber-based papers, which are the traditional papers, but the handling, washing and processing is very time consuming. Also, apart from the expensive fees for studying photography, there aren’t any short term courses available here.”

Tawadey’s big break came with the photo – essay at the Tate Modern (UK) but the latest achievement that has him excited is a soon-to-be-launched book on lateral ties between India and Colombia titled ‘Una apasionada familia humana’ for which he has provided images. What also inspires him is his collaboration with the famous photographer Diego Ferago with whom he “will be putting up a video installation at Barcelona Airport (Spain) next year”, he adds.

ARTICLE 1085 - NAGMA Presents a Rare Collection From Victoria & Albert Museum

Ancient Observatory by William Simpson

View of Garet House by James Baille Fraser

Interior of Neminath Temple, Dilwara by William Carpenter


A Drink by the Way, a Street Scene in Bombay by John Griffiths

New Delhi: National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, presents Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists, an exhibition of more than ninety paintings and drawings from the V&A 1790 – 1927, at National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, New Delhi from October 27, 2009 to December 6, 2009.
The exhibition is a collection from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum which shows rare and interesting watercolours, sketches, aquatints, lithographs and engravings by European artists who visited India between 18h to 20th century.
Says Prof Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA: “The first visual representations of India by western artists were of imaginary landscapes and settings. They were based on the written accounts of travelers to India from across Europe. It was only after professional European artists began to travel to India that they painted, for the first time, scenes based on direct observation. Their passionate interest in this new and exciting land led to the creation of a comprehensive pictorial record of India, in a visual style familiar to western audiences.”

India’s spectacular architecture, the immense natural beauty of her landscapes, and the great diversity of her people have inspired many artists world over. The exhibition is divided into four sections showcasing the works of various schools of art. The exhibit begins with a ‘Picturesque’ tour of India through dramatic pictures of splendid forts, temples, and palaces. The second section showcases works by amateur artists who were captivated by the landscape and architecture of India. Many of these amateurs were East India Company employees, who transferred to canvas their personal experiences. The third section is dedicated to the Romanticism of Indian art that depicts striking, decorative paintings entirely from the imagination. For instance, on view is a panoramic view of the Taj Mahal, paintings of busy street scenes, majestic princes, and doe-eyed nautch girls. The fourth section, based on realism, documents the social life and people engaged in various professions during that time.

SECTION 1: A PICTURESQUE TOUR OF INDIA

From the mid-eighteenth century, professional European artists began to turn to India for their inspiration. They were attracted by the opportunity to explore unfamiliar lands, to make their fortune, and to further their reputation.

The beginning of The Picturesque, a major literary and aesthetic movement in England led to a revolution in western art and promoted a particular way of observing and depicting landscapes. A typical picturesque scene included elements of roughness and irregularity, the inclusion of old ruined buildings or impressive architectural structures added variety and created an evocative atmosphere. India offered an infinite range of subjects to depict in this manner. The picturesque tradition of the 18th century helped create the order, balance and serenity of the magnificent aquatints of Indian scenery and architecture created by artists such as Thomas and William Daniell. The uncle-nephew duo traveled widely in India, painting magnificent buildings that have now crumbled to dust. Hence, these paintings are a priceless record. Ruins of the Palace at Madurai, Fortress of Gingee, in the Carnatic and Hindu Temple at Agouree on the River Soane are few examples of their noteworthy works.

SECTION II: AMATEUR ARTISTS

While professional western artists continued delving deeper into their Indian subjects, amateur artists as well tried their hand at drawing India. These artists sketched and painted for their own private pleasure, rather to earn a living through it. The majority of amateurs were servants of the East India Company or worked as civilians in the army, using their leisure time for painting. They sometimes formed social groups to share their knowledge. Many worked outside the artistic conventions of the time and had very different levels of skill. Their work also forms an important part of the display, as a record of personal experiences. The Taj Mahal by Thomas Longcroft, A Natch party by Robert Smith and Suspension Bridge at Alipore by Charles D'Oyly are few examples of works by amateurs that were in no way inferior to their professional counterparts.

SECTION III: ROMANTICISM IN INDIA
A different view of India was presented by those influenced by the succeeding Romantic movement, which emphasized the wildness and drama of the natural world resulting in some of the most striking and evocative paintings of India. The movement encouraged artists to focus on their intuition and imagination and create paintings that evoked strong emotions. Elements of the picturesque remained within the artist’s repertoire and at the same time, they embraced another aesthetic theory of the period, ‘the Sublime’. This favoured the depiction of subjects in a way that intended to produce a sense of great awe and wonder in the viewer. The dramatic mountainous regions of India and the grand architectural monuments lent themselves to Romantic interpretation. People were often idealized and portrayed in an enchanting manner. Artists used their imagination to enhance their work, some, who had never been to India, embellished the sketches of others and created engaging and powerful images. Perhaps the most striking of such paintings on display are William Carpenter’s glowing rendition of the marble interior of the Neminath Temple, titled Interior of the Neminath Temple, Dilwara, Mount Abu. Ancient Observatory by William Simpson, A Hindoo Female of the Konkan by Robert Melville Grindlay and A leopard attacking an antelope by Samuel Howitt are other examples of the romantic school of practice.

SECTION IV: REALISM AND THE INDIAN STUDENT
From the 1860s, the arrival of photography and increased access to western illustrations, cultivated a taste in the Indian public for real-life pictures. Indian artists began to use western modes of representation which included figure drawing. This trend was encouraged by the schools of Art in Bombay, Madras, Lahore and Calcutta which had come under the control of the colonial government. Artist John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), the father of Rudyard Kipling and John Griffiths (1838-1918) were appointed as the dean of the J.J School of Art in Mumbai, which produced many top Indian artists, including M. F Husain and F.N Souza. Kipling was commissioned by the government to produce a series of studies of crafts people, some of which are displayed in the exhibit. His sepia-toned images conjure up an age gone by, with sweetmeat sellers almost hidden behind mounds of sweets, farmers harvesting cotton by hand, and weavers creating fabric on the loom. One of John Griffiths’ most memorable paintings titled A woman holding a fish on her head, Bombay is his lifelike sketch of a local fisherwoman balancing a massive fish on her head, a classic Bombay scene that can still be seen today.

The charm of the exhibition, thus, lies not just in being able to travel back to a period in history that will never come back, but also get an invaluable sociological document from centuries ago.

ARTICLE 1084 - Radhika Khimji: Density and the Shifting Plane

November 2009 New York

Bose Pacia presents Radhika Khimji’s Density and the Shifting Plane November 13 – January 23, 2010. Please note the gallery’s new location at 163 Plymouth Street (between Jay and Pearl) in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11 to 6 pm and Saturday 12 to 6. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, November 13th from 6 to 8 pm. The artist will be in attendance and the public is invited.

Density and the Shifting Plane is, London and Muscat-based, Radhika Khimji’s first solo exhibition in New York. It is also the inaugural exhibition at Bose Pacia’s new location in DUMBO. And it is with this eye for new experiences and positions that we embrace Khimji’s dynamic installation works. The exhibition is comprised of mixed-media, collage and painting on paper, plywood, plexiglass, and metal. Khimji’s penchant for amorphous human figures and relationships transforms the gallery space into an active panorama of destabilized assemblages.

Khimji’s sculptures and paintings emphasize an ongoing obsession with surface and form. The surfaces of these figures are created through an active building of marks, drawings, and found images. The temporal component of this active mark-making implicates a certain journey across the surface of the work for the artist. The result is a veritable cartography of activity – both the physical moving in space as well as the act of drawing and remembering.

The purposeful censorship of key communication apparatuses, namely arms and faces, imbue the figures with an affected muteness. While the traditional communicative devices are muted the figures speak through their unique movements, positions and relationships. The final result is one of powerful juxtapositions. These playful configurations of forms smartly shift the relationships between figure and ground.

The shifting perspective in Khimji’s installations, in tandem with her combinations of palimpsestic textures and surfaces, makes space for a virtually endless set of conceptual possibilities. Vincent Honoré has attributed this openness to Khimji’s “[i]nterconnections between the different movements of traveling, reading, and dancing together with an exploration of Indian, Arabic and European formal structures…” (London 2009).

Radhika Khimji was born in Oman in 1979. After completing her BFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, she went on to do post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in London. The artist has shown widely in the UK and Europe, where her works are already part of several notable collections. She has exhibited with Bose Pacia / Nature Morte at several international art fairs and at Nature Morte New Delhi. This exhibition marks her first solo exhibition with Bose Pacia in New York. Radhika Khimji lives and works in Muscat and London.

ARTICLE 1083 - 'Artists have to take a bit of authority'

[ 27 September 2009, 03:20am IST] Pronoti Datta, TNN

MUMBAI: The second edition of the three-day Art Expo at the Nehru Centre ends today. A number of galleries-from Mumbai, Delhi, Cochin, Bangladesh,
even Switzerland-are participating in what organisers describe as a "high end shopping event''. The event has talks by speakers including art curator Kay Satchi, writer and art collector Judith Greer and Kirsty Ogg, the co-curator of London's Whitechapel Gallery. Ogg, who will discuss Indian art from a global perspective with Art India editor Abhay Sardesai , told TOI that the recession might not be such a bad thing for artists after all.

Q: What's your view of the Indian art scene?

A: Over the last eight years, the representation of Indian art has been gaining on the international art scene. And not just on a commercial level. Artists have been appearing in exhibitions such as Documenta, the Venice Biennale and publicly funded galleries. So there's a high visibility and awareness about Indian art.

There's also a range of media-from new media to photography-that's being used in India. What's interesting is that there are two sides to it (Indian art)-in terms of the form of the work that can slip into circulation on the international art scene and the context that has an Indian texture.

Q: Does Whitechapel plan to exhibit Indian art in the near future?

A: We're working on a massive show of Indian photography from the 1860s. The show will look at the moment when India took control of the camera. There are the first studio portraits by Deendayal. Among the 70 photographers featured are Sheeba Chhachhi, Pushpamala, Dayanita Singh, Raghubir Singh, Raghu Rai and Homai Vyarawala. There's a real mix between fine art practices that use photography as the medium, straight photography, documentary photography and images that are part of NGO projects. The exhibition will be a virtual lesson in history with images from pre and post-partition India and snapshots from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Q: How has the financial crisis affected art throughout the world?

A: England had a wobble but now things have stabilised. The situation was bad for Indian art because it was coming up on the wave. On the positive side, recession made people reassess basic questions like why have a gallery, who is the audience or who are the prospective buyers?

In Britain we've gone through good and bad times. In the late 1980s, there was a recession and galleries closed. People like Damien Hirst organised shows like `Freeze', which happened in a building in Canary Wharf. They didn't wait for a gallery. They made their own show. As artists you have to take a bit of authority. The fundamental questions artists need to answer are: Who sees my work and who's buying my work? Just because your work sells, it's not necessarily good. You hope it sells to a good collector who takes care of it. Work quickly sold by a collector can undermine an artist's career. In fact, people start thinking whether the work is good or not.

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1083 - Vickram Sethi unfurls art expo in Delhi

[25 Sep 2009, 2200 hrs IST] Ashoke Nag, ET Bureau

KOLKATA: Mumbai-based art promoter Vickram Sethi has brought his second art expo to the financial capital of India. The expo has been unfurled by Sethi’s Trade & Technology Exposition Co (India) Pvt Ltd. There are 29 galleries participating including four from overseas. The fair, which ends on Sunday, September 27, is attempting to create a platform to bring together gallery owners, dealers art funds, auction houses, investors, insurance outfits and collectors.

"In comparison to the international art markets, the Indian market is in a very nascent stage. Given the present technological advancement, it is only a matter of time before the market grows at a rapid pace. In order to accelerate this process, there was a great need to have an art fair/expo so that there is common ground for gallery owners, dealers, art funds, auction houses, insurance companies, collectors and investors to the meet," Mr Sethi told ET.

Dwelling on his first fair last year, Mr Sethi said, "Last year, collectors got a first-hand knowledge on the kind of art available, the dealers and the prices at which works were being traded. Besides, service providers were able to meet gallery owners and, above all, participants were able to make new contacts and expand their own marketing activities." Sethi remains upbeat about future prospects of India art. "One feels, Indian art enjoys a bright future. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, names like Tyeb Mehta and M.F. Husain would be considered in the same league as Monet and Warhol," he said.

Article Courtesy: ECONOMIC TIMES

ARTICLE 1082 - India's new galleries look to beat recession blues

[26 Sept 2009] Phil Hazlewood (AFP)

The BMB gallery hopes to showcase the best of Indian and international contemporary art under one roof

MUMBAI — The Indian art world has been hit hard by the effects of the global economic downturn, but for a group of entrepreneurs in the financial capital Mumbai, there is no better time to open a new gallery. Bose Krishnamachari, Devaunshi and Dia Mehta and Yash and Avan Birla last week opened Gallery BMB, hoping to kickstart the sector by showcasing the best of Indian and international contemporary art under one roof. The first exhibition -- "The Dark Science of Five Continents" -- features India's Riyaz Komu, Brazilian Tunga, Britain's Jake and Dinos Chapman, Jon Kessler from New York, Nigeria's George Osodi and China's Wang Qingsong.

Most of the installations, photography, video and sculptures have never been shown in India before. With six to eight shows planned each year, Krishnamachari, the gallery's artistic director, likens it to Indian Premier League cricket and European football, which both attract the best stars from around the world. "I'm giving them the ball and letting them play," he told AFP. Although there are now signs of recovery, the global economic downturn has seen the art world hit by gallery closures, the cancellation of art fairs and drastic reductions in the number of works for sale and their price at auction. Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in January that contemporary art sales at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury and Co. fell from 1,064 lots in February 2008 to 437.

The value of art sold through the auction houses dropped from 204 million pounds (334 million dollars) last year to 48.3 million pounds, with the average lot estimate also falling from 234,000 pounds to 102,000 pounds. The chief executive and co-founder of Indian auction house Saffronart, Dinesh Vazirani, said there had been a 60 to 80 percent drop in value for contemporary art and between 30 and 50 percent for modern art across the world. But after a period of massive investor speculation, creating unsustainable prices, collectors were now coming back, bringing much-needed stability into the market, he added. "It's a very important correction that needed to happen," he told AFP.

Images by Nigerian artist George Osodi at the BMB art gallery in Mumbai

For Krishnamachari, Gallery BMB aims to be a London- or New York-style blue chip gallery that will focus more on artists, students, connoisseurs and collectors rather than investors out to make money. "It's not a good time (to open) but art is always created in recession," he told AFP. "At this period of time, a lot of galleries are closing down. But for me that's the time that you should show your strength." India has a legacy of artwork dating back 9,000 years but has lacked the infrastructure and institutional support to develop its potential on the world stage.

The country has only a handful of prominent galleries for thousands of artists and only a few crumbling museums, most of them built during the British colonial period. Art schools and public funds are also lacking. But with India looking to follow the lead of China and win international acclaim for its domestic art, Vazirani said new spaces like Gallery BMB could pave the way. He predicted that at least half a dozen new galleries could spring up in the next few years, with backing from people like the Birlas and Mehtas, whose families are part of India's business elite.

"In the next five years, we will see a very different market where there are actually public displays of art on a continuous basis. That was lacking during the boom period," he said. "During the boom period, it was all about prices, investment and money. I think the next five years is going to be all about infrastructure building and art for art's sake, at least we hope that." Riyas Komu, who has exhibited around the world, including at the Venice Biennale in 2007, said he was excited to be part of the inaugural show, agreeing with Krishnamachari that "artists always work in recession".

"There's a lot of things happening in Indian art now, regardless of the economic position of the country. I think it (the gallery) is a complement to that. It's very timely... a new space and new agenda," he told AFP.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved

Article Courtesy: AFP

ARTICLE 1081 - Gallery Ragini presents Juvenilia Juxtaposed through the lens of eight shutterbugs

Event: Gallery Ragini presents Juvenilia Juxtaposed, a group show of photographs that creates a quirky juxtaposition of various elements of urban Indian scenario, at Gallery Ragini, F-213 C, Lado Sarai, New Delhi on till September 26, 2009. The participating artists include: Ajay Rajgarhia, Anshika Varma, Ashok Paul, Bandeep Singh, Laurent Goldstein, Sunando Mazumdar, Sephi Bergerson and Udit Kulshreshtha. Says Nidhi Jain, Director, Gallery Ragini: “Photography is an integral part of contemporary art. One often comes across situations, which once captured, create a story in itself. Keeping this in mind, we have brought together this show where the participating artists capture the essence, the feel and the pun in the environment they live in.”

For instance are the series of photographs like Time, Glamour Stories & Parked and Washed by Udit Kulshreshtha. These works explain the artist’s mindset while he traveled though Baroda, Mathura and Old Delhi. A lot of these works bring out nostalgic past, scene which we have grown up and a few that still remain in our subconscious. His photograph titled Piyau (a water vending stall with earthen pots for public use) reminds how the place has been replaced by water sellers.

On the other hand, Sephi Bergerson, with a background in advertising, mostly focuses on lifestyle and food photography. He creates and develops a distinctive photographic language that combines his studio skills and his love for camera. His style is very straightforward and simple. He tends to create vivid, somewhat romantic images that have a ‘documentary’ look, but he also loves a brief, as this is where he gets an opportunity to explore and push himself further. Says Sephi Bergerson: “My commercial work has always influenced my personal projects that in turn helped me create further ideas. Though food photography remains my chore subject, the combination of different areas of photography keeps me going and helps me stay in love with my work. In my works at Ragini, one can find an interesting medley of the banana seller, the dosa maker and Mc Daonald’s Happy price menu.” Another professional photographer Bandeep Singh’s photograph in the exhibition carry a conceptual depth and is invigorated by his interest in mysticism and cultural thought.

While experienced photographers like Sephi Bergerson and Bandeep Singh display their expertise in the show, young and budding photographer Ashok Paul leaves no stone unturned to match the level of the exhibits displayed. His photograph titled Aarti taken in Vrindhavan doesn’t need much explanation as the picture in itself speaks about the importance of religion in our country. Cool dude with his favourite buffalo is another photograph on a village boy that depicts the ecstasy of the kid as he wears Ray Ban sunglasses and stands in style against his buffalo.

Yet another young artist Anshika Varma photographs deal with street and city life, characterized by still and abstract forms. Her photographs titled Spazio Lotte, Blue Book- Invocation and Frozen display the need to preserve the changing nature of our cities and customs through her photographs. Says Anshika: “An artist tells a story, not just by what she creates or captures but also by what she chooses not to. In my photographs, you will see a lone fruit seller fighting to survive an armada of refrigerated convenience stores, a local teeth maker standing against an onslaught of corporate healthcare, a hole-in-the-wall tailor pitting his skills against an army of international label, and the struggle between faith and a religion of brands.”

The exhibition thus is a unique mélange of photographs that seal the moment as captured by the shutterbug of an artist.

ARTICLE 1180 - Gallery Ragini hosts ‘Platform’ for emerging contemporary artists

New Delhi: With the aim of supporting emerging contemporary artists, Gallery Ragini presents its new initiative titled Platform, a monthly feature of hosting the artworks of one emerging artist every month. The first display consists of acrylics by Suchit Sahni that are showcased at Choko La, Khan Market, New Delhi on till October 4, 2009. Says Nidhi Jain, Director, Gallery Ragini: “We will organize a year-long series of monthly shows by different artists. The entire programme has been conceptualized to provide a platform to those artists who are going to shape our future art market. As a gallerist, it is important to recognize these hidden gems who are our future as a little nurturing can help them blossom. It is like bringing these artists into limelight by providing an initial space for display to those who can’t afford solo shows.”

Adds Nidhi Jain: “We would be displaying about 6-8 works of the chosen artist in Choko La, where the sunlit room provides an apt environment for art accompanied by a relaxed cup of coffee. This concept of combining cafés with art is popular world over and with Platform we attempt to recreate the same combination in Delhi. However, this platform is not only limited to young emerging artists alone, instead works by those who started their career mid-life will also get a chance. For instance, art by R.C Pandey from Kanpur is scheduled for display next month at the same venue.” Coming back to the self taught abstractionist Suchit Sahni, he has been chosen to open the series keeping in mind his approach towards youth and city life. Born in 1977, Suchit gave up a cushy business career to enter the world of art. Being born and brought up in Delhi, Suchit’s paintings reflect his understanding and observation of the city. The city through Suchit’s eye is a maze with complex facades, creating a line of illusion, separating people from inside and outside the buildings.

Inspired by the metropolis, his works are a reflection of his quirky self and focus on urban Indian scenario. Viewers can get a glimpse of whacky cars, peanut sellers and the Ghats of Banaras in his intriguing works. Suchit mostly works with acrylic and engages with visual play of colour, lines and forms. Explains Suchit about his works: “My works are primarily abstract, with the occasional hint of a figure. I have a personal liking for colours and you will discover my canvasses pulsating with bold and bright hues of red, blue and green, speaking about youth and contemporary pop culture with a difference. Through my works, I have explored everyday symbol of urban environment. It attempts to capture the ordinary urban life shrouded with mystery, strife and essence of a city life.”

The entire body of Suchit’s works is design driven and dominated by elements of geometrical patterns. His work titled Metropolis is a colourful flux where images move into a realm of abstraction as if the artist sees the life of the city through a kaleidoscope. Through the splashes of his vibrant colours, the artist creates a space where the treatment is contemporary but the subject very Indian, leaving open visual delights for the coffee- sippers.

ARTICLE 1179 - World's art dealers hope for Indian summer

[August 29. 2009 6:46PM UAE] Richard Orange for THE NATIONAL

The highest-priced sale at Delhi’s Indian Art Summit was made by a London gallery, while a Dusseldorf gallery generated some of the biggest crowds. Faced with market paralysis in the art world’s traditional centres, international galleries came last week to India’s largest art fair, hoping to benefit from the country’s healthier economy. “We thought it was very positive and people seem to be taking the plunge,” says Michelle D’Souza, the director of London’s Lisson Gallery. “We’ve sold a very large percentage in terms of value and we have offered only very minimal discounts. We were not expecting such a response.”

Ms D’Souza sold two untitled sculptures by the leading British artist Anish Kapoor, each for a rumoured price of £200,000 (Dh1.1 million). The gallery also sold work by the celebrated British artist Julian Opie. Dusseldorf’s Beck and Eggeling gallery brought a collection of Picasso etchings, hoping to demonstrate that work by some of Europe’s greatest artists could be affordable. “The Picassos have just been a complete magnet. We didn’t expect this overwhelming curious interest from people,” says Katja Ott from the gallery. The gallery sold one etching, Le Circle, for US$20,000 (Dh73,460).

Of the 54 galleries at the fair, 17 came from outside India, with those from established centres such as London, New York, Berlin and Tokyo joined by others from Beijing, Dubai, Bangkok, Taiwan and even Latvia. Rob Dean, a former India representative of Christie’s auctioneers who now runs London’s Rob Dean Art gallery, says the fair was an escape from the gloom back home. “From the talk here, there’s an upswing in the mood, which there definitely is not in London,” he says. “In London, having a gallery is the equivalent of art storage, beautifully presented art storage. People here don’t think it’s as bad here as they do in the rest of the world. ”

Neha Kirpal, the associate director of the fair, says a lot of the western galleries “are in markets which are struggling at the moment. Here, the recession has certainly lifted. There are individuals who have walked through the door and left after buying 18 paintings.” Ms Kirpal says 40,000 people had visited the fair between July 19 and July 22, including visitors from 32 countries. The UK’s Art 18|21 and Bangkok’s Thavibu Gallery sold everything they brought. As well as the major Indian collectors, Ms Kirpal said wealthy collectors from China and Korea had also been buying. India’s art market has taken off this decade as Indians who have made fortunes internationally have sought out works by the country’s post-war masters such as FN Souza and MF Hussein.

