State of the Art

The Saffronart Blog

Month: November 2012

Serigraphy: A Word of Advice for New Collectors

November 6, 2012

Amy Lin of Saffronart explores the benefits of collecting limited edition serigraphs for new collectors

New York: The questions “What should I collect?” and “Where should I begin?” come up very often for collectors looking at modern Indian art for the first time. Of course, there are the great masters, M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, V.S. Gaitonde and others, but originals cost a small fortune and are quite difficult to come by. So what can an aspiring young collector do?

Serigraph making process
Image Credit: http://www.archerindia.com

One possible starting point is serigraphs. Later this week, The Story by Saffronart will be featuring a collection of signed, limited edition serigraphs from modern Indian masters such as Husain, S.H. Raza and Thota Vaikuntam. It is a wonderful opportunity for young collectors to purchase works by renowned artists at affordable prices. Now, your next question will probably be: Seri-what?

Serigraphy is an English printing technique pioneered in the early 20th century. It’s similar to silk screening or screen printing, where a stencil is used to print directly on the paper. The stencil is made by stretching porous fabric over a wooden or metallic frame. Next, the printer will use paper or fabric to block off the image’s negatives. The stenciled screen is then placed over the printed medium while oil or water based ink is spread evenly across the screen. Finally, the artist uses a rubber squeegee to press the ink through the porous fabric and onto the paper below. If the artwork requires a different colour, the print is allowed to dry before another colour or stencil is applied. Here is a step by step demo of the process.

The result from this laborious process is a fine quality print that rivals the original but costs a fraction of the price. While a Husain original could easily fetch over $100,000, an authorized and signed serigraph print by the artist will only cost 3-5% of the price.

Skeptics may argue that investing in reproductions is not worth it. But many would agree that serigraphs are fine artworks in their own right. Each serigraph print differs slightly from the next, picking up subtle nuances in character and attitude through the printing process. In addition, most artists will print their serigraphs in limited, numbered editions, enhancing their exclusivity.

M F Husain designing a serigraphy scroll
Image Credit: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story
/Affordable+art/1/17766.html

Husain was one of the artists who championed the artistic value of serigraphs by collaborating with Anil Reila, founder of Ahmedabad’s Archer Art Gallery. In 2000, Husain designed his own serigraph scrolls and had 500 editions of his Ashtha Vinayak made. This ambitious project was a great success and the prints sold out within days. Husain viewed his art with a populous mentality, always wanting to ensure it would be accessible and affordable to as many as possible. Other galleries such as the Serigraph Studio have legitimized serigraphy as a true art form by holding exhibitions exclusively of these prints.

Perhaps it’s the linear nature of Indian art that makes it suitable for printing or its bold colours that beckon for reproduction. Either way, serigraph prints are an excellent point for young collectors to start their journeys with Indian art. As Relia puts it in an interview with India Today, “The value rises when the edition is sold out and availability becomes scarce.” And later adds, “With Indian art now getting appreciation and applause everywhere, it is important that people have easy access to art prints by the great artists of our country.”

Karkhana: A Contemporary Collaboration

November 6, 2012

Elisabetta Marabotto of Saffronart revisits one of the most ground breaking exhibitions of contemporary Pakistani Art

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration
Image Credit: http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/karkhana.php

London: The Urdu word ‘Karkhana’ refers to the miniature painting workshops supported by Mughal Emperors who ruled over the lands of present-day India and Pakistan between the 16th and 17th centuries. In these workshops, several artists would work together on the same painting under the direction of one ‘ustad’ or master.

Following the steps of these predecessors, six Pakistani artists undertook a collaborative project in 2003 under the guidance of Imran Qureshi. The artist contacted the other five Pakistani artists who, like him, had studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore, and who, at the time, were based in different parts of the world. The artists included in the project were: Aisha Khalid, Hasnat Mehmood, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Talha Rathore and Saira Wasim.

As part of the project, each of them had to start two works on wasli and pass them to the other artists who would add further layers of imagery and significance to the original work. Five more works created individually by the artists were added to the project’s exhibition to show their personal characters and styles.

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration
Image Credit: http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/karkhana.
php

The project aimed to show the influence shared by the artists, their individual reactions to an already painted surface, and their ways in which their idioms spoke to each other. It also aspired to highlight the revival of miniature painting as an important aspect of contemporary Pakistani art, which entailed a comingling of tradition and modernity in fine and meaningful images.

