by Poonam Goel
They may not have been permitted to visit an exhibition of their own paintings, but for more than 20 Tihar inmates, freedom had already found an expression when they were roped in by the Ramchander Nath Foundation (RNF) for a year-long project to create art assisted by some of the top names of Indian contemporary art. And, when some select paintings from the project went up on show as ‘Expressions’ at Tihar at Mati Ghar, IGNCA, last week in Delhi, their creativity generated as much interest as the works by artists who had interacted with them over the last one year.
“We have sold all the works by the inmates,” gushed Anubhav Nath, of RNF, adding that the proceeds of the sale would go to Tihar Welfare Fund. While he admits that the process of renowned artists working with the inmates, finally resulting in the impressive show of more than 50 odd works, was an eye opener to the “circumstances that converted most of these young lads into criminals,” Nath refuses to disclose the name of the Delhi artist who, impressed by the talent, has taken in a released inmate to work with him.
It is the work on display, however, that helps to reveal both the identity and the circumstances of the inmates. Giving a real glimpse inside the world of a jail, in this case Tihar Jail Number 5 which houses convicts in the age group of 18-21, each inmate’s work surprisingly displays a mature handling of colours and canvas. “While we have been holding classes for them every week in the last one year where Chaitali De from Delhi College of Art has been training them, all the participating artists have spent time at Tihar to guide them,” smiles Nath like an indulgent parent, “but we never interfered with what they wanted to portray.”
So there is a mix of several emotions in the works, some sober, some vibrant. While Iqbal’s portrait of a melancholic looking girl greets you at the entrance, helplessness is evident in the 20-year-old Suraj’s work where a younger girl sits alone scared of darkness inside her room. Vijay’s work titled ‘Timeless Wait’ showcases a human tree fitted with a clock on the trunk, in an obvious reference to his wait towards freedom while some others create still life and landscapes in brighter colours as well.
Another undertrial Pawan uses his fascination with Lord Krishna for a small portrait that is both meticulous in detail and powerful in imagery. Dipu, another inmate from Bihar, imparts his style of innovation in a one-eyed portrait of Mother Teresa while a traditional Indian woman has a lotus as her crown. There is also on show a poster collage which has both figurative elements portraying life inside the jail and poignant inscriptions like “I want to go out” and “Set me Free”. Similar sentiments find their echo in works that show birds flying out of a cage, flowers in full bloom and in, particular deities. Said Nath explaining the overwhelming presence of Gods and Goddesses in the inmates’ work: “Religious tolerance is extremely high in the prison, where you would expect it the least. I saw festivals like Navratras and Rozas being observed by all with equal fervour.”
Holding hands
The story of ‘Expressions’, however, cannot be complete without mentioning the large scale canvases, installations and photographs mounted by artists like Rameshwar Broota, Chintan Upadhyay, Gigi Scaria, Bose Krishnamachari, Baiju Parthan, George Martin, G R Iranna, Manjunath Kamath, Veer Munshi and several others…each having spent time with the Tihar inmates during the project. While some of them have chosen to portray a prison-specific message, like Chintan Upadhyaya does with his quirky toddlers with message Mera Baap Chor Hai inscribed on the arms in a series titled ‘Tapori Gang and Tapori Bhai’ or ‘Jail ki Roti’ by Shreyas Karle where a chef holding a rolling pin is actually a prisoner working in the jail kitchen.
Says Karle: “I chose to show the life within the jail in a humourous way because my interactions with the inmates totally changed my perception of the life within these walls. But there is no doubt that however well looked after they are, it is still a jail.”
One of the most evocative works in the exhibit belongs to the veteran Rameshwar Broota — a photographic print of heaps of rotis, seemingly kept organised on a large plate yet looking desolate in its existence.
Another dramatic work has been done as a collage of 108 small size self-portraits in various moods by Bose Krishnamachari while Prasad Raghavan’s two installations ‘Born Innocent’ and ‘Man Escaped’ facing each other on opposite walls are made up of iron rods and mirror to reflect who we really are.
Satire and humour also find their way into the artists’ works. Sanjeev Khandekar’s ‘Tihar Jail on a Wheat Grain’ (including motifs that read ‘Welcome to Tihar’) pokes fun at the transparency that our jails are not so famous for, while Shiv Verma’s astute wall mounted sculptural work in iron, stainless steel, aluminium and acrylic sheet titled ‘Gandhiji and his 3000 monkeys’ is a modern-day take on the mythology of Rama and his vanar sena.
G R Iranna attempts to ask a similar question about the choices one has. In his acrylic titled ‘Between Freedom And Freedom Fighters’, he shows a group of young men, almost like a football team, but each wearing a shirt that is marked with a date of some terrorist attack across the globe.
He says, “Every child is innocent and has a right to education that teaches him good morals and values, and sport is part of that education system. Sadly, these terrorists were imparted a wrong sort of education and got trapped in the notion that their act of violence was justified as they were freedom fighters.”
Ram Rahman uses the same metaphor of freedom fighters albeit in a different way. He juxtaposes images of Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Shri Aurobindo along aside unknown faces of Tihar inmates yet giving the latter the eyes of Indian freedom fighters. Perhaps, an indication of the fact that there is a thin line between each one’s concept of freedom and freedom struggle.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Latitude 28 Makes a debut at India Art Summit with Vietnamese artists and a Baroda Flavour
New Delhi: All set to make a splash in the second edition of India Art Summit, art curator and historian Bhavna Kakar brings forth an eclectic mix of artists under her new art venture Latitude 28. With an art education background from Baroda, it was expected that the curator-turned-gallerist would choose to represent some of the most interesting young Baroda artists during her first-time participation in the summit slated to take place from August 19, 2009 to August 22, 2009.
Baroda apart, what gives this exhibit a special place at the Summit is that it would be the only gallery showing works of the self-confessed homosexual Bhupen Khakhar whose famed portraiture work would be on display. In addition, Latitude 28 would also be showcasing Karachi-born artist and diva Nasreen Mohamedi’s pen and ink drawings on Japanese card paper, apart from bringing to India for the first time video works of three renowned Vietnamese artists.