The three highest prices fetched by Indian paintings all came last year, with FN Souza’s Birth setting the record in June when it went under the hammer at Christie’s for 112m Indian rupees (Dh8.4m). The Indian market corrected soon after, with prices falling more than a third by the start of this year. At the Delhi fair, gallery owners said buyers were still expecting discounts. Vikram Sethi, who helps some of India’s richest build their collections, says economic statistics are a poor indicator of the buying power of Indian collectors. “The people who buy art aren’t people who are so much affected by the stock market and by the recession,” he says.

“Our economy is not a true reflection of the money there is in India. India has so much money, we don’t even know how much money we have. There’s a lack of confidence, there’s nothing else.” Mr Dean said this buying power was now increasingly looking to buy international as well as Indian art. “In the past, it’s been quite difficult for domestic Indians to purchase foreign art because there were exchange regulations. All of those barriers are slowly being removed. The amount of money a private individual is able to spend overseas, I’m not sure it’s even limited any more.”

business@thenational.ae

ARTICLE COURTESY: THE NATIONAL

ARTICLE 1178 - ndia Art Summit opens, minus most acclaimed painter

[Aug 20, 2009] AFP

NEW DELHI — India's biggest contemporary art show opened in New Delhi on Thursday, but without works from the country's most acclaimed painter because of fears of attacks by Hindu extremist groups. Painter M.F. Husain, 94, who has been called the "Picasso of India," has angered hardline Hindus by portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually suggestive manner. The three-day India Art Summit, which has collections from 54 art galleries from India and abroad, decided to "avoid displaying" noted Husain's work to prevent any disturbance at the venue, an organiser said. "We acknowledge the iconic stature of Husain, but are unable to put all the people and art work at risk," Neha Kirpal, associate director of the India Art Summit told AFP.

In early 2008, a large painting influenced by a Hindu epic fetched 1.6 million dollars, setting a world record at Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale. In the same year, members of Hindu hardline group Bajrang Dal damaged Husain's artwork at an event that displayed his paintings in New Delhi and have also disrupted auctions of his work recently. Hardline Hindu groups have also filed over 800 court cases against Husain and vandalised his house. Elsewhere, the mood was positive among dealers, who are hoping for a recovery in prices for Indian artwork, which skyrocketed during the boom years preceding the global financial crisis but have now fallen back sharply.

The India Art Summit, now in its second year, is the biggest showcase for Indian artists and hopes to become a fixture on the international art calendar alongside other shows such as the Basel or Shanghai fairs. Dadiba Pundole, owner of the Pundole art gallery in the western Indian city of Mumbai that owns the right to exhibit a majority of Husain's art work, told AFP he regretted not being able to take part in the event. "It is a shame that we cannot show great works by Husain, but we had no choice as the Indian government did not commit a security blanket to protect his work," Pandole said.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

ARTICLE COURTESY: AFP

ARTICLE 1177 - Sales buoy mood at art summit

[TNN 21 August 2009, 04:50am IST] Neelam Raaj for TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: As doors opened to the public at the India Art Summit's second edition on Thursday, the footfalls surprised a lot of people. And so did the red stickers that started appearing before works, dispelling some of the gloom in the art market. By the end of the day, over 50% of the galleries that were taking part in the summit had notched up at least one or two sales. The costliest work at the summit a piece by the Mumbai-born Anish Kapoor worth upwards of a crore had sold and another had been reserved. "More than 20 people were after the Anish Kapoor. We were not expecting such a response,'' said Michelle D'Souza, director of the London-based Lisson gallery which brought Kapoor to India for the first time.

With prices having fallen quite sharply following the global slowdown, art has definitely become more affordable, admitted gallery owners. "Prices are down by 30% and that's a good thing. It has driven speculators out of the market and made art more accessible to people,'' says Shireen Gandhy of Mumbai's Chemould which deals in contemporary art. Chemould had sold 10 works by day two but more than the sales, Gandhy was upbeat about connecting with a newer audience. Renu Modi of Gallery Espace was equally upbeat. "Galleries get very few footfalls and this brings art out of its ivory tower,'' said Modi.

But is the art market out of the woods yet? A June survey by international research agency ArtTactic shows that confidence is returning, with significantly more people positive about the state of the contemporary art market than six months ago. "Current estimates have come down to levels that are attractive again,'' said Anders Petterson, managing director of ArtTactic. For international galleries, the summit is a bid to reach out to the Indian collector. "We have brought several Asian artists and are testing the response,'' said June Y Gwak, director of Arario Gallery that has branches in Beijing, Seoul and New York. Arario has sold a couple of works by Indian artists but hasn't registered sales for international artists.

ARTICLE COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1176 - A global art view

[Friday , Aug 21, 2009 at 2352 hrs] Georgina Maddox for INDIAN EXPRESS

A display at Arario Gallery

Stimulating international dialogue may well be the catchphrase of this year’s India Art Summit that began at Pragati Maidan on August 19. As geographical boundaries dissolve, art becomes truly international. Not only is there a presence of over 15 international galleries at the Summit, several Indian galleries like Sakshi Art Gallery, Chemould Prescott, The Loft Chatterjee & Lal and Marigold Fine Art are showcasing mostly international names.

The variety of art ranges from China, Korea, Japan and the Philippines, to New York, London and Germany. Eastern Europe has a small representation as does the UAE. “It’s wonderful to see these many international participants, though I believe there can be many more galleries,” says Mortimer Chatterjee of Chatterjee & Lal, based in Mumbai. “It takes a lot of gumption for international galleries to show in India, since Indian collectors are more focused and less experimental when it comes to collecting,” he adds.

Others feel the international galleries are curious about India since over the last few years they’ve been exposed to artists and artwork from here. “India has had a large presence at art fairs in France, London, Dubai and London, which has kindled the interest of many foreign galleries, artists and collectors; however, the Indian market is yet unexplored by galleries and collectors from Asia and Europe,” observes Kanchi Mehta, an independent curator.

The stall at the Arario Gallery, a China-based gallery that has branches in New York and Korea displays a mix of Indian and Korean art with artists like Dong Wook Lee displayed alongside Jitish Kallat and L N Talur. Assistant curator Hwajung Choi says that the mix works perfectly because art techniques are universal.

“To really understand the difference between Indian and Korean art, one has to have knowledge of that culture. Otherwise the techniques employed by Indian artists are quite international,” says Choi referring to Jitish Kallat’s 90x204 canvas titled Eclips. Similarly, Rob Dean of the eponymous gallery based in the UK says, “Besides big names like Subodh Gupta we are keen to promote lesser known artists like Princess Pea.”

While Kallat’s canvas depicting Mumbai’s street children with a tangle of the metropolis’s crowded streets in their hair bears a touch of India, Talur’s installation could belong to any nation since the dark greasy machine churning out lumps of black waste bears no direct reference to India. Interestingly Lee’s work strongly quotes Korea as his tiny plastic figures are decidedly Asian. While the etchings and drawings by Picasso hosted by German art gallery Beck & Eggling could have got a better display, the Anish Kapoor sculptures displayed by Lisson Gallery take pride of place at the Summit.

One can take in the references to specific cultures or choose to look at the art as a seamless continuum of globalization, or either way as Christian Hop of Galerie Christian Hosp, says, “We are committed to bringing about a dialogue between Asia and the West, through a dedicated selection and display of artists from Europe and Asia.” The art summit is just the tip of the iceberg.

International Galleries at the Summit
* Rob Dean Art Ltd, Uk
* Galerie Christian Hosp Germany
* Aanant & Zoo Germany
* Ivonna Veiherete Art Gallery, Latvia
* Art Quest, London
* Aicon Gallery USA
* Shonandai MT Gallery Japan
* HBgalerie Rotterdam
* 1X1 Dubai, UAE
* Lisson Gallery, London UK
* Thomas Erben Gallery

ARTICLE COURTESY: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1175 - Amidst recession, global art market looks up to India

[Monday , Aug 24, 2009 at 1524 hrs] Ashok Kumar for Indian Express

Ashna Jaipuria, director of Viart, posing for photo at her stall, at the India Art Summit in New Delhi.

With as many as many as 16 galleries from abroad, the second edition of the India Art Summit at the Pragati Maidan in Delhi was conspicuous by the considerable growth in the presence of art galleries both from the country as well as overseas marking remarkable growth in the number of participants and presence of the artworks. Undeterred by the gloom in the global economic scenario, the exhibitors, particularly those from the abroad evinced deep interest in the potential of the Indian art market as some of them called it the ‘market of hope’ amidst the global recession. Katja W. Ott, representing Beck & Eggeling gallery from Dusseldorf, Germany felt privileged as she disclosed that they are exhibiting in India for the first time and representing five contemporary artists including Desmond Lazaro (UK), Viveek Sharma, Sonia Mehra (India) Chawla, George Martin and Hema Upadhyay.

When asked about the prospects of an art summit in a developing country like India, Katja explained, how, with the societal changes, people in countries like India are becoming increasingly aware of arts making the country a potential place as the art market. Talking about the impact of recession on the art market, Katja says, “Current global crisis had an impact on art market and the buyers have become more careful, these days. Instead of shares and stocks people these days are investing more and more in arts,” explains Katja. Stefan Wimmer, managing partner, Beck & Eggeling (Germany), talking about the Indian art market feels that with the welfare growing in the developing countries, like India, and a greater number of people living a better life, the potential is all set to grow. Talking about the India art summit he says, “It has been a good chance for the European art galleries to come and explore the Indian art market,” Stefan summarises.

Ashna Singh Jaipuria, director of Viart, a New Delhi based contemporary Indian art gallery, candidly shares how she developed a deep interest in art despite having no formal academic education in the field. “I did not have any art education, but got the basic understanding of art, through various catalogues and art exhibitions that came across my way,” confides Ashna. When asked to comment on the driving factors that keep her going ahead in this field, Ashna says, “The curiosity for creativity and a pure passion to strive for excellence and perfection keeps me alive in the business (of art market)”. When asked how much business she looks forward to despite the downturn, Ashna, brimming with confidence, said, “I am seriously hopeful about the sales, despite the downturn. There is a professional class, who buys art, for the sake of sound investment,” educates Ashna.

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1174 - Back in business

[Aug 28th 2009] THE ECONOMIST

Galleries exhibiting at an international art fair in Delhi did surprisingly well

INDIA'S main exhibition site at Pragati Maidan is one of New Delhi’s more architecturally dreary places, yet it has lived up to the “progress” in its name by throwing an art fair that has unexpectedly boosted the country’s ailing modern and contemporary art market. Organisers of the India Art Summit, which ran there from August 19th to 22nd, claim a total of 40,000 visitors and sales worth Rs260m ($5.4m). This is impressive, even after discounting the over-enthusiasm of gallery owners as they reported their takings.

Over the past year the price of paintings by such well-known artists as M.F. Husain and the late F.N. Souza have fallen at auction by 30% or more. Works by younger contemporary artists, such as Subodh Gupta, have slumped by as much as 80%. This has brought a sense of reality to an over-hyped art market. Unsustainable sums paid at London and New York auctions in the first half of last year included $2.5m for a Souza, $1.6m for a Husain and $1.2m for an installation of shiny stainless-steel kitchen pots and pans by Mr Gupta.

The prices were driven up less by collectors than by investors, most of them rich Indians living abroad, especially in the United States, who wanted both to display their wealth and make quick profits. This type of investor vanished from the market when the financial crisis struck last autumn, and they have not yet reappeared, say auctioneers and gallery owners.

Collectors began to return two months ago, bidding cautiously at auctions in London and India. Overall takings were modest—though £373,250 ($597,200) was paid at Sotheby’s in London for “Daydreaming” by Jogen Chowdhury, shown above. At the recent art summit, many of the 17 foreign galleries exhibiting works, mostly by Indian-born artists living abroad, had come primarily to test an uncertain market and meet their old Indian collector-clients.

Almost all of them had their low expectations confounded. Not only were sales high but also there was a definite buzz: the fair was full of young people who would not normally have had the confidence to walk into a gallery but were encouraged by the fair to look around and ask questions. “This shows the collector base is going to broaden,” said Zara Porter Hill from Sotheby’s.

London’s Lisson Gallery said it did very well with sales that included two works by Anish Kapoor, an Indian-born sculptor, for about £400,000 each—the highest price achieved. Other galleries, including Thomas Erban of New York, Galerie Christian Hosp of Berlin, and Beck & Eggeling of Düsseldorf, also reported good sales, most of them in the region of $10,000-$15,000 for each work. Beck & Eggeling sold an oil on canvas by Viveek Sharma featuring Barack Obama standing on his head and supported by the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman. The symbolism remains a bit obscure.

Article Courtesy: ECONOMIST

ARTICLE 1173 - Art market looking up

[29 Aug 2009 06:41:30 PM IST] Madhusree Chatterjee for EXPRESSBUZZ

Glamour - a digital print of Marilyn Monroe by Dganit Blechner at the Art Summit. (IANS Photo)

NEW DELHI: After a year that saw a price drop of at least 30 percent across all segments of modern and contemporary art and a purge of inferior products, the Indian art market is looking up again, say organisers of the India Art Summit 2009 in a post-fair review. According to Neha Kirpal, associate director of the India Art Summit, galleries raked in nearly Rs.26 crore ($5.2 million) from sales --about 50 percent of the Rs.50 crore worth of art on offer. The footfalls, said Kirpal, stood at 5,000 on day one and touched 40,000 by the last day. "This is similar to last year. In 2008, we sold 50 percent -- Rs.10 crore out of exhibits worth Rs.20 crore on display. Globally, art fairs sell around 20 to 30 percent of art shown," Kirpal told IANS.

Collectors and amateur buyers are once again looking for the best deals in a market distilled by credit squeeze, free of dubious galleries that inflated the prices of young artists and repeated sale of art works at auctions for greater profits. An analysis by organisers of the art summit - a four-day mega fair in New Delhi's Pragati Maidan Aug 19-22 - shows that the nearly Rs.2,000-crore (nearly $400 million) Indian art market had redefined itself with a new lot of young and first-time buyers, revival in the purchase of high-end art by collectors and the entry of Korean and Chinese buyers and investors in the market. The summit featured 54 galleries, including 17 foreign ones, and nearly 500 art works.

The focus was on contemporary and interactive art - with a special video lounge and an installation park, education sessions with lectures on markets and aesthetics by an international forum of curators, collectors, market watchers, analysts, artists, historians and auctioneers. "Call it the churning in the market in the last quarter of 2008 and the first eight months of 2009 in the run-up to the fair, but the business and sale dynamics of art have changed. After the tough economic environment last year, all the galleries looked at the summit as a place for collective investment, and not as a place to transact direct business," Kirpal said. "What they got in return was a new understanding of the potential of the Indian art market. It was a collective realisation. Earlier, our source of information was individual submissions by one gallery." Even the 17 foreign galleries sold international artists like Anish Kapoor, F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza, Salvador Dali and Picasso.

German gallery Beck & Eggeling, which displayed eight original etchings by Picasso dated between 1930 and 1968 priced at $104,000-105,000, sold two. Works by Laura William sold out completely, Kirpal said. Sunil Gautam, managing director of Hanmer MS&L, which organised the show, said: "The biggest problem with the market is poor awareness. Not many people are comfortable with quality art because they don't know much. "So this time, we organised curated walks by students of Jawaharlal Nehru University who enlightened viewers and even first-time buyers about the art on display and the artists. "There was a new buzz. And I realised that there were many people - especially youngsters - who were willing to buy provided they were tutored." Kirpal said: "Delegations from 11 museums from across the world attended the summit to check out the wares."

China was represented by the prestigious Arario gallery. Several top Indian galleries showcased artists from other Asian countries. "We managed to create an environment that is conducive to buying art and there has been a shift in sentiment towards buying. Even school children purchased photographs at Rs.500-1,000 with their pocket money - along with regular buyers across all price bands from Rs.40 lakh to Rs.2 crore," Kirpal said. Bolstered by the response, the fair next year will focus on content - with diverse showcases - and more international representation. "We expect 75 foreign galleries," Kirpal said.

Explaining the dynamics of the market over the last decade, Maithili Parekh, the country head of Sotheby's which partnered the summit, said the Indian art market has gone through a period of exponential growth over the decade. "Indian artists were represented by top galleries and renowned museums curated shows of Indian art. Every new auction set price records till the recession brakes were applied and the market was forced to re-adjust its values," she said. "However, it allowed us to step back, recalibrate, separate the wheat from the chaff, good art from the less-than-good art, regroup and move on."

Article Courtesy: EXPRESS BUZZ

ARTICLE 1172 - Indian art pushing boundaries

[Monday, 24 August 2009 13:22 UK] Sanjoy Majumder for BBC News, Delhi

The art summit showcased collections from 54 galleries from around the world

At Delhi's main venue for large trade exhibitions, Pragati Maidan, there's a buzz in the air.

Stylish young women flashing designer bags and sunglasses mingle with bearded artists and men wearing conservative business suits. At the entrance, a group of schoolgirls file in, wearing crisp uniforms. Welcome to the India Art Summit, the country's largest contemporary arts exhibition showcasing collections from 54 galleries from around the world. But although there are works from several internationally renowned artists, including Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, the focus is unmistakeably on Indian art. And there's a lot to see. Vast canvases of oil paintings from some of India's most renowned painters share space with a variety of art forms from younger, more contemporary artists including sculptures, video and digital art installations.

'Indian elements'

At the entrance is the showpiece - three giant sculptures by one of the country's leading contemporary artists, Subodh Gupta, depicting three monkeys made of bronze, steel and old utensils. One of the artists exhibiting her work here is Arpana Caur. In her 50s, she's one of India's most celebrated painters and is often described as one of the "Great Indian Modernists". She's displayed her work internationally and is currently exhibiting at the Bradford Museum in the UK, alongside David Hockney and Damien Hirst but believes that however contemporary Indian art may be, it must stay faithful to its roots. "For instance, I was commissioned by the Hiroshima Museum of Modern Art for the 50th year of the bombing in 1995. That painting, Where Are All The Flowers Gone, is about violence and the need for peace. But I've deliberately used some Indian elements, especially in the use of colour." Over the past few years, the Indian art market has boomed. Last year Christie's sold a painting by the Indian artist, Francis Newton Souza, for a record £1.2 million (about $2m).

New buyers

The country's growing economy has also thrown up new buyers which in turn has led to a mushrooming of art galleries. Bang in the middle of a busy neighbourhood market in south Delhi, amidst fast-food restaurants and shops, is Gallery Espace. It's one of the older ones, having been around for two decades, and has a reputation for promoting young artists often using unconventional forms and materials. Inside its vast, minimalist space, many of the exhibits are strewn around. At the entrance is one of them, a giant sculpted head of a Hindu god lying on its side, next to an overturned television monitor.

"It's meant to represent the collapse of history," explains the gallery owner Renu Mody as she shows me around her gallery. "Earlier there were traditional people buying art, collectors who were passionate about art," she says. "But because of the market and investment possibilities, many speculators and professionals have begun buying art. Many of them are in their late 20s and early 30s and have the money to spare and believe investing in art is good value." Back at the art summit, the crowds are still pouring in but there's also been some impressive buying and selling. A piece by the British-Indian artist, Anish Kapoor, has sold for half a million pounds.

'Fantastic'

All this has brought a smile to the face of Maithili Parekh, deputy director of the British auction house, Sotheby's. "It's fantastic, really. The Indian art market is quite young and new but it's very exciting and has really taken off. The art fair has seen immense sales in spite of recession which is really encouraging," she says. But there are some shortcomings as well, she tells me. "We're lacking enough curators and critics and art publications. We have very little institutional and museum collecting which can help make art much more accessible to the public," she says.

Over to one side of the convention hall, away from the main exhibits, is a darkened lounge displaying a video installation. With electronic music in the background, it documents the rise of one of India's largest slums through the use of video footage, stills and graphics. Indian art draws on a rich tradition that goes back thousands of years but what we are seeing here is its commercial and artistic evolution. This summit was put together by people in their 20s and one of the art panels was curated by a young girl of 17. So an entire new generation of artists and art lovers is driving Indian art and pushing its boundaries.

Article Courtesy: BBC NEWS

ARTICLE 1171 - Fearing Attacks, Art Fair in India Won’t Show Works by Top Artist

[August 20, 2009, 12:07 pm] Dave Itzkoff for ARTSBEAT

Tamara Abdul Hadi for The New York Times. The Indian painter M.F. Husain in 2008.

The largest contemporary art show in India opened Thursday in New Delhi without the works of one of the country’s best regarded painters, amid concerns that his paintings will prompt attacks by religious extremists, Agence France-Presse reported. Organizers for the three-day India Art Summit said that they would not display works by Maqbool Fida Husain, the 94-year-old Muslim painter known as the “Picasso of India,” whose paintings portray Hindu deities, sometimes in the nude or in sexually suggestive poses. “We acknowledge the iconic stature of Husain, but are unable to put all the people and art work at risk,” said Neha Kirpal, the show’s associate director, according to Agence France-Presse. Last year, some of Mr. Husain’s paintings were attacked by members of Bajrang Dal, a right-wing Hindu group, at an event in New Delhi. Religious hardliners have also filed more than 800 court cases against him and vandalized his house.

Article Courtesy: NY TIMES

ARTICLE 1170 - Investors back in the art market

[30 Aug 2009, 0154 hrs IST] Nalini S Malaviya, ET Bureau

If sales at the India Art Summit are anything to go by, one can conclude that art is once again back in demand. And, the good news is that buyers now have the means to pay for it. According to art summit sources, sales worth approximately Rs 25 crores were made during the four-day modern and contemporary art fair, held in the capital recently. More than 40,000 footfalls were recorded to indicate that these many people visited the fair.

These reports indicate a reawakening of interest in art, and this is a positive sign for the domestic art market in general. At the second edition of the Art Summit held earlier this month, many buyers were spotted finalising deals. In comparison to last year, this year's event managed to gather top galleries from the country, showcased the big names from the domestic art space, and also managed to convert a lot of interest into sales.

An important point to remember is that at the moment art prices are comparatively lesser than what was seen last year. This, in fact, makes it a good time to buy art. As galleries from Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and a few from abroad, participated in the summit, it meant that there was a wide selection of art on offer. With the cash register ringing, galleries and artists have come away happy.

The sales happening after a particularly dull period in recessionary times gives more reason to cheer. And now that experts feel the economic scene is looking up, it is all the more reason for buyers to turn to art for investment purposes. After all, as in any other investment, it makes sense to buy when the prices are low.

Article Courtesy: ECONOMIC TIMES

ARTICLE 1169 - Essl Museum Offers Impressive Insights into the Contemporary Indian Art Scene

[Monday, August 31, 2009] ARTDAILLY

Subodh Gupta, Bullet, 2007, life-sized Royal Enfield Bullet: brass, chrome ~110 x 225 x 75 cm. Collection of the Artist.

KLOSTERNEUBURG.- With the exhibition CHALO! INDIA. A New Era of Indian Art, the Essl Museum offers impressive insights into the contemporary Indian art scene.

CHALO! INDIA. A New Era of Indian Art explores the present state of Indian contemporary art and the great changes it has gone through in recent years; examining the work of artists who attempt to question the reality of the society and age in which they live by taking subject matters from their everyday surroundings and transforming them through their art into a theatre of life. “Chalo!” means “Let’s go” in Hindi, and this exhibition is an invitation on a journey to encounter the new creativity and energy of Indian contemporary art. It is a visit to “India now” via these works of art, and an exploration of diverse ways of thinking that each visitor may discover for him or herself.- (Akiko Miki)

With more than 100 works by 27 artists, this exhibition encourages visitors to discover the great diversity of Indian contemporary art. >Chalo! India< is the largest presentation of contemporary Indian art in Austria so far.

Mostly known in Europe for its traditions and spirituality, India is one of the regions in the world that have lived through enormous social changes in recent decades. India’s impressive economic progress has spurred interest in the artistic developments of the country, and Indian artists have attracted heightened attention at the international art market. The show explores the routes chosen by artists from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Vadodara and other cities to challenge the reality and age in which they live: the rapid economic development, urbanisation and lifestyles, spirituality, dreams, contrasts and contradictions.

