UTTAR PRADESH CALLING

With the globalization in1992 , India opens it’s doors for international markets to render in India. With 7.9% growth rate , India is making mark as ASIA’S leading tourist destination.

Located in North of India is Uttar Pradesh that is known for it’s rich culture and tradition. It is home to Ayodhya and Mathrua , the birth place of Lord Rama and Shri Krishna. People in Uttar Pradesh represent various facets of history, art , architecture , language and trade. Agra is world famous because of Taj Mahal which is among the 7 wonder’s of the world.Taj Mahal was built in 17th century and marks 25 lakh visitors every year.

When talk about Uttar Pradesh , there are number of places other than Taj Mahal. One of which consists mausoleum of various Sufi Saints where a person can purify his soul with divine blessing’s of god. Others include: Agra Fort , Fatehpur Sikri’s Buland Darwaza , mausoleum of Salim Chistri , Palaces of Birbal , Jodha Bai and even Punch Mahal are quite famous in Agra.

Kushinagar, Sarnath, Lumbini, Sravasti are some of the other world renowned Buddhist places that attracts great tourist attention in Uttar Pradesh. Lumbini, the birth place of Gautam Budha in Gorakhpur, register a large number of tourists every year. While on the other hand, Sravasti gives a flavor of spirituality. It is believed that Gautam Buddha spent 24 rainy seasons in Sravasti. Buddha attained Mahaparinirvana in 18th year of his age in Kushinagar. Buddha’s 6.10m long statue that represent the last phase of his life was made of red stone which was excavated in 1876. Sannath is another place in Uttar Pradesh where Buddha preached his first sermon.

Apart from the various buddisht destinations, Uttar Pradesh also hosts the world’s largest hindu ceremony i.e. the Kumbh Mela that takes place every in 12 year in Haridwar and Varanasi. Thousands of men and women including monks , saints & sadhus attend the Mela. Clad in saffron with ash powder dabbed on skin, the Naga sanyasis are the most sought during this time. The next pious festival is the Magh Mela of Allahbad which is famous for taking dip in Ganga. Around 12 Lakh people participate in Magh Mela which takes place every year.

Yet another most coveted destination for hindus is Kashi which is famous for ghats. It is the 2nd oldest city in world after Jerusalam. The Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi is home to Vishwanath Jyotirling and is one of the most sacred of hindu temples.

Not only this, The wildlife at UP is invites adventurous tourists forom all over the world. Dudhawa National Park in Lakhimpur district is famous for species which are excint from other national parks. Hastinapur wildlife scantury, Kishanpur sanctuary and National Chambal scantury are places with large forest cover and attract tourist from India and abroad in large numbers.

A tour of uttar Pradesh would take you to shrines, pilgrimages sites, wildlife scantuaries and national parks which are significant to lives of Indian people. Lucknow, the capital of UP, also known as city of nawabs is hub for the national and international tourist.

Uttar Pradesh truly has everything that make your trip a dream come true and money worthy. Right from ancient monuments to modern ones , forts to palaces , mosques to mausoleum temples, UP makes your trip complete.


PRAVEEN YADAV
09654482103

KHOJ International Artists’ Association launches of landmark publication-THE KHOJBOOK

Title: THE KHOJBOOK (1997-2007)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 680
Price: 5999/-

KHOJ International Artists’ Association launches its landmark publication THE KHOJBOOK that takes a consolidated view of contemporary art practice in India during the dynamic decade- 1997-2007. Published by HarperCollins, the book marks the completion of ten glorious years of Khoj International Artists’ Association.
Says Pooja Sood, Editor, THE KHOJBOOK: “THE KHOJBOOK took birth with a desire to mark the first ten years of Khoj International Artists’ Association. What began as a celebratory impulse has, however, shifted into a consolidated reflection of art practice in India during 1997-2007. It has taken us three complete years to put together thought-provoking and insightful essays that would provide the reader and researcher with material in the artist’s own words. The book contains interviews of Indian artists who have passed through our doors at Khoj over a decade, while the essays by eminent art critics and thinkers situate and critique Khoj itself within a wider art historical context. I hope that the interviews of the artists and by the artists would not only contribute to contemporary discourse and learning but would also inspire those conversations between peers to continue.”

The unique compendium contains five lead essays by eminent art critics and thinkers of our time, and interviews of 101 Indian artists by fellow artists. The essays include: Mapping Khoj: idea | place | network by Pooja Sood, A phenomenology of encounters at Khoj by Geeta Kapur, Coming to terms with restlessness: An essay offered in friendship to Khoj by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Probing the Khojness of Khoj by Nancy Adajania and The unbearable confusion around the idea of institutions by Rahul Srivastava. The interviews of the artists, however, have been placed in accordance with the respective year an artist has worked with Khoj. Some of the prominent names include: Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Manisha Parekh, Jitish Kallat, Riyas Komu, Bose Krishnamachari, Sumedh Rajendran, Sunil Gawde, Ashim Purkayastha, Tejal Shah, Sheba Chhachhi, Shilpa Gupta, Baiju Parthan, Jagannath Panda, Babu Eshwar Prasad, Ranbir Kaleka, Sudarshan Shetty, Pushpamala N, Jayashree Chakravarty, Navjot Altaf, Arunkumar HG, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Sovan Kumar, Gigi Scaria, Nikhil Chopra and Ravi Agarwal among others.

Lavishly illustrated with over a 1000 coloured images of art works, this 680-page book covers not only some of India’s foremost contemporary artists, but also younger artists across the country who may well be the future vanguard. It offers the reader, researcher, student, collector and art aficionado a rich store of material ‘in the artist’s own words’ from which to draw their own inspiration and conclusions.

Writes Geeta Kapur in her essay A phenomenology of encounters at Khoj: “Khoj has been especially conducive to site-specific works. It began when the concept and desire to work with perishable materials and temporary structures, with erasable signs and the artist’s own body, had just surfaced on the Indian art scene. Khoj’s initial activity (1997-2001) was situated in Modinagar in the outskirts of Delhi, in a township built around the factories of the Modis. Khoj was lucky to be offered the Sikribagh estate for its two-week winter workshops hosting 20-24 artists. The Sikribagh environs included a bungalow and outhouses, gardens and a large pond, with fields extending to wilderness. These were explored in the work of the artists who then crossed the big iron gates of the estate to forage in the local market for usable stuff and for modest manufacture of artworks. They hung out at the local dhabas and, in a few cases, developed a sociological interest in the operations of the national bourgeoisie as it disinvests businesses, abandoning the working class to virtual penury. A designated ‘Open Day’ for spectators – mostly artist-visitors from Delhi ferried across for a viewing – brought the art-idyll to critical attention. Modest by international standards, Khoj thus inaugurated an art practice embedded in nature and common culture; an informal, everyday practice of no extraordinary consequence except as a way of living it out in a temporary commune with basic facilities in what was already a highly mobile global residency circuit.”