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration
Image Credit: http://www.aldrichart.org/ exhibitions/past/karkhana.php

Karkhana was an extremely innovative show, both because of the concept behind the project, and for its affirmation of contemporary Pakistani art in South Asia and the West. In fact, the project culminated in a travelling exhibition, first held in Rochdale in 2003-04, then at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, in 2005-06, and finally at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in 2006.

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration

Karkhana, Untitled. Karkhana A Contemporary Collaboration
Image Credit: http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/past/karkhana.php

Hammad Nassar, founder of Green Cardamom, independent curator and writer, noted in the exhibition catalogue: “The nature of the Karkhana project is vast and multi-faceted. It explores the possibilities of collaborative practice and political resistance, the reinvention of a ‘tradition’, and the expression of diasporic identity. It also raises broader questions about globalization and political and marginalization…Karkhana, relying as it does on ‘traditional’ fields of representation, and on the institutionalized art world to arrange exhibitions, fund catalogues, and even to pay the courier bills  for its actualization, is not an activist demonstration but rather, a work of art. It is from this position, in fact, that it derives its political power- subverting elite institutions from within. It updates a historical form (the ‘traditional’ miniature), which served one empire, in order to confront another.  In their refusal to surrender the aesthetic in their art, the Karkhana artists use the very desire that their meticulously crafted and highly encoded paintings elicit to inject themselves into arenas where they would not ordinarily be granted access. At the hearts of the project is a challenge to commonly-understood notions of democracy and the collective.”

More information about the project can be found on the Aldrich Art Contemporary Museum website and in the catalogue, Karkhana, A Contemporary Collaboration.

Zarina: Paper Like Skin at the Hammer Museum

November 5, 2012

Guest Blogger Tracy Buck visits the first retrospective of artist Zarina Hashmi at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

Los Angeles: On September 30, The Hammer Museum, located in Westwood near the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, opened the first retrospective of artist Zarina Hashmi.  Zarina: Paper Like Skin is currently on view until December 30, 2012; it then travels to the Guggenheim in New York in the early spring of 2013 and to the Art Institute of Chicago in summer 2013.  Zarina’s elegant and understated works, executed sculpturally and via the manipulation of paper, include woodcuts and etchings, paper that has been cut and pinpricked and woven, an original cut block, and bronze and tin sculpture.

Zarina, born in India in 1937, has lived in the United States since the 1970s.  The exhibition’s curator, Allegra Pesenti, worked closely with Zarina in her studio/home in New York City to select pieces that represent her large body of work dating from 1961 to the present.  Within these works – undertaken not only in her New York studio but in her various former homes in Thailand, India, Pakistan, Europe, and Japan – are quietly and poignantly woven themes of memory, displacement, movement, dislocation, and the intimate and pliable connection to homes current and remembered.

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Among her works are woodcut explorations of the trauma and loss during the India/Pakistan Partition (Dividing Line, 2001); the jagged Radcliffe Line here appears as a scar cut beyond even the otherwise contained boundaries of map and land mass.  A separate series (These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness [Adrienne Rice After Ghalib], 2003) envisions and commemorates various cities that have been bombed in recent years.  Homes I Have Made/A Life in Nine Lines, 1997 is a series of floor plans of houses and apartments throughout the world, rented and made into homes, however temporary, and now remembered.  An engagement with line, with darkness and white, with paper and its materiality and subtlety, are at the heart of these works.

Although most often associated with paper, one might consider Zarina to be an artist who works in the “medium” of Urdu as well.  In several of Zarina’s works (Letters From Home, 2004; Atlas of my World, 2001, These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness [Adrienne Rice After Ghalib], 2003; Travels with Rani, 2008, among others) the Urdu script becomes a raw material, visually manipulated, recalling both the histories of Independence and Partition of the subcontinent, as well as Zarina’s own story of her family’s move to Pakistan some years following Partition. It also recalls, to those who can read it, the ghazal tradition and its thematic weight of melancholy and loss, of separation and longing, of displacement and disconnect.

One might consider the medium of printmaking itself to work in a similar way.  The printmaking process is a series of elisions, of secrets, its final printed product a sort of masking of the intense physicality of carving a block and running a press. Unlike gestural painting, for example, that draws attention outright and purposefully to the physical effort of its production, printmaking operates via a system of reversals, removing rather than adding material to ultimately produce an image out of this void, obscuring the repetitive gouging to produce not scarred lines but rather the lack they result in, the finished product in the form of white emptiness of paper. This repetition and physicality is revealed in her pinpricked, knotted, and scarred paper works, but subtly – in slightly raised white surface and shadow on white page; they record persistence rather than proclamation.