Visitors entering the exhibition are welcomed by a life-sized recumbent elephant. It is a female whose hide is covered with swarms of sperm-shaped bindis. The up-and-coming Indian economy is frequently compared to an “awakening elephant”, but the question whether the elephant is just waking up or possibly wounded has been left in limbo by the artist Bharti Kher.

The digital images, paintings and sculptures by Gulammohammed Sheikh prompt associations with miniature shrines and medieval world maps, and some of them also evoke mandalas. Both the video projections shown at the exhibition and a larger-than-life shrine are amalgamations of cultural elements and religions from different periods and countries.

N. S. Harsha repeatedly engages with the entire exhibition space, combining objects with sitespecific paintings on walls or floors. For the present exhibition he has transformed the chairs provided for the museum attendants into works of art, thus reversing the standard situation of attendants watching visitors.

In Jitish Kallat’s panorama photographs, the streets of the city are staged as the theatre of life, details being skilfully manipulated by the artist who fills the picture with contradictory elements that allude to the vicissitudes of time and the impact of modernisation. The auto rickshaw which Kallat has converted into a giant skeleton may be taken as an allusion to terrorist bombings.

Hema Upadhyay and Vivan Sundaram, too, devote themselves to Indian townscapes. Whereas Upadhyay has crafted a poetic model of the Mumbai slums in a huge sculptural installation, Vivan Sundaram used rubbish and refuse to build imaginary towns which she captured on photographs. In both cases the artists draw attention to the people who are obliged to live in slums or to make a living from collecting and selling garbage.

The work of the artist and activist Tushar Joag centres on “UNICELL Public Works Cell”, a fictitious organization of his creation, which imitates government activities and the work of public projects agencies and suggests mock alternative solutions. Among other things, Joag sent eviction orders to thousands of Mumbai residents, informing them that, with a view to mitigating the traffic problems in their areas, a new network of canals was to be built, fashioned on the canals of Venice.

The youngest participants in the exhibition are the artistic collaborators Thukral & Tagra. Their art world reflects the dreams of young people in contemporary India – such as having your own house or emigrating to Europe – and it is hallmarked by the colourful, superficial and kitschy style of their pictures.

The artist Pushpamala N. assumes the roles of women considered typically Indian and known from works of art, the popular media and documentation. She imitates famous Indian paintings of the 19th century, current images of the goddess Lakshmi, scenes from movies as well as photographs and body measuring techniques introduced by the British colonial rulers for classifying the indigenous population. The resulting photographs throw light on stereotypes and reveal how images can be manipulated.

Subodh Gupta uses enormous quantities of mass-produced everyday utensils, mainly milk jugs and bowls made of stainless steel, which he either crafts into imposing sculptural works or uses as accessories – as in the case of the motorbike on display at the exhibition. Gupta addresses the issue of India’s consumer culture as well as the relationship between the exploding conurbations and the rural areas.

Atul Dodiya presents a series of portraits entitled “Saptapadi” and featuring mainly couples. The term is used in the context of the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony. His style is derived from the tradition of popular art and he has borrowed from the kitschy hand-painted Bollywood movie posters which are displayed in all Indian towns.

The exhibition ends with a nostalgic voice emerging from an old-fashioned microphone. It is the voice of Shilpa Gupta who sings the text of Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous speech, “Tryst with Destiny“, delivered before Parliament by India’s first Prime Minister on the eve of the country’s independence. The functions of speaker and microphone have been reversed, so that an official event is transformed into a very private experience, a since India attained its independence.

The exhibition covers a wide range of creative perspectives and forms of expressions and presents artists already well-established in Europe, such as Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta, as well as numerous newcomers who are in the process of obtaining international recognition.

Article Courtesy: ARTDAILY

ARTICLE 1168 - Indian art struggles to emerge from shadows in face of downturn

[Sunday, Aug 30, 2009, Page 12] Rupam Jain nair, AFP, NEW DELHI

A woman and child walk past a piece by artist G.R. Iranna made from wood, fiberglass, metal, leather and rubber tires on display at The India Art Summit 2009 in New Delhi on Aug. 20. More than 17 International galleries participated in the art summit for the first time, including galleries from Japan, China, Thailand, the UK, the US, the Philippines and South Korea. PHOTO: AFP

For the past 20 years, Indian artists have had to watch in envy as foreign buyers showered recognition and cash on their Chinese peers. But after years of institutional neglect, they finally seem to be getting the support they need to push their work on an international market that has traditionally focused on established artists in East Asia. Last week saw the biggest-ever gathering of contemporary galleries in the country with the four-day India Art Summit, which aims to establish itself alongside other shows such as the now well-known Shanghai art fair. “This is just the beginning. The summit is still growing, just like Indian contemporary art,” said Neha Kirpal, associate director of the event. Like other experts, Kirpal concedes that China is “way ahead” of India in terms of the development of its art market.

Last year, the first edition of the summit had three international galleries. This year 17 participated despite the slowdown, Kirpal said. But for Indian artists to reach a bigger audience, industry insiders say the supporting infrastructure must be improved — a common problem in all areas of life in India. Art schools, galleries, museums and public funds are all lacking. “Can anybody enlighten me about the government’s role in promoting art?” said Dadiba Pundole, owner of the Pundole art gallery in Mumbai, one of India’s oldest galleries. “They have failed miserably and it is only the private players that have kept the scene alive.” There are just a handful of prominent galleries in India for thousands of artists and only a few crumbling museums, built between 1910 and 1920 by the British. “The total number of art schools can be counted on one’s fingertips,” Kirpal said.

Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the Christie’s auction house in London, says the Indian art business is gathering momentum, but the absence of institutional support is a problem. “There has not been much institutional support and resources for the visual arts in India as there has been in China,” Mehta said. She says the Chinese authorities have promoted the arts heavily since the 1980s to compensate for the loss of creativity during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Unlike Chinese art, much of the work by Indians is still bought by Indians, making the market inward-looking and limiting its development internationally. “Most Indians buy indigenous works, which is a good way to start collecting art, but gradually Indian art has to step out of its own borders for wider acceptance,” said Stefan Wimmer from the Beck & Eggling art gallery in Germany, which had a display at the art summit.

The rise of India’s business elite is also creating a class of people ready to splash cash on domestic art, promising a brighter future for local artists. “There are the fixed [established] clients and there are the new clients who have invested in houses, cars, jewelry but are looking for more. Art is their preferred choice,” says Shilpa Dugar of Krishala Arts, a gallery based in Chennai. For now, prices for Indian art are off the highs reached in 2002 to last year, when international auction houses recorded record sales for the country’s celebrated artists M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza or Satish Gujaral. The market has fallen sharply, spelling bad news for some Indian galleries, particularly those that overstretched themselves during the boom years such as Bodhi, which has shut many of its international spaces.

“Indian art had become too pricey till last year. This year everyone is happy to reduce the prices by 25 to 30 percent,” an Indian art buyer who refused to be named told reporters. Indian artists must also contend with constraints on their freedom of expression, a right guaranteed under the Indian Constitution but one that has been under attack from religious extremists. The country’s most acclaimed painter was conspicuous by his absence at last week’s event because of fears for his security. M.F. Husain, 94, has angered hardline Hindus by portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually suggestive manner, and his work and home have been attacked.

Article Courtesy: TAIPEI TIMES

ARTICLE 1167 - Indian Art Summit 09 to showcase 40-cr worth of artworks in Delhi

[3 Aug 2009, 2129 hrs IST, ET Bureau] THE ECONOMIC TIMES

KOLKATA: Over Rs 40 crore worth of artworks will be on sale at the four-day Indian Art Summit 2009 in Delhi, which gets underway from August 19. This is double the value of artworks that India Art Summit 2008, the first edition, had showcased. Together with 54 galleries from India and across the world which will be present, there will be 500 Modern and Contemporary artists bringing some 2,000 artworks to the fair. The summit is being partnered by famed auction house Sotheby’s. In step with 36 galleries from India, including Kolkata’s well-known Akar Prakar Gallery, galleries are arriving from the US, UK, Middle East, China, Japan, Thailand, Germany, Latvia, The Netherlands and Philippines.

"Last time, we had 34 galleries from India and abroad and 10,000 visitors. This time, we expect the dimension to be even stronger. We are bringing a wider gamut of stakeholders and galleries together, including those from across the world. Compared to 34 galleries last year, we’ll have 54 galleries joining us this time and an anticipated 20,000 visitors including overseas/NRI collectors. Eighteen of the galleries will be overseas ones," Mr Sunil Gautam, India Art Summit’s managing director, said.

He was interacting with the media in the city on Monday.

According to Mr Gautam, while there were around 550 artworks at the fair in 2008, the summit is tipped to see nearly a couple of thousand works in this outing. Fifty percent of the 500-odd works which boasted of a total value of about Rs 20 crore, had sold last year at an estimated Rs 10 crore. Associate summit director, Ms Neha Kirpal, said, "While we’ll also have affordable art starting from brackets as low as Rs 2,000, there will international galleries which will bring along art at price points as high as £150,000," Ms Kirpal said. Spreading over 4,500 sq meters, the summit’s features include an International Speakers’ Forum, a Sculpture Park and The Purple Wall Project which will showcase special installations of modern and contemporary art.

Among other facets are the Video Lounge which will acquaint art lovers with video art. During the summit, Collateral Events will be unveiled in reputed galleries and venues, including the National Gallery of Modern Art and Lalit Kala Academy. "Some of the foremost galleries, artists and collectors in the city will open their doors to visitors," Ms Kirpal said. "Curated Walks have also been arranged where visitors will get the opportunity to be part of guided tours to the fair, to gain a deeper understanding of some of the artworks exhibited," she said.

Article Courtesy: ECONOMIC TIMES

ARTICLE 1166 - No Indian pavilion at Venice art event

[6 August 2009, 02:02am IST] Tasneem Zakaria Mehta for THE TIMES OF INDIA

Every two years the most beautiful city in the world is transformed from June to November into a gigantic gallery to host an Art Olympic of sorts, the Venice Biennale. The official exhibition is set in the vast Giardini gardens where 29 country pavilions built over the years reflect a mini-history of architecture. Galleries take over villas or spaces around the city and even the boats along the canals become moving art shows.

This year the Biennale’s youngest curator Daniel Birnbaum chose the theme of Fare Mundi (Making Worlds) to address the double-edged sword of globalisation. At one level it can be a power that liberates individuals from the limitations of local culture. On the other, it brings with it a homogenising tendency and the danger of sameness.

The exhibitions and the presentation are simply stupendous. But sadly, India was not among the 77 countries participating in this very important art event. True, four Indian artists—Anju Dodiya, Sunil Gawde, Sheela Gowda and Nikhil Chopra—were selected by the curator as a part of the International Exhibition, but they represent their own vision and not their country’s. Even countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Syria and the UAE, where one would have thought contemporary art was not an important focus, put up pavilions.

The Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran pavilion presented by Turquoise Mountain, an institution devoted to promoting art from these countries, drew much comment and attention.

Unfortunately, the Indian government has neglected any active patronage or promotion of Indian art in the international arena. Without state support it is difficult for individuals or galleries to achieve a high profile on the world stage where so many countries are actively lobbying for their artists and offer substantial state support through museums and international collaborations. It is important for India to participate in such events because it sends a significant message to the world community about how we view ourselves.

For the longest time we have promoted an image of ourselves that is stuck in the past. No doubt that is our USP but as a young nation, we should also be looking ahead and be in the forefront of the exciting and dynamic changes that are taking place, the rewriting of old codes of practice and old ways of thinking. This will help to release creative energies in all fields.

As with sports so with art, countries that are able to excel in this area capture the public imagination and invariably are the leaders of the new world. Lygia Pape, a Brazilian artist who passed away in 2004, received special mention. Her work is reminiscent of a religious experience like entering a temple or church lit only by natural light. Yet it is uniquely modern. In a large darkened space golden threads overlap as lights come on and off plunging the viewer into darkness and then revelation.

The Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno’s Galaxies Forming Along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web, on the other hand, was conceptually brilliant creating a visual poetry of lines stretched like a spider’s web across the gallery suggesting both the fragility of the material world and a mapping of new worlds.

Despite the terrible recession the Biennale reaffirmed people’s faith in art. The inauguration of the much-awaited Tadao Ando-designed Punta Della Dogana—Venice’s radical new contemporary art museum showcasing the collection of collector extraordinaire Francois Pinault (he has bought Subodh Gupta’s skull installation) was the most talked about event. Interestingly, the name Dogana comes from the word ‘diwan’ or council, the place where Venice’s merchants met and stored the treasures their ships brought from the East.

What is remarkable about the Venice Biennale is how old and new have managed to create a meaningful dialogue. The city fathers have carefully orchestrated the event so that even as it celebrates its rich history by ensuring that none of the modern structures compromises its great architecture, it still manages to make the most potent creative statement about modernity.

(The writer is the managing trustee of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Convenor INTACH)

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1165 - Pakistani contemporary art trebles in value over five years

[August 04. 2009 8:05PM UAE / August 4. 2009 4:05PM GMT] Bronwyn Curran, Foreign Correspondent

Noshaba Qadir, curator of the Tanzara Gallery. Katherine Kaviat for The National

ISLAMABAD Less exposed than its Indian neighbour’s output, contemporary art in Pakistan has evolved beyond its traditional domain of miniaturists and calligraphers to nurture a stable of modern figurative and landscape artists, now firmly established as investment commodities. “Contemporary art has really come up in a big way in Pakistan. I see it in the gallery. People really want to acquire art now,” said Noshaba Qadir, curator of the Tanzara Gallery in Islamabad. “Even those with little art appreciation, or people who couldn’t afford it before, now want a piece or two in their homes.”

Values have trebled in the past five years, according to the director of the Artchowk.com website, Camilla Chaudhary. One of the emerging artists her website represents, Mansur Salim, has seen his prices triple in the last two years. “Five years ago the Pakistani art market was in its nascent stage. Great strides have been taken to bring international recognition both for artists and local galleries, and in developing a local collector base. This has resulted in almost across board increases in the value of art,” Mrs Chaudhary said.

As an investment commodity it has soared “tremendously”, she said. “One of the reasons is that Pakistani art remains much cheaper than Indian and Middle Eastern art. Pakistani artists and galleries started getting international recognition in the latter half of the boom in the international art market. As a result, the prices started from very low, saw organic growth and were not as inflated as some of the works from other Asian countries, particularly India. Thus they have not seen as large a correction under the economic downturn.

“If an investor does some research on the local art scene and buys a good emerging artist he can expect a 100 to 300 per cent profit, while for an established artist he can see a 50 to 75 per cent increase depending on the artist.” Eighty per cent of the work that sold at ArtChowk’s first exhibition in the Middle East a year and a half ago has doubled in value, she added. Tanzara Gallery’s Mrs Qadir cites the works of the Islamabad-based landscape artist Ghulam Rasul, whose prices hit US$15,000 (Dh55,200) in his last exhibition at Tanzara, and Raja Changez Sultan, whose figuratives and Himalayan Odyssey series, exploring the play of light on mountains, have more than doubled since 2007.

These days a handful of Pakistani artists command major international recognition and global price-tags as high as $500,000, such as Rashid Rana. Mohammad Talpur’s hypnotic arrangements of lines have captured international collectors’ imaginations and command well over $10,000. Shazia Sikander, a graduate of Lahore’s National College of the Arts, now based in the US, produces modern miniatures which are fetching huge prices in the US and have won the attention of the avid modern art collector Bill Gates.

“It’s impossible to purchase a Talpur now. They’re all sewn up,” said Mrs Qadir.

The artist Mr Sultan, who chaired Pakistan’s National Council of the Arts for 4½ years, said Pakistani art only found its own identity last decade. “Pakistani art from the 1950s to 1980s had an imitative effect about it,” Mr Sultan said. “Then there was an era of calligraphy. In the 1970s and 1980s everyone thought calligraphy was the thing, because in the Middle East there was big demand … Over the past 15 years people seem to be getting away from miniatures and into three-dimensional and other kinds of perspectives. But with a colour and form and symbolism that is more individual. Patronage has been growing, especially from expatriate Pakistanis. From the mid-90s to the present you see really phenomenal increases.”

The late Sadequain, revered muralist, painter and calligrapher, dazzled the world stage in the 1960s in Paris, winning the ultimate avant-garde accolade of being chosen to illustrate Albert Camus’ work The Stranger, only to fade from global recognition on his return to Pakistan in the 1970s. He is hailed in the domestic market nevertheless. He gave away most of his works, and as those works are relinquished and creep into the market, some command close to $75,000, Mrs Chaudhary said.

The emerging artists Raza Mashkoor, who specialises in horses, and AS Rind, creator of metallic faces of long-necked ethnic women, have seen significant price hikes. “Just recently Mashkoor’s work went to the auction houses – Sotheby’s and Bonham’s in Dubai – and it was only then he doubled the prices from last year,” said Mrs Qadir. The calligraphy master Ahmed Khan, hailed as “the new Gulgee” after Pakistan’s late doyen of calligraphers who was murdered in his Karachi home along with his wife in 2007, recently had a two-by-three foot piece fetch $20,000 at Bonham’s.

The Pakistani diaspora in Dubai are major investor customers. One Dubai-based client turned up to the Tanzara Gallery with floor plans for his under-construction apartment and asked Mrs Qadir to select 22 paintings for its walls. Installations and video art are now entering the market. “These new art forms are pushing the boundaries of what was considered art and in doing so are approaching issues and questions with a new consciousness and narrative,” Mrs Chaudhary said.

bcurran@thenational.ae

Article Courtesy: THE NATIONAL

ARTICLE 1164 - I dream all the time to return to India: M F Husain

[PTI 30 July 2009, 01:33pm IST] THE TIMES OF INDIA

LONDON: Painter M F Husain, who is ready to release his next film will by the end of this year, says he is desperate to return to India but it will take some more time. 94-year-old Husain -- who has earlier made three films -- 'Through the Eyes of a Painter' (1967), 'Gaja Gamini' (with his muse Madhuri Dixit in the lead) and 'Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities' (with Tabu) -- said that the film, a comedy, was yet to be titled. The renowned painter was at the Nehru Centre last evening to participate in a discussion titled Cinema: Art in Motion, M F Husain in Conversation with Behroze Gandhy. Husain who now lives in Dubai and London, said "I am dreaming all the time to return to India.

"I never said I will not go back. I need a little more time. There is no ban on my return. The Supreme Court has cleared the case. I can go back anytime," he added. In his conversation with Ms Behroze Gandhy, Husain was all praise for popular Bollywood cinemas. "Bollywood has evolved its own unique style and in India cricket and cinema entertain millions of people," he said. Pandharpur-born Husain said right from beginning he wanted to make films but had to wait for over 50 years owing to lack of finances. He said he would not have produced Gaja Gamini if Madhuri Dixit had not agreed to do the lead role. "It took me three years to get Madhuri," he said, adding her body language in the film was extraordinary.

He said that starting his career as a Bill Board painter had helped him to survive during his initial days in Mumbai. "It was necessary because I went to Bombay penniless. For 7 years, from the age of 11, I was painting Bill Boards for my livelihood. Though simultaneously I was painting, for 18 years I never exhibited those paintings. I exhibited those paintings after independence." His first film, Through the Eyes of a Painter, won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Painter's autobiography is being made into a movie tentatively titled "The Making of the Painter", starring Shreyas Talpade as the young Husain.

Organisations like Hindu Jagruti Samiti and VHP had protested against Husain displaying painting of nude Hindu goddess. Husain had apologised and withdrawn those paintings from auction. S P Hinduja, Chairman of the Hinduja Group of Industries, an art lover, said Husain is known for his "creativity and innovation." He said at the launch of the Hinduja Bank in Switzerland, Husain produced some of the outstanding paintings promoting multi-religions.

ARTICLE COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1163 - Ancient Indian scepticism

[August 2009] Namit Arora for HIMAL SOUTH AISA

The Carvaka school of philosophy offered some of the first rationalist opposition to the otherworldly tendencies of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Through the ages, various societies have sparkled with bursts of creative and intellectual energy. Historians have a penchant for dubbing these ‘golden’ ages, examples of which include the Athens of Herodotus, the Baghdad of Haroun al-Rashid, and the India of the Buddha. But though India has long been famous for its ‘ancient wisdom’, the few historical sources that survive shed woefully inadequate light on the Sakyamuni’s society. By contrast, very adequate portraits of classical Greece and Abbasid Baghdad are available.

Evidence at hand suggests that around 600-500 BC, in parts of the Indo-Gangetic plain of North India, people were asking some very bold and original questions: What is the nature of thought and perception? What is the source of consciousness? Are virtue and vice absolute or are they mere social conventions? Old traditions were under attack at the time, as new trades and lifestyles were emerging; with urban life in a churn, the power of uptight Brahmins was being steadily eroded. In this marketplace of ideas, philosophical schools flourished, and included chronic fatalists, radical materialists, self-mortifying ascetics, diehard sceptics, cautious pragmatists, saintly mystics and the ubiquitous miracle-mongers. “Rivalries and debates were rife,” the historian Romila Thapar wrote in 2002. “Audiences gathered around the new philosophers in the kutuhala-shalas – literally, the place for creating curiosity – the parks and groves on the outskirts of the towns … The presence of multiple, competing ideologies was a feature of urban living.” It was also an age of nascent democratic republics, which, like Athens later, did not ultimately survive the march of monarchy and empire.

Ever since the colonial encounter, the West has strongly associated India with the homegrown spiritual tradition. Often this has been out of sympathy, respect and the best of intentions, but sometimes dismissively as “the land of religions, the country of uncritical faiths and unquestioned practices”. Such assessments, writes Amartya Sen, are clearly problematic. As he has argued, the history of India is incomplete without its tradition of scepticism, as well. To see India “as overwhelmingly religious, or deeply anti-scientific, or exclusively hierarchical, or fundamentally unsceptical involves significant oversimplification of India’s past and present.” The West, Sen claims, focused unduly on India’s spiritual heritage, on “the differences – real or imagined – between India and the West”, partly because it was naturally drawn to what was different in India. Sen continues:

The nature of these slanted emphases has tended to undermine an adequately pluralist understanding of Indian intellectual traditions. While India has … a vast religious literature [with] grand speculation on transcendental issues … there is also a huge – and often pioneering – literature, stretching over two and a half millennia, on mathematics, logic, epistemology, astronomy, physiology, linguistics, phonetics, economics, political science and psychology, among other subjects concerned with the here and now.

Sen marshals a good deal of evidence in support of his view of India’s long tradition of heterodoxy, openness and reasoned discourse. While India might offer “examples of every conceivable type of attempt at the solution to the religious problem”, he submits that they “coexist with deeply sceptical arguments … (sometimes within the religious texts themselves).” Among his examples is the radical doubt expressed in the ‘Song of Creation’ of the Rig Veda, which the scholar of the history of religion Wendy Doniger has called “the first extensive composition in any Indo-European language”. “Who really knows?” the Rig Veda asks.

Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen – perhaps it has formed itself, or perhaps it did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps he does not know.

Only this world“Until recently”, Thapar has observed, “it was generally thought that Indian philosophy had more or less bypassed materialism.” But scholars now widely recognise that in ancient ‘spiritual India’, atheistic materialism was a major force to reckon with. Predating even the Buddhists, the Carvaka (pronounced ‘Char-vaka’) is one of the earliest materialistic schools of Indian philosophy, named after one Carvaka, a great teacher of the school. Its other name, Lokayata, variously meant ‘the system based in the common, profane world’, ‘the art of sophistry’, and also ‘the philosophy that denies that there is any world other than this one’.

The Carvakas offered an epistemological justification for their materialism that echoes the British empiricist and sceptic David Hume, as well as other so-called logical positivists. As far as a means of attaining valid knowledge, the Carvakas would only accept sense perception; and they stridently challenged inference on the grounds that it inherently requires a universal premise – for instance, the assertion that “Wherever there’s smoke, there’s fire” – even while there is no way to be certain about that premise. Since inference is not a means of valid knowledge, anything that exists beyond the range of the senses – things like ‘destiny’, ‘soul’ or ‘afterlife’ – does not exists, according to the Carvakas.

