mattersofart

Unmapped Territories

2012-01-24T14:54:00.002+05:30

A few years back, when I visited Tate Modern in London, one of the few works which caught my attention was Joseph Beuy’s work Felt Suit besides his other works on display at the gallery.

The display caption for this work reads as below:

“Felt Suit was tailored from one of Beuys’s own suits, and can be seen as an oblique self-portrait. Although it was intended as a work to be hung from the gallery wall, he did wear one of the suits in a performance in the early 1970s. For Beuys, the suit was an extension of his felt sculptures, in which the felt appeared as ‘an element of warmth’. He explained: ‘Not even physical warmth is meant... Actually I meant a completely different kind of warmth, namely spiritual or evolutionary warmth or the beginning of an evolution’.”

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It was almost two years back that Ashim Purkayastha had a solo show. His last show titled Family – Families was held at Vadehra Art Gallery between December 12, 2009 and January 9, 2010.

He rarely participates in group shows, primarily because he works at his own pace and creates fewer art works than many of his contemporaries do. So, it was a surprise to see his works in a group show which opened at Art Alive, Gurgaon on December 17. Few of his 2005 works from the butterfly series are also exhibited in this show.

But, what caught my eye was Ashim’s new work titled Inside Out, which was exhibited at the basement of the gallery.

Inside Out, as the artist has cleverly named his work, is a torn quilt. A torn quilt probably of no use to anyone and normally would be found in the dumps or garbage. There are remains of the red hued cloth, which hold the clouds of cotton inside. Ashim has, in places, stitched small patches of red cloth since most of the original material has worn out. Also additional support is given by threads to hold the cotton in place.

Ashim states that most of the people who migrate from West Bengal to the urban cities like New Delhi remain homeless for a long time. They pick menial jobs for survival and live on the streets, in the show of the humongous metropolis. Their only comfort is the quilt, which is used a bedding during the summer nights and a quilt to protect their bodies from bone-chilling cold in the winter. Most of them sleep in bus shelters and other temporary structures as roof over heads with the quilt acting as protection or comfort. The quilt becomes their protection and comfort throughout the year.

Inside Out holds your attention, as a piece of art, even without these explanations. The quilt mesmerizes you, as you spend more time in front of it. In the dimly lit gallery, the white cotton resembles an abstract map. A map made up of territories unknown to us, where the migrants belong.

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Artist Nancy Kay Turner writes about Joseph Beuy’s work:

“In Felt Suit (1970), a multiple of sewn felt, Beuys plays with the idea of felt as a protective, magical material. This felt suit is no ordinary suit, it is contemporary armor made out of humble cloth. It is also no ordinary suit since it is not a suit at all–it is art. An empty shell, without the human presence, this suit nevertheless vibrates with meaning and power. It is not a suit–it is an idea.”

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Ashim’s work becomes an exceptional piece of art in the times we live in. The artist with his magic wand has created a torn quilt into a significant work, inviting the visitor to participate in the art and not just be an observer.

Palette Presents a Solo Show on December 22, 2011

2011-12-20T11:52:00.001+05:30

Vivan Sundaram's Making Strange presented by GAGAWAKA

2011-12-20T11:50:00.000+05:30

Saffronart and Volte Gallery Present a Solo Exhibition

2011-12-07T13:44:00.002+05:30

Mumbai, December 5, 2011: Saffronart, India’s leading auction house, and Volte Gallery in Mumbai will present a solo exhibition of Ranbir Kaleka titled “Fables”. Ranbir Kaleka, an innovative contemporary Indian artist whose work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions all over the world, has achieved significant international saliency during the last decade. The exhibition will be at the Saffronart Gallery at The Oberoi Hotel, from December 16, 2011 to January 5, 2012.

Ranbir Kaleka’s “Fables” will be his first major exhibition in Delhi, since 1995. Ranbir is the only artist to be working in this ‘medium’ which is a segue between images on a canvas that are juxtaposed with video projections. His works collapse the boundaries between a painting with ‘static’ images and that of the video, moving images; he aims at creating a third visual experience. “Playing with the hyper image which I create by melding into one image the ‘physicality’ of the painted image and the ‘aura’ of image made by light, the other possibilities of opening a new space for making meaning through hybridity inherent in the new image,” says Kaleka.

Speaking of this exhibition, Dinesh Vazirani, CEO and Co-Founder of Saffronart said, “It is a great occasion to participate in the Ranbir Kaleka exhibition along with Volte Gallery, as Saffronart has always believed in contributing to the sustainable growth of the Indian art market. We are privileged to have the opportunity to present these unique visual essays by one of India’s most India’s experimental contemporary Indian artists.”

Tushar Jiwarajka, Founder and Director at Volte Gallery said, “Ranbir is a living genius, a sorcerer who takes you to his magical worlds through his phantasmagorical pieces. He is also widely acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation. I am extremely delighted to partner with Saffronart to have Ranbir's solo show after such a long gap in Delhi.”

The exhibition comprises of 5 works, 3 still moving images (video projections on canvas with images) and 2 digital prints on canvas. The artist's practice revolves around producing art in an intermediate space between a painting and running visual (video), and his body of work has been said to ‘create a seemingly living tableau on a canvas and screen’.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated print catalogue, along with a preview in New Delhi. The exhibition will take place between December 16, 2011 and January 5, 2012, at the Saffronart Gallery at The Oberoi Hotel.

About Ranbir Kaleka:

Ranbir Kaleka , born in Patiala, Punjab University in Chandigarh, taught at the Punjabi university and College of Art in New Delhi. He later obtained his Master's degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in London. He has also taught in the college of art in Delhi.

Kaleka’s paintings, both on paper, canvas, in oils as well as more recently, his video projections on canvas, are almost surrealist in their treatment of scenes from everyday life. The lines are suggested, rather than sharply traced, and the colours almost deliberately restrained. Kaleka has also created and exhibited video projection on painting, oils on canvas and installations.

The artist’s work has been widely exhibited in India and abroad. His most recent solo and group shows include Expanded Cinema at the Museum of Modern Art Moscow, The Guangzhou Triennale in Guangdong, China, Chalo India at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2008; a multi-media installation commissioned to the permanent collection of the Spertus Museum, Chicago, in 2007; the Sydney Biennale, 2008; Urban Manners at Hangar Bicocca, Milan, in 2007; New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2007; Horn Please: The Narrative in Contemporary Indian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, in 2007; Art Video Lounge at Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, in 2006; Hungry God: Indian Contemporary Art at Busan Museum of Modern Art, South Korea in 2006; iCon: India Contemporary at the Venice Biennale, 2005; Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India at the Asia Society, New York, in 2005; Culturgest-Lisbon in 2004; Zoom! Art in Contemporary India, Lisbon, in 2004; and subTerrain: Indian Contemporary Art at the House of World Culture, Berlin, in 2003.

Ranbir Kaleka currently lives and works in New Delhi, and is represented by Volte Gallery, Mumbai.

Saffronart to offer an Exceptional Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art at its 2011 Winter Online Auction

2011-12-07T13:37:00.002+05:30

December 12-13, 2011

Saffronart’s Winter Online Art Auction 2011 features 80 works by 36 modern and contemporary Indian artists with a total estimate of Rs 14.1 crore to Rs 17.8 crore (US$ 2.8 million to US$ 3.6 million)
Leading the sale is F.N. Souza’s seminal 1953 painting ‘Man with Still Life’
The auction also features modern works by Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, Rameshwar Broota and Jehangir Sabavala alongside those of contemporary artists like Sudhir Patwardhan, N.S. Harsha, Anju Dodiya and Nataraj Sharma.

Mumbai, December 5, 2011: Saffronart, India’s leading auction house, will showcase the works of modern masters and contemporary artists at its annual Winter Online Art Auction. With a total of 80 lots, the sale includes a wide variety of paintings, works on paper and sculpture of exceptional provenance and quality by 36 leading artists, and will take place online at www.saffronart.com on December 12-13, 2011.

The auction catalogue includes a wide range of Indian artworks, including a selection of extraordinary paintings by modern masters including Ram Kumar, S.H. Raza, Rameshwar Broota and Jehangir Sabavala. In addition, the sale also features some outstanding works by contemporary artists Sudhir Patwardhan, N.S. Harsha, Anju Dodiya and Nataraj Sharma. All the lots in this auction catalogue have been carefully selected and competitively estimated, to engage both seasoned and emerging collectors

On the cover of the catalogue is F.N. Souza’s magnificent 1953 portrait, ‘Man with Still Life’. Painted in the same year as the two of the artist’s other seminal works, Mystic Repast and Man with Monstrance, this work combines Souza’s powerful figurative idiom with a regal still life. Influenced by the uneasy relationship that the artist shared with organised religion throughout his life, specifically Roman Catholicism, this painting critically interrogates the notion of divine sanction through the representatives and objects of this faith. The figure, likely a priest, is dressed in a dull gold tunic with a cross-hatched pattern at the neck. However, rather than a grand countenance to match his robe, Souza renders his subject’s face almost mask-like, with large, empty eye sockets, robbing him of all traces of humanness. Symbolic perhaps of a blind leader, he stands behind an altar-like platform on which ecclesiastical objects have been placed.

Ram Kumar’s ‘Untitled’, painted in 1975, another modern masterpiece included in this auction catalogue, is representative of the zenith of the artist’s deconstructionist abstraction. This abstract visual vocabulary was neither intended to startle his viewers, nor to disconnect the artist from them and the rest of the world. Instead, it demands a pause and deep reflection, forging a bond between the work and the viewer. Transcending the familiar, Kumar’s large canvases like this one create a sense of timelessness that both emphasizes and absorbs the individual.

Also included in the catalogue is Rameshwar Broota’s epic and irreverent canvas, ‘Sewadar’. Painted in 1972, it is part of the artist's seminal ‘Ape’ series of works, which offer his satirical take on the leadership of the nation, with a particular focus on their conspicuous consumption despite the poverty of their people. Deeply aware of and affected by socio-political developments, Broota’s primitive figuration explores sociopolitical realities, pre-social existence, and the possibility of post-social man as a critique of economic and political corruption, and the excesses that cause it. Raising questions of corruption, power and justice, ‘Sewadar’ underscores the creeping rot that was consuming the country’s political establishment at the time.

Another highlight of the auction is Sudhir Patwardhan’s untitled 2006 cityscape, which communicates the simultaneously intimate and complex relationship that the artist has shared with his city, Mumbai, for several decades now. This monumental, densely populated canvas, like many of the artist's other paintings, draws from his collection of photographic images taken at various time and in various locations across the city.

The total lower and higher estimates for this auction are Rs 14.1 crore to Rs 17.8 crore (US$ 2.8 million to US$ 3.5 million). The sale will be accompanied by an illustrated print catalogue, also available online at www.saffronart.com, along with previews and viewings in London, New York, New Delhi and Mumbai. The sale will take place online on December 12-13. Collectors may also place bids via Saffronart’s proprietary Blackberry and iPhone mobile applications.

Kashi Art Gallery Opens new show

2011-11-18T14:32:00.000+05:30

Hub-4 -Last Day

2011-11-18T14:30:00.000+05:30

Waswo X. Waswo to show in Udaipur Palace

2011-11-18T14:28:00.001+05:30

Announcement of the Sanskriti Awards 2011

2011-11-18T14:25:00.002+05:30

New Delhi: Sanskriti is privileged to announce the 2011 Sanskriti Awards in the fields of literature, journalism, art, performing arts and Sscial Achievement. This is the 32nd successive year of the awards, which are now being announced on a national basis for the 21st consecutive year. Experts in their respective fields have selected the awardees. The distinctive feature of the Awards is that they are presented to young and emerging talent in the age group of 25-35 years. Each Award carries Rs 50,000.00 in cash and a citation.

The award for art will be presented today to Abhishek Hazra for Art (2011) in a function at IIC, New Delhi.

Abhishek (born 1977), a visual artist based in Bangalore, graduated from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. His work explores the intersections between technology and culture through animated shorts and performance pieces that often integrate textual fragments drawn from real and fictional scenarios. He is also interested in the social history of scientific practices in colonial India. Abhishek often refers to the idea of a ‘thought-experiment’ and ‘speculative fiction’ to refer to his works – a non-goal directed and completely useless exploration of little or no value and blissfully devoid of material trappings. However, he is still coming to terms with the fact that he will die without acquiring the mental apparatus required to appreciate Maxwell’s classic equations on electromagnetism. Nonetheless, he pretends to make ‘art and science’ noises and attempts to pass off his jokes as profundities. His most recent explorations into the intersections of art and science were conducted at SymbioticA, an art laboratory located within the University of Western Australia, Perth. His project engaging with the ambivalent nature of bio-materials was later exhibited at SymbioticA’s 2011 retrospective show at Trinity College, Dublin.

He has previously exhibited and performed at HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art Contemporain, Experiment Marathon Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum and Kunst Museum Bern. His recent shows include a solo show (The Inheritance of Alphanumeric Characters) at Gallery SKE, Bangalore and a group show On Uncertainity at Bose Pacia, New York. Prior to this he has been an artist-in-residence at Gasworks, London and KHOJ, New Delhi, among others.

The other recipients of this award are Shahida Shabnum for literature, Rana Ayyub for journalism, Murad Ali for music and Vinayak Lohani for social achievement.

Art Konsult Presents Funtellectual by Rajendra Kapse on August 5, 2011

2011-08-01T12:36:00.000+05:30

Rajat Bandopadhyay's First Solo in New Delhi

2011-08-01T11:53:00.002+05:30

A Tribute...

2011-07-22T17:45:00.001+05:30

Urban Maze Opens on July 5, 2011 in New Delhi

2011-07-22T17:39:00.000+05:30

Turn of the Tide

2011-07-22T12:24:00.000+05:30

Lucian Freud, the foremost figurative artist of his generation, dies aged 88

2011-07-22T12:05:00.002+05:30

By James Orr, and Raf Sanchez 21 Jul 2011 in The Telegraph, UK

In a statement his New York-based art dealer and close friend William Acquavella said the realist painter died on Wednesday following a brief illness, but gave no further details.

Freud was known for his intense realist portraits, particularly of nudes.

In recent years his paintings commanded huge prices at auction, including one called Naked Woman on a Sofa that sold for $33.6 million (£20.5million) in 2008. Last month, a portrait entitled Woman Smiling, 1958-59, sold for £4,745,250.

Mr Acquavella said he would mourn Freud “as one of the great painters of the twentieth century.”

“My family and I mourn Lucian Freud not only as one of the great painters of the twentieth century but also as a very dear friend,” he said.

“As the foremost figurative artist of his generation he imbued both portraiture and landscape with profound insight, drama and energy.

“In company he was exciting, humble, warm and witty. He lived to paint and painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world.”

Freud was well known for bucking the trends of the art world, insisting on using his realist approach even when it was out of favour with critics and collectors.

He stubbornly developed his own unique style, eventually winning recognition as one of the world's greatest painters.

“He certainly is considered one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st Centuries,” said Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of the postwar art department at Christie's auction house in New York.

“He stayed with his figurative approach even when it was extremely unpopular, when abstraction was the leading concept, and as time moved on his classic approach has proven to be very important. He fought the system and basically won.”

Freud, grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was born in Berlin in 1922. His Jewish family was forced to flee the city in 1933 and he became a British citizen in 1939.

The artist was a member of the Order of Merit - one of Britain's most prestigious chivalry honours founded in 1902 by Edward VII. The honour is a special award presented to individuals of great achievement in the fields of the arts, learning, literature and science.

Current members include former prime minister Baroness Thatcher, naturalist Sir David Attenborough and inventor of the worldwide web Sir Timothy Berners-Lee. Members receive no rank or title apart from the initials OM after their name.

Freud’s most famous subject was arguably the supermodel Kate Moss, who he painted in the nude while she was pregnant. He named the painting Naked Portrait 2002.

He also painted a portrait of the Queen - completed in his characteristically uncompromising and unflattering style, with some commentators describing the Monarch's expression as "glum".

The Director of the Tate in London, Nicholas Serota, said: “The vitality of his nudes, the intensity of the still life paintings and the presence of his portraits of family and friends guarantee Lucian Freud a unique place in the pantheon of late twentieth century art.

His early paintings redefined British art and his later works stand comparison with the great figurative painters of any period.”

Freud's sister-in-law Ann, told the Daily Telegraph that neither she nor her husband Stephen, knew of the painter's illness and only learned of his death through TV reports.

Mrs Freud said: "We literally out found five minutes ago and it's a terrible shock. I didn't even know he was unwell. He wouldn't keep a telephone so no one could phone him directly.”

Sunil Gawde in Centre Pomipiduo, Paris

2011-05-30T13:34:00.002+05:30

Preview Carpe Diem at Gallerie Nvya on May 11

2011-05-05T10:15:00.000+05:30

Art Konsult Presents Nostalgia on May 8

2011-05-05T10:13:00.001+05:30

Cold Blast by 7 young Indian Contemporary Artists on May 7

2011-05-05T10:12:00.000+05:30

Aicon Gallery New York - Palimpsest: Group Exhibition - VIP Preview & Artist’s Discussion

2011-05-05T10:10:00.001+05:30

Attempt-01.Space specific installations

2011-05-05T10:07:00.001+05:30

Sapna Sharma's show in Thrissur on April 7, 2011

2011-03-28T09:49:00.000+05:30

Nature Morte Presents L.N. Tallur's show from April 4, 2011

2011-03-28T09:45:00.002+05:30

Chromatophobia: The Fear of Money

L.N. Tallur

April 4- 30, 2011

Exhibition opens on Sunday, April 3rd from 6 to 8pm.

New Delhi: Nature Morte is pleased to present an exhibition of new sculptures by L.N. Tallur. The title ironically situates the artist’s practice within the intersections of desire, value, pedigree and psychology. Known for his kinetic sculptures which often comment on society and politics, the work of L.N. Tallur combines a sharp wit along with a prodigious use of materials.

Many of the works in the exhibition use the classical sculpture of India as their starting points. These “found objects” are then combined and manipulated, confounding the established categorizations with which we usually interpret art: figuration and abstraction, traditional and contemporary, decorative and functional, creative and destructive, religious and secular. It is as if each work is both and neither at the same time. Tallur’s works may appear quintessentially “Indian” at first, but they certainly participate in the most advanced dialogues surrounding sculpture today and reveal themselves to be both cosmopolitan and historically astute.

L.N. Tallur was born in 1971 in the south Indian state of Karnataka. He received a BFA degree in painting from the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts in Mysore in 1996, an MFA degree in museology from the MS University in Baroda in 1998, and an MA in Fine Art from the Metropolitan University in Leeds, UK, in 2002. Solo shows of his works have been mounted at Arario Gallery, Beijing (2010); Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai (2009); Arario Gallery, New York (2008); Arario Gallery, Seoul (2007); Bose Pacia, New York (2000); and Chemould Gallery, Mumbai (1999). In addition to receiving the Sanskriti Award from the Sanskriti Foundation of New Delhi in 2003 and having his works included in many group exhibitions around the world, Tallur’s large-scale installation entitled “Souvenir Maker” was recently exhibited at the Devi Foundation in Gurgaon and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Singapore. The artist currently divides his time between India and South Korea.

The Red Room opens on April 1, 2011

2011-03-28T09:41:00.003+05:30

The Red Room

A group show of Indian contemporary artists.

April 1-25, 2011

Gallery Ragini, Lado Sarai, New Delhi

New Delhi: A political trait, a revolutionary take, a comrade’s view, a passionate desire, a treacherous tyrant, a spiritual symbolism- an exploration of the various connotations of the colour red.

Red is a complex and powerful color and is considered to have the greatest impact on the human psyche, understanding its symbolic meaning, allows us to comprehend the subtext of the world in the idiom of color.

Red room as a show brings out the complexities and emotions of the colour red; different cultures have different views on the meaning of the color and can emphasize different things with mere thoughts of the color.

The works in The Red Room are by eight artists from different cultures and traditions, with diverse inspiration and intentions yet the common thread running through their artwork is the undeniable powerful reaction they invoke.

Once you enter the red room you are overwhelmed by the sensation of the room evoking you as a viewer to observe, absorb, and react to the works.

On one hand we have works by artists like Abul Kalam Azad, Anoop Kamath, Prasad Raghavan and Raghu Neware who have used red dominantly in their works as a symbolism for violence, strife, courage and spirituality. These artists use the strength and intensity of red to engage the viewer completely quite similar to the deliberate use of intense reds by Edvard Munch to enhance raw emotion and terror in his famous painting, The Scream.

On the other hand we have artists like Ravi Kashi and Dhanur Goyal who haven’t emphasized on the colour red in their works, they instead have very astutely added a subtext to their works; they represent in their works the message of non-violence, peaceful dialogue, tolerance, compromise and peace which are far removed from the emotions traditionally associated with the colour red.

Gargee Ghosh’s installation works bring into play, questions of authorship, of culture, and the endless journey of power struggle and feminist ideals. She tries to look out for emancipation of the cosmopolitan culture of glaze and glitter and the never ending consumerist culture. In the same manner Saptrshi Das’s works depicting hand pulled rickshaws and the hammer and sickle clearly talk about injustice and revolution. He believes that art is a part of socialism and it can raise questions on social issues and the unfair social structures and thereby bring about positive changes.

A walk through the red room is undoubtedly a journey of experiencing the various emotions and implications associated with the colour red which the artists have brilliantly put across through their works.

Manjunath Kamath's show to Open on April 1, 2011

2011-03-28T09:40:00.001+05:30

Exhibit 320 presents Paper Toungues

2011-03-28T09:39:00.000+05:30

And the Red opens on April 1, 2011

2011-03-28T09:38:00.000+05:30

Show opening on March 30, 2011

2011-03-28T09:36:00.000+05:30

Conference Announcement

2011-03-21T13:42:00.000+05:30

Suneet Chopra curates Developing Delhi

2011-03-21T10:12:00.001+05:30

Art Ensemble Opens on March 25, 2011

2011-03-21T10:11:00.001+05:30

Jitish Kallat's Stations of a Pause Opens on March 22, 2011

2011-03-21T10:10:00.000+05:30

Art Chennai Opens

2011-03-21T10:08:00.000+05:30

New Show at BMB Gallery

2011-03-08T09:29:00.000+05:30

Labyrinth of Absences Opens today at Nature Morte, New Delhi

2011-03-08T09:27:00.002+05:30

Rashmi Trivedi's Rhytm of Life in Opens in Vizag on December 18, 2010

2010-12-16T10:05:00.000+05:30

Gallery Mirchandani + Steinruecke Presents Vinod Balak's Works

2010-12-16T10:03:00.001+05:30

Recent works by Nandita Kumar at Latitude 28

2010-12-16T09:56:00.003+05:30

Let the Brainfly

Recent works by Nandita kumar

Latitude 28

December 18, 2010 – January 12, 2011

At F 208 GF, Lado Sarai, New Delhi 110030

‘Let the BrainFly’ charts a surreal course of a psyche's evolution within the invisible neuron-scape. The white cube encompasses a labyrinth of manifestations in terms of mixed media works on canvas, animated video and installations. A visual story-board, created in tandem with the movement of the defining premise, ‘the brain’ leads through processes of evolution and mutation, beyond the constructs of the material world. The artist through these renditions culls collages of the timeless world and poetically draws inherent correlations between the self and the various dimensions of the cultural spectrum.

Nandita Kumar is a multi-faceted, award winning filmaker, multi media artist, painter and performer. She holds a joint Bachelors Degree from MS University, India and Auckland University, in the Elam School Of the Arts, New Zealand and has completed her Masters Degree in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts, in Los Angeles. Nandita has shown in various festivals and exhibitions throughout the world including Los Angeles county Museum(LACMA) along with the Salvador Dali Exhibit, REDCAT, The New Zealand International Film Festival, The Rome International Film festival, Stuttgart Animation Festival, The Academy of Television Art and Sciences in Los Angeles and the Best of Sydney Underground Festival DVD. Her performances, installations and paintings have shown in Living Room, Ptg 404, Gully Louge Gallery, Waikato and Massey University in New Zealand. Nandita has received the “Best Original Music” for her film Birth of BrainFly at the Cinema Mundo festival in Brazil and is also an awardee of the famed Jules Engle Scholarship. In her work she explores the elemental process by which human beings construct meaning from their experience. It is the dynamic process of interplay between events, self and culture. The artist lives between Auckland and New Delhi.

Public Enemy Number 1, Curated by Shaheen Merali at Exhibit320

2010-12-16T09:54:00.000+05:30

Split Beds and Windows by Shalalae Jamil at The Guild NY

2010-12-16T09:52:00.001+05:30

Who slept, naked in the stark aftermath, In the forgotten depths, In the poisoned waters of dead imagination.

(Excerpt of Poem by Sophia Pandeya.)

Dec16 – Jan 16, 2011

The Guild, NY, 45 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10010

The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to present the debut solo show in New York of artist Shalalae Jamil. Born and raised in Pakistan, educated at Bennington College and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she has exhibited and curated work in Pakistan, the United States and the U.K. Her work is in several private collections including the Arts Council in Pakistan and the Devi Art Foundation in India.

Shalalae Jamil’s work accesses the intensely personal and the unavoidably political with an ease and an awkwardness that brings it as painfully close to real life as perhaps only the medium of video is capable of doing. Continually investigating how perception and meaning are altered by the shifting parameters of private and public space, Split Beds and Windows follows the same broader trajectory that her oeuvre has had a distinct tendency to trace. It addresses the often highly sensitive issues embedded within the complexities of the forming of identity that unfold through inherently personal narratives of self and family, familiarity and belonging, love and loss.

W+K Exp Presents Preview of Writing Visuals on December 16, 2010

2010-12-16T09:51:00.002+05:30

Navjot Altaf - Touch IV, December 15, 2010 at The Guild, Mumbai

2010-12-16T09:49:00.001+05:30

Touch IV

Navjot Altaf

Wednesday, December 15, 2010 | 7- 9 pm

On view till January 1, 2011

Bhimawa Golar, Rajendra Naik and Pandurang from Sangram,Sangli will be in conversation with Nancy Adajania, Gita Chadha and Navjot Altaf on December 16, 2010 | 6:30 pm at The Guild, Mumbai

The Guild is proud to present 22 monitor video installation Touch IV by Navjot Altaf at The Guild, Mumbai.

“The video installation 'Touch IV', whose central protagonists are sex workers and members of the third gender community, is a culmination of Navjot's three-decade-long preoccupation with representing the voice of the subaltern in art. I would contend that at the core of Navjot's practice lies her unceasing awareness of being a linguistic subjectivity, an image-maker who nonetheless forms her social and political associations through language. Navjot has a deep commitment to language in all its various manifestations, its ability to unmask power asymmetry and the occlusion of truth, with its wager on multi-pronged articulation. But her commitment to language is held in counterpoint by her apprehension of being stalled by word-induced aporia, of being interpellated or otherwise reduced by language, of being trapped by language.

…In 'Touch IV', unlike earlier video installations like 'Mumbai Meri Jaan' or 'Pavan Kumar', Navjot's subaltern protagonists discussed and even at times dictated the terms of how they wished to be represented. In the Spivakian sense, Navjot has traversed the journey from the difficulties of inter-subjective communication, as immortalised in the question 'Can the subaltern speak?', to clearing the ground to make such speech-acts possible. This should not mislead the viewer into thinking that if the subaltern speaks, s/he will be automatically heard. As in Navjot's earlier works, the viewer has to make an effort to understand what is being enunciated, with 22 voices available on the headphones of television monitors.

These voices belong to people who are part of a movement of resistance against societal norms that consider their sex-work as a social aberration and their sexuality as deviant behaviour. Their solidarity has been manifested in a large 5000-member organisation, Sangram, which has been working with women's collectives on prostitution for the last 15 years…” (Excerpt from an essay by Nancy Adajania)

Navjot Altaf’s work has been shown in Lacuna in Testimony, Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida, 2009;Curated by Julia Herzberg Public Places Private Spaces, Newark Museum, New York and Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis 2008; Curated by Gayatri Sinha and Paul Stern Berger, Tiger by the Tail: Women Artists Transforming Culture, Brandies University / Museum Boston and New Brunswick Rutgers University, Douglass Library, Newark, 2008; Curated by Wendy Tarlow Kaplan, Elinor W.Gadon and Roobina Karode, Continuity and Transformation, Provinciadi Milano,Italy, 2007;Curated by Daniela Palazzoli, Zones of Contact, 15th Biennale of Sydney Australia, 2006; Curated by Charles Merewether, Australia. Groundworks, Carnegie Mellon University, (RMG) Pittsburgh, 2005;Grant Kester Another Passage To India, Theatre Saint Gervais and Musee d’ Ethnographie, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004; Curated by Pooja Sood, Zoom – Art in Contemporary India, Edificia Sede de Caixo Garal de Depositos, Lisbon, 2004; Curated by Luis Sepra and Nancy Adajania, Century City - Bombay/Mumbai: City Politics and Visual Culture in the 90’s, Tate Modern, London, 2001; Curated by Geeta Kapoor and Ashish Rajadhyaksha, subTerrain:artworks in the cityfold, ,Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Berlin. Curated by Geeta Kapur. 8th Havana Biennale: Art together with life, Cuba, 2003;Curated by Hilda Maria Rodriguez; LimiNAl zoNes, Curated by Pooja Sood, Apeejay Media Gallerry New Delhi,2003; Solo exhibitions include: Touch IV, Video Installation, Talwar Gallery, New Delhi, 2010; A Place in New York an interactive photo based project, The Guild, Mumbai, 2010; Touch- Remembering Altaf, Video and motor based sculpture Installation, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2008; Bombay Shots, an interactive photo based project, The Guild, Mumbai, 2008; Water Weaving, Video Installation, Talwar Gallery, New York, 2005; Junctions 1 2 3, The Guild, Mumbai, 2006 and Jagar Multimedia Installation, Sakshi Gallery Mumbai,2006 among others.

A new auction record for a work by an Indian woman artist

2010-12-16T09:47:00.001+05:30

Arpita Singh’s mural Wish Dream fetches $2.24 million at the Saffronart Winter Online Auction

New Delhi-based artist Arpita Singh is one of India’s most important female artists. Born in 1937 in West Bengal, she completed her education in art from the School of Art, Delhi Polytechnic, Delhi (1959).

In addition to being exhibited at major galleries around the world, Singh has been included in important exhibitions at institutions such as the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University (2007-2008); Kunstmuseum Bern (2007); Asia Society, New York (1996-1998); and, George Pompidou Centre, Paris (1986).

Singh's recent solo exhibition at Vadehra Art Gallery, her first in four years, presents watercolours and canvases in her unique style of rendering, often described as mythologies of modern times. Her characters within the pictorial space are propped against a collage-like background, ramified by events, time graphs, emotions and generic patterns of dislocation, struggle and existence. They are served in a palette of subtle shades of oils, watercolors or sometimes an amalgam of mediums, which simulate a dream-like atmosphere, or perhaps a situation which is experienced while hallucinating.

The Skin Remembers by Anjum Singh, preview December 11, 2010, at Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi

2010-12-07T11:09:00.002+05:30

Art Konsult, New Delhi, Presents Drifting Still

2010-12-07T11:07:00.001+05:30

Subodh Gupta's Oil on Canvas Opens on Dec 9, 2010 at Nature Morte

2010-12-07T11:04:00.002+05:30

Subodh Gupta: “Oil on Canvas”

Opening on Thursday, December 9, 2010. Exhibition continues till January 23, 2010.

New Delhi: Nature Morte is pleased to present its fourth solo show in New Delhi with new works by Subodh Gupta. In December 2003, Nature Morte opened its Neeti Bagh space with a solo show of Subodh’s works (this was the second solo, the first being at the Lokayata space in Haus Khas Village in October 2000). This, Subodh’s third show in our Neeti Bagh gallery, also inaugurates our eighth year there.

Subodh’s title for this exhibition is ironic, as the show will be composed entirely of new sculptures, with no paintings at all. (Nature Morte will exhibit a group of new paintings by the artist in our booth at the Indian Art Summit, January 20-23, 2011.) On display will be a range of new sculptures, in a wide variety of forms and materials. Stainless steel, the artist’s signature medium, will be in evidence, but also works in bronze, marble, brass and wood. All of the works continue the artist’s dialogue with found and manipulated objects, focusing on specific objects of a mundane nature that encapsulate multiple meanings and reflect on the circumstances of contemporary India.

Born in Khagaul, Bihar, in 1964, in the past ten years Subodh Gupta has become the most celebrated artist from India on the international scene. His works have been exhibited in prestigious museums, art fairs and biennial exhibitions throughout the world and he has held solo exhibitions in some of the world’s most important contemporary art galleries, including Hauser & Wirth (London and Zurich), Arario (Seoul and Beijing), Pinchuk Art Centre (Kiev), and Galeria Continua (San Gimignano, Italy).

Book Launch of Art as Witness on Dec 8, 2010

2010-12-07T10:40:00.001+05:30

The Exquisite Corpse by Uday Dhar at Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi

2010-12-07T10:38:00.001+05:30

Preview of Photography Group Show at Gallery Ragini on Dec 8, 2010

2010-12-07T10:32:00.001+05:30

Bhagyanath’s Drawing Exhibition Ventriloquism Opens in Kashi Art Gallery in Kochi

2010-12-07T10:30:00.002+05:30

Earth show in Chennai

2010-12-07T10:28:00.003+05:30

Ravi Agarwal's solo exhibition opens on Wed, Dec 8 @ Gallery Espace

2010-12-07T10:24:00.003+05:30

Pigment Art's Inaugural Show Opens on Nov 13th in New Delhi

2010-11-09T12:50:00.001+05:30

Frey Norris and Sakshi Presents Surendran Nair's Neti, Neti

2010-11-09T12:45:00.001+05:30

Gallery Espace to show new works by Karl Antao on Nov 10

2010-11-09T12:43:00.001+05:30

Mithu Sen's BLACK CANDY (iforgotmypenisathome) preview at SAA - JNU

2010-11-09T12:41:00.000+05:30

Who Has Seen Gandhi? Previewing Saturday, October 2, 2010

2010-09-21T09:55:00.002+05:30

This Too Shall Pass by Sudarshan Shetty presented by The Bhau Daji Lad Museum

2010-09-21T09:54:00.002+05:30

Sumedh Rajendran’s Dual Liquid at Vadehra Art Gallery from September 25 – October 21, 2010

2010-09-21T09:51:00.004+05:30

Vadehra Art Gallery & Sakshi Gallery Present Dual Liquid by Sumedh Rajendran

Preview September 25 2010, 6 - 9 pm

Vadehra Art Gallery

D-178 Okhla Phase 1, New Delhi 110020

On view until October 21, 2010

This exhibition offers a series of stimulating works that deal with the concomitant demarcations in domestic life patterns. They are a reflection of Rajendran’s belief that while we often see, we still fail to gauge the consequences that our fears and anxieties can have on our lives. The works make references to these changes, which propelled by fear, contribute to redrawing of existing socio-political vulnerabilities and even faiths. With this body of work, Rajendran attempts to explore these shifts in perceptions, beliefs, human behaviors and value systems that guide our life patterns.

About the artist:

Born in 1972, Rajendran pursued his B.F.A (Sculpture) in 1994 from the College of Arts, in his hometown of Thiruvanathapuram. He completed his M.F.A. degree from the Delhi College of Arts, New Delhi in 1999. Since then, Rajendran has held successful solos in Lahore, Mumbai, New Delhi and London and has participated in numerous group exhibitions in India and abroad including ‘Chalo! India’ at the ESSEL Collection, Vienna in September and ‘Indian Summer’ at Galerie Christian Hosp, Berlin in August this year. He has also participated in several prestigious artist-in-residency programs including the Khoj Residency in 2003, Theertha International Residency, Colombo in 2006 and Hat Residency Program, University of Manchester in 2007. He lives and works in New Delhi.

Gallery Espace Presents Vishal K. Dar BROWNation

2010-09-21T09:49:00.001+05:30

Grosvenor Vadehra presents Indian (Sub)way, Private View: September 21, 2010

2010-09-21T09:47:00.000+05:30

Exibition of Painting by Rohit Sharma at Open Palm Court Gallery , India Habitat Centre

2010-09-07T16:13:00.002+05:30

Nature Morte Presents Arunkumar H.G.'s Tract on September 11, 2010

2010-09-07T15:46:00.003+05:30

Arunkumar H.G.
Tract
Nature Morte
A-1 Neeti Bagh
New Delhi, India 110 049
T: 91 11 4174 0215
F: 91 11 2956 1596
info@naturemorte.com
www.naturemorte.com

Opening on Saturday, September 11th from 6 to 8pm.
Exhibition continues to Friday, October 1st.

Nature Morte is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by the Delhi-based artist Arunkumar H.G. Continuing with many of the themes first explored in his previous solo show with Nature Morte (“Feed” 2006), the show is primarily composed of sculptures in a variety of forms and materials, with the addition of some photographic work and wall reliefs.

The works explore the concept of Land and all that it entails and elaborates upon: metaphors for the human and social bodies; questions of ownership and usage; the migration of rural populations to urban centers; environmental consciousness and abuse; the production and distribution of food and the resulting consequences of health, markets, real estate and waste management.

As stated by the independent curator and cultural activist Himanshu Desai in his essay which accompanies the exhibition:

“The word Tract is pertinent to many of Arun’s concerns including environment, land and body. Dictionary definitions of the word stand proof:

Tract (trăkt)
1. Geography: An expanse of land or water (pertinent to Arun’s upbringing in agricultural environs that make him question the very nature of land or water ownership).
2. Anatomy: A system of organs and tissues that together perform a specialized function: e.g. the alimentary tract, or a bundle of nerve fibers having a common origin, termination, and function (suggestive of Arun’s interest in the effects of consumerism on nutrition, health and environment).
3. Liturgy: An anthem consisting of verses of Scripture (analogous to Arun’s lament on the loss of ancient agrarian wisdom in the face of capitalism).

Tract has no single message and is in fact intended to offer multiple layers of speculation and discovery to the viewer, and although this manner of storytelling may induce a degree of ambiguity and unease, the very intention is simply to coax speculation and keep any or all sermonising at bay.”

Pooja Iranna's In the Waves and Underneath Opens on September 9, 2010

2010-09-06T11:43:00.001+05:30

Kumar Kanti Sen's Solo Opens on September 9, 2010 in Chernnai

2010-09-06T11:42:00.000+05:30

Re-Vision at Sumukha Bangalore on September 3, 2010

2010-09-01T10:30:00.000+05:30

Riding Rocinante from Bombay to Three Gorges Via Sardar Sarovar

2010-09-01T10:19:00.003+05:30

Pooja Iranna's Exhibition of Recent Works Opens on September 9, 2010

2010-09-01T10:15:00.004+05:30

Palette Art Gallery is pleased to present

Recent works by

Pooja Iranna

Preview – Thursday, September 9, 7.30 to 10.30 pm

On view till October 9,2010

Note on Pooja Iranna’s Visual Language

Through her work, Pooja Iranna presents man made structures, which talk of human beings, their presence, expressions, mind and emotions without their physical existence.

Pooja has been talking of these structure ever since she started her practice almost two decades back . She has been working in many mediums to explore her buildings and spaces outside and inside. She has worked extensively with paper and has also used photographical imagery as a powerful mode of expression over the years.

Pooja Iranna remains grounded to her architectural spaces in this show as well, exploring the possibilities with which humans have extended their creative mind. According to her work, she believes that we have reached our zenith when it comes to expressing our ingenuity. There is no stone unturned as the human race has successfully managed to use their cultural as well as technical knowledge along with positive energies ,to construct the unthinkable.

But here she goes beyond the human genius and beauty of the spaces created. There is a twist to all the tales she expresses. Everything is not to be seen at the surface level. There are hidden notions behind every wall and the heavy texture. The not so straight partitions and the visible curvatures all denote the concealed part of life. Which could be beautiful for some or even ugly for others but whisper a subtle tale. The crux of the matter here is that life/surfaces/spaces do have twists and turns but it depends on the human mind and its strength of how one responds to them.

With this solo she incorporates many more mediums to fully explore her subject. We can see her drawings and canvases, along with video and even sculptures made of staple pins. There is no medium that Pooja does not wish to explore at this point but the magnificence of the work can only be understood when one looks at the original work.

Born in 1969 in New Delhi, Pooja Iranna received her BFA and MFA in Painting from the College of Art in New Delhi. Some of her prominent shows include ,Of Human Endeavour, at the Guild , Mumbai; Invisible Cities , at AICON, New York; Does Size Matter, inaugral show of Latitude 28, New Delhi ; Lost in Urban Maze, Palette Gallery,New Delhi; The landscapes of where curated by Nancy Adajania for Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke; Trends & Trivia at The Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong; Walk the Line at Avanthay Contemporary, Zurich; India Revealed, curated by Antonio Manfred at Cam Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, Naples, Italy; Korea-India Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition, Seoul, Korea and Emerging India, by Art Alive at the Henry Moore Gallery, London.

Surviving Sagas Opens Today in New Delhi

2010-09-01T10:08:00.000+05:30

Preview on August 23,2010 - Nilima Sheikh at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi

2010-08-19T11:28:00.001+05:30

Tribute to the Lens Opens on August 19, 2010

2010-08-12T09:37:00.002+05:30

Conscious-Sub-Conscious by Manjunath Kamath at Gallery Espace

2010-08-12T09:33:00.001+05:30

Welcome to this first ever Gallery Espace Special Project of an artist studio within a gallery. For 7 days, artist Manjunath Kamath will draw on the walls of Gallery Espace, converting it into a temporary studio. Depending on when you come in, you will see the gallery’s white walled, two levels taken over by Kamath’s drawing.

Kamath has not prepared rough sketches, or a grid to work from. His plan is to enjoy the wide-open spaces that large white walls afford him. His work unfolds every day into something new. The studio environment reveals the underlying processes of art making. As a visitor, you are encouraged to ask questions, talk to the artist and take your time to make sense of what you see. You can also use the occasion to learn about Manjunath Kamath’s other works. These include dramatic humanscapes, or poignant, quirky sculptures, for example, which have been exhibited in important fairs and exhibitions around the world.

Everything that you see here is temporary, but your own memory of this show. After a week’s viewing of the completed work’s display, the gallery will whitewash its walls, holding up a mirror to its own commercial aspect. Such action replicates the artist’s process in a studio, where a work is frequently painted over, or deleted, unavailable to the market.

(Bharati Chaturvedi)

Ved Gupta @ Gallery Threshold

2010-08-12T09:30:00.001+05:30

With ‘Everybody Says We Are Fine…’ Ved Gupta contextualizes the proposition of ‘size’ in his practice. The small format show brings together a body of miniature-sized works that thematically concentrates on issues the artist has always been concerned with, though displaying distinct quality of rendition and execution that a smaller pictorial scale offers. Not aiming for a definite departure from the theme of excesses, corruption, and oppression caused by unchecked power, the artist seeks extension of his narrative through adopting variation both in style as well as agency of representation Ved Gupta’s sculptures and paintings mock existing social and economic hierarchies in India. Several decisive turns in his life have influenced his concepts and methodology. His ambition to create a dialogue that begins with his work is grand, but the context is localized, grounded in his experiences and observations.

Ved Gupta’s oeuvre seems to take a jaunt between various sizes. This ‘Small Format Show’ continues with the subjects holding erstwhile values as the artist plays with the proposition of ‘size’, building small renditions as naturalistically as in the larger works. The miniature sized figures create an illusion of physical magnitude, while their execution remains fine and detailed as in a miniature painting. A four inch sculpture thus assumes the visual testimony of an eighteen inch one. The powerful and the corrupt have been portrayed by Ved Gupta as mutated or dwarfed caricatures, and the oppressed figure of the labourer is naked, elongated and idealized in his sensual beauty. The themes of gluttony, corruption, and oppression caused by unchecked power are pervasive in his work.

Though the figures presented in ‘Arrested Moment’, the artist’s first solo exhibition, bear dramatic expression on their face, his recent ones seem to be deprived of all visible characteristics, their faces rather flattened, thrust in between concrete blocks or mantled by an avenging frog. The artist, stressing this minimal modeling of his protagonists this time, says, “However I may render the faces, the stress is on exposing the real disposition of my characters. The earlier visages do not have a ‘Ron Mueck’ rendering and the nose, eye, ears are slightly modified yet appearing life-like. Expression is central to the works and subjectivity is best brought out with minimal modeling. The incisive flat edges of the faces divulge the cunning nature of the characters.”

Ved Prakash Gupta (b. December, 1975) is a post-graduate in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Vadodara (M.F.A., Sculpture). Attesting to the talent of this young artist are the numerous prestigious awards including the H.K. Kejriwal Award (2007) and the Kashi Award for Visual Art (2007). His first solo was ‘Arrested Moment’ in September 2008 organized by Gallery Threshold at India Habitat Centre. Selected exhibitions and participations include ‘The New Vanguard’ at Saffronart ,NewYork (2009), India Art Summit, Participation in Sculpture Park and Gallery Threshold Booth (2009), Curated Participation By Sara Raza of Art Asia Pacific and Gallery Threshold, Dubai (2009), Best of Discovery, Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair (2008), ‘Urgent: 10 ml of Contemporary Needed’, FICA at Vadhera Art Gallery, Delhi (2008), Mini Sculpures, Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (2008), Ltd. Edition, Gallery Threshold, Delhi (2007), Winner’s Show, Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi, Kerala (2007) amongst others. The workshops and collaborations he has been involved in include Winter-Camp Silchar, Baroda (2007), M. Pandya Felicitation Terracotta Camp, Vishvamitra, Baroda (2007), Wood Carving Workshop , Baroda (2005), M.Pandya Felicitation Stone Carving Camp, Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda (2004), Form and Space, Workshop with Prof. Harveyhood (UK) Baroda (2004), Performance Workshop with Mushimaru Fuziada and Miauchi (Sculptor), Baroda (2002).

Woven Clay Opens on August 13, 2010

2010-08-12T09:26:00.000+05:30

Chaithanya Art GAllery Presents Rebel by Anoop Kamath

2010-08-09T09:38:00.002+05:30

Exhibiting Galleries at India Art Summit 2011

2010-08-09T09:33:00.002+05:30

A performance by Siri Devi Khandavilli

2010-08-09T09:29:00.001+05:30

Gallery Ragini Presents

Get out of debt free, buy my “Lucky Lakshmi Dollar Bill”-

A performance by Siri Khandavilli

August, 7:30 pm onwards at Gallery Ragini, F-213 C, Lado Sarai, New Delhi

New Delhi: When Siri saw a TV infomercial advertising financial products with the phrase “Get out of Debt Free” it reminded her of an equally absurd phrase often heard, “Eat all you want and still lose weight!” She did a Google search of both these phrases and the search returned 14,500,000 hits! For Siri Google was a tool to look into what “We” as a society are thinking about this thought of being able to “get out of debt free”. For the artist it was a tool to peer into the collective unconscious, a pool of shared experiences among our species, a term of analytical psychology coined by Jung.

Further pondering upon this Siri got interested in the idea of lucky charms, blind beliefs and such- which promise us a way to control our life and gain success without having to work for it. Thus “get out of debt free lucky dollar bill” was born.

The artist signs this work with a self-portraiture as Goddess Lakshmi since her birth name Siri Devi, is taken after the Hindu Goddess of wealth Goddess Lakshmi.

In Sanskrit the name is derived from “Lakshya” meaning objective and Lakshmi, the word in its entirety meaning “a means to achieving objectives”.

Lakshmi is also synonymous with money and hence money is a means to achieve objectives, NOT an objective by itself.

For Siri, this dollar bill gently and with humor hints at our personal control and responsibility over our financials.

Freedom @ Gallerie Nvya on August 11, 2010

2010-08-09T09:27:00.002+05:30

Mummified Myths Opens on August 7, 2010

2010-08-05T10:05:00.001+05:30

Lovetolive by Pradeep L Mishra, at Palette art gallery, New Delhi

2010-08-05T10:03:00.000+05:30

Rajan Krishnan Curates Earth

2010-08-05T09:47:00.000+05:30

A Tribute to The Lens on August 19, 2010

2010-08-05T09:43:00.001+05:30

GalleryShe presents Zakkir Hussain's Show Today

2010-07-11T16:32:00.000+05:30

Gayatri Gamuz at The Mojo Gallery, Dubai

2010-07-03T08:27:00.004+05:30

Gallery Espace Starts the Season with a New Show

2010-07-03T08:24:00.001+05:30

Vadehra Art Gallery | Paper Trail | 28 June - 21 July, 2010

2010-07-03T08:22:00.002+05:30

Upcoming show at Gallery BMB

2010-07-03T08:20:00.002+05:30

Platform IX, a solo show of recent works by Tripti Gupta

2010-06-26T10:23:00.002+05:30

Gallery Sumukha, Bengaluru Presents Cinema Verite Redu”

2010-06-15T09:17:00.005+05:30

Curated by Shaheen Merali

Featuring Subba Ghosh, Ravikumar Kashi, Attila Richard Lukacs, Parvathi Nayar, Charly Nijensohn, Prasad Raghavan, Marina Roy

June 18 - July 30, 2010

Bangalore June 2010: Gallery Sumukha Presents “Cinema Verite Redux”, an art exhibition in Bangalore curated by Berlin & London based renowned writer and curator Shaheen Merali, from June 18th, 2010 to July 30th 2010. The exhibition comprises works by seven national and international artists and the selection for the title of the exhibition, Cinema Verite Redux, proposes a familiarity of intent with a type of cinema and documentary style which has evolved and is recognised as cinema verite. The dependence on chance, of probable encounters, can be seen as one of the factors that unites these artists' works with cinema verite. The exhibition includes video installations by Vancouver based artist Marina Roy, Oil on wood Portraits by Vancouver based artist Attila Richard Lukacs; Inkjet prints by Prasad Raghavan; cutout paintings on canvas stretched on wood by Delhi based graphic designer Subba Ghosh; Photography by Bangalore based artist Ravikumar Kashi; Black and White Drawings by Chennai based artist Parvathi Nayar and video installations by Berlin based photographer and video artist Charly Nijensohn, at Gallery Samukha ( 24/10, BTS Depot Road, Wilson Garden, Bangalore, Tel: 080 2229 2230).

The dependence on chance, of probable encounters, can be seen as one of the factors that unites these artists' works with cinema verite. Chance played a formative part of the Dadist movement, but these works vary in the way chance is used to consolidate a longing to record from fragments of concerns. Part of the sustaining aegis in many of the works of the seven artists is found in their use of diverse research, including the use of unusual materials that allows a deepening of information and pushes their works towards an incessant completion of their project. A second, and more commonly recognised condition of cinema verite is found in its desire to avail itself of excessive technical equipment, which could interfere or create a distance with its subject. The result is a yearning to explore a ‘natural’, unmediated retention of reality. It is with these intentions in mind that the curatorial strategy was to select a series of works, which speaks about the process and method of its evaluation, an unfolding and a desire to arrest mediation about our world and its place in our concerns. Cinema Verite Redux allows a bringing back of some of these technical and evaluatory strategies as inventive tropes to gain a proximity to the world.

In search of a commitment to the "inspired gaze", these seven artists have produced their works as notations of salvation, a clear ground for recovering informed ideas and a commitment within the aesthetic and political intimacy of their belief. Cinema Verite Redux allows a different artistic method and, therefore, arguably a different result for art in its inscription and embedment into its visual surfaces.

Shaheen Merali is both a curator and writer, currently based in London and Berlin, where, from 2003-8, he was the Head of Exhibitions, Film and New Media at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, curating several exhibitions including The Black Atlantic; Dreams and Trauma- Moving images and the Promised Lands; and Re-Imagining Asia, One Thousand years of Separation. In 2006, he was the co-curator of the 6th Gwangju Biennale, Korea.

Selected exhibitions in 2009 include The Dark Science of Five Continents, (BMB Gallery, Mumbai) and The Promise of Loss (Kunsthalle brot, Vienna and Arario Gallery, New York). In February 2009, he curated Indian Popular culture (and beyond): The Untold (the rise of) Schisms, at Alcala 31 in Madrid, accompanied by a publication that traces the rise of the political right within popular Indian culture and its neighboring regions.

Merali has edited several publications, including Far Near Distance, Contemporary Positions for Iranian Artists (2004); Spaces and Shadows, Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia and About Beauty (2005): New York- States of Mind and Re-Imagining Asia (Saqi Books 2007) and the seminal Everywhere is War (and rumours of war) for BodhiMumbai, India. (2008). His essays on individual artists include Ahmed Alsoudani, Ramesch Daha, Shilpa Gupta, Reena Kallat, Jitish Kallat, Leena Kejriwal, Riyas Komu, Madforreal, Lisl Ponger, Prasad Raghavan, Sara Rahbar, Sumedh Rajendran, Peter Riedlinger, NN Rimzon, TV Santhosh and Ulrich Volz.

Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, begun from a modest space in 1996, has evolved over the years and is currently housed in the largest private gallery space of South India, with a gallery in Chennai as well, which opened in 2006.

Sumukha caters to a wide audience, nationally and internationally. Having been through economic and aesthetic changes that have occurred globally, and in India and Asia, Sumukha emerges more learned and capable to deal with any future upheavals that may arise.

Sumukha has a history of working with external curators and artists from various parts of the world and supports artists in terms of commissions and relevant spaces to expose their conceptual thinking, thus marking it as an international space. Simultaneously it presents Indian Contemporary artists abroad. Gallery Sumukha is also a platform for established and next generation artists to showcase all forms and media of Contemporary Art.

Caption for the image above: Digital Print by Ravikumar Kashi

Indian Art Course

2010-06-15T09:14:00.000+05:30

Mon Art Gallerie Presents Abreast Totems from June 19, 2010

2010-06-15T09:07:00.001+05:30

Riyas Komu Solo - Subrato to Cesar

2010-06-12T10:48:00.003+05:30

Raza work fetches record Rs 16.3cr

2010-06-11T16:37:00.003+05:30

Neelam Raaj, TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 01.36am IST

It's proving to be quite a scorching summer for Indian art. Syed Haider Raza became India's priciest modern artist on Thursday when a seminal work by the 88-year-old sold for a whopping Rs 16.3 crore ($3.49 million) at a Christie's auction in London.

Just two summers back, a work by Francis Newton Souza had set the record for the most expensive piece of modern art by notching up $2.5 million or Rs 10.5 crore. Since then, prices of Indian art had crashed though the fall in contemporary art was much more drastic than the moderns.

Aptly, it's the country's two best-known masters who are making the meltdown seem like a distant memory.

"Strength is coming back to the art market. We are also seeing a lot of new bidders across the world from Hong Kong, the UAE and the US," said Yamini Mehta, director of the contemporary Indian art department at Christie's.

Just a day earlier, the London-based auction house put over 500 works by Souza under the hammer. They fetched $7.9 million, more than double the pre-sale estimate. Ninety-seven per cent of the Souza lots found buyers, with a top price of $1.3 million paid for the 1962 oil, 'Red Curse', painted on black satin while the artist was living in London. The dark 6-foot-high mage of a female nude being attacked by a snarling, many-eyed beast was sold to a European buyer.

The price for Raza's work 'Saurashtra' wasn't out of the blue. Raza considers it to be one of the 10 most important works he has done in his life. Known for his bindu art, Raza was a founder member of the Bombay Progressive Artist's group along with Souza. He first came to prominence in Paris where he moved in 1950.

Painted in 1983, 'Saurashtra' belongs to a key period in Raza's career when, after many years working within the styles of the Ecole de Paris and Abstract Expressionism, he began to integrate vital elements of his childhood and heritage into his paintings. This particular work depicts the beauty of the Gujarati coastal landscape.

Gallery Ragini hosts Dot Matrix - A Solo Exhibition of Lalit Vikamshi

2010-06-04T09:42:00.001+05:30

Preview 31st May at 1x1, Dubai

2010-05-31T10:07:00.002+05:30

Gallerie Nvya presents "Within Reach II"

2010-05-31T10:00:00.001+05:30

5 masterpieces stolen in $123M Paris museum heist

2010-05-21T09:40:00.000+05:30

By ANGELA CHARLTON and CHRISTINA OKELLO, Associated Press Writers – Thu May 20, 2010

PARIS: A broken alarm system made it as easy as 1-2-3: A masked intruder clipped a padlock, smashed a window and stole a Picasso, a Matisse and three other masterpieces from a Paris museum Thursday — a $123 million haul that is one of the world's biggest art heists.

Offloading the artwork may prove a tougher task, however, with Interpol and collectors worldwide now on high alert.

In what seemed like an art thief's fantasy, the alarm system had been broken since March in parts of the Paris Museum of Modern Art, according to the city's mayor, Bertrand Delanoe.

The museum, in a tony neighborhood across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower, reopened in 2006 after spending $18 million (euro15 million) and two years upgrading its security system. Spare parts had been ordered to fix the alarm but had not yet arrived, the mayor said in a statement.

So with no alarm to worry about, a lone masked intruder entered the museum about 3:50 a.m., said Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at Paris City Hall. The thief cut a padlock on a gate, then broke a side window and climbed inside — his movements caught on one of the museum's functioning cameras, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

The intruder later slipped back out, carrying the canvases and leaving behind empty frames. The whole thing took 15 minutes, a police official said.

Three security guards were on duty overnight, but "they saw nothing," Girard said. A night watchman discovered the theft around 7 a.m.

The stolen works included Pablo Picasso's "Le pigeon aux petits-pois" (The Pigeon with the Peas), an ochre-toned Cubist oil painting worth an estimated $28 million (euro23 million), and "La Pastorale" (Pastoral), a pastel-hued oil painting of nudes on a hillside by Henri Matisse worth about $17.5 million (euro15 million), Girard said.

Also seized were "La femme a l'eventail" (Woman with a Fan) by Amedeo Modigliani, "L'olivier pres de l'Estaque" (Olive Tree near Estaque) by Georges Braque and "Nature morte aux chandeliers" (Still Life with Chandeliers) by Fernand Leger.

Estimates of the total value of the paintings varied: The prosecutor's office initially put their worth as high as $613 million (euro500 million) but later downgraded the figure to about $111 million (euro90 million). Girard said the total value was about $123 million (euro100 million).

The broken alarm system also renewed concerns about museum security in the French capital. There was no operating surveillance system when a thief made off with a red sketchbook of 33 Picasso drawings from the nearby Picasso Museum while it was undergoing renovations last summer.

Within hours of Thursday's heist, red-and-white tape surrounded the Museum of Modern Art and signs on the Art Deco building's ornate bronze doors said it was closed for "technical reasons."

On a cordoned-off balcony, police wearing blue gloves and face masks examined the museum's broken window and the discarded frames. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from the disassembled frames, not sliced out.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the intruder was operating alone, Girard told reporters. Stephane Thefo, a specialist at Interpol who handles international art theft investigations, expressed doubt that one person could have pulled it off the heist, even if only one person was caught on camera.

Many high-profile art thefts have ended in failure, with the artworks recovered as thieves struggle to trade their illegal bounty for cash. But some famous stolen works remain at large — such as those seized more than two decades ago from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Alice Farren-Bradley of the Art Loss Registry in London said the Paris theft appeared to be one of the biggest art heists ever, considering the prominence of the artists, the value of the paintings and the high profile of the museum.

However, she said it will be "virtually impossible" to sell such prominent paintings on the open market and typically stolen art fetches lower prices on the black market.

"Very often they can be used as collateral to broker other deals" involving drugs or weapons, she said. "They are not necessarily going to be bought by some great lover of the arts."

Art expert Jean-Marie Baron said the heist could have been organized by thieves who plan to sell the paintings to wealthy individuals in Russia, China or elsewhere, and "who won't verify the origins of the paintings." Another possibility was that the thieves planned to "ransom" the paintings in exchange for a big insurance payout, he said.

The FBI estimates the market for stolen art at $6 billion. The Art Loss Register has tallied up to 170,000 pieces of stolen, missing and looted art and valuables.

Picasso is the world's most stolen artist due to his prolific output and the value of his works. The Art Loss Register lists some 550 missing Picasso pieces, including paintings, lithographs, drawings and ceramics, as of 2007.

Hours after Thursday's heist, the director of the neighboring Palais de Tokyo modern art museum called the thieves "imbeciles."

"Those paintings are absolutely unsellable. First off because these are very well known paintings. And also because we are in a new civilization ... of instant global communication," Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr told AP Television News. "The entire planet has pictures of these paintings."

The loss is "like the death of a family member," lamented Flemming Friborg, manager of Copenhagen's Glyptotek museum, known for its Impressionist collection.

___

Associated Press reporters Nicolas Garriga in Paris, Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

Ebenzer Sunder Singh's Recent Works on Display at RL Fine Arts

2010-05-19T09:44:00.002+05:30

New York: RL Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Ebenzer Sunder Singh, one of India’s exciting contemporary painters and sculptors (May 20 to June 30).

This exhibition titled ‘Holy Smoke and other works’ presents a group of portraits of famous creative ‘artists’, pictured with their personal accessory, a cigarette. The works show a variety of philosophers, writers, directors and artists, each of whom has personally influenced Ebenezer. The posture of each, defiantly smoking, seems to bond these ‘supermen’ together. Some of them return the viewer’s gaze, others we only look upon. The act of smoking itself as a creative tool, a lifestyle and even, a process, is expressed in these works. All these artists are a source of intense creative energy and focus, each blazing a trail in their respective metiers. The addition of bulbs on the canvas in the Holy Smoke works are used as elements of composition and also, indirectly, as homage to the various personalities, much as one would light a bulb or a flame in commemoration.

Also included in the show is the artist’s dazzling new work, 'Dance around the Golden Calf', which though seemingly disconnected from the theme of smoking, nevertheless, abounds with the spirit of creative energy that emanates from the colorful and ebullient portraits. This Dance conjures up the spirit of Matisse’s famous ‘Dance’, and yet brings it into the present world, where possibly, the art world dances around the ‘golden calf’.

Ebenezer’s wonderfully loose technique and style of painting produces works where brilliant color and bold brushstrokes combine to produce paintings that resonate with energy and life force. For him painting is a cathartic process, a stream of consciousness, where the artwork is composed as it is composed, not planned and executed to a previous design.Ebenezer seizes the canvas and creates vibrant paintings that celebrate the art of ‘painting’ as much as they celebrate human energy and inspiration.

Ebenezer is a graduate of the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University.

RL Fine Arts

39 West 19 Street Suite 612

between 5 and 6 avenues

New York NY 10011

t: 212 645 6402 e: info@rlfinearts.com w:www.rlfinearts.com

Caption for the image above: Holy Smoke - Paul Sartre, mixed media on canvas, 55 x 40in, 2009

Call for applications- Curatorial Residency at Khoj

2010-05-19T09:41:00.002+05:30

Khoj International Artist's Association is hosting a residency programme for young curators as part of the four-year Curatorship Programme conceptualized byIndia Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in collaboration with select institutions from across the country. The Curatorship Programme is funded by the Jamsetji Tata Trust. For more information on IFA’s Curatorship Programme visit: - http://www.indiaifa.org/article.asp?id=645&viewType=online

This residency is the first in a series of projects that Khoj will undertake as the nodal centre facilitating curatorial practice in the visual arts. The residency will take place over a period of two months (mid- July to mid September 2010) at the Khoj studios in Delhi and will culminate in a project/exhibition towards the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. A jury will select two curators who will participate in the residency. The invited curators will be provided with travel expenses, housing, and a stipend for expenses while in residence at Khoj studios as well as a seed budget for an exhibition.

Details:

The residency aims to establish a model of practice-based training for curators. The resident curator will benefit from the support and network of art practitioners that are associated with KHOJ. The first of its kind, this residency aims to develop a training ground for emerging curators who will engage with various modes of artistic practice as well as be actively involved in critical writing.

For the first residency, Khoj wishes to introduce the resident curator to a model of curating that functions outside the white-cube paradigm of galleries/ exhibitions. Since Khoj’s inception in 1997, various projects have actively engaged with practices that resist objectification. Premised on the process, many of the projects are manifested as research based initiatives, programmes with communities, temporal performances and interventions in public spaces.

The curator shall be encouraged to delve into the rich archive (aural, visual and textual) of such projects to identify themes to curate process-based art practices. Working with this idea, the resident curator shall engage with the ideas and politics of representation and develop an exhibition model that is able to ‘represent’ processual art practices that defy containment within the traditional exhibition space.

The resident curator will have at their disposal the Khoj archive as well as access to the Khoj library which is stocked with some publications on critical theory and practice as well as catalogues of important South Asian exhibitions.

Khoj is pleased to invite applications for the residency from contemporary arts curators. Please email your application to interact@khojworkshop.org

Requirements for the application:

Please send us:

A copy of your latest resume
3 writing samples/ Post graduate thesis
Catalogues/ documentation of exhibitions that you have curated in the past
A brief proposal for the residency based on the brief above
Two recommendation letters from art professionals who are familiar with your work
Any additional material that may support your application

Important Dates:

Last date for submitting applications: 30^th May 2010

(Applications received after this date will not be accepted)

Announcement of results: mid June 2010

Residency commences: mid July 2010

Residency ends: mid September 2010

Exhibition: December 2010/ January 2011

Address:

S-17 Khirki Extension

Saket

New Delhi -17

Website: http://khojworkshop.org

Email: interact@khojworkshop.org

Invite for artist camp in Protest

2010-05-19T09:39:00.000+05:30