According to Shuddhabrata Sengupta (as taken from the essay Coming to terms with restlessness: An essay offered in friendship to Khoj): “As a witness to and participant in the emerging conversation on contemporary art and cultural practice in Delhi, I, like many others have seen Khoj grow, change shape, find new lodgings, and settle into the life of the city, and the wider world of art-making. What has struck me is the diversity and variety of the kinds of people and practices that have passed through Khoj. From the earliest workshops, to the residencies, events, performances, exhibitions, discursive encounters and other kinds of gathering that Khoj has facilitated, the entire range has been impelled by the possibility of the unexpected encounter. Artists who pass through Khoj (especially those on more stable residencies) play a significant role in shaping the space through their presence. Each residency, each event changes Khoj. But the spine, the backbone, of Khoj is built out of the serendipitous possibilities that outlast the temporal dimensions of a specific unexpected encounter between different practices and practitioners. Sometimes, the chance meeting between different people at a Khoj event matures into long-lasting bonds that occasionally transcend even very difficult geo-political barriers. This process is the most efficient guarantee of Khoj’s continuity. Khoj will endure as an institution because it has engendered a community of art practitioners, and as long as that community desires its bonds, Khoj will continue to receive its human sustenance.”

According to Nancy Adajania (as taken from the essay Probing the Khojness of Khoj): “The coming together of any group of creative minds must be celebrated as a festival of the imagination. The advent of the Khoj International Artists’ Workshop in 1997, with the formation of a working group comprising six artists and a gallery director, is such a benchmark in the history of postcolonial Indian art. The achievement of the Khoj model is that it has transformed the lives and work of its practitioners. It has anticipated and provided for the consequences of the mobility that globalisation has imparted to Indian artists in the postcolonial world. By amplifying their context from nation to region to globe, Khoj has produced a valuable platform and network – one that gives them the latitude, the depth of field and the tactical flexibility to deal with a range of emerging art-historical provocations. Khoj has made them aware, over the years, of possibilities that they can pursue, artistic choices that they can empower themselves to make. And thus, in an art situation that was for nearly four decades many steps behind its Western point of reference, Khoj registered, for the first time, the sensation of being many steps ahead. Its emphasis on process, rather than product, liberated artists from the commodity focuses of the gallery system; its lively laboratory atmosphere brought Indian cultural producers into close communion with colleagues from other countries, breaking down the nation-centric self discourse then in force.”

Gallery Espace presents Lava

Mrinalini Mukherjee

Lava

Bronze Sculpture

On view till 15 May 2010; Monday to Saturday, 11am- 7pm



Gallery Espace is proud to present Lava, bronze sculptures by one of India’s most senior artists Mrinalini Mukherjee. Her current body of work has taken three years to complete and includes over 30 sculptures.


Born in 1949, Mumbai, Mrinalini Mukherjee is the daughter of renowned artists Benode Behari and Leela Mukherjee. She studied painting at M S University of Baroda between 1965 and 1970. From 1970 to 1972, she did her post-Diploma in mural design under Prof. K G Subramanyan. Her artistic experimentations have traversed the mediums of natural fiber, wax, ceramic and more recently metal. Her works are well collected world over, featured in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford England, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, U.K, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, NGMA, New Delhi and the Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhawan, New Delhi, besides other prominent private collections.


…”Mrinalini Mukherjee’s sculpture invites a much closer reading than her formal repertory and the syncopated way she has of treating it would seem to indicate. The liminal gesture of the hemp knot in her early work has an import whose consequences can be readily followed in all of her production. The predilection that she demonstrates for the counterpoint of the folds, the shimmer, the way she has of using the firing accidents in her ceramic pieces are all variations on this. She takes pleasure in all the surface imperfections – the phenomena of bronze oxidation, the iridescences of the patina, the minuscule asperities of the material – which, far from disturbing the unity of her materials, actually reinforce her intention all the better, for she seeks to confer upon them the illusion of an outer layer that takes on the value of a threshold, a protective envelope, a skin that gives life to all that it covers.


The bronze pieces disclose the presence of an object at their center that resembles a pot at times, a wineskin at others – rounded like a colocynth with its scapes, its leaves and its stems. It is as if Mukherjee were revealing the different stages in the growth of a plant -from its birth under the foliage to the emergence of tubers and finally the majestic blossoming into the light of day. The leaves grow and spread around the axis of her works as if under the effect of a breath, under the impact of an irresistible force. The object that opens and blossoms before our eyes literally emerges from its womb, and in so doing, shows all the signs of its effort to come to light: the jagged, scalloped, serrated, random, indecisive, hesitant motifs, like so many caprices that might pass for natural laws. The body merges with the foliage and is thereby concealed from the eyes of mortals, like the gods or the woodland spirits in certain ancient cultures. As for the material that purports to embody it, it can thereupon only acknowledge the precious paradox of its metamorphoses by way of a lightening or a natural evaporation of sorts…”

— Henry-Claude Cousseau,

Director, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Khoj Studios presents In Context:Public.Art.Ecology

New Delhi: In continuation with its vision to promote alternative art practices, particularly in the domain of public art, KHOJ International Artists’ Association presents a multi-dimensional art project emerging out of a six-week residency program around the multiple ecologies of the city. The project supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in India entitled In Context:Public.Art.Ecology features artists from India, Germany, Japan and USA. The works will be on view at 3 venues including the Khoj Studios, public spaces at the Select City Walk Mall and 20 Barakhamba Road from 8th April- 16th April 2010.

Apart from the works by the artists in residence at Khoj, the project will also feature a sculpture and a public intervention work at the Pushp Vihar Monday Market by Thukral & Tagra, an innovative sound installation by Aastha Chauhan and Video Works by Sheba Chhachhi, Gigi Scaria and Ravi Agarwal at the Select City Walk, Saket, New Delhi.

Since 2002, Khoj Studios has seen a spate of residencies. Pooja Sood, the Director of Khoj explains: “While both workshops and residencies are process and exchange driven, the intention and outcomes are slightly different. The slower-paced residencies, which generally last six to eight weeks, are limited to a smaller number of participants, at most six, allowing for a sharper interrogation of the city, as well as a more intimate and meaningful exchange between artists and their work processes. So if you happen to hear strange voices while using one of the washrooms at Khoj Studios or meet somebody encouraging you to plant trees at Barakhamba road, it may be time for you to realize the reach and importance of art in the public domain.”