Even more boldly, the Carvakas denied the authority of all scriptures. First, they said, knowledge based on verbal testimony is inferential. The scriptures, they continued, are characterised by three faults: falsity, self-contradiction and tautology, or false logic. Based on such a theory of knowledge, the Carvakas instead put forward an idea of ‘reductive’ materialism, according to which the four elements – earth, water, fire and air – are thought to be the only original components of being; all other forms are, thus, products of their composition. In this way, consciousness would be thought to arise from the material structure of the body, and it – rather than a soul – would characterise (and perish with) the body.

Ajita Keshakambalin, a prominent Carvaka and a contemporary of the Buddha, proclaimed that humans literally go from earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. “Man is formed of the four elements,” he wrote. “When he dies, earth returns to the aggregate of earth, water to water, fire to fire, and air to air, while his senses vanish into space … When the body dies both fool and wise alike are cut off and perish. They do not survive after death.”

According to the Carvakas, the ‘soul’ is merely the body qualified by intelligence. It has no existence apart from the body, only this world exists, there is no beyond – the Vedas are a cheat, the “incoherent rhapsodies of knaves”, which serve to make men submissive through fear and ritual. Nature is indifferent to good and evil, and history does not bear witness to divine providence; rather, pleasure and pain are the central facts of life. Virtue and vice are not absolute, but are mere social conventions. The Carvakas advised:

While life is yours, live joyously;
None can escape Death’s searching eye:
When once this frame of ours they burn,
How shall it e’er again return?

The Carvakas particularly mocked religious ceremony, calling them inventions of the Brahmins to ensure their own livelihood. The authors of the Vedas were “buffoons, knaves and demons”. Those who make ritual offerings of food to the dead, why do they not feed the hungry around them? Like the other two heterodox schools, Jainism and Buddhism, they criticised the caste system, and stood opposed to the ritual sacrifice of animals. When the Brahmins defended the latter, claiming that the sacrificed beast goes straight to swarga loka, the interim heaven before rebirth, the Carvakas asked why the Brahmins did not kill their aged parents to hasten their arrival in Swarga Loka. “If he who departs from the body goes to another world,” they asked, “how is it that he comes not back again, restless for love of his kindred?”

Pleasurably, sensibly, nobly, justly
Echoes of Carvaka thought appear in the Ramayana of Valmiki. In the epic, Ram is not the god that he later became, but rather is an epic hero, who, as Amartya Sen has noted, has “many good qualities and some weaknesses, including a tendency to harbor suspicions about his wife Sita’s faithfulness.” In that version, a pundit named Javali “not only does not treat Ram as God, he calls his actions ‘foolish’ (‘especially for’, as Javali puts it, ‘an intelligent and wise man’).” Echoing Carvaka doctrine, Javali even asserts that “there is no after-world, nor any religious practice for attaining that … the injunctions about the worship of gods, sacrifice, gifts and penance have been laid down in the [scriptures] by clever people, just to rule over [other] people.”

In their ethics, the Carvakas upheld a kind of hedonism. The only goal people ought to pursue, they said, is maximising sensual pleasure while avoiding pain, the kind that proceeds from overindulgence and instant gratification. As is common with confrontational schools of thought, they were accused of “immoral practices”, and depicted as “hedonists advocating a policy of total opportunism … described as addressing princes, whom they urged to act exclusively in their own self-interest, thus providing the intellectual climate in which a text such as Kautilya’s Arthashastra (“Handbook of Profit”) could be written” – a text that elevated the material wellbeing of both the nation and its people, and favoured an autocratic state to realise it.

By the 15th century, Carvaka doctrine had largely disappeared, perhaps a casualty of the same religious wave that swept the Subcontinent from the south and which helped push Buddhism out of India – namely, Bhakti, or devotional Hinduism. But the doctrine’s erstwhile importance is confirmed by the lengthy attempts to refute it found in both Buddhist and orthodox Hindu philosophical texts (some written as late as the 14th century). For instance, in the ninth century, Jayanta Bhatta refuted the Carvaka view that inference is not a means of valid knowledge; Udayana, in the 10th century, challenged the Carvaka identification of the self with the body; and in his 11th-century allegorical drama Prabodhacandrodaya, Krsnamisra refuted the Carvakas through ridicule and caricature.

These refutations also constitute the main sources of our knowledge of the Carvaka doctrine, since none of the original Carvaka works has survived. It may well be that the Buddhists felt threatened by the Carvaka emphasis on pleasure, rather than on suffering. Just as the Stoics of ancient Greece and Rome resemble the Buddhists in their emphasis on mental tranquillity through self-awareness and the reining-in of the ego and selfish desire, the Epicureans (the Stoics’ intellectual opponents) are reminiscent of the Carvakas, who likewise disavowed irresponsible sensualism and upheld ethical ideals similar to the Epicureans.

What defines the Carvaka is not their atheism. After all, two of the six orthodox schools of ancient Hinduism, Samkhya and Mimamsa, were also atheistic. Rather, it is their total rejection of all that is otherworldly – the authority of the Vedas, and all of the rituals and customs derived from them. Though the Carvaka were forgotten long ago, their spirit lives on today in all those who risk something to defy an orthodox tradition, ritual or otherworldly idea.

Namit Arora is a travel photographer, writer and creator of Shunya, an online photo journal on India. He divides his time between San Francisco and New Delhi.

ARTICLE COURTESY: HIMAL MAG

ARTICLE 1162 - What lies beyond

[Thu, Jul 30 2009. 12:30 AM IST] Himanshu Bhagat for LIVE MINT

An exhibition that explores the relation of ideas behind artworks with their appearance

Beyond the Form, an exhibition organised by Bajaj Capital Art House, will show over 40 artworks by 14 contemporary artists, including veterans such as Satish Gujral and Krishen Khanna, in a variety of mediums. According to Sushma Behl, curator of the show, the focus, going beyond the look and feel of the artworks, is on “underlying concerns, issues, emotions and stories…beyond what the eye can see as a ubiquitous form.” Most of the works on display have been created for the exhibition.

Anniversary by Jagdish Chinthala

In a brief chat with Lounge, Behl—who headed the arts and culture section of the British Council in India for many years and is currently a member of the apex body of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi—talks about the show and the artists who participated in it. Edited excerpts:

Why is the show called Beyond the Form?
These days there is so much of thinking and conceptual framework that goes into art. There has been marked shift from appearance or the object to the essence of its creation. Artists now do a lot of research, thinking and planning, so it is important to see what all is involved. To me, it’s about going beyond the form.

How does this come about?
Basically, it takes two to tango. The artist and the spectator or rasik—there is a play between the two and that goes beyond the form. The idea was to create something that is reflective of this. The works have been created by artists of different backgrounds that reflect different thought processes—from big metros and small towns, educated in different places like Trichur and Baroda. Then, there are artists like Satish Gujral and Krishen Khanna who are 80 plus and some others are only 30 plus.

How do we see this in the show?
An artist like Viveek Sharma takes a lot of photographs and T.M. Azis uses media images that trigger thinking and reflection. Murali Cheeroth has a video work about pesticides used by cashew farmers in Kerala. It’s a health hazard and babies are being born with deformities. So a lot of this about the real world which the artist takes note of and it bothers or stimulates him. And this is reflected in his work.

Bullet Proof by Viveek Sharma

Was there a criterion for the selection of artists?
There was and wasn’t. I was interested in artists I was familiar with and whose works respond to the theme of the show. I also wanted a balance in the show in terms of the media employed to create the artworks—be it sculpture, paintings, video art or drawings. Also, I didn’t want the artists featured to be just restricted to the metros. I feel there is an exciting trend of many emerging artists hailing from lesser known areas. They are bringing a regional sensitivity to an international platform—after all, Subodh Gupta is from Patna.

Any dominant ideas and concepts that you see in Indian contemporary art?
I feel that socio-political themes dominate art. That’s because the situation in India is such and secondly we now have a big international audience and are taking that into account. Beauty, love and romance have been relegated into the background.

Beyond the Form will be shown from 5 August to 7 August at the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi and at Gallery Art Positive, L-26 Kalkaji, New Delhi from 8 August to 14 August. The show will then move to Jehangir Art Gallery, Kalaghoda, Mumbai from 24 August to 31 August.

Prices range from Rs125,000 to Rs250,000

ARTICLE COURTESY: LIVE MINT

ARTICLE 1161 - Governments keep changing, I keep hoping: Husain

[July 30th, 2009] IANS

LONDON - With India’s Supreme Court ruling in his favour, artist M.F. Husain has spoken of hopes that the changing political scenarios in the country will ease his return home after eight years in self-exile. “The Supreme Court judgement is there. That is the judgement,” the painter, who works out of London and Dubai, said Wednesday. “I never said I won’t go back. I didn’t feel it was time. Because the political scenarios keep on changing, so I’m hoping… all the time,” he told an audience at the Nehru Centre in London.

Although there is no ban on his return, the 94-year-old painter has faced years of violent protests by Hindu militants after he painted Indian goddesses in the nude. But the Supreme Court ruled in the artist’s favour in September 2008 when it threw out an attempt to launch criminal proceedings against him for allegedly hurting public sentiments through his paintings. Asked Wednesday if the new government could do anything to enable him to return home, Husain said, “Actually, there is no ban on my return. I’m working outside - for the past 60 years I’ve been doing like that.” “I can go back anytime,” said

Article Courtesy: BREAKING NEWS 24/7

ARTICLE 1160 - India Art Summit Bans Artist for Second Year

[Published: July 29, 2009] ARTINFO

NEW DELHI—For the second consecutive year, organizers of the India Art Summit are banning the display of works by one of the nation’s most famous and highest-paid artists, M.F. Husain. At the event’s inaugural edition last year, controversy surrounded the prohibition decision, which followed threats from right-wing Hindu groups. This year’s repeat ban is no less upsetting to Husain’s dealers, members of the Indian art community, and relatives of the 93-year-old artist, often referred to as a "legend" of the Indian art world. But his controversial works depicting two Hindu goddesses without clothing have inflamed religious sentiments and brought threats against him; a Muslim, Husain went into self-imposed exile in 2006. Summit organizers say they can’t risk showing his works this year without “protection from the government and the Delhi police." The summit, one of the Indian art world’s premier events, is set for Aug. 19-22 in New Delhi.

ARTICLE COURTESY: ARTINFO

ARTICLE 1159 - Husain is too ‘risky’ for capital fair

[Sunday , July 26 , 2009] ANANYA SENGUPTA for THE TELEGRAPH

New Delhi, July 25: Room for 700 artists, but not even a corner for M.F. Husain. When the India Art Summit opens next month, the works of the man who has contributed the most to the country’s art business may not be among the exhibits for the second year running. The Summit, an art fair which faced a lot of criticism for not showing Husain’s works at its exhibition last year, doesn’t want to “risk” an attack by radical elements opposed to the artist’s nude depiction of Hindu goddesses. “We are expecting about 20,000 people at the event. We cannot risk their security and the safety of the other artists at any cost,” Summit associate director Neha Kirpal said.

Exhibitions featuring works of the 93-year-old artist, who now lives abroad in self-imposed exile, had in the past come under attack from fundamentalists in several states. Last year, too, when cultural group Sahmat held an exhibition of Husain’s works at India International Centre as a gesture of solidarity after the Summit cried off, some vandals tried to disrupt the show despite the presence of Delhi police personnel. “It is unfortunate that the face of Indian art has to be kept out for the security of the others involved,” Kirpal said. The Summit is expecting participation from 700 artists from 11 countries and 18 international galleries.

But Sahmat member and photographer Ram Rahman said the Summit had “one full year” to figure out what to do about security. “This is no excuse. As the organiser, its job is to ensure security. If it can’t, it shouldn’t hold the exhibition at all. Husain is neither banned by the government nor is he a criminal. We cannot allow hoodlums to control our life and business.” Delhi Art Gallery, which has a large collection of Husain’s works, and Mumbai’s Pundole Gallery are also disappointed. “I would be very disappointed if I am unable to show Husain’s paintings. I had planned to show five of his early works from the 1950s and 1970s. It’s unfair that an artist who has contributed the most to the Indian art business should be kept out of the Art Summit,” said Ashish Anand of Delhi Art Gallery.

Summit organisers said the could not display Husain’s works unless the government guaranteed complete security for the event. “While talks with the home ministry have been going on for months now, we are yet to get any commitment. I spoke to Husain saab about this and no one understands this better than him…. He also said the Summit should not take a risk by showing his works,” Kirpal said. The Summit associate director said Husain had given his blessings for the exhibition and also told the organisers that they could exhibit his books and films to mark his presence.

Article Courtesy: THE TELEGRAPH

ARTICLE 1158 - Son decries exclusion of Husain’s works from fair

[Monday, Jul 27, 2009] THE HINDU

NEW DELHI: Shamsahad Husain, son of legendary artist M.F. Husain, has objected to the exclusion of his father’s works from the annual art fair. Mr. Shamsahad Husain was not happy that the works were not displayed. “Look what they have done to my father. They could not even bring his works and none of the galleries taking part in the Fair has taken a stand,” he said. For the second time in a row, the India Art Summit failed to bring one of India’s best known faces in international art to the four-day fair. The fair is being held from August 19 to 22. Launched last year, The India Art Summit 2009 will bring 54 galleries, including 17 international ones from 11 countries.

A statement by the organisers on Sunday said: “While we acknowledge the lifelong achievements and the iconic status of artists like M.F. Husain in Indian art, we are unable to put the entire collective concern at risk by showcasing artists who have, in the past, been received with hostility by certain sections of the society unless we receive protection from the government and the Delhi police.” Last year too, the Summit could not get Mr. Husain’s works to the fair, citing security threat in the light of cases pending against him despite demands by the art fraternity.

Mr. Husain left India in 2006 after right-wing Hindu outfits threatened him for having painted Hindu goddesses in the nude. A non-bailable warrant was issued against him. The self-exiled artist now divides his time between his Dubai and London homes. Mr. Husain’s works have not exhibited his works in the country for the last four years. The 94-year-old artist reportedly shrugged-off his exclusion from India’s biggest art show, saying “it’s all part of a 15-year-struggle.” The younger Husain said there was no legal hassle in bringing his father’s works to India. Only fanatics might create trouble, he added. — IANS

Article Courtesy: THE HINDU

ARTICLE 1157 - Art summit not to display Husain paintings

[TNN 26 July 2009, 02:09am IST] Neelam Raaj for TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: The curtains are set to go up on the second edition of the India Art Summit sans one of the best-known faces of Indian art. The canvases
of M F Husain, India's most celebrated painter who is living in exile, will be missing from the three-day fair that opens in the Capital on August 19.

The organizers, who had drawn criticism for a similar decision last year, have cited security concerns. ‘‘We acknowledge the iconic stature of Husain but are unable to put all the people and artwork at risk,’’ said Neha Kirpal, associate summit director. However, Kirpal added that an assurance of complete police protection could prompt a rethink. The art summit is considered a premier event for modern and contemporary art. Last year, an exhibition organized by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust as a protest against Husain’s exclusion from the art summit was targeted by vandals who destroyed at least a dozen frames worth lakhs of rupees.

But the artist himself appears to hold no grouse about his exclusion. In a communication to organizers of the art fair, Husain, who has been in self-imposed exile since 2006, promised his support to the event. "My struggle has been going on for last 15 years. There are over 800 cases against me and only one of them has reached some resolution in SC. I totally understand that without the support of the state and complete police protection, it is impossible to show my art in the fair," Husain said.

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1156 - Tyeb Mehta: The Pure Artist

[Jul 24, 2009] Ranjit Hoskote for BUSINESS

His biographer reflects on the iconic artist and the legacy of his life

I first met Tyeb Mehta when I was 19 and had just begun to write art criticism. Tyeb’s resplendent images, his falling figures, trussed bulls, shamanic women, and rickshaw-pullers fused with their soul-destroying vehicles, had already won critical acclaim; but had only just begun to be matched by commercial success.Besides, the critical acclaim had come couched in the colonised idiom then still current: To many, Tyeb was the ‘Indian Bacon’, a condescending label, given the palpable difference between the two masters.

Bacon’s screaming popes and twisted models are painted in their human fallibility, ruthlessly rendered as though in the body’s effluents, in spittle, sweat and semen. By contrast, Tyeb’s figures are painted in radiance, in luminous, smoothly brushed colour that transforms the death-marked bull into a symbol of resistance, the plunging body into a creature redeemed from gravity.

Image: Chemould Prescott Road
Kali III, 1989, 150 x 100cms, oil on canvas

Tyeb cloaked, in dignified silence, any bitterness he may have felt at this faint praise and tardy acceptance. By the late 1980s, he had already embarked on the series of encounters with the surgeon’s knife that would constitute his medical history for the rest of his life. These experiences did nothing to blunt the edge of his imagination, which grew more intensely probing in its exploration of the epic turbulences of postcolonial South Asia. His images became more refined and icon-like, but reverberated deeply with the intimations of violence and renewal that came into his studio from the streets and hinterlands beyond: The all-devouring Kali, the frenzied drummer, the goddess battling the buffalo demon.

I enjoyed the privilege of Tyeb’s friendship, meeting him at irregular intervals over two decades; but not often enough, I now think. I admired not only his paintings, but also his sculptures and drawings (neither of which bodies of work have been properly seen by the public), and the magnificent Koodal, the only film that he, who had grown up around the cinema and hoped to become a filmmaker, ever made.

Tyeb was a conversationalist and promoter of conversations, listening far more than he spoke, generous in his reception of fresh thoughts. This surprised people who were overawed by his reputation for being exacting in his intellectual and ethical standards. His friends came from the many domains of creative expression that fascinated him: Among them, his fellow painters M.F. Husain and Bal Chhabda, the poet Prabodh Parikh, the philosopher Ramachandra Gandhi, the architect Sen Kapadia, the theatre director Naushil Mehta.

Image: Chemould Prescott Road
Untitled (Figures with Bull Head), 1984, 150 x 106cms, oil on canvas

Our meetings fell into a regular pattern during the two years when we worked closely on a book on his life and art, published in 2005 as Ideas Images Exchanges. The title enshrines the process of art-making, as Tyeb practised it: First, conceptions swirling up in the consciousness; then, images springing from these ideas, drafted and re-drafted, painted and re-painted, tuned up until they were just right; and finally, animated conversations among the circle of friends who were the first to see the completed paintings in Tyeb’s studio.

My wife, Nancy Adajania, was preparing an extensive interview with Tyeb about his preoccupation with cinema and theatre, and I was writing a monographic essay offering a new interpretation of his art and its cultural and political contexts. We would spend long afternoons with Tyeb and Sakina, his wife, companion, confidante and lifelong protector. And while he rarely wanted to discuss his art, Tyeb was eager to share it. After a round of tea or a couple of beers, he would signal to us to follow him into the spare bedroom that served him as a studio in his apartment in suburban Mumbai’s Lokhandwalla Complex: “Come, let me show you what I’ve been doing!”

In the last two years, this had become an anxiety-fraught experience. Tyeb’s eyesight was failing. When he started making a line in charcoal on his canvas, he told us, it would disappear beneath his fingers. And yet, he would spend several agonising months to produce an amazingly magisterial, meticulously rendered image: A falling bird or a human spirit wrenched out of an animal body. Whether in his decision to renounce the options offered by the Bohra business community of his birth or in his battle against a heart pumping at one-fourth its capacity, Tyeb embraced adversity with quiet courage, never once descending into self-pity.

Cultural reporters have asked what legacy Tyeb leaves behind. His images will endure among the finest achievements of Indian art, but his true legacy lies in his life choices. Despite the high auction prices some of his paintings have fetched in recent years, Tyeb’s art embodied the enduring difference between price and value. He lived out the ideal of the pure artist. He never used his art as an instrument of social advancement and short-term profit, dedicating himself instead to the unforgiving logic of the quest for perfection.

(Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural critic and independent curator. He is the author of Tyeb Mehta, Images of Transcendence, due out in 2010)

Find this article in Forbes India Magazine of 31 July, 2009

Article Courtesy: FORBES INDIA

ARTICLE 1155 - Never mind, says M.F. Husain

[Sunday, Jul 26, 2009] THE HINDU

NEW DELHI: Eminent artist M.F. Husain has played down the exclusion of his works from the upcoming India Art Summit for the second consecutive year, saying it is all part of a 15-year-long struggle. “My struggle has been going on for the last 15 years, with over 800 cases, and only one of them has reached some resolution in the Supreme Court,” Mr. Husain told Neha Kirpal, Associate Director, India Art Summit (IAS). The IAS, touted as the country’s largest art fair, had not showcased Mr. Husain’s works in its debut in August 2008, citing security reasons. The artist’s paintings in the past of Hindu gods have hurt the sentiments of some people, who flayed his work and even attacked his house. He is currently living in self-exile in Dubai and London. “I totally understand the situation at the art summit, as this is nothing new. The entire art world has been facing this problem for years now,” Mr. Husain said.

The Supreme Court refused to initiate criminal proceedings against him in September 2008, for allegedly hurting public sentiment through some of his paintings that were dubbed obscene. “I am told that in the last four years, nobody has done any show of Mr. Husain in the country,” Ms. Kirpal told PTI. In 2008, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) ran a parallel exhibition of reproductions of M.F. Husain paintings after the IAS refused to showcase his works. “I understand that without the support of the State and complete police protection, it is impossible to show my art in the fair,” said Mr. Husain. The four-day IAS begins here on August 19 and will host over 54 art galleries from 11 countries. — PTI

Article Courtesy: THE HINDU

ARTICLE 1154 - Art Expo 2009 to be held in Mumbai on September 25

[Thu, Jul 16, 2009 13:19:21 IST] MERINEWS

On September 25, the second edition of the international art exhibition 'Art Expo 2009', is scheduled to be held in Mumbai. The curators of top international art galleries and museums have been invited to be a part of this exhibition..

THE SECOND edition of ‘Art Expo 2009’, the international art exhibition, is scheduled to open in Mumbai on September 25. This is a truly ambitious project, one conceived on a grand scale and which will be a major showcase for contemporary Indian art. The curators of top international art galleries and museums have been invited to be a part of this exhibition.

Also present will be some of the region’s biggest art afficionados and collectors, prominent art critics, as well as scores of journalists and eager-to-learn students. The idea is to project Indian art on to the international arena by featuring a careful selection of top Indian art galleries. A well-conceived programme made up of special exhibitions, seminars and talk shows will be the exhibition’s other attraction.

Last year’s exhibition was a major success. Some of the prominent galleries which featured their collections were- The Arts Trust and The Osmosis Gallery (Mumbai), Arushi Arts and Ashok Art Gallery (New Delhi), Kalakriti Art Gallery (Hyderabad), Eca Emamichisel Art (Kolkata) and Marvel Art Gallery (Ahmedabad). The exhibition was attended by luminaries of both the art and the corporate world, all united in their common appreciation for Indian art. Tanya and Arvind Dubash, Pheroza and Jamshyd Godrej, Nancy and Ranjit Hoskote, Niranjan Hiranandani, Kumaramangalam Birla, Yash Birla, Bina and Talat Aziz and Poonam Dhillon were some of the high profile visitors.

The key note address will be delivered by Kay Saachi, she will talk about spotting new talent and building a new collection. The other speaking sessions will be a conversation between Girish Sahane and Gulam Sheikh. A session on valuations where Menaka Kumari Shah from Christies would give a talk on buying art in recessionary times. The panel would consist of her, an art dealer and one artist.

Where design meets are – By Bose Krishnamachari

Dr Alka Pande will talk along with a slide show about sex in Indian artistic traditions, followed by a discussion, the other panelists are Lawyer Satish Manashinde and probably Shoba De.

Amongst the galleries that are participating in the fair are Gallery Sara Arakkal, Art Musing, Apparao Art Galleries, Ashok Art Gallery, Archer Art Gallery, Kalakriti Art Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Indian Art and AstaGuru – Online Auction House.