The fact that the show was lovingly and painstakingly conceived and researched by curator Pesenti is clear in the beautiful execution of the exhibition and in its quiet and respectful design. The exhibition’s catalog, with notable essays by Pesenti and by UCLA professor of Comparative Literature Aamir Mufti, replicates this care and attention and offers further insight into the work and life of Zarina, her choice of paper as medium and her connection to, and implications of, her use of Urdu. This retrospective, a first for the artist and, it may be said, long overdue, speaks quietly but powerfully of home and memory and its various definitions and delineations, in an abstract but deeply evocative language.

Watch Zarina talk about her work and this retrospective in a conversation with the exhibition curator here.

Tracy Buck holds MA degrees in South Asian Cultures and Languages and in Museum Studies, and has worked in the Collections Management and Curatorial departments of several history and art museums.  She is currently pursing a PhD in Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ali Adil Khan’s Top 10 from the Art of Pakistan Auction (November 7-8, 2012)

November 4, 2012

Guest contributor and prolific collector, Ali Adil Khan picks his top works in Saffronart’s Art of Pakistan Auction 

Toronto: My top ten favorite works in the Art of Pakistan Auction have been listed in the slideshow below in order of priority and importance.

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All of the works I have selected are by Pakistani artists who have excelled in contemporary miniature art – in its development and global recognition. This movement is strong, grounded in tradition and has left its mark on the international art scene. The credit goes to the modern practitioners and teachers of miniature art. The oldest and most influential art school of the country, the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, has been a cornerstone in identifying and developing next generation of artists. The Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS) in Karachi and the Beaconhouse National University (BNU) in Lahore have also established world class programs in fine arts. These institutions offer highly sought after programs in miniature painting that attract the best and the brightest, channel their creativity and challenge their thinking in ways that equip them to push defined boundaries. They subvert traditional practices, innovate and deconstruct miniature paintings to reinvent and revive a movement that we all know as neo-miniature (contemporary miniature) style of painting. Zahoor ul Akhlaq, Salima Hashmi, Ustad Bashir Ahmed, Imran Qureshi, Muhammed Zeeshan and Sumaira Tazeen, among other established artists and faculty of these institutions have been instrumental in paving the road for the next generation of artists. Some stalwarts included in this Auction clearly standout. Shahzia Sikander, Saira Wasim, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Talha Rathore, Waseem Ahmed, Hasnat Mahmood and Khadim Ali.

I have chosen Zahoor’s Farman (Lot 3) as my favorite because of its importance in setting an early direction for the movement. It is composed in the confines of the borders of a traditional miniature painting, yet it is highly contemporary. It is a painting of significant importance given that it is referenced by two important scholars of Pakistani art – Dr. Akbar Naqvi and Roger Connah. The influence of Zahoor on the contemporary art of Pakistan is unquestionable.

Khadim Ali’s painting (Lot 55) incorporates the on-going conflict in Afghanistan and references the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas as well as the prosecution of local Hazaras by the Taliban.

Asif Ahmed’s (Lot 58) versatility and command over detail impresses me. Ayesha Durrani’s painting (Lot 67) is from a series that I have always admired. Her detailing and composition is excellent.

As they say – the devil is in the detail. To read more on my views on contemporary miniature art from Pakistan, click here.

Ali Adil Khan is a prolific Toronto based collector and expert of South Asian art and antiquities. Khan has organized numerous exhibitions of South Asian Art in North America including  “Image and Identity: Being Ethnic” and “Cosmic Energy and Tantric Enlightenment: Art of Youngo Verma” which have received widespread critical acclaim. He has contributed notable articles on South Asian art to leading dailies including The Dawn Online Edition and Newsline of Pakistan. He has also been invited to share his expertise at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Art Gallery of Mississauga and the 14th Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, amongst others. Khan is a guest contributor for the Saffronart blog.

Miniatures: Survival of a Revival

November 3, 2012

Guest blogger, Ali Adil Khan shares his views on contemporary miniature paintings from Pakistan

Lot 21- Rehana Mangi, 3 Figures (Gadrang)
Art of Pakistan Auction (November 7-8, 2012)

Toronto: We are experiencing a modern revival of the miniature painting tradition that is unrivaled. This contemporary miniature art movement, emanating from a premier art institute of Pakistan, while being firmly grounded in tradition, has taken post-modern art by storm. It has a serious following locally and internationally and enjoys the support of curators, gallery owners, critics and collectors alike.

This movement is strong, moving rapidly, and is sure to leave its mark on the international art scene. The credit goes to the modern practitioners and teachers of miniature art. Early visionaries at the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Zahoor ul Akhlaq, followed by Salima Hashmi, Bashir Ahmed and Imran Qureshi have believed in the talents of their students and designed an ingenious curriculum and an exigent training program that continues to bring the best out of them.