Culminating on April 8, all the projects by the KHOJ artists in residence focus on interventions in the public sphere. The projects range from mapping weather patterns and the effects of climate change to examining the significance of trees in the context of road zones. From designing a tableaux that will interact with people on conservation to building a natural biological water purification system; and from making an interactive video sculpture to an intervention that traces the paths of people and their constitutive objects from Chandni Chowk to Gurgaon.

The participating artists of residency are: Andrea Polli & Chuck Varga (USA), Sylvia Winkler (Austria) & Stephan Koperl (Germany), Sohei Iwata (Japan), Aliya Pabani, Namrata Mehta, Tejas Pande (Bangalore), Sheba Chhachhi (Delhi) and Navjot Altaf (Mumbai).



Project-1: Title-Hello, Weather! & Breather by Andrea Polli & Chuck Varga
Project Type- Installation & web based project

Project Description & Location
Hello, Weather! (aka Namatse, Mausam!) - The installation maps the local weather conditions and attempts to de-mystify the collection and use of weather and climate data by bringing artists, technologists and ecologists together around citizen weather stations. This project investigates cooperative media related to weather and climate observation and science and builds on the existing international phenomenon of Personal Weather Stations in which enthusiasts worldwide combine DIY technology with organized web forums for collecting and analyzing data. The project both visualizes and sonifies the data and invites audiences to engage with the data available in a variety of formats. In addition to the Khoj station, Hello, Weather! currently has four Professional Weather stations in operation: two in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in Zurich. This project would be displayed at Khoj Studios.

Breather- It is an interactive sculpture that illustrates that one person every hour is killed by air pollution in Delhi. It would be displayed at Select City Walk Mall, Saket

About the Artists
Andrea Polli -Andrea Polli (www.andreapolli.com) is an artist, Associate Professor in Fine Arts and Engineering and Director of Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media at The University of New Mexico. Polli's work has been presented widely in venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art Artport and The Field Museum of Natural History and has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News and others. In 2007/2008, she spent seven weeks living in Antarctica. www.90degreessouth.org

Chuck Varga (USA)-In 1985, Chuck Varga (www.chuckvarga.com) joined with a group of five like-minded individuals and founded the theatrical rock band GWAR. Varga created the character Sexicutioner, who starred in eight major productions of GWAR that toured the US and Europe in over 1000 shows. He also wrote scripts, designed and built costumes and sets, wrote and designed over a dozen graphic stories for the GWAR comic, and co-authored two feature-length films including the Grammy-nominated Phallus in Wonderland.

Project-2: Title- PPR (Passenger Propelled Rickshaw) by Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koeperl, Project Type- Intervention in public space

Project Description and Location
PPR (Passenger Propelled Rickshaw)-The project emphasizes on the fact that self powered vehicles are going to play a major role for short-distance transport in the sustainable cities of the future. It focuses on the use of cycle rickshaws in Delhi. A prototype of a PPR (passenger propelled rickshaw) is going to be constructed. In this vehicle the hierarchy of passenger/puller is transformed into a temporary collaborative unit where physical power and logistical knowledge are shared to bring things forward. The artists would engage the passers-by in a breathtaking ride on the PPR to fuel the dream of a post-oil society. It would be displayed at Select City Walk Mall, Saket.

About the Artist
Sylvia Winkler (Austria) & Stephan Koeperl (Germany)-Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koeperl got both their degrees from the State College of Art Stuttgart, Germany Grants from the State of Baden-Württemberg, the DAAD, the Austrian Government and the Canadian Cultural Council. Their temporary interventions are developed specifically for each situation and are always the result of observations made on location. By minimalistic means, they create unexpected situations for the anonymous passer-by.


Project 3 : Title- Fieldwork in Delhi by Sohei Iwata
Project Type- Installation & Intervention in public space

Project Description and Location
Fieldwork in Delhi -Sohei Iwata is currently developing the ‘Cell House’ in a farming village in West Bengal. As an experiment during the In Context:public.art.ecology project, Sohei is working with modifying the rural Cell House for urban environment. He will examine how efficiently his water purification system using the bacteria filter can work for the underground water in Indian cities or the tap water supplied by the government. This project would be displayed at Khoj Studios.


About the Artist
Sohei Iwata- He studied 'Art Project' and 'site-specific work' at Tokyo University of Arts. He organized art project 'SICE' in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina from 2003-2007. It was one of the biggest international art events in Sarajevo after the Balkan War. From 2008, He was chosen by the artist sent by the cultural affairs, Japan and started a new art project titled ‘Apamnapat' at Santiniketan, India. The purpose of 'Apamnapat' is to developecological houses for ethnic minorities in India.

Project4: Title-The Object of my Extension by Namrata Mehta, Aliya Pabani & Tejas Pande, Project Type- Intervention in public space
Project Description and Location
The Object of my Extension attempts to map the network of social exchanges that connect workers from the streets of Chandni Chowk to the Cyber Parks of the "new" Gurgaon. Customized objects are designed to collect people's reflections on how their daily spaces are tempered by individual memories and aspirations. Their trajectories and collected narratives trace routes that are not simply constrained to the available road and railways, but that overlap, recur and project over impossible distances. Just as the city itself is perpetually extending from a notional past, this project conveys the various “cities” of the people who extend themselves and travel impossible distances within it. This project would be displayed at Khoj Studios.


About the Artist
Namrata Mehta is an advanced diploma student at the Centre for Experimental Media Art, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. She has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University. Some of her recent projects engage tactical media and community participation to explore various aspects of the urban experience. Her current research interest is to map material and non-material exchanges by initiating symbolic interactions with boundary objects.

Aliya Pabani is currently pursuing research at the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA) in Bangalore. She holds a BA in English Literature and Psychology from McGill University, in Montreal. She is currently exploring possibilities for representing the range of interactions that constitute public infrastructures, using film to simultaneously capture a comprehensive narrative and trace individual trajectories within it.

Tejas Pande, a graduating student of interdisciplinary design at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, takes an interest in understanding the deeply permeating nature of urban spaces and the possibility of their manipulation as tools of communication and change.

Project 5: Title-Bhogi/Rogi by Sheba Chhachhi
Project Type- Interactive video intervention

Project Description and Location
Bhogi/Rogi is an interactive installation which offers the viewer an experience of herself/himself as constituted and transformed by what she/he consumes – food, goods, words…… The installation explores the continuum between consumption- production-homogenization; with particular reference to transgenic foods, through a series of real time transformations of the body self of the viewer. Although restricted to one viewer at a time, the transformations are visible to all in the vicinity. Sheba Chhachhi in collaboration with Thomas Eichhorn would display this project at Khoj Studios.