Article Courtesy: MERI NEWS

ARTICLE 1153 - In Memoriam

[Sunday , Jul 12, 2009 at 0003 hrs] RICHA BHATIA for INDIAN EXPRESS

Friends and fans of painter Tyeb Mehta gathered at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) on Friday to share old memories of a reclusive man, “the young dandy of Bombay”, who would tear his canvases in a frenzy when dissatisfied with the work. The hour-long session, presided by Rajeev Lochan, director of NGMA, was attended by Mehta’s octogenarian contemporaries like Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral. “He was beset with adversity. Sometimes one wondered whether he invited misfortune to his door,” said curator Geeta Kapoor.

When the discussion turned to the intensity of pain in Mehta’s canvases, Gujral saw the influence of the killings Mehta witnessed during the Partition. “But the torture wasn’t moulded by those happenings,” he added. A member of the Progressive Artist Group, Mehta gave the dramatic diagonals in the 1970s — a slanting gash that slices a canvas in two.

NGMA had been planning a retrospective on Mehta’s works since May. The exhibition, now scheduled for winter, will be culled from the archives of NGMA and Vadehra Art Gallery, Ebrahim Alkazi’s personal collection and a Japanese collector. Around 1,000 paintings, starting with the early 1960s, will form the exhibition. “Anyone who knew Tyeb would feel a great loss. He was a man who wore his greatness lightly. He had a very cinematic approach to art just like Hussain,” shared Dalmia. Six oils by the artist dominated the room, alongside his photograph taken in the 1970s by artist Gopi Gajwani. “It was taken in a party thrown by Roshan Alkazi in Delhi and Tyeb was so shy, he wouldn’t even look in the camera,” shared Gajwani

Others present were gallerist Amit Vadehra, artist Anjolie Ela Menon and Manu Parekh, Vadodara-based artist Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Yuriko Lochan and art critic Rubina Karode

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1152 - Let’s bring M F Husain back home

[Jul 12 2009 21:32 hrs IST] Jhupu Adhikari for MYDIGITALFC

NOW that M F Husain has been quoted by dailies as among the biggest gainers at the recent art auctions, it will be interesting to see if he will feature in the upcoming Art Summit — or will we see a repeat of last year’s scenario? Will some of the art galleries participating at the summit decide to put up a Husain?

Husain, in his self-imposed exile (made necessary due to circumstances back home), continues to be as prolific as ever and continues to make international news now that his friend and co-member of the Progressive Artist’s Group, Tyeb Mehta, is no more. Husain becomes even more important for India and I, for one, am really hoping that the environment will improve and this great Indian artist will not only be able to return, but will be ‘invited’ to return home. Husain’s works, despite the global slowdown in the art market, have managed to attract higher bids than estimates posted by auctioneers. In the reports that I read, it was indicated that the artist took his artistic ‘freedom of expression’ too far, demonstrating a certain lack of ‘social responsibilty’ and it is for this reason that his works were singled out for attacks.

I have a theory about Husain’s works and the titles of his early works, which were based on historical or mythological personalities. I see Husain’s subjects and titles for his works, as reflective of the pre and post-Independence modernist environment, and as the artist’s personal homage to Free India. Only those who were around during the pre-independence and partition era would be able to appreciate the mood of artists in general during this period in India’s history. Of late, I have been noticing that titles have become less important, especially for paintings that appear difficult to explain and are controversial in some way. Perhaps this is the way out for artists. By listing their works as ‘untitled’, artists are managing to keep the moralists away, no matter what the subject, while Husain’s titles such as Bharat Mata, Saraswati or Durga manage to raise the hackles of religious fanatics.

For many years Husain was known as the barefoot artist. I remember seeing him walking into hotels and auditoriums nonchalantly, to attend important functions in his ‘famous’ barefoot state. Admired for his quality of work and amiable nature, this only served to make him unusual and this ‘eccentricity’ did not stop anyone from choosing him as the chief guest.

In later years, his involvement with Bollywood stars and even his directorial efforts continued to make news. No matter what controversy followed him, we have to accept that wherever he goes he continues to make news -- even in self-imposed exile. At the recently-concluded auctions by Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart, Husain was among the top five grossers and continues to be a major contributor towards what I see as a renewed endorsement of the art world’s confidence in Indian Art.

Jhupu Adhikari is the winner of numerous advertising design awards and a painter of repute.

Article Courtesy: MYDIGITALFC

ARTICLE 1151 - Shanghai Surprise

[Tuesday , Jul 14, 2009 at 0103 hrs] Georgina Maddox for INDIAN EXPRESS

The India-China bonhomie on the art front continues. In the latest tie-up, Indian art consultant Tushar Sethi collaborates with the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai to display the works of established artists in China’s commercial capital. From today, the work of noted artists like Anju Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, T V Santosh, Riyas Komu, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra (famous as Thukral and Tagra) and Suryakant Lokhande will be showing at the museum, which claims this to be their biggest display of Indian art.

The global art market had begun to open up to Indian art at the auctions. However, the slump in the market resulted in a major price correction for many of the contemporary artists. “In the current scenario, this is an exercise to increase our buyer base — not just for artists who are with us but for the art market at large. A lot of the artists on display are not regulars with our gallery, but a selection of high-end artists,” says Sethi, a business graduate from the Regents Business School, London. He is hosting the show with the help of his father Vickram Sethi whose gallery, Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA), Mumbai, is well known. Clubbing together business with art, Tushar, a chip of the old block, has plunged into art with big plans to partner with many galleries and show internationally.

“We are trying to cash in on the growing market in China and Russia. We will also host a show in Moscow,” confirms Tushar, who has launched astaguru.com that has had three successful auctions. “We have collectors from Taipei and Russia to attend the exhibition,” he adds. The exhibition is, of course, not for sale, but is simply to generate interest. There is no curated theme this time, but Tushar intends to have one soon.

There is more good news for those looking forward to such collaborations in Asian art market. Sakshi Gallery’s Geetha Mehra, who was the first to set up a gallery in Taipei as well as have a stall at Hong Kong Art Fair, says, “There is much excitement about Asian art and a synergy between the two art markets and styles was inevitable.” A travelling show featuring Taiwanese and Indonesian artists, Jompet Kuswidananto, Wang Wan-Yu, Wu Chi-Tsung and Xu Zhe-Yu among others, will be visiting Mumbai in September.

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1150 - Art history penned in coal town - Dhanbad teacher’s book for CBSE Class XII hits stands

[Tuesday , July 14 , 2009] PRADUMAN CHOUBEY for THE TELEGRAPH

Dhanbad, July 13: A new textbook on the history of Indian art has hit the stands and the credit goes to a Dhanbad-based teacher. Kajal Kanjilal, an arts teacher of Rajkamal Saraswati Vidya Mandir, has authored the History of Indian Art, that pertains to the Class XII syllabus of the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE).

Published by Saraswati House Private Limited, the book includes a wide variety of pictures, including rare paintings. Son of Late Sahadev Kanjilal who worked in Eastern Coalfields Limited and Abha Kanjilal, Kajal took two years to complete the book. And he gives the credit for his work to his school principal Phul Singh.

“It was during a tour to Delhi that my principal learnt that there wasn’t any book covering Indian art for Class XII students and he asked me to author one. I hesitatingly agreed,” said Kajal, who has a masters degree in visual arts with specialisation in applied arts from Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta.

Winner of a number of awards in art competitions, Kajal completed his graduation from the Burdwan University. “The book, available in both English and Hindi, is divided into four parts. These discuss the Rajasthani and Pahari schools of miniature painting, the Mughal and Deccan schools of miniature painting, the Bengal school of painting and the modern trends in Indian Art,” Kajal explained.

He also thanked his father-in-law, Late Satyendra Nath Mukherjee, who was a lecturer at KC College Birbhum for his support, and his colleague Vinay Narayan Roy, who helped him translate the book.

Picture 01: Kajal Kanjilal with his book. Picture by Gautam Dey
Article Courtesy: TELEGRAPH INDIA

ARTICLE 1149 - The last stroke

[Sunday, July 12, 2009] KANKANA BASU for THE HINDU

Renowned artist Tyeb Mehta was responsible for the boom in contemporary Indian art, but his death last week leaves a vacuum in the art world.

"I paint of my times but I’m not of this time." This famous line from Tyeb probably best captures the essence of the artist and his work.

Haunting work: The famous “Falling Figure”, 1968, Oil on canvas.

The art world suffered an irreplaceable loss with the death of maestro Tyeb Mehta. The 84-year-old artist breathed his last in a Mumbai hospital leaving behind a lacuna that no amount of brush work can ever fill.

A small-town boy from Kapadwanj, Gujarat, who started as a film editor and then went on to join Sir JJ School of Art, Tyeb Mehta was hardly expected to make history by his family. But history he did make and of a spectacular sort when his paintings placed contemporary Indian art firmly in the global limelight and debunked the belief that all Indian art was only about the exotic and the traditional.

While “Kali” broke the Rs. 1 crore barrier, Tyeb’s triptych “Celebration” triggered the biggest Indian art boom seen in the last 50 years by going under the hammer for Rs. 1.5 crores at Christie’s (said to be the highest sum for any Indian work of art). “Falling Figure with Bird”, “Mahishasura” and “Gesture” went for millions of dollars each, establishing Tyeb as one of the most saleable contemporary Indian artists.

Reclusive and reticent

But even at the zenith of international fame and acclaim, the painter remained reclusive, reticent and unencumbered by the baggage that comes with success. Though he had a shot at movie making —“Koodal” (which won him a Filmfare award) — solitude, introspection and deep reflections on a rapidly changing world kept Tyeb Mehta preoccupied in his later years. Tyeb’s paintings — with their clean lines in black or rust, solid planes of vibrant colour splitting the background and figures where men, beasts and birds seemed to collide, fuse and tumble — will continue to haunt art lovers.

“Tyeb was opposed to any kind of social commentary, either overt or covert, and always insisted on the ‘autonomy’ of artistic practice from ideological concerns,” says poet Ranjit Hoskote. The theme of blood, violence and latent aggression seem to recur with disturbing frequency in the artist’s work indicating deep trauma and psychological scars. “Tyeb was very sensitive to violence of any kind. The pre-Partition riots and images of people beaten and hacked to death haunted his subconscious and found their way into his work, which resonated with the threads of sacred violence, warfare in the name of religion and ethnicity, the Partition and the scission of self and community,” says Hoskote, explaining the complex working of the artist’s mind.

Memories of a Calcutta rickshaw puller seen during a childhood vacation and the vision of a bound bull straining to be free (during the shooting of his film) worked themselves into his paintings. The diagonal remains one of the most distinctive features of Tyeb’s works and fellow artists never tire of relating the incident where the artist (suffering from a creative block) flung his brush at the canvas in anger and accidentally created the most famous gash in the history of Indian art. “Thank god for the accident that created the famous ‘cleave’— the eternal line form that both joins and divides,” says actor and painter Deepti Naval who confesses to being hugely influenced by the artist.

Indelible impact

Tyeb’s work was destined to leave an indelible impact not only on lovers of art but also on men and women of words. “When I stand before a painting, I am hit by the leap of colour, by the vivid vital violence,” says poet and author Sampurna Chattarji. “The careful attention to curve, colour, contour, light and shade and the possibility of breathing so much life into the inanimate by mere strokes of a painter’s brush is very similar to the act of writing.”

Multi-crore deals often don’t reach the artists. Tyeb Mehta spent his last years in a modest apartment in Andheri, in which one room was converted into a studio. His eyesight was failing, ill health dogged him and his precious paintings stood with their faces to the walls while all around rose the heat, dust and noise of suburban Mumbai. Though cocooned in his beloved studio, the artist remained deeply connected with the flow of life around him. “I paint of my times but I’m not of this time.” This famous line probably captures the essence of the artist and his work best.

“My first meeting with Tyeb in 1993 was a rare mismatch of energy levels. His humility shone through along with the hoarse voice, the fresh humour and the goodness. He wanted to get rid of the sculpted line in his art but being a figurative painter, was unable to do so. He genuinely loved Husain and was one of the few artists who stood by him,” says Neville Tuli of Osian’s Connoisseurs Art. Though much is said and written about the amazing strings of zeroes attached to his works, Neville prefers to remember Tyeb Mehta the man more than Tyeb the artist. “He was true artist in the golden sense that, for Tyeb, the inner voice dictated all,” says Neville.

A frequent visitor to the artist’s abode, Neville had the privilege of watching the artist as a family man. “I remember Tyeb keeping the early trussed bull for Sakina (his wife) and his children. Their togetherness — he in his usual chair, she sitting silently on the sofa, both of them totally absorbed in each other…” Neville tapers off sadly. Like so many others, he pauses to ponder sadly on the blank waiting canvases that will never know Tyeb’s brush strokes, an empty studio in downtown Bombay and a tender love story that has gone suddenly silent.

Photos: Osian’s Library and Archive Collection and Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Article Courtesy: THE HINDU

ARTICLE 1148 - Made in India

[Sunday, Jul 12, 2009] VIBHUTI PATEL for THE HINDU

New York’s Museum of Modern Art — in a festival simply called “The New India” — showcased an impressive collection of thought-provoking new films from India.

“We showed a different side of India — films in different genres, languages, formats…” Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator

Bollywood films, huge hits in many countries across the world, never caught on with Americans. Now, as The New York Times observed, “the outsize success of ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ a movie about India but not an Ind ian film, has awakened a taste for the real thing.” Not surprisingly, it was New York’s highbrow Museum of Modern Art that provided that “real thing” — a rich selection of diverse films — in a festival simply called “The New India,” a sequel to 2007’s “India Now.” Both festivals were co-curated by Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator in MoMA’s Department of Film, and Mumbai film connoisseur Uma da Cunha and sponsored by “Kent” (Srikanth) Charugundla — a Telugu-speaker who came to the U.S. in 1983 with an MBA from Osmania University, Hyderabad, wrote an innovative software programme that helped him make a fortune in real estate and telecommunications — and his art-loving Armenian wife Marguerite. They own and run Manhattan’s Tamarind Art Gallery, known for its programming of cultural events.

A DIFFERENT SIDE OF INDIA: Spoofing Superman in "Supermen of Malegaon"

That is how New Yorkers were treated to 16 contemporary films — documentaries, shorts, regional features, and three Bollywood blockbusters — over two weeks last month. The hugely successful festival’s sold-out shows drew young and old, Indians and non-Indians, the curious and the knowledgeable, to MoMA’s auditoriums. Many were so impressed they bought memberships to the museum; others hoped the festival would become a regular event. Its unqualified success led MoMA and the sponsors to making it a biennial commitment.

Fruitful partnership

It all started with the Charugundlas looking to invest in a museum project. Over tea, MoMA officials suggested the film festival for which they had not found sponsors. “We were happy that a globally recognised institution like MoMA was interested in doing a programme related to India. That drove us,” Charugundla recalls. “They wanted us to defray only a portion of the cost and offered to bring in partners. I didn’t want to be belted down with people whose interests I did not know so we offered to pay 100 per cent. Since MoMA doesn’t accept commercial or brand-name sponsors, they were pleased.” MoMA came up with the festival’s name, its concept, and the films. “We had no involvement with that,” Charugundla concedes. “It’s a pleasure working with Uma and Josh because they don’t ask anything, they just do it.”

The curators return the compliment. Da Cunha says, “You could not find better sponsors — the Charugundlas are supportive and generous, they care for the filmmakers, make them feel welcome and host events that highlight their work. Above all, they remain unobtrusive, giving the spotlight to the talent and to the event’s exceptional venue.” Siegel adds, “It is important to maintain boundaries, to avoid conflict of interest. The Charugundlas were appreciative of that. They responded generously — it’s not cheap to host a film festival which involves bringing in filmmakers, prints, and paying for promotion. What they’re doing is a testament to their passion for culture and for educating New Yorkers in Indian arts. They’ve been enthusiastic and helped bring people to the films.”

Bringing alive tribal life in "Roots"

Of the films, Siegel says, “After the success of ‘Slumdog,’ we showed a different side of India — films in different genres, languages, formats.” Da Cunha points out that she is constantly surprised by the talent that surfaces unexpectedly. “New films are being made in little-known languages in regions like Tripura (e.g. “Yarwng or Roots, a Kokborok-language film about tribals made by a Roman Catholic priest) that bring alive remote communities that we would not experience otherwise in as immediate a visual form as cinema.”

The title “New India” became the guiding factor in the films that she, as guest curator, brought to Siegel’s attention: “Films that denoted trends and forward looking ideas, films that looked at the country’s current problems and preoccupations, films made in distant regions, sequestered communities experiencing change and hardships brought about by relentless mechanisation.” Her mandate? “To choose quality films that are accessible to an audience eager to know about lives and conditions outside their own confines.” Between them, they came up with an impressive cross-section of thoughtful — and thought-provoking — new films.

Opening the festival was Megan Doneman’s “Yes Madam, Sir”, a candid, inspirational documentary about first policewoman Kiran Bedi, narrated by Academy Award winner Helen Mirren who plays a strong policewoman on a popular BBC TVshow. Bedi won a standing ovation and tremendous admiration from American viewers. Actor/activist Nandita Das’s powerful directorial debut “Firaaq”, a haunting feature on the Gujarat riots of 2002, moved audiences profoundly with its subtle condemnation of all prejudice and its surprising restraint — there are no graphic depictions of violence. Another woman director’s debut, Zoya Akhtar’s “Luck by Chance”, evoked the glory of Bollywood; Neeraj Pandey’s clever, deftly made thriller, “A Wednesday”, (starring Naseeruddin Shah), gripped New Yorkers who have known the angst of terrorism and the frustration over government bungling. In “The Voyeurs”, Buddhadeb Dasgupta told a dark tale of repressed desire, surveillance and spying, while Faiza Ahmed Khan’s charming documentary “Supermen of Malegaon” delighted as a hilarious spoof on Superman, and “Quick Gun Murugan,” Shashank Ghosh’s tongue-in-cheek Tamil “curry western,” had viewers guffawing at its parody of American originals.

Focus on children

Several films featured children: Megan Mylan’s Academy Award winning “Smile Pinky”, about a six-year-old, cleft-lipped village girl; “Children of the Pyre,” a disturbing portrait of teenage boys who stoke the fires on a Varanasi burning ghat; and “Bilal” about an eight-year-old boy who helps his blind parents move around city slums. All exposed a society’s underbelly, none lacked optimism.

Finally, there was Bollywood’s over-the-top gem, “Jodhaa Akbar”, with beautiful Aishwarya, heartthrob Hrithik Roshan, the grandeur of gold and 1000 elephants — a historic, colourful conclusion. Siegel says, “It’s important to put these films in the larger context to see where they’re heading and where they come from. That is one of the organising principles of a show like this.”

And, he’s pleased with the results: “We had enormous success in critical and public response — people on Twitter recommended films, blogs continued the dialogue after the films — thousands of people came, the Q&A’s with the filmmakers were very lively.” The New York Times, ultimate arbiter of American taste, declared: “The series could easily serve as a primer for the curious and a horizon-expander for the knowledgeable.”

Da Cunha is simply grateful. “MoMA has done a great service to our cinema by bringing it to the respected space it denotes in the U.S.” Founded in 1929, MoMA was dedicated to “helping people understand and enjoy the visual arts of our time.” It was the first museum to collect and show films, to educate people about the history of cinema.

Interestingly, MoMA’s connection with Indian cinema goes back to 1955 when a MoMA curator, visiting India, found “a kid named Ray who’s making this incredible film but doesn’t have money to finish it.” MoMA trustees paid the completion funds for Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” including Ravi Shankar’s music. “Pather Panchali” premiered at MoMA before it was shown at the Cannes festival, which launched Ray’s career and put Indian cinema on the world map.

Later, MoMA co-organised (with the Asia Society) a comprehensive historical survey of Indian cinema, “Film India”, June-August, 1981. Since then, it has shown the films of Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Buddhadeb Dasgupta in different non-Indian contexts because, says Siegel, “it is important to show these filmmakers as world filmmakers.” Now, with these two latest shows, MoMA has cemented its fruitful relationship with the new Indian cinema.

The writer is Contributing Editor, Newsweek International, New York.

PHOTOS: COURTESY THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
Article Courtesy: THE HINDU

ARTICLE 1147 - In Memoriam

[Jul 12, 2009 at 0003 hrs IST] RICHA BHATIA for EXPRESSINDIA

Friends and fans of painter Tyeb Mehta gathered at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) on Friday to share old memories of a reclusive man, “the young dandy of Bombay”, who would tear his canvases in a frenzy when dissatisfied with the work. The hour-long session, presided by Rajeev Lochan, director of NGMA, was attended by Mehta’s octogenarian contemporaries like Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral. “He was beset with adversity. Sometimes one wondered whether he invited misfortune to his door,” said curator Geeta Kapoor. When the discussion turned to the intensity of pain in Mehta’s canvases, Gujral saw the influence of the killings Mehta witnessed during the Partition. “But the torture wasn’t moulded by those happenings,” he added. A member of the Progressive Artist Group, Mehta gave the dramatic diagonals in the 1970s — a slanting gash that slices a canvas in two.

NGMA had been planning a retrospective on Mehta’s works since May. The exhibition, now scheduled for winter, will be culled from the archives of NGMA and Vadehra Art Gallery, Ebrahim Alkazi’s personal collection and a Japanese collector. Around 1,000 paintings, starting with the early 1960s, will form the exhibition. “Anyone who knew Tyeb would feel a great loss. He was a man who wore his greatness lightly. He had a very cinematic approach to art just like Hussain,” shared Dalmia. Six oils by the artist dominated the room, alongside his photograph taken in the 1970s by artist Gopi Gajwani. “It was taken in a party thrown by Roshan Alkazi in Delhi and Tyeb was so shy, he wouldn’t even look in the camera,” shared Gajwani.

Others present were gallerist Amit Vadehra, artist Anjolie Ela Menon and Manu Parekh, Vadodara-based artist Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Yuriko Lochan and art critic Rubina Karode.

Article Courtesy: EXPRESS INDIA

WORK 152 - Atul Bhalla

Name: Atul Bhalla
Title : 156 Litres
Medium : Direct casts of 9-20 Lt jars of Bisleri (Mineral water) Yamuna, Sand,Cement and Gravel
Dimension : Variable
Year : 2007

ATUL BHALLA

ARTICLE 1146 - Shanghai Show

[Wednesday, Jul 08, 2009 at 0246 hrs] INDIAN EXPRESS

Delhi and Shanghai are over 4,000 km apart, but Aparajita Jain, director of Seven Art Limited, thinks art can be the great cultural bridge connecting the two cities. “The two are cosmopolitan and bustling and the interest in art brings them close,” says Jain. She, along with the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art, Mumbai, is organising an exhibition “India Xianzai” at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Shanghai-based Diana Freundl and Delhi-based art critic Alexander Keefe, the exhibition will begin on July 15 with 65 art works by 21 Indian artists, including Subodh Gupta, Jagannath Panda, Mithu Sen and Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra from Delhi. “The aim is to present the best of Indian contemporary art,” says Jain, who will also show Chitra Ganesh and Schandra Singh based in the US.

While most artwork has been sourced from private collections, Jain had artists like Singh, Riyas Komu and Suhasini Kejriwal create special works for the exhibition. There will be a Subodh Gupta canvas painted with his trademark utensils and Sen’s two drawings from the series “Half Full” and a video-and-photograph collage titled False Friends. “These deal with issues like gender and racial identity,” says Sen. “There is interest in Indian art the world over and China is no exception. It will be interesting to explore the cultural link between the two countries,” says Jitish Kallat, who exhibited a light installation at the Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou last year and also had a solo at Arario gallery in Beijing in 2007. In the forthcoming exhibition, he will have on display a resin-and-steel installation titled Aquasaurus. Is an exhibition of Chinese art in India in the offing too? “We will take it as it comes,” says Jain.

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1145 - Artist of emerging India

[July 10. 2009 10:04PM UAE / July 10. 2009 6:04PM GMT]

Tyeb Mehta was perhaps India’s most feted painter; his work fetched more than any other living artist on the subcontinent. Despite this he lived very simply; and simply for his art.