Some of these industrious students have become leading proponents of contemporary miniature art around the world with a broad private and institutional following.

Lot 30 – Shazia Sikander, Let It Ride # 3, 1997
24 Hour Auction: Art of Pakistan (Nov. 7-8, 2012)

Some stalwarts clearly standout. Shahzia Sikander was the first to breakaway from the miniature tradition, and helped establish an art form that is now known and recognised as contemporary or neo-miniature painting. She remains the greatest of them all and there are only two ways to describe her art practice — brilliant and exquisite. She has now entered the mainstream of contemporary art internationally and is a recognised superstar.

Others, who followed her success, have held their values and traditional training central to their practice, not compromising them for quick buck. These trail blazers, who are now in the upper echelon of contemporary miniature art internationally include: Imran Qureshi, Tazeen Qayyum, Aisha Khalid, Talha Rathore, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Saira Wasim and Reeta Saeed. They can be referred to as the magnificent seven of NCA. Others who are fast catching up through their prolific practice, creative talents, and international exhibitions are Waseem Ahmed, Hasnat Mehmood, Khadim Ali, Muhammed Zeeshan and Sabeen Raja.

Lot 31 – Imran Qureshi, Moderate Enlightenment, 2007
24 Hour Auction: Art of Pakistan (Nov. 7-8, 2012)

While Imran Qureshi’s work on wasli exhibited in London, Hong Kong, and Oxford more recently continues to be very strong (as he can probably paint with his eyes closed — meant as a compliment), his site-specific wall paintings at the 1st Singapore Biennale in 2006 was most impressive. It was truly outstanding and definitely leading edge.

The contemporary miniature art market is cut throat to say the least. As a new breed of young artists jumps on the bandwagon, there are bound to be more failures than resounding successes. As experienced curators and discerning collectors closely examine and follow the emergence and development of this trend, they will critique the works of the artists. Any repetition, reproduction, stagnation, mediocrity will be severely penalised. It can be said with confidence that not all currently practicing contemporary miniature artists are good.

The ones that are good and with potential of becoming great, are the ones that are continuously experimenting and pushing the boundaries beyond the restrained borders of miniature paintings. For example, Tazeen Qayyum has consistently surpassed expectations of curators and collectors. In the late 1990s she incorporated borders made from collages of interesting newspaper cuttings and quickly moved away from figurative to contextual use of a motifs such as the veil and cockroach that enabled her to assert her socio-political views on the wasli. She experimented and employed the use of block printing, Xerox photo transfer, and digital techniques in her works of the early 2000s. In 2005, she pasted strands of her own long hair on the wasli. In 2006, Qayyum took wasli to a third dimension by adding labels and entomology pins to her work and changed the framing to box frames. Her depiction of the disgraceful human pyramid made forcibly at Abu Gharib Prison in Iraq using cockroaches with minute details was stunning to say the least.

Lot 45- Sumaira Tazeen, Moti Tanka (French Knot), 2008
Art of Pakistan Auction (November 7-8, 2012)

There are many more promising senior artists who can reach new heights through rigorous experimentation and an urge to push and re-invent the boundaries. They are Ambreen Butt, Sumaira Tazeen, Usman Saeed, Sherbano Qizilbash and Saira Sheikh. Curators and critics will watch them closely as they fulfil the much needed requirement to re-invent and progress.

The survival of the revival now solely rests in the capable hands of these practitioners and new comers into the field who must learn from the success of their predecessors and set high standards for themselves. They should not and must not expect to sell their works for exorbitant prices, as they first need to experiment, prove and establish their art practice. As collector of contemporary Pakistani art, London-based Kamran Anwar notes, “The Pakistani art market is clearly at an inflexion point. The contemporary miniature movement has led the way and holds a distinct place in the South Asian artistic landscape.

“The big challenge for these artists is to continue to innovate and create without falling into the temptation of doing the same thing again and again for short term commercial gains.”

Ali Adil Khan is a prolific Toronto based collector and expert of South Asian art and antiquities. Khan has organized numerous exhibitions of South Asian Art in North America including  “Image and Identity: Being Ethnic” and “Cosmic Energy and Tantric Enlightenment: Art of Youngo Verma” which have received widespread critical acclaim. He has contributed notable articles on South Asian art to leading dailies including The Dawn Online Edition and Newsline of Pakistan. He has also been invited to share his expertise at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Art Gallery of Mississauga and the 14th Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka, amongst others. Khan is a guest contributor for the Saffronart blog.