Sighting Sound: A project display by FICA Club

 

Date: 15 May 2013
Time: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Venue: Deepalaya School Foyer, A-14 Kalkaji Extension, Govindpuri, New Delhi 110019

The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) invites you to 'Sighting Sound: A project display by FICA Club'. The FICA Club is a group of students from Deepalaya School, who along with their facilitator Sreejata Roy, have been exploring non-curriculum based topics by using innovative and creative methods. Over the past few months the Club has been exploring the theme of sound in everyday life. The young members of the group have been discussing their experiences of sounds and their ideas about sound, and have translated these discussions into visual and performative work.
On 15 May, the FICA Club will present some of their work through visuals and mimes to their peers, parents and teachers.
About the FICA Club:
The FICA Club was initiated under FICA's Learning with Art project. The project, which began in 2009, is a collaboration between FICA and Deepalaya School, Kalkaji Extension. It is a long-term educational module that uses art and other creative resources to help children learn and explore the world around them.
About Sreejata Roy:
Sreejata Roy has an MPhil in New Media from the Coventry School of Art and Design, UK, and an MVA and BVA in Painting from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. As an artist she is drawn towards community-related projects. Before joining the FICA Club, Roy was involved with Ankur Society for Alternatives in Education, a Delhi-based NGO. She has been part of several national and international art exhibitions and residencies.

Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014 Guest Curator Announced

Dubai, UAE, 8 May 2013: Nada Raza, an experienced curator, was announced today as the guest curator for the sixth edition (2014) of The Abraaj Group Art Prize by its Selection Committee. Raza joins the internationally recognized committee which will finalize the five winning artists. Once they are selected, she will collaborate with the artists as their ambitious projects evolve. Raza will then present the finished works in a specially curated exhibition at Art Dubai in March 2014.

The Abraaj Group Art Prize is globally unique in awarding talented artists on the basis of proposals rather than completed works, with hundreds of artists each year submitting proposals.

Previous winners have gone on to achieve further global recognition as their works have been exhibited in major international biennials, such as The Venice Biennale and Sharjah Biennial 11 and international museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C. Artworks from the collection are currently on loan to key institutions in Europe, the US and Asia.

Nada Raza is from Karachi, currently based at Tate Modern in London where she is Assistant Curator focusing on South Asia. Raza holds an MA in Critical Writing and Curatorial Practice from the Chelsea College of Art and has previously worked with Iniva and Green Cardamom in London where she contributed to curatorial projects including ‘Lines of Control’ (Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University 2012) and ‘Social Fabric’ (Iniva, 2012). She has lived and worked independently in the UAE, where she maintains strong links. She writes regularly for regional and international publications.  

Speaking of her appointment, Raza commented: “The Abraaj Group Art Prize is a unique platform for emerging artists from the region, allowing complex and ambitious projects to be realized with critical support from a curator. I look forward to engaging with each selected artist in the process of articulating conceptual ideas through to the production of compelling works of art, bringing them to regional and international audiences.”

Frederic Sicre, Managing Director at The Abraaj Group added: “Not only is the regional art scene expanding rapidly but the Abraaj Group Art Prize has also grown to become one of, if not the, largest art prize in the world. Nada Raza brings a wealth of broad expertise to her role as the tenth guest curator for our prize and her experience of working directly with artists, galleries and institutions from the region will help evolve the prize and develop new perspectives. In the six years since the prize was launched, we have lent artworks to over 25 institutions worldwide, commissioned 5 publications, and this year’s winners will bring the number of works in the Abraaj Corporate collection to 26.”

The Selection Committee includes leading experts in the field of the visual arts including: Antonia Carver, Director, Art Dubai; Dana Farouki, Patron; Salwa Mikdadi, art historian and curator; Jessica Morgan, Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate, London and Glenn Lowry, Director, the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Savita Apte, Chair of the committee, said the following: “Nada brings an institutional curatorial perspective as well as a wealth of experience working in the region to the Abraaj Group Art Prize.  She will be working closely with the artists to develop their projects, while evolving new forms of documentation that draw on her experience with new media platforms. Nada’s unique approach will be unveiled at Art Dubai in March.”