He was born in the town of Kapadvanj in Gurajat, the son of a Bohra Muslim. When he was still young, the family moved to the Crawford Market neighbourhood of Bombay and he was brought up among Dawoodi Bohras, an orthodox Shiite community. His family were involved in the film industry and he was initially a film editor, but in 1947 he enrolled in the Sir J J School of Art. Here he was introduced to a seminal coterie of modernists, the Progressive Artists Group.

This was the year of partition, which profoundly influenced his work. The violence he witnessed in 1947 remained with him and the figures he depicted were often stark and disturbing. The falling human figure is a constant image. Over time, other recurring images emerged – the rickshaw puller, the buffalo-demon and the goddess Kali.

He acknowledged being influenced by the figures of Mumbai’s ancient Elephanta caves and the Continental Renaissance painters, Paul Klee and Francis Bacon. His abstraction also alludes to Matisse and Picasso.

He did not sell a picture for 12 years until his fellow painter, M F Hussein, brought a buyer who paid US$30 for four paintings. Financial success was never a priority. He did not take commissions; indeed, for much of his career, his wife Sakina worked to support him. Most of the Group went abroad.

For five years from 1959, Mehta lived in London, supporting himself by working in a morgue. In 1968 he visited the United States on a Rockefeller Fellowship and, apart from a year as artist–in-residence at the Santiniketan in the mid-80s, he lived and worked in an apartment in Lokhandwala, Mumbai,where he died. His friend, Arun Vadehra, through whose gallery he sold his paintings, said that such was Mehta’s dissatisfaction with his work that “for every painting of Tyeb’s that came out, he destroyed seven or eight”.

In 1991, Vadehra sold his first painting from Mehta for 100,000 rupees; less than his selling price but this was the result of five or six months work and he was close to penury.

There had been recognition – a gold medal at the first Triennial in New Delhi in 1968, the Prix Nationale at Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1974 and the Kalidas Samman in 1988. The commercial turning point came in 2002 when his huge triptych, Celebration was sold at auction for $300,000. In 2005 his Mahisasura fetched a record $1.58 million at Christie’s in New York, more than any painting for a living Indian artist.

Yet Mehta failed to get any of the proceeds. Although pleased by the recognition, he told The Times of India only weeks before his death: “I do not paint for money, or for what people think of me or of my work. I am not part of this hyped up ‘art world’, yet, this changing world outside my window is reflected in my work. I paint of my times, but I am not of this time.” He liked to point out that van Gogh died hungry.

Tyeb Mehta was born on July 25, 1925. He died on July 2. He is survived by his wife, son and daughter.

Article Courtesy: THE NATIONAL

ARTICLE 1144 - Trailing the buddha

[July 11, 2009, 0:34 IST] Anand Sankar for BUSINESS STANDARD

New Delhi: Photographer Benoy K Behl’s pursuit of documenting ancient Indian art and the spread of Buddhism across the world does not show any signs of slowing. He is travelling to Siberia and Afghanistan to shoot art in the monasteries there, and his project will culminate in shows in London and New York, finds Anand Sankar

Photographer Benoy K Behl loves his jazz. The study in his modest office-apartment in New Delhi is dominated by a stack of compact discs. But it isn’t as if he has many free evenings to spend in the company of Miles Davis. “I never get enough time,” he rues. Catching up on music is something that Behl will finally have time for once he embarks on his journey to Siberia — albeit by air.

Known for his work in exploring the art and architecture of ancient India, the photographer is going to be making a journey to the rugged and cold north as part of an Indian cultural delegation. But, he promises, he will find time to also explore Buddhist heritage in Buryatia, on the shore of Lake Baikal, Russia. The art in the monasteries there — revered by Russian Buddhists —may be of unique significance to us in India, considering this was the furthermost region to which Buddhism spread in ancient India, from the time of Ashoka.

Tracing such geographical extremities or histories is not new to Behl. For almost two decades now, he has been trying to document the spread of Buddhism; his work evident in over 30,000 unique photographs that he has taken all over the world. Behl’s tryst with Buddhism has led him everywhere — from the banks of the Volga to Japan, from West to Central Asia, from the Indian subcontinent to China, South Korea, and South-east Asia. “At many of these places people may not have seen present-day Indians but they still hold Indian culture in great regard,” he says.

Apart from Siberia, Behl also hopes to travel, this year and the next, to Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan and Afghanistan — the last two, the “only gaps” in his Buddhist portfolio. He hopes that conflict in the troubled area will mellow, allowing him to travel to the Swat Valley and Taxila, a huge centre of Buddhist learning in ancient India. The culmination of these journeys will be an exhibition of all the photographs he has taken of Buddhist heritage during his travels. A teaser of the exhibition was recently on display in London and New York, titled, Legacy Of Compassion. The Victoria &

Albert Museum, London, also screened a film by him — The Untold Story of Buddhism — at the opening celebration of their gallery of Buddhist art.

Behl’s documentation of ancient Indian art began in earnest in 1991 when he decided to take up the challenge of photographing the paintings in the Ajanta caves. The paintings, dating back to 2 BC, are shrouded in shadows as it is feared, rightly, that bright, artificial lights will hasten their decay. Behl, even then an accomplished photographer, decided to photograph these paintings without using any artificial lights. This he did by setting his camera to exposures as long as 25 minutes. The resulting rich images stunned researchers who were interpreting the works and led Behl to delve deeper into the realm of ancient Indian art.

“The paintings of Ajanta appeared to me as a world of compassion. An entire world is enshrined there. It had an immense effect on me. I found all the things one had believed in and wanted to believe in there. I was really taught by that art. It is a really good way to learn. Western literature did not come in the way of art and me,” he says.

The Ajanta paintings and other works of ancient Indian art, says Behl, prompted him to go beyond mere photography to try and interpret these. His interpretation, he says, was undiluted, “as there was nothing between the art and myself”. He adds: “In ancient times, there was nothing called Hindusism, Jainism or Buddhism. This is a European construct of a divided religion. The philosophy of religion was not limited by these divisions in India or in Asia even,” he contends.

Behl uses the architecture of religious sites in ancient India to explain this “Indic vision”. “Essentially, in Indic vision, we see the material world around us as maya (illusion). The high purpose of life and art was to lift this illusion and be able to see the truth and oneness of all that lay beyond. Early Indic vision revolved around the stupa and the linga. The phallic symbolism associated with these became overpowering only later. The West began calling the stupa a ‘funery mound’. Meanwhile, the Chitra Sutra tells us that the eternal is best seen as formless. Since it is difficult to focus on the abstract, deities were created. They were the forms of maya. They are on the walls of the stupas. But when you enter, you are reminded of the formless eternal,” he says.

At Ajanta, Behl says he found that the popular view was that the paintings were a “flash in the pan”. And that there was no documentation of what happened before and after these. “Sheer volumes of art are waiting to be discovered and with them, a perspective will emerge. People haven’t bothered to go to these places. The purpose of Indian art is to show grace. Even if it depicts daily life, it has a philosophic basis and great depth to it.”

Citing an example, Behl says, one of the stories that needs to be documented in India is the contribution of Kumara Jiva, a big name in Chinese Buddhism. “He was the son of Kumara Yana, an Indian nobleman who married Princess Jiva of Kucha (in China). Jiva took her son to the Kashmir valley, where he studied for 19 years. He became the greatest translator for Buddhist scriptures in China, especially the Lotus Sutra.” The Chinese government has built a statue recognising this at the Kizil caves, on the northern Silk Route in the remote Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Behl suggests that India must also “build a statue of Kumara Jiva” in recognition of his origins.

Some of Behl’s observations on the Indic vision might ruffle feathers in the academia, amongst certain ideologues. While politely saying that he “stays away from political issues”, he points out: “At some places, they are less confused than us. For example in Bali, they know that the Ramayana sets a benchmark for ethical rule. It is literature, an epic of ideas. The ancient culture of India is important in world history. European writing has perhaps undermined this.” To substantiate this he says that Ashoka is still revered everywhere from the Volga basin to Japan.

The world was less divided then.

Article Courtesy: BUSINESS STANDARD

ARTICLE 1143 - A first for Indian art, exhibition in China

[July 9, 2009] Annie Samson for CHENNAI ONLINE

New Delhi: China, which piqued global interest with its artists fetching record prices at auctions, is now set to witness the range of Indian contemporary art works in a first-ever public show in Shanghai. Contemporary artworks from India are headed for Shanghai to participate in an exhibition said to be the first-ever public show dedicated to Indian art in China. Over 60 works by a total of 21 leading artists from India including Riyas Komu and Jitish Kallat are bound for the Museum of Contemporary Art, (MoCA) Shanghai for a month-long "India Xianzai" exhibition beginning July 16. "The show will expose Indian art to the Chinese whose artists are selling at high prices in the world market," says Aparajita Jain, owner Seven Art Limited Gallery in Delhi, which in collaboration with Institute of Contemporary Indian art (ICIA) is organising the exhibition.

Article Courtesy: CHENNAI ONLINE

ARTICLE 1142 - Alexis Kersey on exhibit

Indian Avant Garde star Alexis Kersey's Virgin is showing in London until September 30th, 2009.

Alexis Kersey was born and raised in Mysore by British parents and he therefore grew up immersed in both Indian and British culture.

Inspired by his experiences, his work often melds traditional Indian subjects with westernized aesthetics. In an effort to immerse himself in the culture surrounding Indian poster art, he has always observed and worked with commercial sign painters, squatting on the pavements of Chennai (he says that much of the images commonly used in sign boards and advertising often promise a ‘Taste of the West’ through these consumer goods).

His works fetch in the range of $20,000 through to $90,000. This particular oil on canvas, measuring 46 by 60 inches, in on show at Kings Road Gallery & Tanya Baxter Contemporary. The exhibition features three Indian Avant Garde artists, Anju Dodiya, who exhibited in the main hall at this year’s Venice Biennale, Alexis Kersey and Alwar Balasubramaniam, and they unveil a new India that is both transfixed and held captive by a new consumerist works (the show is a preview for a major future retrospective of the work of India’s leading living artist – S. H. Raza). Contemporary Indian art seems to be globally perceived to be more international than many other forms of contemporary art, perhaps because artists in India express both its heritage and pictorial traditions in a multicultural, dynamic tone. Collectors include PPR Chairman Francois Pinault and advertizing guru Charles Saatchi,
www.cassletonelliott.com.

Article Courtesy: KIWI COLLECTION

ARTICLE 1141 - Mehta, famous Indian Modernist painter, dies at 84

[July 6, 2009] THE NEW YORK TIMES

His paintings broke records at auction

Tyeb Mehta, one of the most celebrated of India's Modernist painters, whose work broke auction records even as he maintained a frugal and reclusive life, died Wednesday in Mumbai, his home city. He was 84. In a condolence message, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called Mehta's death "a major loss to the art world."

Mehta emerged as the leading light of India's first post-colonial generation of Modernists. In 2005, his 1997 painting Mahisasura, an image of the Hindu buffalo-demon defeated by the goddess Durga, sold at Christie's New York for $1.58 million, the highest price ever paid for the work of a living Indian artist. It was also the first time a piece of contemporary Indian art had crossed the million-dollar mark. (Another painting by the artist sold for $2 million last year.)

The Mahisasura sale, coupled with an earlier one of a Mehta painting that had broken records in 2002, was taken as proof of an international surge of interest in contemporary Indian work, suggesting the potential for an art boom to rival China's. In a nation flush with new market wealth and eager to advertise it through culture, Mehta became a hero.

It is difficult to imagine anyone less suited to the role. A frail, soft-spoken artist who lived with his wife, Sakina, in a small walk-up apartment in a Mumbai suburb, Mehta was dismissive of the association of art with money. He had spent a lifetime living lean and would continue to. He made nothing from the auctions; the paintings sold had long been out of his hands.

He was also not the kind of artist who could make hay of a sudden career spurt by turning out new work fast. He was a slow, meticulous painter and a ruthless self-editor who destroyed many more pictures than he ever let out of the studio. He didn't take commissions, and was reluctant to produce anything on demand. Independence and solitude were, for him, beyond price.

Mehta was born in the rural state of Gujurat, in western India, in 1925, and reared in an orthodox Shiite Muslim community in Mumbai, then called Bombay. His family was in the movie business. He initially worked as a film editor and continued to make films long after he became a painter, winning a Filmfare Critics Award for his 1970 documentary Koodal, shot in a slaughterhouse.

Despite his early interest in film, he enrolled in the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai in 1947, when he was 22. The school, established under British rule, stressed the study of European art. In the same momentous year, India declared its independence from colonial rule, and the partition of Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan was enforced.

Mehta witnessed the effects of partition firsthand: He saw a young man beaten and lynched by a mob in the street in front of his home. He said that the horror of the incident stayed with him for the rest of his life. By the time he left school, in 1952, he had found the primary motifs of his art: falling human figures, bulls trussed for slaughter and the buffalo demon being crushed by an all-powerful divinity.

Some critics have speculated that Mehta's Shiite upbringing contributed to his focus on images of martyred victims. Whatever the source, his resulting art was as politically fraught as it was ideologically abstract, owing as much to Francis Bacon and Indian narrative miniatures as to Picasso and Matisse.

Article Courtesy: JOURNAL NOW

ARTICLE 1140 - In Memory...

[Jul 06, 2009 at 0320 hrs IST] INDIAN EXPRESS

Memories and moments were relived, as a gathering of artists and art lovers got together at the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi’s office to walk down memory lane and remember the life, time and work of painter Tyeb Mehta, who passed away recently. A man of few words, unassuming, progressive in thought and work, inspiring...was how those present here described the painter.

“India’s lost one of the most significant artists who made history not only by being the most expensive in terms of currency value, but also by being the true representative of the aspirations and expectations of Independent India and its people, with a judicious mix of mythology, modernity and modern techniques,’’ Diwan Manna, Chairman Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, talked about Mehta’s distinct contribution to the contemporary Indian art scene. Diwan makes an interesting observation, when he says that Mehta was among the rare group of artists who had seen the pre-independence struggle for freedom, an expectant, enthusiastic, independent India with complete freedom of expression and pre and post liberalization periods and its effects on art and its value in an ordinary citizen’s life.

Viren Tanwar goes back to the year ‘84, when he was exhibiting his paintings works in Mumbai and recalls how he was surprised to see Mehta at his show and also receive appreciation for his work — a pat on the back. “He was in the league of artists, who were not only exceptional in terms of their work, but were good human beings, encouraging, keen to interact,’’ Tanwar talks how content was paramount for Mehta. Chandigarh, added Diwan, would always have a special bond with Tyeb as it has one of Mehta’s priceless art works at the Panjab University Fine Arts Museum.

Dr Rajinder Bhandari, vice-chairman of CLKA discussed the artistic, technical and thematic aspects of Mehta’s art and its significance in Indian and world art scene, “he was part of the progressive art group and among those responsible for building the foundation of modern Indian art and evolving a new idiom. He interpreted life around him and created work which is strong, working silently, without any gimmicks.’’

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1139 - Art for a good cause

[Sunday, July 5, 2009 23:59 IST]

Mumbai: Akbar Padamsee, Vaikuntam, Achuthan Kudallur, T M Aziz, Vinod Daroz, Bratin Khan Yashwant Deshmukh... the list covers 28 artists who have come forward to showcase their works through Concern India Foundation. A non-profit charitable trust, Concern India Foundation is holding its annual monsoon art exhibition Art for Concern on July 7 and 8.

Art for Concern exhibition has built a niche for itself to provide a common platform for upcoming as well as established artists to exhibit their works. What sets apart the exhibition is that artists provide their work at a very special price. While most works are in the range of Rs15,000 to Rs30,000, no art piece is priced above Rs50,000(inclusive of tax).

"Art for Concern is an established name among the art fraternity. Artists and buyers support the organisation as they firmly believe that it's not just charity but transforming of lives by providing opportunities to help bring about a positive impact in the lives of the underprivileged," says Kavita Shah, CEO, Concern India Foundation.

To be held at Artist's Center in Kala Ghoda, the show is an ideal opportunity for art lovers to view an array of art works and collectors to build their collection. Artists like Abhay Gaekwad, Babu Xavier, DJ Bagga, Elanchezian, Jehangir Jani, JMS Mani, Lalitha Lajmi, Manisha Patil, Nayanna Kanodia, Niren Sengupta, Paul B, Prafulla Dahanukar, Pradeep Mishra, Ranadeep Das, Shanta Samant, Sreekanth Kurva, Sudip Roy, Swarna Rao, Totha Tharni, Vinod Daroz and Viraj Naik have provided over 70 art works and sculptures.

The funds raised through the exhibition helps Concern India Foundation support many grass root level programmes in the areas of education, health and community development, bringing about a positive impact in the lives of needy children, mentally and physically handicapped people, women and the aged.

Concern India Foundation has been associated with art since 2000 when it organised the first of its highly successful art auctions in Mumbai. Since then, the organisation has conducted several art exhibitions in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore Kolkata and Pune.

Article Courtesy: DNA INDIA

ARTICLE 1138 - Finding the real value of art

[04 July 2009] IANS

New Delhi, July 04: The Indian art market has a relatively short history. During that, the present moment is most important in determining the long-term financial value of an artist, says Anders Petterson of ArtTactic, an art market research group. "After the recent burst of the speculative bubble that started to build in 2003-2004, the Indian art market has undergone a significant value correction," writes Petterson in the latest issue of the India Art Connect, an arts dossier.

So where does value of art come from? On a simple level, art provides satisfaction, or utility as economists would say, and that gives it value. Satisfaction can be divided into three main categories - aesthetic, positional (linked to good art), and financial, Petterson says. It wouldn`t come as a big surprise, said the art market analyst, that financial satisfaction in the Indian art market became a dominant factor in determining and driving value during the boom years.

According to him, curators, academics, art critics, art professors, artists, collectors, galleries and dealers are all critical elements of the art market ecosystem, and it is the consensus of opinion among these players that should form the basis for the long-term value of art.

Article Courtesy: SPICEZEE

ARTICLE 1138 - The Incredible Journey of An Art Work

This is a story of an incredible journey of an artist’s art work, starting from its creation and ending in its accidental destination to an art student’s home. The work was created with much love and care, not to mention much experience, study and research put behind its creation. I painted Mahishasurmardini in mixed-media in 1984 inspired by a Kalighat painting of the same name from Chester & Davida Herwitz Family collection, an image of which was given to me by Mr. Herwitz for reference. Bringing an artwork from the Company School during the British period in India into a contemporary context was a work of admiration for the unknown street artist who originally painted the image of the Goddess Durga as Mahishasurmardini and it was also intended for a social commentary of sort on our time of mundane violence. The result was a stunning image of the Goddess juxtaposed with a photographic water buffalo head superimposed on a shiny granite surface shaped like another buffalo in front of the sword waving Goddess Mahishasurmardini in vivid photographic and water colors combined with crayon and markers. It was bought by Mr. Herwitz right away for his collection of contemporary Indian painting on its completion. The art work remained in the Herwitz collection from the time of its original purchase from me until after Mr. Herwitz passed away.

© Vinod Dave - Mahishasurmardini - Mixed-media - 16X20 inch - 1984 - From Herwitz Family collection - now with Michael Saunders, an art student from New Jersey.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art had planned an exhibition of Kalighat painting accompanied by a scholarly book researched and written by Dr. Jyotindra Jain which was also used as the official catalog for the show. Herwitzs had a sizable collection of Kalighat paintings and LACMA wanted to include them in the show. The major portion of works of both the exhibition and the book were from the Herwitz collection. Since the museum had also seen contemporary works in the Herwitz collection, they decided to include some contemporary works that were inspired by Kalight School. Hence, among other works, two of my works were chosen, one of which was Mahishasurmardini that I first painted in 1984 and then belonged to the Herwitz family collection. Another work, titled Thakorjee, was from Bose Pacia Gallery in New York, painted by me in 1998 which also was inspired by a Kalighat painting that was previously shown at the gallery. Thus two of my works from different ownerships were shown along with the traditional Kalighat paintings side by side at the LACMA in 1999. Both the works received impressive press coverage and favorable critique. The show was a popular hit at LACMA and so were my works. This Mahishasurmardini was the first of a series of three unique versions involving the same imagery, but painted differently, in different sizes and at different times between 1984 and 2003.

Mr. Herwitz often worried about the fate of his collection. He used to worry about what will happen to it after his death. He first tried to leave the collection to corporate India, which at that time was not interested. Indian museums were, during the late 1980s and early1990s, unsuitable because of the then quality of their storage facilities and their terms of exhibition He had no confidence in anyone who would inherit his pictorial estate. He often talked to me about this. For that reason he was planning to build a living museum to house his collection, first in Ahmedabad city in India and then, by changing his mind due to the religious fundamentalists’ attack on the gallery he endowed to build in that city, in Massachusetts where he had his business and residence. One thing he abhorred most was the idea of anyone selling his collection to or via a commercial gallery anywhere. He had already raised sizable funds for building a museum through auctions of a small portion of his estate. Additionally, he was loaning good amount of his collection to museums for exhibitions in order to create awareness for then not too well known contemporary Indian art in the United States. And the LACMA show was one of them.

Ironically, Mr. Herwitz died in a car crash during the LACMA show and his dream of building a museum remained unrealized. However, he managed to gift a portion of his collection to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts before his demise. But his fear became reality in a bigger way than he would have ever imagined after his death. About a year later, the major portion of his collection was sold to private buyers including an art gallery. The LACMA show was over and, afterwards, my Mahishasurmardini went back to the Herwitz estate and ended up being sold to the gallery that bought a sizable chunk of the Herwitz collection from the one son to whom they had left any artwork, Thomas, who seems to have had little interest in the collection apart from its cash value promptly unloaded his inheritance for cash. A repetition of the irony was that the owners of that gallery asked me first for contact information of Chester Herwitz’s surviving family who inherited his estate. This was by the time several months after Mrs. Herwitz had passed away. I had no idea why the son’s contact info from me was sought when it was sought, but soon I found out that hundreds of art works from the Herwitz collection were sold to this gallery by Thomas. I personally had been a witness to Mr. Herwitz’s fear of such an event, and I was saddened to know that it actually happened. Daniel, the son who had been deeply involved in the collection as writer and advisor, was disinherited by the mercurial Mr. Herwitz.

Daniel Herwitz, the son who was disinherited from Herwitz Collection estate, is a professor and head of history of art, art & design, and philosophy at the University of Michigan Affiliation(s) Comparative Literature, Institute for the Humanities, Philosophy and Art & Design. Daniel kindly and enthusiastically helped edit this article.

Not only this had happened, but also so many of my works were part of this sale including my Kalighat painting inspired Mahishasurmardini. MY works remained with the gallery for about eight years during which some were sold, some were given to charities and some works remained with the gallery unsold. My Mahishasurmardini was among the works that remained unsold.. Eventually, the gallery moved to another location and the gallery’s inventory had to be moved from their storage warehouse to their new location. Many things were given away including some art works that were difficult to sell and many things like frames were discarded in order to ease the difficult task of moving. I was offered back some works of mine that were hard to sell and I readily accepted them back. I got back many canvases, but I had seen many of my works on paper in their storage warehouse four years back that did not come back to me. So I inquired about what had happened to them and I was told there were no paper works of mine left with them. So I assumed, may be they were sold over these four years since I had seen them.

That seemed to be the end of the story only until I heard from a stranger via Facebook. An art student named Michel Saunders connected me on Facebook around few days before May 14, 2009. And after I confirmed him as a Facebook friend, he sent me an email with two attachments that were cell phone photos of front and back of my Mahishasurmardini. The Back had my name, title of the work, inventory number etc. The front was obviously the image of the art work. Michael Saunders happens to be the new owner of my Mahishasurmardini.