About the Artist
Sheba Chhachhi- An installation artist and photographer, Sheba Chhachhi’s works address transformation, marginality and the play between the mythic and social in the context of gender, representation, urban ecologies, violence and visual culture. Her work has been included in several international art exhibitions, biennales and triennials and many publications. She has exhibited widely in India, Europe, Japan, South and North America, and has published writings, given talks and conducted workshops, research and projects relating to these concerns.


Project 6:Title-Barakhamba 2010 by Navjot Altaf
Project Type- Intervention in public space


Project Description and Location
Barakhamba 2010 examines the significance of trees in the context of road zones, and working towards ecological sustainability and social equity. This project is in collaboration with some of the people who had participated in the 1st phase of the project ‘BARAKHAMBA 2008’, and other interested individuals /groups from Barakhamba Road and other parts of Delhi who have been taking initiatives to make a difference such as planting new trees , working towards de chocking of the trees and looking at the state of soil and creating awareness about many issues regarding the trees and saving of the trees . Environmentalist Ajay Mahajan, one of the collaborator is from ‘Kalpavriksha’, an organization, active amongst other areas in researching the significance of trees in the context of road zones, and working towards ecological sustainability and social equity. The present concern is whether after possible rectification like creating minimum / possible required space ( adding soil and manure ) around the replanted trees and existing more than 100 years old Bahedas have better growth to be able to provide benefits to the people, and other living beings - trees are supposed to give). The horticulture department from the NDMC has responded to the proposal and is working with the Navjot towards above mentioned concerns on Barakhamba road right between Barakhamba Metro Station and Mandi House circle. Says Navjot: “I, as an artist believe that when the artistic strategies become one with the points of participants engagement. What emerges is a new way of thinking about the purpose of artwork in totality. But to understand this work is to recognize that process and all associated activities because this is not a case of a final product /object to which all else is preliminary.” The project would be displayed at Khoj Studios and at 20 Barakhamba Road, New Delhi


About the Artist
Navjot Altaf -Navjot has had a number of solo and joint exhibitions in India, Germany, New York and have participated in major national and international exhibitions, biennales and triennials. She has also participated in national and international artist’s workshops and residencies and has presented papers in seminars on art in India, Japan, Bangkok, U.K. U.S.A and Canada. Since 1991 she has been engaged with interactive /collaborative projects with Indian and International visual artists, classical vocalists, documentary filmmakers and technicians. Simultaneously since 1997 she has been engaged with ongoing site specific / public art projects in collaboration with Adivasi artists/ communities from Bastar, Central India. The process deals with the issues related to interactive /collaborative art practice as a negotiated strategy.



Details of participation by other artitsts
Sculpture & Intervention in public space by:-
1.Thukral & Tagra titled Apocalyptron – 1” (from the series The Dawn of Decadence) (2009; resin, iron and decals; 14 feet x 7’ x 4.5’) Select City Walk Mall, Saket


Description- It is a 4.2 meters high sculpture created entirely from cast-resin bottles of various types of products, commonly found in supermarkets around the world. It is modeled after one of the popular Japanese Transformer figures from comics and animated films, specifically the “Gundam” series. Each of these bottles are labeled with the artists’ tongue-in-cheek branding of “Bose-dk” (the transliteration of an Indian abusive term). Apocalyptron imagines a world where consumerism has gone berserk, gargantuan and monstrous, threatening to destroy human civilization. The sculpture both celebrates and critiques the culture of consumerism.



2. Thukral & Tagra titled Pehno at Pushp Vihar Monday Market at Near to Select City Walk Mall on 5th April & 12th April 2010

Description- The project is part of PUT-IT-ON, an ongoing research project which explores alternate mediums to spread awareness regarding HIV transmission and the AIDS epidemic. It is about identifying the gaps in the current communications surrounding education and prevention and aims to provide solutions where existing media have failed to achieve results. Started in 2005, the project aims to use multiple platforms and media to target diverse sections of the populace. Through the use of visuals and mass-produced commodities, the goal is to infiltrate multiple strata’s of society in which discussions about sex education and health care are fraught with shame, taboos and restrictions.

PEHNO! is the most recent and localized version of this project, going to the heart of the new Indian consumer society and introducing the subject with humour and wit. The plan is to present a spectacular and appealing facade to draw unsuspecting people in to the discussion, reaching those who may consciously avoid the subject. The target audience here is the rapidly developing adolescent and young adult community, which is beginning to become sexually active and may have little or no knowledge about HIV, how it is spread and how it can be prevented. This demographic group, with disposable incomes and access to privacy, may be among those most at risk in India today.


Sound Installation by:-
3. Aastha Chauhan titled Muft Ki Saklah & Gharelu Nuskeh at Toilets of Khoj Studios

Description- This special edit of Home Gharelu Nuskhey & Muft ki Salah (home remedies & free advice) will be played in a loop from the speakers in the toilets of the Select Citywalk mall. It talks about good digestion, beauty/ hygiene tips, ageing, balding, how to lose weight etc. The audio piece is an edited compilation of interviews/ conversations with medical practitioners as varied as the local baba to a dietician at a private hospital and number of local residents of Khirkee, Saket. The major thrust of the programming is local Gharelu Nuskhev & Muft ki Salah (home remedies & free advice) for alternative medication.

The conversations unpacks not just nostalgia for grandmothers’ home remedies, they also address the loss of ecology (plants and otherwise). Migratory birds that have stopped visiting the Satpula dam, increasing number of kidney related diseases, the staggeringly large quantity of pesticides in the fruits and vegetables, rapidly depleting ground water, pros and cons of Allopathy, Baba ramdev’s yoga etc.


Video Works by:-
4. Sheba Chhachhi titled The Water Diviner 2008; Duration 3mins, looped three times ( 9mins) at Select City Walk, Saket.


Description- The video, The Water Diviner, is about the loss and possible recovery of our cultural memory, rich in eco - philosophy. The current environmental crisis has led us into an instrumentalist relationship with water, where we are beleaguered consumers trying to meet our needs in the midst of contamination and scarcity. The video is part of a large multimedia installation with the same title.


5.Gigi Scaria titled Panic City 2007; Duration 3min Single channel with sound at Select City Walk, Saket


Description- In Panic City the artist is trying to comment on the new construction fever and the cleaning process in which the government is involved for the upcoming commonwealth games in Delhi. The panic city is an animation constructed from photographic stills. Says Gigi: “The area you see in the video is the old Delhi shot from the minaret of Jama Masjid. I took almost 36 shots, which are stitched together and then used the flash animation to move the buildings up and down. The music used was a mix of western classical and the opera records from Pavarotti to show the role of a 'conductor'. The conductor takes the stand as an outsider and controls the event from a higher pedestal. In the same manner the forces of globalization conduct the waves of change into the urban scapes of India, which churns the existing local system into jeopardy. Most of the area you see in the video was once part of the target for the cleaning drive. Panic city also functions as a musical video without forcing the viewer to get into any of the serious discourse. In the sense it suggest that the ignorance make us rejoice and find beauty in the most panic situations of our times.”