Says Bhavna Kakar, curator & Director, Latitude 28: “India Art Summit is a wonderful platform to showcase the collection of our new venture, Latitude 28 and interact with the art fraternity. The gallery is committed to featuring evocative and challenging art in a variety of mediums and is happy to be able to introduce to the Indian art market different genres of not only Indian but international art practices. Besides showing veterans like Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen Khakhar and Nasreen Mohamedi, our aim is to highlight new-age art by younger luminaries like Surekha and Prajjwal Choudhury.”
The artists at Latitude 28, Stall No. A04, India Art Summit are: Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Sonia Mehra Chawla, Prajjwal Choudhury, Rajesh Ram, Surekha, , Arunkumar HG, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha and Thi Trinh Nguyen.
While both Bhupen Khakhar and Nasreen Mohamedi were associated with M.S.University, Baroda, the latter in the capacity of a teacher, the aesthetics in their work is unique to each.
Honoured with the Padma Shri in 1984, Bhupen Khakhar was a self-taught artist, who quit the flourishing profession of chartered accountancy to move to Baroda, against the wishes of his family members. Despite the lack of a formal training, Khakhar started mapping his own peculiar style gorging on the kitsch aesthetic of the streets and households of Gujarat. Later, his paintings increasingly turned towards the theme of homosexuality in a largely conservative Indian society. Some of his paintings at the Summit, titled Portrait, Big Head and The Banyan Tree, unleash the artist’s mirthful take on sexuality and society.
Unlike Khakhar’s bold, figurative canvases, Nasreen Mohamedi’s style is known to be subtle and abstract. Her last major exposition was at Documenta, Germany. The gallery has selected black and white geometrical drawings from Mohamedi’s body of work which beautifully complement Khakhar’s colourful palette.
Born in Karachi in 1937, Nasreen was known for her Zen-like minimalist accent from the very start of her career. In the 60s and 70s, she was perhaps one of the few women in the exclusive male domain of high modernism in India striving to evolve a distinct aesthetic vocabulary of her own. She is often associated with the Minimalist artist Agnes Martin whose quality of works are defined by the pristine textural touches arranged along the gridded lines carefully drawn by hand invoking effect of hand weaving. Though much is not known about the early works of the artist who passed away in 1990, her poetic diary entries have been the main source of assimilating strands of her vision. Nasreen’s diary notes make mention of interactions with artists like V.S. Gaitonde and Tyeb Mehta at the Bhulabhai Desai Institute who made a profound impact on her. In 1971, when she joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda as a teaching staff, interactions with Jeram Patel, who also in his own distinct ways was fathoming an abstract style, mustered strength for extending her own practice.
Women Exposing her Teeth is the title of the work by yet another veteran Jogen Chowdhury who has been widely acknowledged as the master of the unbroken line. The figure is the prominent source of most of his works. Jogen Chowdhury’s ability to juxtapose contrary emotions, the real and imaginary and the known and unknown, make his art not only a form of self expression but a reflection of a collective and subjective consciousness.
While these exclusive paintings of veterans are aimed to attract attention of avid art collectors, video works from the younger artists are equally promising. Says Bhavna Kakar: “The videos will be showcased in the video lounge during the summit and bear a context specific to their nation. But in a global society, where each is striving for peace and progress, realizing the concerns and aesthetic idiom of this militarily stirred region becomes vital in the process.”
For instance, artist Thi Trinh Nguyen from Vietnam presents a video work titled Spring Comes Winter After 2009 that observes the funeral of Le Dat. (A Vietnamese poet who was part of a 1950s literary and intellectual movement in Northern Vietnam called ‘Nhan Van-Giai Pham’, which criticized life under communism. He was later banned from publishing for three decades, and it was not until 2007 that the Vietnamese government decided to grant him a prestigious national award in an effort to reconcile the grievances of the past.) Explains the artist: “As the avant-garde artists like this poet were forced to be silent, Vietnamese art and literature suffered decades of decay. In this short documentary film, the camera focuses on the grief of those in attendance of the funeral of this celebrated poet, many of whom are Vietnam’s contemporary established writers and intellectuals.” Thi’s camera however rolls time in reverse, the procession of people reverentially moving around Le Dat’s coffin depicted in rewind. This reversal of time could refer to Thi’s many interviews with Le Dat before he died where he once said that it was a common feeling among many of his generation that youth was completely lost and wasted away. By reversing time in Spring comes Winter after, Thi wishes his youth to be returned to him.
Vietnamese video artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Phu Nam Thuc Ha create a joint video projection with the word Uh... written as a graffiti tag on various public walls throughout Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. As passersby stroll past and traffic whizzes along the streets, a realization sinks in that being viewed is a suggestive trail that meanders across strategically focused detailed images of various government compound walls in Ho Chi Minh City. This work explores not only Vietnam's shifting landscapes, both cultural and physical, but also questions the reality of change.
Exploring the similar genre of video art is Three Fragmented Actions of Silence by Surekha that depicts an autobiographical transition from the real self to image. Divided into two horizontal frames, the top half of the video contains the artist taking out rose petals one by one from her mouth and pasting it to the actual stem, as if creating flower is a humane act. In the lower half, it is the same reverse scene in negative of eating petals, tilted up side down. The dual positive & negative image of the artist eating & recreating a flower echoes in the veiling and unveiling of her face. Her other video titled Bhagirathi Bringing Water, shot within a domestic space, transgresses to make a real, living space into immediate metaphoric artistic location. Here, the protagonist is in a bath tub and is facing the trail posed by the lonely and nostalgic camera, and desires to picturize that which was stored in the memories of one’s childhood.
Apart from the video works, an interesting collage of paintings and installations by other young artists are equally noteworthy. For example, Sonia Mehra Chawla’s mixed media on canvas titled Membrane is about an ongoing debate between the individual and the constantly changing urban locations. The display of her 8.5ft by 5ft sized work is a prelude to Sonia’s upcoming solo show in Mumbai. Her work essentially investigates and explores layers and complexities that are manifest within the urban and the biomorphic. The forms are at once generative and sensuous, macabre and degenerate, opulent and awe-inspiring and carry within them the force of the living and the vulnerability of decay. The vein-like trees and skeletal cow in the work become a metaphor for the pain of mindless urbanization.
Coming to the genre of installations, artist Arunkumar H.G’s work is a 3-feet tall Superman which he calls The Super B. Trained as a sculptor from Baroda, Arunkumar works in various disciplines, including photography and toy design. His use of readymade objects such as toys, plastic, ceramics, cow dung, hay and TV monitors gives us a glimpse of his susceptibility towards the neo-pop movement. His toy-like, yet intricate sculptural works often convey a simple message. Sometimes, however, Arunkumar switches the dynamics of this relationship, creating works that physically appear basic, but convey a complex message quite contrary to their appearance.
Artist Prajjwal Choudhury in his work titled Everything has been done before, but we would like to go back and begin all over again, sets up a recycling machine apparently operating as a kinetic conditioned to reprocess and reproduce matchboxes. He says: “There will be 2000 match boxes placed inside the mixer which will be falling on a moving steel plate. All the match boxes will be accumulated together and once the mixer is empty they will go back into the mixer by vacuum process so the process of recycling begins.” It is obvious that Prajjwal is at war with the way in which everyday objects are taken for granted. He gathers his preliminary fuel from such objects like matchboxes to engineer his thought-provoking creations. These matchboxes filled in the recycling machine carry a realistic visual appeal, but with a wry humor, deceiving the onlooker. The cover of the matchboxes carries images of the works of the world-famous artists-Andy Warhol, Picasso, Damien Hirst, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Dhruva Mistry, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta and Atul Dodiya.
On the other hand, Rajesh Ram aptly weaves his aesthetic configurations with deadpan satire in his work tilted Pothi padhi padhi jag muah pandit hua na koye dhai akshar prem ke pade so pandit hoye. Made out of tangible objects like books, the artist manipulates their shapes to delineate hearts accentuated from their background, enunciating the saga of love and tolerance in a bigoted society. The artist also in an uncanny way gears up to promote the national language Hindi’s proverbial bywords by stressing on its meaningful connotation.
LATITUDE 28 is a new venture under the direction of Bhavna Kakar, a Delhi-based expert in Modern and Contemporary Art with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Committed to giving a platform to young talent, LATITUDE 28 encourages broad-based practices ranging from painting and sculpture, to photography, video and installations.
By anticipating trends and spotting latent talent, LATITUDE 28 is committed to host not only exhibitions in the white cube of a gallery space, but also by supporting residencies, outreach programs, seminars, and talks. Take on art! is the art magazine launched under the same banner, a bold initiative in today’s recessionary times that sets Latitude 28 apart from the regular commercial set up.
LATITUDE 28 has exhibited an eclectic mix of contemporary artists like Justin Ponmany, Atul Bhalla, Prajakta Palav, Manjunath Kamath, George Martin, Sandeep Pisalkar, Farhad Hussain, Binu Bhaskar, Niyeti Chadha, Sakshi Gupta, Minal Damani, Apurba Nandi, Pooja Iranna, Alok Bal, and seniors like Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Ganesh Haloi, Prabhakar Kolte, G R Santosh amongst others in India and international venues like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and London.
Baroda apart, what gives this exhibit a special place at the Summit is that it would be the only gallery showing works of the self-confessed homosexual Bhupen Khakhar whose famed portraiture work would be on display. In addition, Latitude 28 would also be showcasing Karachi-born artist and diva Nasreen Mohamedi’s pen and ink drawings on Japanese card paper, apart from bringing to India for the first time video works of three renowned Vietnamese artists.
Says Bhavna Kakar, curator & Director, Latitude 28: “India Art Summit is a wonderful platform to showcase the collection of our new venture, Latitude 28 and interact with the art fraternity. The gallery is committed to featuring evocative and challenging art in a variety of mediums and is happy to be able to introduce to the Indian art market different genres of not only Indian but international art practices. Besides showing veterans like Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen Khakhar and Nasreen Mohamedi, our aim is to highlight new-age art by younger luminaries like Surekha and Prajjwal Choudhury.”
The artists at Latitude 28, Stall No. A04, India Art Summit are: Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Sonia Mehra Chawla, Prajjwal Choudhury, Rajesh Ram, Surekha, , Arunkumar HG, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha and Thi Trinh Nguyen.
While both Bhupen Khakhar and Nasreen Mohamedi were associated with M.S.University, Baroda, the latter in the capacity of a teacher, the aesthetics in their work is unique to each.
Honoured with the Padma Shri in 1984, Bhupen Khakhar was a self-taught artist, who quit the flourishing profession of chartered accountancy to move to Baroda, against the wishes of his family members. Despite the lack of a formal training, Khakhar started mapping his own peculiar style gorging on the kitsch aesthetic of the streets and households of Gujarat. Later, his paintings increasingly turned towards the theme of homosexuality in a largely conservative Indian society. Some of his paintings at the Summit, titled Portrait, Big Head and The Banyan Tree, unleash the artist’s mirthful take on sexuality and society.
Unlike Khakhar’s bold, figurative canvases, Nasreen Mohamedi’s style is known to be subtle and abstract. Her last major exposition was at Documenta, Germany. The gallery has selected black and white geometrical drawings from Mohamedi’s body of work which beautifully complement Khakhar’s colourful palette.
Born in Karachi in 1937, Nasreen was known for her Zen-like minimalist accent from the very start of her career. In the 60s and 70s, she was perhaps one of the few women in the exclusive male domain of high modernism in India striving to evolve a distinct aesthetic vocabulary of her own. She is often associated with the Minimalist artist Agnes Martin whose quality of works are defined by the pristine textural touches arranged along the gridded lines carefully drawn by hand invoking effect of hand weaving. Though much is not known about the early works of the artist who passed away in 1990, her poetic diary entries have been the main source of assimilating strands of her vision. Nasreen’s diary notes make mention of interactions with artists like V.S. Gaitonde and Tyeb Mehta at the Bhulabhai Desai Institute who made a profound impact on her. In 1971, when she joined the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda as a teaching staff, interactions with Jeram Patel, who also in his own distinct ways was fathoming an abstract style, mustered strength for extending her own practice.
Women Exposing her Teeth is the title of the work by yet another veteran Jogen Chowdhury who has been widely acknowledged as the master of the unbroken line. The figure is the prominent source of most of his works. Jogen Chowdhury’s ability to juxtapose contrary emotions, the real and imaginary and the known and unknown, make his art not only a form of self expression but a reflection of a collective and subjective consciousness.
While these exclusive paintings of veterans are aimed to attract attention of avid art collectors, video works from the younger artists are equally promising. Says Bhavna Kakar: “The videos will be showcased in the video lounge during the summit and bear a context specific to their nation. But in a global society, where each is striving for peace and progress, realizing the concerns and aesthetic idiom of this militarily stirred region becomes vital in the process.”
For instance, artist Thi Trinh Nguyen from Vietnam presents a video work titled Spring Comes Winter After 2009 that observes the funeral of Le Dat. (A Vietnamese poet who was part of a 1950s literary and intellectual movement in Northern Vietnam called ‘Nhan Van-Giai Pham’, which criticized life under communism. He was later banned from publishing for three decades, and it was not until 2007 that the Vietnamese government decided to grant him a prestigious national award in an effort to reconcile the grievances of the past.) Explains the artist: “As the avant-garde artists like this poet were forced to be silent, Vietnamese art and literature suffered decades of decay. In this short documentary film, the camera focuses on the grief of those in attendance of the funeral of this celebrated poet, many of whom are Vietnam’s contemporary established writers and intellectuals.” Thi’s camera however rolls time in reverse, the procession of people reverentially moving around Le Dat’s coffin depicted in rewind. This reversal of time could refer to Thi’s many interviews with Le Dat before he died where he once said that it was a common feeling among many of his generation that youth was completely lost and wasted away. By reversing time in Spring comes Winter after, Thi wishes his youth to be returned to him.
Vietnamese video artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen and Phu Nam Thuc Ha create a joint video projection with the word Uh... written as a graffiti tag on various public walls throughout Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. As passersby stroll past and traffic whizzes along the streets, a realization sinks in that being viewed is a suggestive trail that meanders across strategically focused detailed images of various government compound walls in Ho Chi Minh City. This work explores not only Vietnam's shifting landscapes, both cultural and physical, but also questions the reality of change.
Exploring the similar genre of video art is Three Fragmented Actions of Silence by Surekha that depicts an autobiographical transition from the real self to image. Divided into two horizontal frames, the top half of the video contains the artist taking out rose petals one by one from her mouth and pasting it to the actual stem, as if creating flower is a humane act. In the lower half, it is the same reverse scene in negative of eating petals, tilted up side down. The dual positive & negative image of the artist eating & recreating a flower echoes in the veiling and unveiling of her face. Her other video titled Bhagirathi Bringing Water, shot within a domestic space, transgresses to make a real, living space into immediate metaphoric artistic location. Here, the protagonist is in a bath tub and is facing the trail posed by the lonely and nostalgic camera, and desires to picturize that which was stored in the memories of one’s childhood.
Apart from the video works, an interesting collage of paintings and installations by other young artists are equally noteworthy. For example, Sonia Mehra Chawla’s mixed media on canvas titled Membrane is about an ongoing debate between the individual and the constantly changing urban locations. The display of her 8.5ft by 5ft sized work is a prelude to Sonia’s upcoming solo show in Mumbai. Her work essentially investigates and explores layers and complexities that are manifest within the urban and the biomorphic. The forms are at once generative and sensuous, macabre and degenerate, opulent and awe-inspiring and carry within them the force of the living and the vulnerability of decay. The vein-like trees and skeletal cow in the work become a metaphor for the pain of mindless urbanization.
Coming to the genre of installations, artist Arunkumar H.G’s work is a 3-feet tall Superman which he calls The Super B. Trained as a sculptor from Baroda, Arunkumar works in various disciplines, including photography and toy design. His use of readymade objects such as toys, plastic, ceramics, cow dung, hay and TV monitors gives us a glimpse of his susceptibility towards the neo-pop movement. His toy-like, yet intricate sculptural works often convey a simple message. Sometimes, however, Arunkumar switches the dynamics of this relationship, creating works that physically appear basic, but convey a complex message quite contrary to their appearance.
Artist Prajjwal Choudhury in his work titled Everything has been done before, but we would like to go back and begin all over again, sets up a recycling machine apparently operating as a kinetic conditioned to reprocess and reproduce matchboxes. He says: “There will be 2000 match boxes placed inside the mixer which will be falling on a moving steel plate. All the match boxes will be accumulated together and once the mixer is empty they will go back into the mixer by vacuum process so the process of recycling begins.” It is obvious that Prajjwal is at war with the way in which everyday objects are taken for granted. He gathers his preliminary fuel from such objects like matchboxes to engineer his thought-provoking creations. These matchboxes filled in the recycling machine carry a realistic visual appeal, but with a wry humor, deceiving the onlooker. The cover of the matchboxes carries images of the works of the world-famous artists-Andy Warhol, Picasso, Damien Hirst, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Dhruva Mistry, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta and Atul Dodiya.
On the other hand, Rajesh Ram aptly weaves his aesthetic configurations with deadpan satire in his work tilted Pothi padhi padhi jag muah pandit hua na koye dhai akshar prem ke pade so pandit hoye. Made out of tangible objects like books, the artist manipulates their shapes to delineate hearts accentuated from their background, enunciating the saga of love and tolerance in a bigoted society. The artist also in an uncanny way gears up to promote the national language Hindi’s proverbial bywords by stressing on its meaningful connotation.
LATITUDE 28 is a new venture under the direction of Bhavna Kakar, a Delhi-based expert in Modern and Contemporary Art with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Committed to giving a platform to young talent, LATITUDE 28 encourages broad-based practices ranging from painting and sculpture, to photography, video and installations.
By anticipating trends and spotting latent talent, LATITUDE 28 is committed to host not only exhibitions in the white cube of a gallery space, but also by supporting residencies, outreach programs, seminars, and talks. Take on art! is the art magazine launched under the same banner, a bold initiative in today’s recessionary times that sets Latitude 28 apart from the regular commercial set up.
LATITUDE 28 has exhibited an eclectic mix of contemporary artists like Justin Ponmany, Atul Bhalla, Prajakta Palav, Manjunath Kamath, George Martin, Sandeep Pisalkar, Farhad Hussain, Binu Bhaskar, Niyeti Chadha, Sakshi Gupta, Minal Damani, Apurba Nandi, Pooja Iranna, Alok Bal, and seniors like Bhupen Khakhar, Nasreen Mohamedi, Ganesh Haloi, Prabhakar Kolte, G R Santosh amongst others in India and international venues like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and London.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Presenting the only solo exhibit at India Art Summit, Dubai’s 1x1 Art Gallery breaks new ground with a mixed-media project by Chittrovanu Mazumdar
New Delhi: As the capital gets ready for the second edition of India Art Summit with every art gallery choosing the customary option of presenting a group of artists, there is one exception that comes as a breath of fresh air, and art! Dubai-based 1x1 Art Gallery is the only gallery to present a solo artist and will be showcasing a brand new series of works by Calcutta’s renowned and equally reclusive artist Chittrovanu Mazumdar at the summit, scheduled to take place at Pragati Maidan from August 19, 2009 to August 22, 2009.
Says Malini Gulrajani, Director, 1x1 Art Gallery: “Most people would shy from showing a single artist at such an international platform. I, however, believe that commerce should be the last concern of a gallery and to do justice to Chittro’s work that I admire so much, a solo exhibit was the only way.”
Reciprocating the loyalty in equal measure, artist Chittrovanu Mazumdar has created for this project a brand-new series ranging from three-four large mixed media works in mediums as difficult and diverse as tar, wax, metal, light and photography that will be wall mounted; a series of small photographic as well as wax works and a sculpture-installation. There are works made of lights on mild steel panel with dimmer, speakers and soundtrack; acrylic paint, wax and tar on plywood and mild steel; wax on plywood with gold leaf as well as tinted silver leaf and few digital works of human and landscape imagery with wax and tar on mild steel.
According to Chittrovanu Mazumdar - “The blueprint for my new works is the cohabitation of opposites.” He explains that by using light-hungry, night-dark tar and the trays of light that feed those depths while simultaneously reflecting off them; he has juxtaposed mythical reverberations of black and white. The human weight of history - of making, of handcrafting - bespoken by age-old materials such as beeswax, metal, tar has been combined with sheer virtuality to produce digital prints, screen images and electronic soundscape. The promise of touch foregrounded through the textured tactility of poured colour or the exposed skin are evident in the prints on display. The curved arc of the containing womb-pod with its eternal potential of bursting, birthing and the unsettling presence of the unknown and the known are present amidst all the neatly framed geometric assertion on the walls.
Another highlight at the summit will be Chittrovanu’s video titled ‘Sleep’ which will be shown at the Video Lounge. The fifteen-minute video showcases the interrogation of the surface where the depths erupt unpredictably through cracks in a seemingly seamless skin; the metaphor of sleep and escaping dreams that inevitably rupture the face of an ostensibly calm and tranquil order as aural signs of disruption, chaos, always imminent and never predictable, haunt the mind.
Says Chittrovanu Mazumdar: “I consider myself as an expressionist painter and believe that art is a private activity for the artist, a search within the individual. To me, work is the space of freedom where everything can move, turn around, transform and become something else. There are structures and systems that one follows up to a point but then gets out of them.”
While this would be 1x1 Art Gallery’s first foray into the Indian market, the artist himself is no newcomer. While his last solo show in Delhi was at Bodhi Art Gallery in 2005, Chittrovanu has shown extensively across the globe since his first art outing in 1985. He has established himself as one of India's leading contemporary artists. Fusing the intellectual with the sensual in a unique way, the artist has exhibited across the world like at Jehangir Art Gallery (Mumbai); Bose Pacia Modern (New York); Seagull Foundation (Kolkata); Latit Kala (Chennai); Aicon Gallery (London). He had also been invited to display at the Victoria Memorial Durbar Hall, Calcutta (1991) and joined the ranks of the previous two invitees M F Husain and Bikash Bhattacharjee.
Born in 1956, Paris, Chittrovanu Mazumdar studied painting and printmaking at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Paris in 1983 after graduating from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta with a gold medal. Starting his career as a painter with huge canvases, mammoth solo shows and exploring a broad spectrum of media and technology in his work, his range of references is vast, incorporating inputs from his own culturally rich upbringing in Kolkata and Paris and an astonishing range of eclectic reading in three languages - French, English and Bengali. His work pulls from various influences, be it visual, musical or lyrical. His paintings - using bold brushstrokes, layered imagery, abstract images and elements of collage - express the conflicting experiences and beliefs that exist within modern society and man. His canvases exude intensity and vigor and are representational of his feelings of angst and suppression in a fast paced city. Distinctive by their blaze of colour and a free-flowing application of paint, his works have the ability to seamlessly shift from abstraction to figuration and naturalism. He treats the conventions of modernism not as constrictive theories but as stylistic options, employing abstraction, figuration, the macabre and the jovial all in a single work.
One of his most unsurpassed exhibitions in the past titled ‘Undated – Night Skin’ had amorphous sounds floating in plangent music. Embedded in the ominous military machines were fragments of human experiences - images of living spaces, dreamlike landscapes, panels of intense red impasto like coagulated blood, flowing water, cries, the lights of a city at night, the wail of an infant, a woman alone, sirens and traffic sounds, stained walls and doors and windows, a female voice pleading, a placid pig wallowing in the filth etc.
Equally evocative is the artist’s photography work that he has showcased in the past. His photographs tells a story of a place where violence, vandalism and death have just taken place, producing a comment on the present socio-political situation of India. One of the digital prints shows a calf’s carcass that lies abandoned to its fate, the potential symbols for death and decay, connoting the cyclical nature of life – what comes from the earth goes back to the earth. Says Chittrovanu: “I had a strong interest in photography and began to incorporate my own photographs in my works with painterly intervention or with a third presence, the intrusion of an exterior world. However, in due course of time, I started using photoshop on it. For the photographic series, I had travelled to Jharkhand where I chose a one square kilometer of desolated marshy land as the location and reworked on my clicked images. It was the textual and visual possibilities of a fictionalized documentary that inspired me to do these series.
Continuously reinventing himself for the past three decades, Chittrovanu has always been ahead of his times and moved in a new direction with every show, simultaneously returning to the most primeval of human emotions – fear, hunger, ecstasy, desire. His art boldly blends elements of pop art with abstract swathes of colour, dealing with human paradox and ambiguity, of the seeping grey of daily life that escapes the purity of black and white. What appears to link the very visually and formally different phases of his work is the intensity of sensual immersion demanded by the artist of both himself and the viewer. The viewer feels compelled to unravel the meaning behind the artist's often fragmented compositions. Through the layers of translucent and opaque paint over collages of images and text, one suddenly notices the vehement gaze of belligerent eyes or a desperately outstretched hand. Mazumdar states, “I enjoy the fact that it isn’t a definite, complete form. The half-formed figure is always in the process of becoming. It remains a promise, full of possibilities.”
ABOUT 1X1 ART GALLERY
A major force in promoting Contemporary Indian Art in Dubai, 1x1 has organized and presented ‘Af-fair’ in Dubai in March 2008 curated by Bose Krishnamachari bringing to fore works of artist like Anant Joshi, Hema Upadhyaya, Jyothi Basu, Justin Ponmany, Riyas Komu, TV Santosh, Parvathy Nayar, Minal Damani, Vivek Vilsani and Aji VN soon to be launched as a documented book. Few other shows 1x1 has presented lately are ‘The New Place’, ‘Route-en-Route’, ‘Urban/Image’, ‘Art Paris’. Solo exhibits include Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Jogen Choudhary, Jatin Das, Jaideep Mehrotra, Senaka Senanayake, M.F Husain besides group shows presenting ‘Pratul Dash and Rajesh Ram’ and ‘Farhad Husain, Kazi Nazir and Binoy Varghese’.
Says Malini Gulrajani, Director, 1x1 Art Gallery: “Most people would shy from showing a single artist at such an international platform. I, however, believe that commerce should be the last concern of a gallery and to do justice to Chittro’s work that I admire so much, a solo exhibit was the only way.”
Reciprocating the loyalty in equal measure, artist Chittrovanu Mazumdar has created for this project a brand-new series ranging from three-four large mixed media works in mediums as difficult and diverse as tar, wax, metal, light and photography that will be wall mounted; a series of small photographic as well as wax works and a sculpture-installation. There are works made of lights on mild steel panel with dimmer, speakers and soundtrack; acrylic paint, wax and tar on plywood and mild steel; wax on plywood with gold leaf as well as tinted silver leaf and few digital works of human and landscape imagery with wax and tar on mild steel.
According to Chittrovanu Mazumdar - “The blueprint for my new works is the cohabitation of opposites.” He explains that by using light-hungry, night-dark tar and the trays of light that feed those depths while simultaneously reflecting off them; he has juxtaposed mythical reverberations of black and white. The human weight of history - of making, of handcrafting - bespoken by age-old materials such as beeswax, metal, tar has been combined with sheer virtuality to produce digital prints, screen images and electronic soundscape. The promise of touch foregrounded through the textured tactility of poured colour or the exposed skin are evident in the prints on display. The curved arc of the containing womb-pod with its eternal potential of bursting, birthing and the unsettling presence of the unknown and the known are present amidst all the neatly framed geometric assertion on the walls.
Another highlight at the summit will be Chittrovanu’s video titled ‘Sleep’ which will be shown at the Video Lounge. The fifteen-minute video showcases the interrogation of the surface where the depths erupt unpredictably through cracks in a seemingly seamless skin; the metaphor of sleep and escaping dreams that inevitably rupture the face of an ostensibly calm and tranquil order as aural signs of disruption, chaos, always imminent and never predictable, haunt the mind.
Says Chittrovanu Mazumdar: “I consider myself as an expressionist painter and believe that art is a private activity for the artist, a search within the individual. To me, work is the space of freedom where everything can move, turn around, transform and become something else. There are structures and systems that one follows up to a point but then gets out of them.”
While this would be 1x1 Art Gallery’s first foray into the Indian market, the artist himself is no newcomer. While his last solo show in Delhi was at Bodhi Art Gallery in 2005, Chittrovanu has shown extensively across the globe since his first art outing in 1985. He has established himself as one of India's leading contemporary artists. Fusing the intellectual with the sensual in a unique way, the artist has exhibited across the world like at Jehangir Art Gallery (Mumbai); Bose Pacia Modern (New York); Seagull Foundation (Kolkata); Latit Kala (Chennai); Aicon Gallery (London). He had also been invited to display at the Victoria Memorial Durbar Hall, Calcutta (1991) and joined the ranks of the previous two invitees M F Husain and Bikash Bhattacharjee.
Born in 1956, Paris, Chittrovanu Mazumdar studied painting and printmaking at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Paris in 1983 after graduating from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta with a gold medal. Starting his career as a painter with huge canvases, mammoth solo shows and exploring a broad spectrum of media and technology in his work, his range of references is vast, incorporating inputs from his own culturally rich upbringing in Kolkata and Paris and an astonishing range of eclectic reading in three languages - French, English and Bengali. His work pulls from various influences, be it visual, musical or lyrical. His paintings - using bold brushstrokes, layered imagery, abstract images and elements of collage - express the conflicting experiences and beliefs that exist within modern society and man. His canvases exude intensity and vigor and are representational of his feelings of angst and suppression in a fast paced city. Distinctive by their blaze of colour and a free-flowing application of paint, his works have the ability to seamlessly shift from abstraction to figuration and naturalism. He treats the conventions of modernism not as constrictive theories but as stylistic options, employing abstraction, figuration, the macabre and the jovial all in a single work.
One of his most unsurpassed exhibitions in the past titled ‘Undated – Night Skin’ had amorphous sounds floating in plangent music. Embedded in the ominous military machines were fragments of human experiences - images of living spaces, dreamlike landscapes, panels of intense red impasto like coagulated blood, flowing water, cries, the lights of a city at night, the wail of an infant, a woman alone, sirens and traffic sounds, stained walls and doors and windows, a female voice pleading, a placid pig wallowing in the filth etc.
Equally evocative is the artist’s photography work that he has showcased in the past. His photographs tells a story of a place where violence, vandalism and death have just taken place, producing a comment on the present socio-political situation of India. One of the digital prints shows a calf’s carcass that lies abandoned to its fate, the potential symbols for death and decay, connoting the cyclical nature of life – what comes from the earth goes back to the earth. Says Chittrovanu: “I had a strong interest in photography and began to incorporate my own photographs in my works with painterly intervention or with a third presence, the intrusion of an exterior world. However, in due course of time, I started using photoshop on it. For the photographic series, I had travelled to Jharkhand where I chose a one square kilometer of desolated marshy land as the location and reworked on my clicked images. It was the textual and visual possibilities of a fictionalized documentary that inspired me to do these series.
Continuously reinventing himself for the past three decades, Chittrovanu has always been ahead of his times and moved in a new direction with every show, simultaneously returning to the most primeval of human emotions – fear, hunger, ecstasy, desire. His art boldly blends elements of pop art with abstract swathes of colour, dealing with human paradox and ambiguity, of the seeping grey of daily life that escapes the purity of black and white. What appears to link the very visually and formally different phases of his work is the intensity of sensual immersion demanded by the artist of both himself and the viewer. The viewer feels compelled to unravel the meaning behind the artist's often fragmented compositions. Through the layers of translucent and opaque paint over collages of images and text, one suddenly notices the vehement gaze of belligerent eyes or a desperately outstretched hand. Mazumdar states, “I enjoy the fact that it isn’t a definite, complete form. The half-formed figure is always in the process of becoming. It remains a promise, full of possibilities.”
ABOUT 1X1 ART GALLERY
A major force in promoting Contemporary Indian Art in Dubai, 1x1 has organized and presented ‘Af-fair’ in Dubai in March 2008 curated by Bose Krishnamachari bringing to fore works of artist like Anant Joshi, Hema Upadhyaya, Jyothi Basu, Justin Ponmany, Riyas Komu, TV Santosh, Parvathy Nayar, Minal Damani, Vivek Vilsani and Aji VN soon to be launched as a documented book. Few other shows 1x1 has presented lately are ‘The New Place’, ‘Route-en-Route’, ‘Urban/Image’, ‘Art Paris’. Solo exhibits include Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Jogen Choudhary, Jatin Das, Jaideep Mehrotra, Senaka Senanayake, M.F Husain besides group shows presenting ‘Pratul Dash and Rajesh Ram’ and ‘Farhad Husain, Kazi Nazir and Binoy Varghese’.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Husain Par Fida, artist Ravi Gossain presents a brand new series of life-size canvases to fill the void of Husain’s absence during India Art Summit
New Delhi: While the entire art fraternity has reacted to M. F Husain’s exclusion from the India Art Summit second year in the running, some cautiously and some sharply, there are others who have taken a completely different route to keep the Husain legend alive during this time. Self-confessed Husain admirer and artist Ravi Gossain has created a brand new series of life-size canvases portraying various nuances of Husain’s persona, but especially his loneliness in exile, that will be showcased at Gallery Ragini, F-213 C, Lado Sarai, New Delhi from August 20, 2009 to August 31, 2009.
Titled Husain Par Fida, the exhibition is an artistic tribute to the master through life-size canvasses with some being as large as 7ft x 16 ft. Showing Husain in various moods, ranging from the playful as in Husain & Henry Moore to the morose as in Husain in ICU, the entire show is both serious and comical at the same time.
Says Nidhi Jain, Director, Gallery Ragini: “As the Art Summit comes close and the entire city prepares itself for a spurt of fresh creativity, is it really fine for us to forget one of the pioneers in Indian contemporary art? I hope the show by Gossain will be a humble attempt to fill the void created by Husain’s absence.”
Though Husain has been Gossain’s inspiration for decades, a photograph of Husain with a red Ferrari triggered him to create a full series on him. “And what time was more apt to show these than now?” asks the artist, adding, “I have always admired him from a distance and watched him intently on stage, at airports and at hotel lobbies. Though I have always felt shy to approach him, I now wish he could see these paintings. The artist in him resonates even at the age of 93. His spirit is commendable.”
Born in 1950, Gossain took to painting as a profession a little more than a decade ago and has had several art shows since 2006. An Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur alumnus, Gossain’s first encounter with his muse took place in 1971 during a live demonstration by Husain at IIT Kanpur.
Gossain further adds: “This series on Husain are based on a deep-rooted connection with the artist and his conflicts with the social system. However, I do not tend to ignite controversies and nor do I wish to form opinions on any issue related to him.”
For this exhibition in particular, Gossain puts Husain next to a Ferrari, with Henry Moore, Husain under the doctor’s scanner and in the I.C.U, and Husain on a balcony to invoke intriguing responses. For example, the Husain in ICU series shows Husain being operated by a team of surgeons in an ICU. While an ordinary patient would lie helplessly at the disposal of specialists, Husain on the other hand appears to belong to a different world and seems to be firm and unaffected by trauma. In a similar vein of thought is the work titled Husain under Scanner that captures a moment before Husain is put under MRI scan. Here again, Husain’s charisma remains unmatched and miraculous as he holds the balloons of aspirations despite personal sufferings. Yet another work titled Husain on the Balcony depicts a large colourful rooftop area with a small figure of Husain standing in a pensive mood. The presence of balloons in almost all of Gossain’s work is a noteworthy trademark that brings out an optimistic side to otherwise traumatic situations.
Executed in blazing shades of red, yellow, blue and green is the work titled Husain & Henry Moore that shows a trendy Husain sporting sunglasses and stepping off a red Ferrari. Adds Gossain: “Husain has all the latest models of Ferrari, Cadillac & Maserati which he feels are his muse. He calls them art installations as he bought them because as he could not afford a Henry Moore.”
Explaining about Gossain’s works says Nidhi Jain: “I get inspired by Gossain’s large canvases and his ability to create a balance between form and colour. His vivid colour sense is an extension of his spirited persona. His adulation for Husain is apparent in this show. He considers Husain to be his art guru and this is his way to pay back his gurudakshina, his ode to the master”.
Thus by choosing to paint on the most controversial artist of the country, Gossain’s sets up a stimulus through his works and leaves the rest for the viewers to decide.
Gallery Ragini launches coffee and conversation with artists as a monthly talk show
New Delhi: In an effort to rekindle the good old days of serious art discussion, Gallery Ragini presents its unique initiative titled Arty Acoustic, a monthly conversation over coffee with a prominent Indian contemporary artist. While each of these monthly sessions would be held on the last Friday of each month, the first talk has been scheduled for August 21, 2009 at Choko La, Khan Market (5 pm onwards) to coincide with India Art Summit so that a wider audience can interact and reflect upon the participating artist’s life and art.
The first three artists selected for this year-long programme are Bose Krishnamachari, Manjunath Kamath and Gigi Scaria for the month of August, September and October respectively.
Says Nidhi Jain, Director, Gallery Ragini: “The programme has been conceptualized to provide a serious platform for contemporary artists to interact with an enthusiastic audience comprising of artists, art lovers, collectors, gallerists and critics. The artist would explain his/her work through a slide show leaving the floor open for questions by art critics and subsequently by the audience. Ranging from being provocative to inquisitive, the question and answer session is sure to bring out the best in the artist.”
The first talk on August 21 would witness acclaimed artist Bose Krishnamachari in conversation with art curator and critic Johny M.L. The discussion would have varied nuances relating to creating art, hosting exhibitions, curatorial and museum practices in India and elsewhere. Bose Krishnamachari would also be presenting a slide show of his works to make the conversation more realistic, informative and fruitful. The presentation will include examples from his early works, his “Ghost - Stretched Bodies” series, installations, designs and all major works of art he has done so far. Also, a large 6ft x 3ft work titled Ghost would be displayed during the talk.
Says artist Bose Krishnamachari: “Unlike in the past, people are more aware of the investment possibilities in art. Though art always had a business aspect to it, in India this awareness has come very late. Now art is not just seen in terms of its aesthetical value but also its monetary value. Unfortunately, people forget that it is the aesthetic value or the historical value of a work of art that generates the monetary value to it. I find that this aspect is missing in our conversations about art.”
He further adds: “Conversation over coffee with an artist is an interesting idea with its main aim being to bridge this gap between the aesthetic and monetary value through an involved dialogue between the artist, critic and the audience. It gives the artist an opportunity to speak about his work in retrospect while being able to listen to first-hand audience comments.”
Profile: Bose Krishnamachari
Born in Kerala in 1963, Bose Krishnamachari had his informal art training at the Kerala Kalapeethom and before he joined Sir JJ School of Arts, Mumbai for graduate studies in Fine Arts. A recipient of Kerala Lalit Kala Akademy Award for painting, he has also been supported by Charles Wallace (India) Trust Scholarship for his Post Graduation in Fine Arts from the illustrious Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Bose Krishnamachari came back to India after his studies in London. His annual display had already been noticed by the British artists and scholars and Bose gathered curatorial ideas while he was in his foreign sojourn. London stint was just a beginning of his innumerable travels and researches.
Bose’s solo shows are important for their self curatorial interventions and ideas. Most of his solos are large in scale. ‘Amuseum’, ‘Decurating’, ‘Ghost Trans-memoire’, ‘Ghost’, ‘LaVA’, to name a few, are his important solo exhibitions.
Bose Krishnamachari became an internationally acclaimed curator when he became the India Section curator of ARCO, 09, Madrid, Spain. He also guest curated ‘Indian Highway’, one of the path-breaking shows on Indian contemporary art on an international platform. The show started early this year in Serpentine Gallery, London and currently it is traveling to different cities in Europe.
Known as a great talent scout, Bose always spots interesting artists from all over India. He diligently visits studios of young artists and encourages them in several ways. Bose started his curatorial venture in mid 90s with ‘Bombay X 17’, then the well known ‘Bombay Boys’. Bombay Boys later became a stand-in-name for all the successful and young contemporaries from the city of Mumbai. ‘Double-Enders’, ‘KAAM’, ‘SPY’, ‘Soft Spoken’, ‘AFFAIRS’, to name a few, are his important curated shows.
Bose is currently working towards establishing a gallery named ‘BMB’ in Mumbai. This gallery with state of the art facilities would play a very important role in bringing international art onto Indian shores. Bose Krishnamachari has a huge dream - the dream of setting of an international art museum in India. He has already started working on this and in a few years’ time, a world class museum will be set up in Kerala.
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