Now I am copying and pasting some emails that I and Michael exchanged.
The first email read:

“Mr. Vinod Dave,

I have a copy of your piece "Mahishasuramardini" and was wondering if you would give me some information on the piece. It is absolutely wonderful and I have it hanging above my bed. The piece I have is a print but it has been painted on with some pinkish brushstrokes and perhaps a blue paint marker (?). I was curious about the number of prints made and if the piece I have is an original. I have attached two pictures with the email. One is of the identification sticker on the back and one is of the actual piece. Please forgive me for the poor quality of the pictures and they are reversed. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!
Greatest Thanks!
Michael Saunders

Surprised by this, I wrote back:

“hi, michael:
thanks for email. what a surprise to see this work ending up with you. how did you get it? i originally sold it to chester herwitz, a collector of indian art from worcester, ma. after his death, part of his estate ended up with ----- gallery (formerly --- ----- gallery). did you buy it from there? it is a unique painted photograph. it has two more versions, but they are all individually painted. so there is no edition of this work. the image is similar in all three works, but they are all painted separately, hence, no exact print edition and all of them vary in size too. the one you have has provenance of being in the chester and davida herwitz trust and it was shown at los angeles county museum of art, along with another work of mine, in 1999 in an exhibition of kalighat paintings from herwitz collection. this work was included in that to show the influence of traditional kalighat art on contemporary works.
nice to know you as a new owner of my work.
best.
vinod”

Front and back photographs that Michael Saunders took of Mahishasurmardini with a cell phone and emailed to me for verification.

Then we had an exchange of a couple of more emails as following:

Michael to me:

“Mr. Vinod Dave,

I am very honored to own an original piece of yours! It is wonderful and very exciting to hear it is one of a kind. I am an art student in New Jersey studying right now. I love your work and subject matter. My work has a lot to do with metaphysics and the spirituality of existence. It is very inspiring to have your work with me.

To be very honest with you, I stumbled upon your work in the doorway of a Brooklyn apartment. As my friend and I were leaving a studio of a band that my friend was making an album cover for, we noticed a number of large frames at the doorway next to some bags of garbage. We couldn't pass up free frames so I grabbed two and he grabbed two. We ended up lugging them all the way back to his apartment in Jersey City. One of the frames I grabbed had your piece. I researched the information on the back of the frame and discovered you and your work.

As an artist, I am extremely picky of the artists I feel have relevance and are truly thinkers. I truly respect you as an artist and thank you for taking the time to inform me of this piece.

THANK YOU
Michael Saunders”

Then my last email to him:

“wow, michael:
what a story of this work's "journey". mr. herwitz would have never preferred to part with my work, but it was sold after his death. i am glad finally it ended up with someone like you who really likes it as much as mr. herwitz did.
cheers.
vinod”

Thakorjee, another work of mine created after a Kalighat image in 1998 from Bose Pacia Gallery that was shown at LACMA as part of the Kalighat Painting show in 1999.

Mahishasurmardini was created in a studio in the Westbeth Artists’ Community in New York City in 1984 (when I was living in Westbeth as a fellow of Asian Cultural Council). Then it went to Worcester, Massachusetts to be part of the Herwitz collection the same year. It was shown to many curators from various museums, artists and scholars till 1999 by the Herwitz family. In the same process, it was shown to Dr. Pratapaditya Pal in mid 1990s when Dr, Pal was a major presence in the LACMA staff. As a result, Mahishasurmardini went onto the prestigious walls of LACMA during the Kalight painting exhibition. It was still there when Mr. Herwitz passed away. After the show, it went back to Worcester somewhere in a warehouse where Herwitz’s family stored his collection. Sometime after the year 2001, after 9/11, Mahishasurmardini traveled back to Manhattan where it was originally created in 1984, but this time to an art gallery and not my studio. It stayed there for eight years, most of the time in their storage warehouse, till the gallery moved at the end of the year 2008.

The story of the incredible journey of provenance of Mahishasurmardini from 1984 till 2008, nearly for a quarter of a century, was well documented. That is what I described so far. But by mid 2009, there are some links missing and mysteries unsolved. Where was it from December 2008 till May 2009? Who had it before Michel found it near a dumpster? How did it travel to Brooklyn from Manhattan? Did someone find it on a Manhattan sidewalk dumpster and take it to Brooklyn only to dump it again? Or did someone buy it, took it to Brooklyn, and later lost interest in it and dumped it? Did the gallery also have a storage space in Brooklyn near where it was found by Michael? Or it was given away to someone who later discarded it? Was it originally thrown away by the gallery who owned it during their move? Was it taken by an employee from the gallery? Was it dumped by mistake or was it because it was thought to be worthless? These questions do not have answers, but any answer to any of these questions has one fact in common: whoever did whatever to this art work did not know its provenance, hence, he/she did not know its historical value. Its artistic value could be a matter of not knowing art from trash. What could be art is a liquid debate and can not be proved mathematically. But its historical value, if known, could be even calculated mathematically because an art work’s prestigious provenance increases not only its importance, but also its price tag. Obviously, no one behind Mahishasurmardini’s recent dumpster-to-dumpster ordeal knew the history of its provenance. Otherwise, who would let go something of value?

Notes:
The art gallery’s name is intentionally omitted as it is not my purpose in writing this article to blame anyone. Everything that happened may have been an error. I am writing this only to show how interesting story of even an inanimate object could be in its journey. Similar events have happened in the history. A Jackson Pollock work too was once found in a sidewalk dumpster. One work of Francis Newton Souza’s works was found on a Manhattan street by someone who auctioned it at Sotheby’s only for $3000 just before Souza died and his prices sky-rocketed to millions just a year later! And a friend in Westbeth Artists Housing last year found a Jean Michel Basquiat from a SoHo street (its authenticity is yet to be verified). Hey I am not in these artists’ league, but I have done good works and bad works and Mahishasurmardini is one of my many good works. And it has an impressive provenance. The point is: the stories of art works, though often sad, could be dramatically interesting. That is the sole purpose of writing this story.

My special thanks to Prof. Daniel Herwitz who kindly and enthusiastically helped in editing and making suggestions for this story. He wrote to me while sending me the edited draft:

” Amazingly I did it just now and was about to write you just at this moment. This is kismet, a lunar unity of two minds! The story is one I did not know and it pains me extraordinarily to read it. I’ve added some details to your extremely well written blog which you can accept or reject, using TRACK CHANGES. I send it to you now. This is a totally awful story and I’m totally appalled.
Yours Daniel”
When asked if I could include his reactions in the story, he wrote back: Tell them I am appalled and horrified. Best and so very sorry. - Danny

Stop Press:
This just in: The last version of this Mahishasurmardini which was created in the year 2003 has been selected by the Department of State for the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India and their mouthpiece Span magazine for upcoming 2010 calendar soon to be published and distributed nationwide in India. In one way or another, this art work’s provenance still continues to be more and more noteworthy.

One more thing that I almost forgot: Gujarati writer/poet Preety Sengupta has used the same image of my first Mahishasurmardini as an image on the cover of her book titled Aparajita - meaning one that can not be defeated (obviously that has to be a Goddess like Durga/Mahishasurmardini) which was published in 2007. Michael Saunders, an art student from New Jersy, who found Mahishasurmardini on a Brooklyn street.

- Vinod Dave

ARTICLE 1137 - Delving into Delhi

[Friday , Jun 26, 2009 at 0151 hrs IST] RICHA BHATIA for INDIAN EXPRESS

Photography is now as easy as saying hello. You take the phone out of your pocket and thumb a button. But before 2 mega pixel cameras got friendly with the phone and democratised photography, it was a fine art. To salvage it from the plebeian depths it has suddenly fallen into, the art gallery The Fuschia Tree organised a couple of workshops where software engineers and homemakers, 11-year-olds and marketing professionals walked in with their digital cameras to learn to click art.

Its latest exhibition “Delhi: Beyond The Lens” shows the Capital captured by these amateurs who attended two outdoor workshops with photographers such as Bikash Das, Nagendra S Chhikara and Sephi Bergerson. While Das and Chhikara took them through the sights and monuments of Old Delhi, Bergerson led a group on street-food photography. The workshops, says Chanda Chaudhury Barrai of Fuschia Tree, are part of a project called Dilli 6 that covers different aspects of Delhi in six workshops. “It’s not so much about Old Delhi, and has nothing to do with the postal code. We are just playing on the name. The workshops will cover six aspects of Delhi that range from fashion and markets to monuments and architecture,” says Barrai.

In Ready for Tea, a tea boy, perhaps the same age as the 11-year-old Vimanyu Devgan who shot it, balances a set of glasses as the owner looks on bemused. Piece of Luck, taken by 42-year-old homemaker Sudha Sivakumar, shows two men throwing dice on the sidewalk. “I chanced upon these fellows at six in the morning. At a time when people were still waking up, these two were engrossed in the game,” laughs Sivakumar, mother of two. Old Delhi looks splendid in certain black-and-white photographs, especially 27-year-old Akhil Puri’s Old Times that shows burqa-clad women sitting on the ramparts of the Jama Masjid, and Mohit Gupta’s Lazy Sunday.

Up next is a fashion photography workshop conducted by Munish Khanna, Anil Chawla and Chandan Ahuja and enrolment is on till June 30. In January next year, Barrai plans to hold an exhibition where images selected from all the six workshops, through popular voting, will be put up in the gallery. The four-day workshop costs Rs 4,000 per person.

The exhibition is on at Fuschia Tree till July 15. Contact 46581263

Article Courtesy: INDIAN EXPRESS

ARTICLE 1136 - In full form

[Fri, Jul 3 2009. 9:40 PM IST] Himanshu Bhagat for LIVEMINT

KG Subramanyan’s new works stand out for their quality and quantity

The sense of anticipation at getting K.G. Subramanyan at the other end of the line from Santiniketan was short-lived. “This sort of thing irritates me,” said the doyen of Indian art—who turned 85 in February —when requested to “say something” about his latest set of artworks on display. As he explained, he had made them for people to see and would rather hear what they thought of his works.

The occasion for the call was his ongoing show in Kolkata, The Magic of Making: Recent Artworks by K.G. Subramanyan, which has been hosted jointly by three galleries—Aakriti, Akar Prakar and Seagull. It was, he said, “a follow-up of sorts” to the successful show organized in February by his long-time publisher, Naveen Kishore of Seagull Books, in Santiniketan to mark the 85th birthday of the painter, sculptor, muralist, art historian, teacher and writer.

Subramanyan has had a long and close association with Santiniketan. After his release from prison in the mid-1940s—he had been arrested in 1942 for taking part in the Quit India movement—his parents sent him there, giving him the opportunity to study under masters such as Nandalal Bose, Binode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. He went back to his alma mater in 1980 as professor and taught there till 1989, when he was appointed professor emeritus. As an artist, Subramanyan is acknowledged for having successfully blended Indian folk art traditions with modernism as well as for exploring and experimenting with indigenous crafts such as weaving and toymaking—bridging, in the process, the gap between “the artist and the artisan”.

The bridging of diverse styles and skills is much in evidence in The Magic of Making, which features works on paper, reverse painting on acrylic sheet, canvases and terracotta reliefs, all made over this year and the last. Subramanyan has returned to terracotta after three decades and it happened purely by chance—someone gave the artist a truckload of clay (mati), so he decided to use it. “I use all kinds of mediums,” says Subramanyan. “Since there was clay here, I made terracotta works.” They consist of tiles, 10x10 inch each, with a relief of human faces, hands, feet and torso—some clothed in Indian garb such as dhoti and salwar-kurta—etched in a style that looks like a blend of modernism imported from Europe and traditional local art. A face in profile reminds you of Picasso; another looks like a Bhil mask and a newspaper caricature rolled into one. Nine tiles arranged together into a square, a collage of dismembered body parts, comprise one work.

The works on paper, drawings done in gouache, are playful and “light”, seemingly spontaneous, brightly-coloured renditions of men, women, plants and animals drawn in a few strokes, the diverse influences blended imperceptibly and then transcended to create an original style. Some of the works have traditional mythological imagery though overtly religious themes are absent. Kishore recalls how once, when asked how long it took him to make a painting, Subramanyan had snapped his fingers in response, saying that’s how long it should take. As if the painting—a result of many years of assimilation of the environment around the artist—“appeared” fully formed in his mind, and then merely had to be transferred on to canvas.

The exuberance displayed in his works is clearly linked to his prolific output—in all, there are about 140 works on display in the three galleries. Asked if financial considerations dictated his output, Subramanyan replied he wasn’t involved with the monetary side of things. And broke into Hindi for emphasis—“Dal roti ka paisa hai (I have enough to eat)”. To him, the show is only about displaying his artworks and seeing what people think of them.

The Magic of Making is showing at the Aakriti Art Gallery, Akar Prakar and The Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre in Kolkata till 18 July

Picture 1: Bridging styles: (from top) An untitled terracotta work (courtesy Seagull Centre); Birth of a Black Boy, gouache on paper; and an untitled work of gouache on paper (Aakriti Art Gallery).
Article Courtesy: LIVEMINT

ARTICLE 1135 - A step into light

[Sunday 5 July 2009] Poonam Goel for DECCAN HERALD

Call her a prodigy if you must, but there is no denying the fact that having barely turned 21, Bangalore-based Sohini Chattopadhyay has already caught the eye of art connoisseurs across the country. While she has already tasted success with eminent group shows, and especially as part of the art outing in Cairo on a Lalit Kala Akademi platform last year, she is now all set to make her solo debut in India with her exhibition titled Step in Light at Art Konsult, New Delhi. Comprising of twenty-six photography based digital prints on archival paper created over a period of two years, the show will be held at Art Konsult, 23, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi from July 15, 2009 to August 15, 2009.

Says Siddharth Tagore, Director, Art Konsult: “Sohini captures photographs with a painter’s eye and then juxtaposes images through varied digital maneuvering to create her own visual world.” The entire series of works have been divided into four subsets, the first being titled Time, the dressmaker composed of self portraits and intimate still lives combined with occasional seascapes. The second series comprises of pictures of found objects juxtaposed with landscapes which conceal the identity of the object and create a whole new metaphorical aura, especially in My shadow in the evening has risen to meet me. The third series captures the essence of time with pace and speed resulting in the camera capturing multiple shots of run sequences thereby heightening the idea of detached yet attached freedom in works like To Reach the Blossoms and the Golden Thread series. The fourth series titled Global Quotation juxtaposes the protagonist with various props that have a constant narrative flowing through them.

Time and hope forms the central backbone of her first series titled Time, the Dressmaker, comprising of six intimate compositions, each work capturing a moment of life. Here, she juxtaposes painted self portraiture with seascapes using motifs like a hand, seascapes and clocks. She also introduces and captures infinite space in various sequences and presents the symbolic self portraiture in significant tones of burgundy so as to create a rather personal atmosphere. Explains the artist: “As a cultural commuter, I have been constantly engaged in the sophisticated play with identity. ‘Time’ becomes a constant witness to the ever changing attire that we put forward to the world. Thus, in this series I have made ‘Time’, the protagonist as a Dressmaker.”

The second series of her work, based on photographs of various still lives and landscapes, has a more poetic flavor greatly inspired by T S Eliot. The angle of the photography in this segment not only conceals the identity of the object but rather creates a whole new cognitive metaphorical aura through strategic juxtaposition. My shadow in the evening has risen to meet me is one of the prominent work in the series which is the result of her constant experiments with digital technologies.

The third set comprises a series of images that capture the essence of action and time, arousing the quest, urge and discovery of the human mind. For instance, her work titled To Reach the Blossoms consists of an image in action which shows the great leap towards the known and the unknown freedom. Similarly, Golden thread of Unity Running and Golden thread of Freedom Run shows figures running in a struggle to free themselves from unknown bondage. The overlapping of the aspects of the run in both works and the drapery with butterfly imprints signifies the essence of floating. Yet another work titled Tracing Byways of Freedom, denotes the metaphor of the crossroads where the printed butterflies and floating birds are moving in opposite directions. One notices that printed butterflies which have wings are unable to fly as they are caught in the thread of the drapery and, on the other hand, the birds which are not caught as an imprint of the drapery are also hesitant to take flight with wings closely attached to the body.

The fourth segment is the concluding Global Quotation which is a visual commentary of the current global situation. Dealing with the ideology of protection and overprotection, the work shows juxtaposition of the protagonist with the helmet and images of leaf plates placed one above the other. The work indicates the references to the various questions raised in the context of human existence. The repeated sequencing of the protagonist points towards the understanding of existence taking place as an isolated solitary phenomenon in an uncompromising world. It also reflects on the idea that we create our own human nature through the independent view and the choices that we thereby take.

Explains Sohini: “I have been inspired by various personalities from history and present, especially T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” and its significance of the universal global idea.” She also says that Swami Vivekananda’s lecture Maya and Freedom delivered in London on the 22nd October 1896 has played a major role in creating Step in Light. Some other masters who influenced this young artist are authors Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. She adds: “The evolution of my works have also resulted due to the search of content that is on the face of it abstract, but at a deeper level symbolic, and that content is necessarily philosophical and religious.”

The curious fact present in the midst of all our joys and sorrows, difficulties and struggles, is the fact that we are all advancing towards freedom. In response to our quest “What is Universe?” Step in Light is an exhibition that reinstates - ‘In freedom it rises, in freedom it rest and in freedom it melts away’. Perhaps, an apt summation of an artist’s work who herself is a young philosopher!

Article Courtesy: DECCAN HERALD

ARTICLE 1134 - Beyond the Form

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New Delhi: Bajaj Capital Art House presents its annual show Beyond The Form; a group exhibition of paintings in water colour, oil, pastel and acrylic on canvas & aluminum, digital archival ink on canvas, mixed media on paper and sculptures by thirteen contemporary artists from August 05, 2009 to August 07, 2009 at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The show will then move to Gallery Art Positive, L -26, Kalkaji, New Delhi from August 08, 2009 to August 20, 2009. The exhibition will continue at Jehangir Art Gallery, 161/B, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kalagodha, Mumbai from August 24, 2009 to August 31, 2009.

The participating artists are Anil Gaikwad, George Martin P.J, Jagdish Chinthala, Jayasri Burman, Maya Burman, Murali Cheeroth, Nitish Bhattacharjee, Paresh Maity, Satish Gujral, Sunil Padwal, Viveek Sharma, Vivek Vilasani and T.M. Aziz.

Says Anu Bajaj, Director, Bajaj Capital Art House (BCAH): “BCAH has brought forth an eclectic mix of quality art that promises to bring a cheer for all art aficionados. There are stunning paintings and sculptures by star artists Satish Gujral, Jagdish Chinthala and Paresh Maity while equally remarkable canvases have been contributed by some of the young luminaries including George Martin, Viveek Sharma, Nitish Bhattacharjee and Sunil Padwal. Mixed media has been used dramatically by Vivek Vilasini and Murali Cheeroth who will also be presenting a video installation. While Anil Gaikwad works with juxtaposition of old and new materials, T.M. Aziz works are oil on canvas. Jayasri and Maya Burman bring alive the old world charm and reflections of folk form in their contemporary coloration. The works in the show are all unique and refreshingly special - indeed a collector’s delight.”

Says Sushma Bahl, curator of the show: “Beyond the Form attempts to focus on the underlying concerns, issues, emotions and stories that artists as creators delve into beyond what the eye can see as a ubiquitous form. Most of the artworks have been specially created for the exhibition in response to the theme and give the viewers an interesting visual and aesthetic panorama of contemporary art in varied expressions, oeuvres and genres.”

In Vivek Vilasini’s digital archival ink on canvas work titled Mind the Giap, he has portrayed General Wong Neo Giang Giap, a general in the Vietnam army who fought and defeated the French and American armies while his other work Untitled 'Holy Bible' is based on the actual existence of a Bible that can be bought of the shelves in Bangalore and online at Amazon.com. Says the artist: “Both my works are an anomaly because Vietnam being a small country could resist such powerful invasions while the Bible, covered in camouflage, reminds me of the historical period of the crusades.” The delicate irony they evoke impacts existing ideologies, and influences the cultural and social consciousness of the viewer. Vivek examines our existing social structure, various expressions of cultural identity prevalent in society today and raising questions about the continually changing global scenario that every individual battles to keep pace with.

Artist Viveek Sharma’s oil on canvas, for instance, delves into our social milieu and makes the narrative self explicit as if hidden behind the forms. The situations in either of his works are not ubiquitous like in the case of Bullet proof, the image of an invincible Chathrapathi Shivaji on the horse back signifying the terror attacks in Mumbai defended by commandos bearing the tricolour and the peace pigeons in flight, are coalesced images bearing a national identity that is distinctively Indian. On the other hand Brain wash depicts the urban and rural masses of India, their heads as repository and brains as receptacle for an earmarked product of mass consumerism.

One can see a similar aura of its own in Anil Gaikwad’s oil, pastel and acrylic work titled Shadow Becomes Reality where the light emanating from the colour pervades the canvas, resulting in a sublime and serene landscape. Says the artist: “My paintings are like a mirror to me through which I look at myself. My images are identified with certain terrain, valley or a landscape, but in reality I delve deep into an inner space, which unfolds gradually and creates a terra incognita. Thus, my canvases become a meditative place.” Each brush stroke aimed at the surface of the canvas is not innocent; it reveals and conceals, encodes and decodes at the same time.

Taking the canvas beyond the concept of hyper-real figuration and colourful abstraction, acclaimed artist George Martin P.J’s acrylic on canvas paintings titled A Touch of Elegance and Looking For Closure enact an enigmatic drama of contemporary life in simplistic urban situations. Applying a unique methodology - first by the mediation of a camera and then by a program that enables the artist to deconstruct the first image - the unity of the images are broken down to make it look like colourful patches. George Martin P.J captures the outer layer of urban spaces which reflect the post-modern sense of reality. Says George Martin P.J: “Interaction with our urban surroundings and environment is the basis of my consciousness, my ability for creation. There are many touching incidents and events that make me agitated and prompt a spontaneous artistic reaction.” The artist tries to strike a chord with the viewers by stimulating their memories, their inner and invisible sensory powers.

Inspired from the built environment, rather than the luxurious flora and fauna he grew up with in Kerala, Murali Cheeroth’s new video work is based on research on the use of pesticides in and around rural South, which is leading to some serious health and environmental issues. In the paintings, his current explorations include the architecture of the city, urbanization and urban cultures and looks closely at the idea of re-construction, infrastructure, technology, speed, change, local and global intersections and multiple layers of urban identities. Though, mainly he works on paintings and videos, he has worked on printmaking and theatre also.

Unlike Murali Cheeroth, T.M. Aziz’s Untitled is steeped in the expressionistic figuration of Kerala from where he too hails. A young and promising artist who has worked in mixed media; his characters reflect situations that represent state of mind, body, gesture and dramatic movements from life. He says: "I have never been particular about maintaining a style as experiences change with time. I accept the new environment, people and like to adapt new techniques and colors in my works."

Similarly, Sunil Padwal too works in mixed media and explores the androgynous urban male by giving him a definite form and identity. A mélange of colors, graffiti and Russian icons come together on his canvas and effectively convey the angst ridden facet of brooding mankind. He enjoys adding dimension to his works, an unusual curved surface instead of a flat one, a molded back to make the painting move away from the wall, a form of twisted metal or an old signboard.

On the other hand, femininity is the world created by Jayasri Burman who creates a balance between beauty and nature through her mixed media work on paper and canvas. Her paintings have a dream-like lyrical quality with unique sensitivity, using mythic elements - strange hybrid animals with human heads, coroneted ceremonial bird, mother Goddess or creatures of the woods etc.

Maya Burman’s watercolours are delicate and detailed with a strong fantasy element. Reminiscent of the French art nouveau tradition, her paintings have a tapestry like effect. Maya first sketches in pencil and then applies a layer of watercolour, finishing the outlines and details in black ink with a pen. A meeting ground of two cultures - Indian and French, her paintings blend the genres of Indian miniature painting and European Middle Age architecture in her art. Not only that, literature and poetry is also very significantly present in her paintings, while her typographies are predominately figurative. She says: “Painting is my life, my emotions and my pains which are coming on the paper.”

One of the most promising young painters of contemporary Indian art, Paresh Maity started out as a painter in the academic style, but over the years began to shift from atmospheric scenery to representations of the human form. Gradually the imagery and form became more and more abstract until the young painter with flourish of a brush laden with transparent colours began to create paintings of great evanescent beauty. Though recognized as a water colourist, the young painter is equally at ease with oil on canvas and so is evident in his acrylic and mixed media on paper or canvas work.