The winning artists for The Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014 will be announced later this year.

Mural by K.G. Subramanyan at Sakshi Gallery

Sakshi Gallery will be showing a grand mural by octogenarian artist KG Subramanyan in an exhibition titled Wars Of The Relics opening May 9. The show will run through June 3, 2013.

In this grand mural spanning a total size of 9 feet (height) by 36 feet (width), Subramanyan revisits the rich symbols and relics of the past in his inimitable style, characterized by glorious strokes in black and white.

Wars Of The Relics

To some truth is single; to some others many. And they all devise special signs and symbols, rituals and relics to demonstrate its basic unity. But with the passage of time, these fail to fulfill this function.
They become opaque and private. Instead of leading the human being to a vision of the total truth underlying even the differences they do the opposite, distancing person from person and bringing in
silly confrontations. These bring to life the beastly features in human behavior; baring one's tools
of assault, filling ones eye's with suspicion, one's mind with hate and distrust.

 So the relics and other devices that were meant to inspire and unite, divide and cause dissension.
We see this on a wide scale in today's civilized world, pitting brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor.

 –K. G. Subramanyan

RAD org. an Exhibition at Baroda – 2013

Subodh Kerkar’s sculpture ‘Chicken Cafreal’ selected for Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2013, Australia

Subodh Kerkar’s sculpture ‘Chicken Cafreal’ has been selected to be exhibited in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2013, in Australia.  The exhibition will be held from 24th October to 10th November 2013.  This is the third consecutive time that Subodh’s work is selected for this exhibition which receives 500 entries from 25 countries.  The curatorial panel consisted of Deborah Edwards – Curator Australian art, Art Gallery of NSW, Geoffrey Edwards – Director, Geelong Gallery, Dr. Michael Hill – Head of Art history and theory, National Art School, Sydney   and Julie Lomax – Director, Visual Art, Australian Council for the arts.

Sculpture by the Sea, founded by Mr. David Handley is the largest outdoor sculpture event in the world, attended by over 500,000 people.

Subodh Kerkar’s work is a part of his ongoing series based on the ocean as a medium of intercontinental cultural diffusion.

The sculpture is executed with used truck tyres and cycle tyres.

The form of his rooster is taken from ‘Galo de Barcelos’ which is a Portuguese symbol.

The legend of the rooster of Barcelos tells the story of a dead rooster’s miraculous intervention in proving the innocence of a man who had been falsely accused and sentenced to death.  Subodh has associated his rooster with the famous dish ‘Chicken Cafreal’.  Some African slaves in the Portuguese army cooked chicken which was highly appreciated by the Portuguese officers.  They named this chicken dish Cafreal because it was cooked by Kafirs (non Muslims were called Kafirs).

Subodh Kerkar feels that his rooster could be an interesting symbol for Lusofonia Games since it combines the patterns of Goan palm leaves and the Portuguese Galo de Barcelos.  The rooster can be created in many colours and even a memento can be made based on the sculpture.

Subodh is willing to offer his sculpture for the Lusofonia Games and even work on a giant version.

Arts Consultant Anupa Mehta Launches Arts and Advisory Firm

Mumbai: After two decades in the art world and after five years of The Loft at Lower Parel, Anupa Mehta will engage, in a more concentrated way within the realm of art consulting, with the formal establishment of Anupa Mehta Arts & Advisory.

Her work in this area will include working with young collectors and new corporations to advise and place contemporary works of high standards within emerging private collections.

Towards this, beginning June 2013 Anupa Mehta Arts & Advisory will show a selection of art works by important established and emerging artists at The Loft at Lower Parel, in much the same way as an exhibition, but with a focus on private viewing. The displays are scheduled for June, August, October and December 2013.

The market is seeing a great mix of established and emerging art with new and seasoned art collectors making choices that reflect their interests and passions. Apart from art connoisseurs and students, Anupa Mehta Arts & Advisory aims to reach out to a select audience comprising of collectors, specialists, museums, architects and international consultancies.

Anupa has been a dynamic force in the Indian art community over the years and has worked with a diverse clientele, ranging from private collectors and high-profile corporations to galleries and charities.

Over the years she has dealt with various aspects of Indian contemporary art and sourced quality art for select clients while building valuable relationships with museum directors, curator, artists and dealers worldwide.

Launching Anupa Mehta Arts & Advisory was a response to a market need for unbiased advice on art acquisitions, given art's undoubted significance as a financial asset.

 “Over the last decade the need for art advisory services has gained momentum. For many collectors, art is fast becoming a significant financial asset, given prevailing values and auction benchmarks for the work of established artists, such as the Indian Moderns," stated Anupa Mehta.

Anupa’s exposure to a broad spectrum of the arts, including architecture, design, fashion and new media allows her to offer appropriate advice to clients on all aspects of collection building including cataloging, and valuation.

Clients include Jehangir Art Gallery, JSW Foundation, ABCL Corporation, EdelGive Foundation, RPG Enterprises as well as prominent individuals.

Over the years, Anupa has also served the art community in a variety of other capacities. In an effort to further her love for the arts, Anupa was keen to create a space in Mumbai that encouraged creative interaction, national and international residencies, curatorial projects and a source for exciting art acquisitions; thus was born The Loft, an arts project space cum gallery located in a hip neighborhood of Lower Parel.

She is also the moving force behind Arts Reverie, an arts residency space in Ahmedabad and Ahmedabad International Arts Festival that kicked off in year 2010.

A literature graduate, Anupa trained in journalism and arts management.

Anupa trained in arts management from the International Center for Cultural Management (ICCM), Salzburg and through various training programmes initiated by international cultural organisations.

An avid reader she has two published works to her credit: INDIA 20-Conversations with Indian Contemporary Artists, (MAPIN) and The Waiting Room (Penguin).

Uncomfortably Numb | VENISSAGE ON 2ND MAY | Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai

Tasveer presents Evening Ragas by Derry Moore- Mumbai

United Artlogistics invites you for the exhibition of Sanjeev Sinha

Preview May 1, 2013, 7.00- 10.00 pm
at Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre, , Lodhi road, New Delhi.

Sanjeev Sinha (1963). Over the years Sanjeev Sinha established an international reputation. He exhibited in galleries and museums in India, the Netherlands, France, England, South Africa and Turkey in group and solo shows. He is the organiser of the first international site-specific event in India called Buddha Enlightened (world peace) in 2006 and the second in 2011 in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.

For this exhibition Sanjeev Sinha will show 23 large scale paintings and an installation. The exhibition comes with a full colour hardbound catalogue.

Sanjeev Sinha: “My believe for making art is to tell the truth as beautiful and difficult as possible.”

A ghost like person crucified flat on the canvas and looking very serene as a baby who is asleep. It carries two bouquets, one in each hand. As if it surrendered itself to the circle of life, love and loss. 

Every artwork has its roots in its own culture since it comes out of the memory of the artist. Your surrounding is shaping the memory; the local geographical place, the up bringing, the stories that are being told to you by your family, philosophy and religion. In Sanjeev’s work you can see the deeper Indian spirituality combined with various international art historical periods. He incorporates the Indian talkative power of imagery with the late nineteenth-century symbolism or in an other painting a pop art feeling with Buddhist thangka.

In Sanjeev’s works there is a childlike innocence being counter parted with conflicting human emotions of beauty and decay, power and defeat, love and loss, tenderness, innocence and violence, all put down in meaningful layers who battle for attention with your mind. Your eye keeps moving between the layers of imagination without being able to get focused on one interpretation only.

When interpreting the paintings they function like the Vikram Betal stories; whether your interpretation is right or wrong it appears and in the same time disappears and you find yourself starting all over. They are purifying as a melancholic catharsis.

The paintings are having decorative elements, used as a pattern, which never becomes illustrative because of the underlining meaning of them. A background of butterflies in beautiful colors surrounding a more folklore painted turtle in his most vulnerable position showing a landscape with a Barbie doll in his belly. Whether you have the longest live of a turtle or the shortest of a butterfly your childhood innocence of not yet being aware or affected by the reality of life never comes back.

Each of these paintings creates a self-fueled world providing you with not just beauty but a more philosophical refuge from the world of strife of the will.

–Dianne Hagen, 2013

Presentations by Nida Ghouse & Anannya Mehtta | FICA Research Fellowship

Presentations by Nida Ghouse & Anannya Mehtta
Saturday, 27 April 2013 | 5:00 - 7:00pm
FICA Reading Room | D42, Defence Colony, New Delhi

 This is the first time the FICA Research Fellows - Nida Ghouse and Anannya Mehtta - are sharing their research work with the Indian audience. The evening's event would include two paper presentations followed by a discussion moderated by Vidya Shivadas, which will focus on their research practice and methodologies, key areas of curatorial interest and their experience during the residency in London.

The FICA Research Fellowship aims to provide an opportunity for intensive research in the field of visual arts with focus on curation. The Fellowship lays emphasis on exploring innovative models of cross-cultural dialogue, and provides professional development opportunities for researchers working in the area of visual culture through interlocking activities.The Fellowship is presented by FICA in collaboration with Delfina Foundation, the Department of Visual Culture and the PhD programme in Curatorial/Knowledge at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Iniva – Institute of International Visual Arts, London.

Nida Ghouse | FICA Research Fellow 2011

The Artist as a Portrait of a Young Man*: This talk considers the place of (self) portraiture in Hassan Khan’s practice. In echoing the title of James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, it locates the significance of Khan’s formative years to the relationship of an artist to art history. But the title is also in fact a twist on the original and suggests a collapse between the artist and his portrait. This collapse can be seen as indicative of a certain elusive and yet unmistakable tension that often surfaces between ‘the persona of the artist’ and ‘the boundary of the work’ in much of Khan’s oeuvre. While this is not only obvious but also unavoidable in works like 17 and in AUC, stuffedpigfollies, or the boy in The Alphabet Book, which are all portraits of the artist, it also extends to others such as GBRL, G.R.A.H.A.M., and Nine Lessons I Learnt from Sherif el-Azma, which are portraits of others. In some of these latter works, there is, unknown to the viewer, a very specific contract that exists between the artist and his “sitter”, and it is only through the exercise of this contract, that has been established by the artist figure, that the portrait of the sitter gets produced. The artist becomes present in his portrait of another.

Nida Ghouse is a writer and a curator. Recently, she curated Melik Ohanian: In the Desert of Images at the Mumbai Art Room, and published Don’t Drink the Sea Water: On Madness and the Mediterranean in the online ArteEast Quarterly.

* This talk develops a section of an essay commissioned by November Paynter, Associate Director of Research and Programmes at SALT Istanbul, and Giovanni Carmine, Director of Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen for an upcoming monograph on Hassan Khan.

Anannya Mehtta | FICA Research Fellow 2012

Mehtta's presentation will be a review as well as a sharing of her experiences at the residency in London. The talk proposes to be a thought-mapping exercise where she will present various projects that she had encountered and ideas she is looking to pursue. The presentation would be a survey of potentialities of ways of curating and researching ideas, and encompassing them in a practice.

Anannya Mehtta completed her Masters in Political Science from Delhi University, and has received a diploma in filmmaking from PCFE Prague. In 2005 she received a Sarai fellowship to study non-commercial film viewing cultures in Delhi. As an independent filmmaker she has directed, scripted and produced several documentaries and short films. She joined the Devi Art Foundation in 2010, and has been the Assistant Curator there since.

FOUNDATION FOR INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ART (FICA)
D-53, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024, India
T +91 11 46103550/51 | E info@ficart.org | W  www.ficart.org 

 FICA Reading Room
D-42 Defence Colony, New Delhi – 110024, India
T +91 11 46594456

Mario Pfeifer | Presented by Project 88 and Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai | Preview: Saturday, April 27, 2013 | 6.00 - 9.00 pm

The Seagull Foundation for the Arts cordially invites you to the opening of Shaping Clay | recent works by G. Reghu at Visual Arts Gallery

The Seagull Foundation for the Arts cordially invites you to the opening of

Shaping Clay | recent works by G. Reghu

Friday, 26 April 2013, 6 p.m.
at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi – 110003

The artist will be present at the opening.

Clay is a beautiful and extremely versatile medium. To learn any kind of sculpture you primarily need to understand how to use clay. Moulding bronze sculptures also requires a basic clay structuring and the best thing about clay is that there is a direct contact between the artist and the material that he uses. In almost every other medium, there is a tool that comes in between the two—for instance, you need a chisel for stone and wood—but it is only with clay that you can feel the work taking shape under your fingertips. —G. Reghu

Private View l Message to Zero | first ever solo of Amitabh Kumar at The Guild

-->

Message to Zero
Amitabh Kumar
The Guild
April 13 – June 29, 2013
Preview, Friday, April 12, 2013 6:00 pm until 9.00 pm
www.guildindia.com

The Guild Art Gallery is delighted to present ‘Message to Zero’, first ever solo exhibition of Amitabh Kumar previewing at The Guild on Friday, April 12, 2013.

I catch the artist at the end of a long day at work. He is washing the paint off of his face.

Amitabh: What is the show about?

Amitabh: The project is a series of propositions to the public. We use the precision of a contemporary art display site to give them a sharper edge.

A: What do you mean by that?

A: A surgical table where I add a thin layer in addition to the constructs, triggers and affects that uplift the urban site from one of mere materiality.

A: Please elaborate?

A: The skin of the city is alive and won't let itself be marked so easily. It's evasive and tricky. But it is also one of the easiest ingredients to access if we want to reconstruct it. This project is an experiment to mark the city and make the marking mark you.

A: Mark what?

A: Use the drawings and it's presence on the walls of the city to create newer possibilities for it’s reconstruction.

A: What if I do not want to reconstruct?

A: Everyone does it the minute we try and remember. Each memory is a reconstruction.

A: But all I see are these big drawings. Where are the marking in the city?

A: The drawings you see inside the gallery are simulations of the Murals outside. They create a constellation of images that are crucial in triggering an update in the way the urban site in question is re-imagined.

A:  And the site is?

A: This time it's Mumbai. And accompanying the images is documentation of about 50 murals that I have made across it. Every drawing is repeated about 8 times. This repetition across sites creates a route. A map of this route is made and the viewer is egged on to chart it. There are 8 maps.

A: When did you make the Mural's?

A: Early April.

A: And the Drawings?

A: Same time.

A:  That's a lot of work.

(Washes face)

A: So, the documentation could also be fake?

A: That depends on your stake involved in its authenticity.

A: I don’t understand.

A: Neither do I.

Amitabh Kumar is a designer/artist from New Delhi, graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda and has worked as a part of the Sarai Media Lab (2006 -2010) where he researched and made comics, programmed events, designed books and co-curated an experimental art space. He is visiting faculty to the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and is an initiating member of the Delhi based comics ensemble, The Pao Collective. Amitabh Kumar curated City as Studio along with Magda Kardasz at Zacheta National Art Gallery, Poland, 2011 and co-curated and participated in Sarai City as Studio EXB series, 2010. His few selected shows include Glitch Frame Lollipop, Lattitude 28, New Delhi, 2012; On the Sidereal, residency and exhibition curated by Prayas Abhinav at The Guild, 2012; invited as a guest artist for the London- Delhi 2010 – 2012: Artist Lab (Watermans, London).

Amitabh Kumar was invited along with his colleagues to do large scale murals for Kochi  Muziris Biennale, on the Aspinwall House, 2012; at various locations in Pune by Pune Biennale, 2012; a public mural for Khoj Das Tak, 2012; at Sua House by a private collector, 2013; designed and executed mural ‘Dilemma of the Techno hero’ for the Information Society Seminar in the Sarai-CSDS compound, 2006.

Hasta manana..... @ Gallery Threshold

Time, Space and Memories @ Exhibit 320

Book Launch | TRACE RETRACE: Paintings, Nilima Sheikh | Friday, 12 April 2013 | at Jnanapravaha

Twin Shows in Latitude 28 from April 10, 2013

A Matter of Importance | April 3-2-, 2013 @ Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai

E/m/i/t: T/i/m/e to Look into a Mirror.

When Sibyl tried to hold a fistful of sand, it poured from between her fingers with the certainty of gravity. She was to live as many years as were the grains of sand that she could capture, but alas…

Time, in this context, is not a container or organizer of experience, it is the experience itself. It’s alternating texture and color, now smooth and grey, now rough and gold, is testament to its independent and whimsical mind. Time, to some, is a thin line divided between then, now and later. To others, it is a thick liquid, congealing in corners, overflowing onto oriels.

When we are standing on the line, or swimming inside the liquid, we are myopic to Time’s folly. Here are three artists that step outside the realm of clear-cut, segregated realities, and explore the condition of being a circle in a world that is square. There is humor, there is pathos and there is a plea: to regain (or lose) perspective, and reach inwards to where what we see and what we feel cannot be named. Surrender the control of meaning, the artists seem to say, open your fists and let Time spill out, you’ll free your hands to embrace something else.

Dilip Chobisa, Kartik Sood and Siddhartha Kararwal each create work that distorts, inverts or hyperbolizes the way we see and experience the world. While they remain loyal to form, they tease it. While they depict places and things, they do so through an eerily omnipresent consciousness. While they set out to say big, serious things, they utilize detail to elicit the absurd. This is a series that poses a portal with each work, inviting you within. Once inside, you do not look to it. It looks at you. You are no longer watching time drain through an hourglass. It is watching you.

The three artists use vastly different means to achieve a similar end: Dilip utilizes architecture, Siddhartha uses objects and Kartik employs people to reach at the inherent madness of being trapped within the physical laws of space and time. Their rigid hold on form, then, is not simply about the materials and the matter that reveals meaning, tells their story. The form, be it drawing, sculpture or photography, is in itself a condition that reflects the limits of living. Their simultaneous sense of fear and hope is contained in their play with scale: the giant, the miniature, the near, the distant, the horizontal and the vertiginous are laterally inverted, so that when we look into the mirror, it is really the mirror that looks into us.

Excerpt from Himali Singh Soin’s text for the show

Juhikadevi Bhanjdeo | Spirit in Culture | Nature Morte The Oberoi Gurgaon | April 5, 2013

Photo Exhibition by Shantanu Das at The Great Eastern Home, Byculla, Mumbai

Gallery Maskara | Five Year Anniversary | Pancha Mahabhuta by T. Venkanna | 6:30 -10pm, Thursday March 28, 2013

Abul Kalam Azad's Notebooks Release!

Ekalokam’s first venture brings out 10 splendid notebooks that feature 150 acclaimed images by the eminent photographer Abul Kalam Azad, who is internationally known since the 1990s. Exquisitely designed and printed, the notebooks inspire your imagination and go a long way in adding class and style to the everyday requirements of modern life.

The perfectly bound 200-page notebooks of size 4.5” x 8.5” are professionally designed and printed in multi-colour offset on 110 gsm natural maplitho paper. Gold foil print on cover. Moon cycle at the bottom of each page, starting with full moon.

These lovely notebooks are an irresistible attraction to book lovers and travellers and beyond their utility value, they form exquisite gifts for friends and loved ones. By buying or selling these splendid notebooks, you would be supporting high art and lending a hand to bringing majesty and elegance to everyday life.

Join hands with us and let us enter a unique space where art is added to everyday life and art gains immeasurably!

‘Ekalokam Collective’ is a Thiruvannamalai based company specialising in art merchandise. Contact: ekalokam@gmail.com / 09894956405

The Abstraction of Myth & Memory: Group Exhibition, India Habitat Center, March 19

Photo Exhibition in School of Art and Aesthetics,JNU.

Pepper Cross Opens on March 22 in Goa

Bharat Sikka's Show in Mumbai

Bharat Sikka

MATTER
Opening on Wednesday, March 20th from 6 to 10pm.
On view Thursday, March 21st from 11am to 7pm.
A two-day exhibition at Mehboob Studio,
100 Hill Road, Bandra (West), Mumbai

Nature Morte is pleased to announce "Matter," a series of new works by photographer Bharat Sikka. "Matter" features a series of images in a variety of formats that blend studio, street, landscape and portrait photography into an image of the "new" India, an ancient culture slamming up against contemporary realities. The site of rapid change brought on by globalization and breakneck development, India is searching for its identity - trying on new ones, uneasily inhabiting traditional ones, and shedding out-moded ones. Sikka's images explore this mercurial identity from his own very personal perspective: urban, educated, middle-class, cosmopolitan and self-conscious. The palette of "Matter" is doggedly reductive; eschewing India's clichéd bright hues, Sikka limits himself to blacks, greys, whites and silvers. Sikka does not shy away from exposing every side of India's uneven visual topography. All beautifully composed, the photographs show moments of brooding and alienation, moments of sheer energy, moments of teenage irreverence and moments of macabre allure. Mixing high and low, Sikka also pits the natural against the artificial: the peaks of the Himalayas are echoed in the folds and creases of a plastic sheet, while the unsettling gleam of a masked figure contrasts with the sensuous portraits of young men and women. Sikka has revealed the ambiguities visible in his transforming home country before: the earlier series' "Indian Men" and "Space In-Between" portrayed the faces and landscapes of India with a similar aesthetic of uncertainty. Sikka himself has this to say about this new body of work: " 'Matter' is a visual record of the many things that come my way. From photographing the ordinary, to the dead and the alive, these images constitute things that evoke an impulsive emotion in me. They do not only merely determine my state of my mind, but also challenge the way I perceive my surroundings. Each of these images has their own story or perhaps none at all. From an impetuous decision of jotting a word down, to rather lifting my camera and making that picture, I am writing and making notes while also making images.

Bharat Sikka, born in 1973, completed a BFA degree at Parson's School of Design in New York In 2002. Solo exhibitions of his works have been held at Nature Morte in New Delhi (2009) and Berlin (2011), Bose Pacia Kolkata (2007), Otto Zoo in Milan and the National Museum in New Delhi (2008), Project 88 in Mumbai and the Sunaparanta Art Center in Goa (2010). Sikka travels widely from his home in New Delhi, working as a photographer for numerous projects. His work has been published in prestigious newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, GQ, Vogue India, Vogue Hommes International, I-D Magazine, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, and he has been a contributor to the Incredible India campaign.

Glimpse of Thirst by Shine Shivan | Finissage | 6:30 - 9:30pm, March 14, 2013 | Gallery Maskara

Offering: Photographic work by Anita Dube | Art Entrance Gallery, Kalaghodha, Mumbai | Opens March 13

"I have to draw my best painting in future."

-Ganesh Pyne, 2012

A tribute to Ganesh Pyne | 13 to 30 March, 2013

Pyne, who lived through the communal riots of 1946 in Kolkata, developed a style that conveyed his experiences of pain, solitude, alienation and horror. He blended these negative emotions with Romanticism, fantasy and an inventive play of light and darkness to create his signature style for which he is respected worldwide. On the sad occasion of his demise we remember him and pay him tribute through his works.

An exhibition of Ganesh Pyne's works will be displayed
at Vadehra Art Gallery in honour of the artist.

March 13 to 30 March, 2013
Vadehra Art Gallery
D-53 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024