6.Ravi Agarwal Polluted Waters; Duration 3.30 mins at Select City Walk, Saket

Description- The video shows a river which is dirty and black with sewage. It is unusable even for the fish that cannot survive in it. There is an attempt to identify-How dirty is dirty, and where do the boundaries of the pure lie?

The Dawn - a group exhibition of portraits, landscapes, aboriginal art and calligraphic abstracts

New Delhi: Four students of artist Kanchan Chander come together for the first time in ‘The Dawn’; a group exhibition of portraits, landscapes, aboriginal art and calligraphic abstracts. The exhibition on view from April 1, 2010 to April 4, 2010 at the Open Palm Court, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi includes more than 80 paintings & drawings.

Says Kanchan Chander: “The exhibition is conceptualized as a dialogue of varying visual sensibilities, thoughts, beliefs, passion, struggle and understanding that reflects not just the artist’s individual preoccupation with the idea and material but also is indicative of their involvement, their interaction with each other, reactions to surrounding events and various skills and techniques that all of them have learned and explored throughout their artistic journey.”

The participating artists are:-

* Inspired by the Australian aboriginal art, twelve-year-old school student Nehmat Mongia portrays the mythical representations that the Australian aborigines once followed. Some of her works include The Australian Bindi, The Dots Say A Lot, The Target, Bandit, Captured Soul and Chakraview among others.
* Human face with its varied emotions, is the solitary focal point in college student and theatre actor Pallav Chander‘s canvas. His portraits like Eshna depict the innocence of a girl child playing on the street, while in Durga Puja the fervor of religious festivities can be seen.
* Using Egyptian hieroglyphs calligraphic style, England-born calligraphic teacher Anita Kumar’s artworks on first glance appears semi-abstract but as one further delves into the paintings, one sees the letter ‘Om’ beautifully drawn in bold and subtle colours.
* Real Estate consultant Guneet Kumar draws her own personal experiences onto the canvas. For instance in Purity, through her portrayal of a lotus, she conveys the hope a person should have even during the dark phases of life while continuing to believe in the goodness of God.

NGMA showcases paintings by Celebrated Russian Artist Nicholas Roerich to Celebrate Indo-Russian Cultural Relations

New Delhi: The Ministry of Culture, Government of India & National Gallery of Modern Art celebrate Indo-Russian Cultural Relations by mounting a special exhibition titled “Nicholas Roerich: An Eternal Quest” at Jaipur House, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, that will be on view till April 11, 2010.

The exhibition showcases 75 works taken from The International Centre of Roerichs, Moscow, and other leading museums in India. The prolific Russian artist Nicholas Roerich made India his home in the latter part of his life, and is today counted amongst the great Indian masters such as Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and Jamini Roy.

Nicholas Roerich was an extraordinary personality, a unique individual, having an immense thirst for knowledge, and a deep appreciation of beauty in all forms. A trained painter and lawyer, also archaeologist, ethnographer, geographer, poet, historian, philosopher, scientist, traveller, fighter for peace, defender of cultural values of all nations, Roerich throughout his life, devoted himself to the ideal of the common good of mankind.

A wide variety of prints, portfolios and memorabilia have been specially created towards the exhibition. Special films on the life and work of Nicholas Roerich will be screened daily. The exhibition would be on view till April 11, Tuesdays to Sunday, 10-5 pm at the Jaipur House wing of the National Gallery of Modern Art, India Gate Circle, New Delhi. A definite must see!

Nikolai Gogol Short Stories Merge In Bhanu Bharti’s New Stage Production Titled Doobi Ladki

New Delhi: Eminent theatre director Bhanu Bharti presents ‘Doobi Ladki’; a theatrical play that portrays a unique blend of three of Gogol’s famous short stories - The Overcoat, The Nose and A Night in May. The play is a simple love tale albeit portrayed in a multi-dimensional setting of supernatural and magical world of human complexities. A new production from Bhanu Bharti, the play will be staged at Abhimanch Auditorium, NSD, Bhawalpur House, Bhagwandas Marg, Mandi House, New Delhi from March 18, 2010 to March 21, 2010 from 6:30 p.m. daily. Extra shows on Saturday and Sunday will be at 3:00 p.m.

Says Bhanu Bharti: “Gogol’s writings acquired a special meaning for me after my interaction with the Indian tribal society and culture. Akin to Gogol’s world of humorous intrusions of the magical with the banal, the customs and the cultural traditions of the tribal Indian society are equally engaging. Hence, I chose to recreate Gogol’s stories on stage. Even though Gogol’s stories were written long back, still they have a strong allusion to our own times and its consumerist culture, which have blinded us totally not only towards our fellow beings, but also towards our own progeny and future.”


‘Doobi Ladki’ – A brief synopsis

Adapted from three of Gogol’s famous short stories - The Overcoat, The Nose and A Night in May, the play ‘Doobi Ladki’ is about a self seeking and self-centered father, who abandons his offspring to perpetual emotional and physical agony. He is exploitative and blinded by his greed. His own son rises in revolt against him and the curse is finally cured. Set in Betab Nagar mohalla (society) in Bihar, the mohalla has all kinds of characters living together – barber, tailor, copier clerk, munshi, drunkard, a constable along with the powerful ones. But, behind this seemingly liveliness of the mohalla, lies a tragic tale of the ‘Doobi Ladki’. It reveals itself when a mother and a daughter (Gul) enters the mohalla, with the intention to live there.

Gul (heroine of the play) falls in love with Nanhe who is suffering at the hands of his father, the evil Chaudhary and his step mother, who in all probability had killed his mother. Gul’s and Nanhe’s love story emerges as a metaphor for the ‘Doobi Ladki’, a reference to the Gogol’s story A Night in May or the Drowned Maiden in which the boy who is being exploited by his father is finally helped by a ‘drowned maiden’ who comes to his rescue. Here, Gul imagines herself as that maiden and begins to believe that she too is living the same curse as the magical maiden of Gogol’s story. Nanhe gets a shock when he comes to know about it and he decides to remove the curse of the ‘Doobi Ladki’ from his mohalla. From here the high turning point of the play takes place, where it enters a world of fantasy.

Then there are other characters like Nakkal Nawees, a copier clerk who is dedicated to his job, taking special relish in the hand-copying of documents. His threadbare Overcoat is often the butt of his colleague’s jokes. One day Nakkal decides it is necessary to have the coat repaired, so he takes it to his tailor, who declares the coat irreparable. The cost of a new overcoat is beyond Nakkal's meager salary, but, when he buys one, he becomes the talk of his office. From an introverted, hopeless but functioning non-entity with no expectations of social or material success, Nakkal progress to one whose self-esteem increases and thereby expectations are raised by the new overcoat. His hopes are quickly dashed by the theft of the coat. He attempts to enlist the police in recovery of the coat and employs some inept rank jumping by going to a very important and high ranking individual but his lack of status (perhaps lack of the coat) is obvious and he is treated with disdain. He is plunged into illness (fever) and cannot function. He dies quickly and without putting up much of a fight.

Another story by Gogol’s - The Nose finds reference in Chaudhary’s character. A symbol of shallow and vanity of the higher class, the Nose assumes an independent identity. Other characters include Hakka Darzi and Nazeeb Nai who handle the situations with pragmatic intelligence and humanness. Even though poor, they emerge in the play as truly evolved.

In short, the play has ample theatrical elements of absurdism, the mysterious and the heroic feats of the human spirit caught into an ordinary and common place banality of a small town existence. It is a play which has comedy, tragedy, fantasy and metaphors that are used extensively and gives a complete experience of life. The strength of the play is that when on one side the fantasy is being enacted, at the same time the harsh reality of the present times are also portrayed in all its realism.



Further Details:

· Duration of the play - 1 hour 45 mins that includes two acts and nine scenes.

· Tickets – Priced at Rs 10, 30, 50 and 100 are available from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at NSD repertory office.

· Entry - First come first serve basis

· The Play has extremely interesting sound track and lights as it has a strong element of the supernatural or the magical along with the reality of daily life. The sense of magic and the supernatural is heightened with the sound track and lights and use of smoke in the play.

· 26 characters in the play

Gallery Espace presents ‘A Cry from the Narrow Between’

New Delhi: Two young artists at the forefront of their respective generations in the contemporary art scenes of India and China explore power, eroticism, passion and violence through their multi-media artworks. While Mumbai-based artist Tejal Shah depicts the fantasies visualized by LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and Intersex) people; Beijing-based artist Han Bing on the other hand explores the boundaries between profane and sacred; eroticizing ordinary, everyday objects—especially tools of manual labour, construction, and sources of sustenance.

Says Renu Modi, Director, Gallery Espace: “Both Tejal Shah and Han Bing through their multi-media artworks which includes photography, video installation, text-based works, sound works and performance art attempt to modernize, urbanize and discipline unruly populations that transgress the dominant social norms.”

TEJAL SHAH

• Three large scale photographic series: The first photograph titled The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water is about Laxmi, a very well known hijra and human rights activist based in Mumbai who had expressed the wish to become like Cleopatra. The secondphotograph , Southern Siren – Maheshwari is also about a hijra called Maheshwari in Mumbai who expressed a desire to become a South Indian film star and see herself in a song and dance sequence, romancing the hero and to be romanced by him in return. The thirdphotograph You too can touch the moon - Yashoda with Krishna portrays Malini’s desire to be a mother by using Raja Ravi Varma’s painting ‘Yashoda with Krishna’ as a reference point.

• 40 small scale bazaar-framed photos in 5x7, 6x8 and 8x10 size from behind the scenes of the shoots of the above large scale works.

• Sound installation with text based works titled “What are You?” – Moving casually between staged performances, documentary, music video and appropriation, these portraits direct the viewer’s attention to the physicality of several members of the hijra (transgender) community in the red-light district of Mumbai. The film moves into the documentation of one individual’s experience of the gender reassignment process and concludes with slow dancing bodies moving with colorful, neo-op, go-go patterns inviting the viewer to the life embracing vitality of this community. The installation includes four beds, which are based on those found in local brothels arranged barrack style and painted in a distressed mauve finish.

HAN BING

• Live performance on March 12, 2010: Titled Dreams of a Lost Home: Mating Season, No. 12; Han Bing will be joined by local people in this live art performative intervention that will take place in the centre of the market, just outside GalleryEspace . Han Bing questions the idea that the urbanization and "modernization" of society as unproblematic "progress," and reminds us of what is lost or destroyed to make way for the new. Holding chunks of rubble from demolished buildings, between clumps of cotton from quilts, and coils of somber, curling smoke from incense, Han Bing and local participants lie dreaming of their lost homes and estranged ways of life, and the cold, impersonal distances that the modern city and lifestyle has created between people.

• Photographs: The artist will be showing performance photography from his Mating Season (2001) and Love in the Age of Big Construction (2006) series.

• Video: Titled Love in the Age of Big Construction, the artist asks the viewer to consider the rural people (whom we address as dirty, low-class and uncivilized migrant labourers) who without educational opportunities, start-up resources, obscene work hours, unsafe conditions and unreliable pay; use their bodies as an altar upon which they offer the nation its fantasy of urbanized modernity but, the city in return has nothing but contempt for them and their sacrifices. Han Bing’s video thus, is a sort of secular prayer to all those construction workers.

Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Announces Launch of ARThinkSouthAsia – annual fellowship programme in arts management & cultural policy

Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Announces Launch of ARThinkSouthAsia – annual fellowship programme in arts management & cultural policy

New Delhi: The South Asian Network of Goethe- Instituts, the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, announces the launch of ARThinkSouthAsia, a fully funded annual Fellowship in Arts Management and Cultural Policy addressed at today’s cultural practitioners. In its first edition, seventeen fellows from across South Asia have been selected for the fellowship programme that includes a two week-long residential course at Manesar starting March 15, 2010. What gives this fellowship a unique distinction is that the chosen scholars will interact with international tutors on home ground before participating in a month long internship in Germany over the year 2010-11. The fellowship programme will culminate with a concluding seminar in March 2011.

The ARThinkSouthAsia Fellowship is designed to help develop skills, knowledge, networks and experience of potential leaders in the cultural sector of South Asia which includes museums, the visual and performing arts and digital media.
Says Dr. Stefan Dreyer, Regional Director South Asia, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan: “We believe that by supporting exceptional individuals to make a step-change in their skills and career potential, we can bring substantial benefit to the cultural field as a whole.”

The two week residential course at Manesar is designed to include a balance of theory and professional training and will consist of five to six modules which include latest thinking in cultural management in areas such as strategic planning, project management, strategic finance and fundraising, marketing, communication, and internet technologies amongst others. These modules will be led by a mix of Indian and international professional trainers and academicians and will be supplemented by expert guest lectures. Each participant will be offered a funded four week secondment/internship best suited to his/her needs, interests and objectives in a cultural organization in Germany during the year. The Fellows will attend a closing seminar at the end of the Fellowship year to present and share updates on his/her project and learnings of the secondment with new Fellows of 2011-12.

Says Ms. Pooja Sood, Project Director: “We had invited applications from practitioners working across a wide range of creative and cultural activity, as also from those who are working outside it who demonstrate a knowledge, understanding and passion for culture. We are elated at the response we received, with even artists and people with unconventional careers applying for the same. We have selected for the first programme, seventeen fellows from South Asia, with most being from the field of visual arts.”

Sachin Pilot inaugurated the opening of Transit Lotus, solo exhibition of recent paintings and fibre glass sculptures by artist Dharmendra Rathore

What: New Delhi, March 5, 2010: Sachin Pilot (Union Minister of State for Communication & IT) inaugurated the opening of Transit Lotus, solo exhibition of recent paintings and fibre glass sculptures by artist Dharmendra Rathore at Lalit Kala Akademi, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi.

Where: The show, being presented by Art Pilgrim, is on till March 11, 2010 Lalit Kala Akademi and would also be displayed at Art Pilgrim, A-689A, Sushant Lok, Gurgaon from March 12, 2010 to April 5, 2010.

Who: Present on the event were Geeta Singh (Director, Art Pilgrim), Madhumita Puri (Executive Director, Art for Prabhat), art curator Sushma Bahl, artists Dharmendra Rathore, Kanchan Chander, Pratul Dash, Durga Kainthola, Sangeeta Gupta, Dileep Sharma, filmmaker Rebecca Sands, designer Asha Kapadia and entrepreneur Reggie amongst others.

Special Economic Zones surface at Khoj Studios with “SEZ Who?”

New Delhi: Khoj presents SEZ Who? – an exhibition consisting of site-specific installations that question the rationale behind the making of SEZs ( Special Economic Zones) from March 6, 2010 to March 14, 2010 at Khoj Studios S-17, Khirkee Extension, New Delhi. The exhibition would be followed by a seminar on March 11, 2010 at Khoj on issues around the city and land usage.

Khoj International Artists Association is an artist led, alternative space for experimentation and international exchange based in India. KHOJ seeks to promote cross cultural exchange within the visual practices of the 'Global South'. Since its inception in 1997 artists from Iran, Egypt, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Lebanon, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan and several countries in Africa, have participated in the Khoj workshops and residencies.

Project SEZ Who? was initiated by Tushar Joag and Sharmila Samant who invited fellow artists Justin Ponmany, Prajakta Potnis, and Uday Shanbhag to take on the role of a fact finding committee. The installations are an output of their in depth research as they visited areas affected by Special Economic Zones around Bombay in six months starting Jan 2009 (namely the villages in the Raigad district (MSEZ) and the Uttan-Gorai belt also called Dharavi island).

Presenting a dynamic relationship with space, the installations at the gallery change every day. For instance, the first day would witness sea salt being spread over the entire floor of the gallery. While on the second day, the artists would make salt from water of Uttan Gorai region and Raigad district finally creating salt piles and grain sacks. Drawings and documentaries also form an important part of the installations. Thus, the space gets altered significantly leading to a day by day unfolding of the project.

Khoj initiated the first programmes focusing on Public Art with artists’ residencies in 2005 and 2006 with Indian and international artists. These were preceded by an eco- art residency in 2004 as well as many smaller projects in the public realm around ecology and environment over the past 5 years. Khoj has also focused on community art over the last five years. More than nine projects have aimed at involving the Khirkee community that surrounds the KHOJ studio in New Delhi. Projects have ranged from artist- commissioned temple installations, to local shop make-overs, to clay toy-making with neighborhood children, all completed with community input at every stage. These projects not only ground KHOJ in its locality but ameliorate the somewhat alienating effect of an otherwise potentially elitist-seeming venture.

In 2009, Khoj supported 1mile², a global arts programme that asks communities to map the biodiversity, cultural diversity, and aesthetic diversity of their local neighbourhood, working in collaboration with an artist and an ecologist. Local and international artists worked with various communities and projects ranged from aural archives of local remedies and medicinal plants, to public interventions around the issue of identity and representation.

More recently in 2008 the 48˚C Public.Art.Ecology festival held in Delhi (curated by Pooja Sood) around 8 public sites with 25 artists from India and abroad interrogated the teetering ecology of the city through the prism of contemporary art. Through a number of art interventions in various public spaces around Delhi, the festival attempted to draw a diverse public into the world of this critical imaginary.

Bhavna Kakar opens a new gallery at Lado Sarai with Size Matters or Does It?

New Delhi: Latitude 28 presents Size Matters or Does It? – a unique exhibition that attempts to break the conventional notions about the apt size of a work of art. The exhibition is on from February 18, 2010 to March 10, 2010 at LATITUDE 28, F/208, Lado Sarai, New Delhi.

The opening of the exhibition would be accompanied with the launch of Bhavna Kakar’s new art magazine TAKE on art, a quarterly magazine focusing on art and cultural events from India and abroad. Guest edited by Shaheen Merali, the theme of the first issue is dedicated to the colour ‘Black’. What’s more, fifty limited edition small size framed artworks by Chittrovanu Mazumdar, concurrent with the theme of black, have been created by the artist especially for the launch of the magazine.
Says Bhavna Kakar, Director, Latitude 28: “The motive of the show is not to establish the commercial aspect of art in terms of the size of a work but to look at a gamut of contemporary artists whose works are fresh in approach and concept proving their proficiency at handling both BIG or SMALL format works. Since no specific size was allocated to the artists, their works are their own personal interpretations of the title Size Matters or Does It?”

Size Matters or Does it? consists of two parts. The first includes artists Arunkumar H.G., Baiju Parthan, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Dilip Chobisa, G R Iranna, Mithu Sen, Manjunath Kamath, Pooja Iranna, Pushpamala N, Sarnath Banerjee, Prajakta Palav and Siddhartha Kararwal.

The second part will exhibit Babu Eshwar Prasad, Niyeti Chadha, Manisha Parekh, Minal Damani, Dhruvi Acharya, Chila Kumari Burman, Jayshree Chakravarty, TV Santhosh and Simrin Mehra Agarwal.

While, Baroda-based Siddhartha Kararwal’s mixed media work uses everyday objects and infuses them with multiple levels of meaning. Pooja Iranna’s sculptures and drawings are quiet and eloquent statements about the role size plays in a viewer’s reading of an artwork. On the other hand,GR Iranna’s large scale work Kawwali establishes a disconnect between the tradition of looking at art and the way art is experienced by the contemporary eye.

Arunkumar HG’s works uses humor as a method of uncovering the absurdity of size. He uses small figurines in the image of public figures to demonstrate the complexities of memorialization merged with cultural cravings for kitsch.


Pushpamala N considers constructions of history in her photographs, particularly the stories and voices of women. Her large and small images engage with histories that are generally unknown. With Lady on Bicycle, the artist explains that “Women learning to ride the bicycle was part of the social reform movement in India, along with women's education and widow remarriage. It signaled a new freedom and mobility. In the early part of the 20th century, women would pose for studio photographs against painted backdrops with a book in their hand. Spectacles, lady’s purse, book, and umbrella were markers of modernity.”

Baiju Parthan subverts the idea of fixed measurements through exploding the microscopic details of a fly in his image Ointment. Capturing its relativity to vision and perception, Parthan proposes a conception of size that is unstable and constantly shifting. Parthan explains that, “these two works are about our ideas about the world and to the lengths we go to protect, defend, and propagate them. The very fact that there are many such comprehensive views ( most of them religious in character) explaining the universe differently, suggest that these are all products of engagement between the human self awareness and specific geographical environments. One could consider these world views as artifacts of the human mind, similar to a balm or ointment that soothes the sting of our existential predicament - of not knowing why we are here in this world.” Like Parthan, Dilip Chiobsa also plays with altering perceptions of space and time in his painting in his image which manipulates traditions of painterly perspective.

Manjunath Kamath locates size in the practices of daily life. Weighing in on his paintings, Kamath says, “I have made twelve small works in 5 inch by 4 inch which can be symbolically called a series of twelve small lies. Lie is one of the strongest palliatives that the humans have adopted to make the life easier. The size may vary…big lies, small lies but they are omnipresent. Through my works, I probe the origin, growth and nature of lies in our society.”

Artist Jayshree Chakravarty uses large and small format works to probe the topography of surface. Her interest in minute details and textures creates varying visual experiences.
Simrin Mehra Agarwal large scale metal sculpture is awe-inspiring, suggesting the spectacle of size.

Minal Damani’s works move between flat and multi-dimension readings, disrupting any division between form and ground, and exposing the slippery relationship between binary oppositions.

Kumar Gallery celebrates 55th year with an eclectic annual show of master artists

New Delhi: As Kumar Gallery, one of Delhi’s oldest galleries founded in 1955, enters its 55th year, it’s time for celebrations galore! Bringing forth never-seen-before works by some of most coveted master-artists as well as younger names, Kumar gallery presents its annual show titled Celebration 2010; a group exhibition of more than fifty works including paintings in oil on canvas, acrylics on paper and sculptures by twenty-seven artists from January 25, 2010 to February 9, 2010 at Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market, New Delhi.

The artists whose work will be showcased are A. Ramachandran, A. P Santhanaraj, Anil Karanjai, Arpana Caur, Ashok Bhowmick, Dhiraj Choudhury, F.N. Souza, G.R Santosh, Gopal Ghose, Jai Zharotia, Jamini Roy, K.S. Kulkarni, Krishen Khanna, K.S Radhakrishnan, M.F Husain, Paresh Maity, Prodosh Das Gupta, Ram Kumar, Ramgopal Vijayvargiya, Seema Kohli, Sangeeta Gupta, Sohan Qadri, Sakti Burman, Satish Gujral, Sankho Chaudhury, Sharad Sonkusale and Shikha Sinha.

Sunit Kumar, Director, Kumar Gallery says: “Celebration 2010 dwells on India’s blooming modern artistic endeavour through a historical framework, bringing some of India’s most revered post-Independence modern masters along with contemporary artists. Through this exhibition, we have brought forth an inimitable collection of artworks from as early as 1960’s to the present times and presents a panoramic overview of Indian contemporary art as it has evolved.”

One of the iconic features of classical Indian art has been its ability to blend ephemeral humanistic emotions with a vivid sense of the eternal as well as the metaphysical and mythological. This was primarily achieved via a deep sense of spiritual devotion on the part of the artist. For instance a master of crosshatching, Ashok Bhowmick’s Bull and Bird Series has been inspired from the Bronze Age and Indus valley civilization. Explains the artist: “The earliest cave paintings and the coins had bull engravings on them. Bull symbolizes power and I respect it. Notice how the bird calmly sits over bull’s head. The proximity of force and feeble is what teaches us a lesson.”

Founder member of the Triveni Kala Sangam, K.S Kulkarni’s paintings depict the world of the Indian peasant, a world still throbbing to the drum-beats of the folk-dancers, swaying with rapture to the hypnotic melody of the shepherd’s flute, jogging along in the ancient bullock-cart. It is also a world which reveals the tensions and travails of the peasant, caught in the vortex of this fast-changing world yet stolidly withstanding its blows and buffets. A superb draftsman, Kulkarni was also a master colourist. The fantastic vibrancy he achieved by the soft, light strokes of his brush cast an aura of light through and around the boldly and vigorously delineated forms.

Yet another founder-member of the famous ‘Calcutta Group’, Prodosh Das Gupta brought the self-conscious individuality of a modern artist into sculpture. His love of the body - of man, woman or trees - links his work with the great tradition of Indian sculpture. He built his sculptural forms through the modeling technique, i.e., using clay or plaster, but the resulting effect was ‘lithic’, that is as if they are carved from a stone block maintaining the essential simplicity of the human form and scooping out just what is redundant.

A poet, vajrayan tantrik teacher and master-abstractionist, Sohan Qadri dislikes creating figurative visuals as according to him “they destroy the painting”. Instead, he uses signs reminiscent of tantrik and ritual symbolism which epitomizes “energy or Shakti” which moves. The most challenging thing in Qadri’s art is technique. His works are to be seen back to front. He allows the colour to percolate through the thick hand-made paper he paints on, allowing forms to develop on the other side that he then textures by tearing and blending the surface. Call them bindus or yonis, but they represent an alternative harmony of form and texture. Over the years his work though has gone through a form of distillation. Colour has become lighter and lines the residue of textures.

Another self-taught artist, abstractionist and a bureaucrat in Indian Revenue Service, Sangeeta Gupta had started her artistic journey making intricate drawings. She wields the brush with finesse, suggesting the viscosity of ink, the glossiness of lacquer, the mist of heights, the glow of the sun, and the inherent palette of rocks when wet. Strident and subtle strokes, dots, and amorphous patterns unfold energy channels.

One of the most promising young painters of contemporary Indian art, Paresh Maity started out as a painter in the academic style, but over the years began to shift from atmospheric scenery to representations of the human form. Gradually the imagery and form became more and more abstract until the young painter with flourish of a brush laden with transparent colours began to create paintings of great evanescent beauty. Deriving his inspiration as much from the surrounding landscape as from folk forms and contemporary life, Paresh Maity creates a web of fantasies and stories soaked in beauty, pulsating with romance, passion and intrigue. Though recognized as a water colourist, the young painter is equally at ease with oil on canvas as is evident in his work titled Rani.