Similarly, Nitish Bhattacharjee worked with realistic imagery in his early body of work but has for some time moved to abstract art or “non-representational art” as the artist prefers to call it. For the show, Nitish has created acrylic on canvas work and his narratives may be described as passionate encounters between lines and hues. In fact, the degree of abstraction is so immense, that the viewer is compelled to question the content behind the inexhaustible layers of texture and colour as well as the frantic movement of brush strokes that occupy his canvas.

A well known name in contemporary Indian sculpture, Jagdish Chinthala uses papier-mâché and aluminum to create his sculptures titled Anniversary, Best Man, Room Mates and Man at Miami Beach. Inspired by folk sculptures, toys, acquaintances and incidents from his childhood in India, his recent papier-mâché creations are three dimensional, columnar figures, developed into busts, masks and life-sized figures. Each piece depicting the artist’s astute perception of the outside world and the fallibility of human nature are specific and unique; its character subtly revealed through clothing, facial expressions, posture and use of hands. It is the artist’s depiction of intimate and human emotions that gives his works such universal appeal, affectionately commenting on society and dramatically narrating his stories. The charm of his sculptures lies in their simplicity which is so inherently alive as to vitiate all criticism.

Among the few artists who have constantly dominated the Indian art scene, Satish Gujral has been internationally acclaimed for his multi-talent in paintings, graphics, mural, sculpture, architecture and interior design. It is the pain and anguish of homeless during the partition of the country that took shape in his artwork. Says the artist: “My work always gets inspiration from the prevalent elements in contemporary living which I use to create forms that I consider not only modern but are infused with energy and motion. ”These artists have created artworks that are bound to go beyond the expected reality and create a long-lasting impression of meaningful art!

Article Courtesy:

ARTICLE 1133 - Beyond the Lens

New Delhi: How often does a 11-year-old, a software engineer, a businessman or a homemaker get the chance to exhibit their work, even though they might be able to capture on camera a photograph that is a work of art? Well, The Fuschia Tree art gallery has gone ahead and given that chance! With a photography exhibition titled Delhi – Beyond The Lens, The Fuschia Tree brings to the city images captured on camera by a group of amateur photographers who were part of the gallery’s unique photography workshops held over the last three months. The exhibition will comprise of twenty photographs that will be shown from June 26, 2009 to July 15, 2009 at The Fuschia Tree Gallery, 201, F-7 East of Kailash, New Delhi. (www.thefuschiatree.com)

Says Chanda Chaudhury Barrai, MD and founder, The Fuschia Tree: “Three months ago when we launched Dilli 6, a series of six stylishly conceptualised photo workshops, it was our belief that if we created an environment which inspires and guides, in an experiential, interactive and fun way, most people would be able to push the boundaries of their imagination and technique to create exceptional work. And we were right! In the past weeks, I have shared the results of our first two workshops with members of the art community and everyone has appreciated the quality of work which has emanated from these workshops. Bringing this exhibition in our gallery not only means that we endorse the work which is being showcased but also a commitment to the quality of the workshops we are conducting.”

The exhibition, thus, forms an integral part of Dilli 6, a series of six photography workshops that was launched by The Fuschia Tree in April 2009 and is designed to cover six aspects that truly represent the very essence of Delhi. What makes the workshops even more unique is that these are being led by professional photographers as team leaders. Adds Chanda Chaudhury Barrai: “I am very proud to say that our leaders have inspired an eclectic group of 22 participants of different age groups and photography skill to create good, quality work.” While the exhibition comes as a welcome platform to those budding photographers who were part of the first two workshops based on street and food photography in April and May, the ongoing series of photography workshops that will continue till the end of this year will be interspersed with more such exhibitions.

Coming back to Delhi- Beyond The Lens, the participants of the first two workshops honed their photography skills under the guidance of their respective team leaders namely Nagender Chhikara, Bikash Das and Sephi Bergerson. While Nagender Chhikara and Bikash Das imparted their passion and imagination on the concept of street photography and took the group to the alleys of Purani Dilli, Sephi Bergerson led his group to explore the street foods of Delhi. The photographs in the exhibition, thus, are a result of the both the eclectic guidance of the team leaders as well as the unabated enthusiasm of participants who worked upon their skills to capture the fleeting moments that touch our hearts through the artistry of lenses.

The works in the exhibition are displayed thematically with group-wise division between Where Dilli Begins (focusing on Street Photography) and Taste of Dilli (focusing on Food Photography). Each group represents the vision and direction of the leader who has guided amateur photographers to create a body of imagery that not only follows a line of thought but also weaves a storyline into an exhibition.

What’s interesting, though, is the concept of bringing different perspectives of the same subject from the eyes of participants of varied age groups and profession. For instance, If 11-year-old student Shreya Sahai creatively captures the colors spices in her work titled Spice market, then on other hand, 43-year old filmmaker Prashant Sareen was enchanted to capture the smoke, flames and the wafting aroma of sizzling kebabs. Yet another 11-year old Vimanyu Devgan, whose primary interest was in landscapes and animals, developed a keen interest in street food after coming under the guidance of his team leader. His work titled Ready for Tea? is taken at Ustad Chai Wala, Chandni Chowk, Jama Masjid. “The boy in the picture is a helper at the tea stall. It was wonderful to capture him getting the glasses ready for the next lot of tea drinkers with a smile on his face”, says Vimanyu. Talking about a similar experience of food photography, says journalist Neha Bhatt: “I often write features on food and culture. I suppose what caught my eye about my work titled The Umbrella was the delicious, glossy red of the Roohafza, and the stunning effect of the sunshine trying to force its way from behind the umbrella. I think taking pictures of food comes a close second to eating it.”

For photo-enthusiast Manish Jaju, street photography is one of the most fascinating and challenging of all forms. His untitled work speaks for itself telling tales about the exchange of damaged currency notes for good ones, offering a margin to the seller. Explains Manish: “This shot captures one of the many kinds of business that people engage in, in order to make a living. I loved the timing of this shot, as it captures an essential moment of the transaction where the buyer has his hand inside the pocket to pull out some money in damaged condition and the seller has a currency note ready in his hand to exchange with the buyer.”

Artist and designer Prateek Dubey’s work titled Locked has metaphors attached with locks and the position of the feet. Says Prateek: “Locked things are those which are precious and kept in abeyance. It’s like the potential energy. I found a simile between locks on a steel cabinet and the man sleeping with his feet locked. Since the photograph was taken in early morning, and the day had not yet begun there were forces yet to be unleashed unto the world. One can notice that the feet are dirty and have toiled the previous day but now everything is quietly locked and rested for rejuvenation.”

Avinash Kumar, a development activist, was inspired to take up photography in order to capture the life struggles of people he came across as part of his work and travel. Through his work titled Snacking he portrays the contradiction between the hard life of a rickshaw puller enjoying a cup of tea and a moment of peace. On the other hand, is homemaker Sudha Sivakumar’s work titled Piece of Luck that captures an interesting moment with two youngsters playing a game at leisure while forgetting the chaos and routine of the morning. Says Sudha: “One of the most important part of my life is the early morning routine and rituals. Hence, I was driven to capture these kids who might have wanted to try their luck in the wee hours of the day.”

While software engineer Mohit Gupta’s Lazy Sunday captures the otherwise busy lanes of Chandni Chowk almost taking a day off on a Sunday morning, finance student Siddharth Bhargava’s work titled Orange captures everything about a person apart from the face and yet conveys a story. Ansel Adams once said that “there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs” - and these works in the exhibition are indeed good photographs. The show thus celebrates the old and the new, the raw and the refined, the hot and the cold, amongst all those things that makes Delhi the space that it is – beloved of those who live in it and an alluring mystery to those who come to visit.

The Fuschia Tree exhibition 'Delhi – Beyond the Lens'
201, F-7 East of Kailash
New Delhi, Delhi 110065
Article Courtesy: ILAAKA

EXHIBIT 67 - After Color at Bose Pacia

Name: Pushpamala N
Title: The Popular Series: Lady in Moonlight from the photo-performance project 'Native Women of South India: Manners and Customs', Bangalore 2000-2004
Medium: C print on metallic paper
Size: 18 x 12 1/2 inches

After Color: Curated by amani olu
Artists: Michael Bühler-Rose, Talia Chetrit, Matthew Gamber, Stephen Gill, Adrien Missika, Pushpamala N, Arthur Ou, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen and Michael Vahrenwald
July 8 – August 21, 2009

Press preview: Wednesday, July 8, 4 – 6
Panel discussion: Wednesday, July 15, 6 – 8

July 2009 New York – Bose Pacia presents After Color curated by amani olu from July 8 – August 21, 2009. The gallery is located at 508 West 26th Street on the 11th Floor, in the Chelsea district of New York City. The gallery's summer hours are Monday through Friday from 11 to 6. There will be an opening reception on Wednesday, July 8th from 6 to 9 pm. The public is invited.

After Color examines how artists employ conceptual black-and-white photography to strengthen their ideas and how such usage comments on the dominance of large-scale, color photography as seen in the contemporary art world over the last 25 years.

In their work, Michael Bühler-Rose, Talia Chetrit and Noel Rodo-Vankeulen raise questions about medium specificity. Bühler-Rose merges a photogram of the word "edition" with hand painted numbers to ask: At what point does a piece become unique, and at what point is it an editioned multiple? Chetrit reverses the photographic process by using Photoshop's gradient tool to make digitally fabricated images into traditional silver gelatin prints. Situated somewhere between the photographic and filmic, Rodo-Vankeulen's mystical and pulsating animated GIFs breathe life into banal and often stilted images.

Name: Matthew Gamber
Title: Untitled (Chalkboard 4), 2006
Medium: Archival inkjet print
Size: 40 x 50 inches
Edition of 3

In a reference to abstract expressionistic painting, Matthew Gamber's photographs of excessively used chalkboards suggest a kinship between the chalkboard and film photography's recording capabilities. Stephen Gill's typological still lifes of discarded betting slips are formal studies of composition and shape. Using South Indian female archetypes as her subject, Pushpamala N playfully restages the representation of women in photography, whether it is documentary, anthropological or art historical.

Name: Michael Vahrenwald
Title: New Horizons
Medium: Silver gelatin print
Size: 16 x 24 inches
Edition of 5 +2 AP

Finally, Adrien Missika, Arthur Ou and Michael Vahrenwald redefine landscape photography. Missika transforms the Grand Canyon into small, quarter sized landscapes that mimic floating planets. Ou experiments with the transparency of landscape photography by adding decorative elements created in the darkroom to prove its flatness. Vahrenwald's photographs of depression therapy light boxes, explore the relationship between landscape and self, or in this case, create a surrogate landscape.

Name: Adrien Missika
Title: Belvedere 4, 2008
Medium: Screen print on paper
Size: 8 x 12 inches
Edition of 5

The exhibition has been curated by Amani Olu, born in Philadelphia (1980). Olu is a private dealer, independent curator and the co-founder and executive director of Humble Arts Foundation. He recently produced and designed The Collector's Guide to Emerging Art Photography, published by Humble Arts Foundation. He is currently organizing Young Curators, New Ideas II, a curator focused group exhibition that opens in August at P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Michael Bühler-Rose, born in New Jersey (1980), lives and works in New York. He received a Fulbright Fellowship to India, obtained his BFA (2005) from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and MFA (2008) from University of Florida. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Bühler-Rose has exhibited work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Delhi; Bose Pacia, New York; Brancolini Grimaldi, Florence/Rome at Art Verona and Paris Photo; as well as with SK Stiftung Kultur/Die Photographische Sammlung at Art Cologne. His projects have been reviewed in The New York Times, Time Out New York, AM NY, Black Book, The Times of India and Rhizome.org and featured in Camera Austria, PDN (Photo District News), and American Photo on Campus. His work is held in the Sammlung Goetz, Munich, and in the Die Photographische Sammlung, Cologne.

Talia Chetrit lives and works in New York. She received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2008) and previously earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chetrit's recent exhibitions include The Form Itself at Priska Juschka Fine Art and Polamar: Experimental Photography in New York, and Full of Light, an exhibition in Memory of Bruce Conner in Los Angeles. In September 2009 she will have her first solo exhibition at Renwick Gallery, New York. Chetrit's work can also be seen in The Collector's Guide to Emerging Art Photography published by Humble Arts Foundation.

Matthew Gamber earned an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. He is currently an imaging technician with Preservation & Imaging at Harvard University, and Editor-in-Chief of Big RED & Shiny. He has taught at Savannah College of Art & Design, Art Institute of Boston/Lesley University, College of the Holy Cross, and Massachusetts College of Art & Design.

Stephen Gill (born in 1971) lives and works in London. His work has been widely exhibited and is included in various international collections and is the subject of twelve photography books.

Adrien Missika, born in Paris (1981), lives and works in Lausanne, Geneva, and Paris. Missika studied at the University of art and design Lausanne (écal) from 2003-2007 and is the co-founder / co-curator of artist-run space Galerie 1m3, Lausanne, since 2006. His work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo Paris, Centre d'art contemporain Geneva, Rencontres d'Arles 2009 and Zoo Art Fair, London.

Pushpamala N lives and works in Bangalore and New Delhi, India. Pushpamala's work explores alternate ways of viewing, seeing and being seen through her performance photography and video works. An internationally lauded artist, Pushpamala's work is included in major private and institutional collections of contemporary art and has been recently exhibited at the Newark Museum, Espace Croise in Roubaix, France and Daimler Chrysler Contemporary, Berlin. Her work will next be included in an exhibition scheduled to open at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2011.

Noel Rodo-Vankeulen is a photographer and writer born in Toronto, Ontario (1982) and is currently based in Brampton, Ontario. His work has been included in many international exhibitions and his photographs and handmade artist books reside in numerous private collections worldwide. Rodo-Vankeulen has an OCC from Sheridan College and is currently completing his last year in Toronto's York University BFA program.

Arthur Ou lives and works in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include To Preserve, To Elevate, To Cancel at Hudson Franklin, New York (2007), On Every New Thing There Lies Already the Shadow of Annihilation at IT Park Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2005), and Faces at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2000). His work has been featured in exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, London, Vancouver, Innsbruck, Dresden and Beijing, and featured in publications including Blind Spot, Art On Paper, and Art in America. He is an Assistant Professor at Parsons the New School for Design.

Michael Vahrenwald lives and works in New York. Vahrenwald has exhibited widely at various institutions including the Whitney Museum, The Walker Art Center, The Carnegie Museum of Art and the Yale School of Architecture. He is currently an instructor of photography at The Cooper Union and at Bard College.

Article Courtesy: BOSE PACIA

TYEB MEHTA 1925 - 2009

ARTICLE 1132 - PM mourns painter Tyeb Mehta’s death

[July 2nd, 2009 - 11:30 pm ICT by IANS]

New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday expressed grief over the “sad demise” of noted painter Tyeb Mehta and said his death is a major loss to the art world. “I am deeply grieved to learn of the sad demise of the renowned painter Tyeb Mehta,” the prime minister said in a statement here. The 84-year-old artist was suffering from a heart ailment and died in Mumbai Thursday. In 2002, his painting “Celebration” was sold for Rs.15 million at a Christie’s auction. It is the highest sum for an Indian painting at an international auction. He received the Padma Bhushan award in 2007. The prime minister said the “celebrated artist… occupied a very prominent place in the progressive art movement of our country. His creative paintings won him wide acclaim and recognition at the international level. “He was a source of inspiration to many artists and his memory and legacy will continue to endure,” he said, adding that his “unfortunate passing away is a major loss to the art world”. “On this sad occasion, I extend my heartfelt condolences to the members of his bereaved family and to his wide circle of friends, admirers and followers. I pray for peace of the departed soul,” the prime minister said.

Article Courtesy: THAINDIAN

ARTICLE 1131 - Tyeb a genius, wanted to make films

[2 Jul 2009, 1126 hrs IST] Gayatri, TNN

As the news of Tyeb Mehta's death spread in the wee hours of the day, reactions from his friends poured in.

Bose Krishnamachari, painter, said, "During one of my studio visits to Tyeb, he told me that always wanted to make films (Tyeb made a great short film called Koodal ). Unfortunately, Tyeb did not have the funds to make films. A purified figurative (life) painter, I miss him but my memory is in touch with him and his 'Falling figures' ."

Akbar Padamsee , former classmate and fellow Progressive said, “We were in JJ School of Art together. He, Pratap Singh and I would hang out together. I will miss those discussions about art the most. Tyeb was a very intelligent man. He was very analytical and he was simply the most important painter of his time. He received that acknowledgement in the highest valuation ever for Indian art, often even exceeding Husain. Critically, he was always acclaimed, but in the past five years or so, the public also had woken up to his genius, once the price hit its mark. The first collector to hit a high note for a Tyeb painting was a Japanese man named Maso Mari.” Over time, admits Padamsee, he lost touch with Tyeb due to a tendency for life to take its own course and artists to draft their own paths.

Ranjit Hoskote , author of Tyeb Mehta and curator, waking up in shock to the news in Turkey said, “He was a wonderful person, a good friend, wise and humane. They don't make them like that much, anymore.”

Dilip Chitre , poet and close friend said, “He was a great survivor, a great human being and a great friend.”

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1130 - Art profits didn't reach Tyeb: Anjolie

[2 Jul 2009, 1200 hrs IST, TNN] TIMES OF INDIA

“I’m devastated! He was everything to art!”...exclaimed a sad Anjolie as we shared the news of Tyeb’s demise. Anjolie, who had the pleasure to meet the man on a number of occasions, shares a few fond memories...

I was reverential just like the many artists who happened to share space with him! He was a different generation yet so cordial and modest. And I was touched by that virtue of his. He knew he was so special yet he was so simple in his lifestyle. When I was in Bombay, often I used to meet him at art presentations and also at home. I still remember meeting him at his home, long back when he was not so ill. It was at his home - a modest Mumbai flat, which didn’t have a lift in those days. It was a sparsely decorated home, where his devoted wife Sakina gave me a warm welcome. In one of the rooms he was painting, while Sakina gave her best shot as the perfect host. Then he came and we chatted about art and books, which made his favourite topics of discussion.

Not only his work was a source of inspiration for us but his entire persona and his lifestyle was enigmatic. His work that kept the old values alive was an absolute contradiction to what is happening in the current art scene...and still managed to rule every art lover’s art. He was at the top of the market, yet so aloof and untouched with the commercialization and busy with his world of art. The art of retaining one’s simplicity despite touching the pinnacle of popularity is one quality that every human being can learn from him.

You would never catch him on Page 3. He was a private person, who preferred his work to speak for him. Despite illness and bad health falling on him, he continued to paint – that was his dedication. I think young artists hand a lot to learn from him.

But unfortunately, Tyeb got very little benefit out of his work of art. Despite the records that his paintings broke in terms of monetary value, the bounty of the windfall was never shared with him. When he became the Indian first painter to break that 1 crore barrier in the International art arena, I wrote a letter to the Times to share a part of the profit with him. And we are still fighting to make 7% share of profit made at the resale of every painting, available to the artist.

Today, I just hope, his soul may rest in peace.

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

ARTICLE 1129 - The dysfunctional world of art camps

[July 1, 2009, 1:02 IST] Kishore Singh for THE BUSINESS STANDARD

New Delhi: Statutory warning: This column will offend those in the art fraternity who don't like holding a mirror to the truth. Art camp? Google the two words and you’ll find a lot of information about organisations that run camps with drawing/painting as their focus, intended mainly for children. Restrict your search to India and the results will be surprisingly grown-up: An art camp at a five-star hotel in Mumbai, now in its nth year; another run every year since the 1990s by an industrialist art aficionado; art camps in Kolkata, the Himalayas, Rajasthan, Kerala, or even Egypt, London, Mexico…

It’s also a scam.
To understand what an art camp means in the Indian context, you need to know how one operates. To explain that, let us say that a gallerist negotiates a deal for a week-long cruise on the Nile for seven days for a group of 10-odd people. Having made the bookings and got a good rate, the gallerist blocks passages on flights to Egypt and back to India, and then begins the task of inviting artists to be a part of this “artist’s camp”.

Artists usually take the bait. For them, it means a free holiday. Their payment? It’s not something you’ll find in the fine print, but is tacitly understood: Usually two works painted during the camp are the artist’s “payment” to the gallerist (or for the collector, who also often organise such camps).

For the gallerist, it works out to a good deal: 10 artists x two paintings each = 20 canvases at the cost of a reasonably worked out package. It helps them build up a collection fast, it could result in an exhibition, and it translates into a fixed deposit for the future if at least a few of those artists are blue chip. For a collector, imagine an addition of 20-odd works of art for the cost of a tour. It’s a win-win situation.

So, if everyone’s happy, why am I cribbing?

To understand that, let me first explain what’s in it for the artists. Artists tend to treat such camps as a vacation for which they pay in kind, something that doesn’t involve more than a little effort. But the pay-off for them — or at least what they’re hoping for — is not just the sightseeing and long brunches, but the value of being in a confined space with fellow artists, to observe techniques of works in progress, and hold discussions, which, in the absence of any common platform for artists in India, could be hugely beneficial.

Only, it rarely works that way. There are so many art camps being organised at any point of time that collecting the right group of artists is almost impossible. A few senior artists might say yes right away (south America or Africa might be hard to resist); several others will promise to “revert”. As the day for departure nears, the gallerist/collector will find that the travel agent is pressuring them for confirmations, but that they can’t offer a place to other artists while they’re still waiting for a response from those initially invited. As a result, and often at the last minute, a motley group of artists with little in common will become the “group” for the “camp”. Senior artists are usually offended that their peer group doesn’t measure up, so in a sulk they spend their time shopping, or sightseeing, or negotiating with other gallerists/collectors/curators on the side. The middle group learns nothing from the seniors but is at least sincere, while the juniors are the most excited but also the most dysfunctional since they are overawed by the presence of senior artists, and possibly their debut overseas on such luxury trips. The situation is only superficially idyllic; within the group, tempers and competition rage.

Of course, this is not always true; some art camps that are professionally curated add immense value to the system, and to the process of art dissemination in India. Only, these are the exception and not yet the rule.

Let me explain further: When the atmosphere is strained, when artists want to pack in as much from their trip as possible — and art is only a fractional part of it — but since they are aware of their obligation, they know they must fulfill it. Therefore, what you will get is hastily painted canvases, sometimes with the local art or destination as a reference point. But no great art has ever emerged from an art camp. Where is the time for it anyway?

So long as a collector or a corporate office or a hotel chain wants to leverage this for themselves, that is fine. But it becomes a problem when such art comes into the market. For art is also about quality. And consistency. “Camp” art, on the other hand, is art in a hurry, and less than likely to measure up to what an artist paints in his own studio. Curated art camps aside, I can understand why some collectors might want to organise them, why even some gallerists might opt for them (not all galleries are guilty of this avariciousness), but I cannot understand why almost all artists I know are ready to pimp their talent for a mere holiday.

And now I fear they’ll never tell me anyway.

Article Courtesy: BUSINESS STANDARD

ARTICLE 1128 - Success came late to Tyeb: MF Husain

[2 Jul 2009, 1138 hrs IST] RITU VERMA , TNN

Tyeb Mehta, one of the biggest names of the art fraternity is no more. His fellow artists are deeply saddened with the news. We spoke to noted artist MF Husain about his friend...

"Tyeb Mehta was an internationally acclaimed artist and was the giant of Indian contemporary art. He painted the real face of humanity and his contribution to the world of art is simply matchless. There is nothing artificial about his work, everything deals with hardcore reality," says Husain. He adds, "He was a great human being and a cherished companion. Last I met him was at an art exhibition. Apart from that, we used to be in constant touch through phone."

Tyeb Mehta was the first painter to cross the 1 crore barrier and his paintings were auctioned at record breaking prices. Husain thinks he got his due credit very late. “Success came to him very late and he couldn’t relish it for long. May his soul rest in peace. He will be always remembered for his artworks and creativity.”

Article Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA