State of the Art

The Saffronart Blog

Posts by snehasikand

Mithu Sen at Mediations Biennale 2012

September 22, 2012

Sneha Sikand of Saffronart on Mithu Sen’s latest project in Poland

Mithu Sen, I chew, I bite
Installation 2011
Image credit: http://www.mediations.pl

Poznań: The third edition of the Mediations Biennale, titled THE UNKNOWN – NIEPOJMOWALNE is currently underway in Poznań, Poland. Starting out as an art festival in 1999, the biennale has evolved from being just an art event to a full blown organisational enterprise.

The format of the event moves away from  merely presenting the works of art. It is divided into two stages. In the preparatory stage, research is carried out on the theme chosen. In the thinking stage, the collective works of the artists, researchers, and curators along with discussions taking place during the event are compiled to formulate new ideas and perspectives corresponding with the chosen theme.

Curated by Fumio Nanjo, director of the Mori Art Museum, Mithu Sen translates the theme of the biennale in her work by reflecting on dental prosthesis. The act of biting, and of chattering teeth shows how our bodies react to pain, fear and horror. Just like the theme suggests, the unknown is as exciting and intense as something which we already comprehend. Sen suggests that our teeth and mouth act as agents of exploration into the unknown – “It is like a gateway to the inner self”. In a recent interview, Mithu Sen elaborates on her artistic representations of body parts to metaphorically convey basic human emotion.

Talking about the event, Tomasz Wendland, director of the 2012 Mediations Biennale says that reality today is all about closing the gaps. “It does not matter that we do not understand what we see, since it is the context that matters”. He feels that individuals are curious about that which is inaccessible and in effect ‘unknown’.

The biennale is scheduled to run till October 14, 2012.

More about the Mediations Biennale 2012

Raqs Media Collective: The Great Bare Mat and Constellation

September 14, 2012

Sneha Sikand of Saffronart on Raqs Media Collective’s latest commissioned works at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The Great Bare Mat & Constellation (projection still), 2012
Raqs Media Collective
Image credit: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Boston: Raqs Media Collective (a artist trio comprising New Delhi based Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta) was commissioned to create two installations for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston after completing a residency there. Opening on 20 September this year, the installations are in keeping with the Raqs tradition of using image, sound and software to investigate a series of questions through group exchange.

Comprising photographs and film stills which the artists took during their residency in 2010, they have now created two installations within the museum. The first installation, The Great Bare Mat Exchange refers to a carpet, on whose surface a series of conversations are to be staged. The carpet is displayed in front of The Vinegar Tasters, a 17th century Japanese screen from the museum’s collection. The carpet represents the platform on which a series of philosophical discussions are to follow. Ranging from topics like nostalgia and intelligence to music and accumulation, these subjects have been chosen by Raqs Media Collective themselves.

The Great Bare Mat & Constellation (projection still), 2012
Raqs Media Collective
Image credit: Isabella Steward Gardner Museum

The second installation is a reflection of the artists’ flashlight tour of the museum in 2010. They were struck by how figures and objects seemed to appear like floating apparitions in the darkness. The artists have incorporated their experiences to create a silent, digital-looped series which is projected onto a wall with a shiny metallic surface. The projection along with the surface presents a dual narrative which plays on the viewer’s imagination.

Pieranna Cavalchini, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Gardner Museum, feels that Raqs is rooted in bringing together lost spaces in time. “They pay attention to every passing second as if it were an infinity, and the heightened attention they bring to bear on what the collection contains invites us to reconsider how we look at art itself.”

The works will be on view at the museum till January 7, 2013.

Read more about the exhibition

Between the Lines: Identity, Place, and Power

August 25, 2012

Sneha Sikand of Saffronart on Waswo X. Waswo’s private collection of Indian printmaking exhibited at India Habitat Centre

Untitled, Somnath Hore
Image credit: in.artinfo.com

Fishing, Haren Das
Image credit: in.artinfo.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Delhi: The Visual Arts Gallery recently exhibited Waswo X. Waswo’s private collection of prints. An avid collector of etchings, woodcuts and lithographs, Waswo’s prints range from a 1916 hand-coloured drypoint etching by Mukul Dey to works by newer artists like Durga Prasad Bandi and Kurma Nadham.

A photographer by profession, Waswo was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (U.S.A.). He went on to study photography in Italy, and after traveling extensively around the world settled in India in 2001. His collection of prints is not so much a historical or chronological evolution of printmaking in India, but more so a personal association with the imagery of the country he creates within his mind.

Villagers of Selaidah visiting Rabindranath Tagore, Mukul Dey
Image credit: in.artinfo.com

The exhibit has been curated by Art historian, Lina Vincent Sunish who has carefully picked out the works which went on display from Waswo’s vast collection. The aim of this exhibit was not so much to delve into the technicalities of printmaking, but more so to emphasis on how the medium is used to depict images from everyday life.

There are over seventy-nine artists whose works have been exhibited as part of the collection. The art of printmaking emerged in Bengal which is why one sees several early works by Bengali artists, with later works coming out from other art hubs such as Baroda. The collection will be exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru later this year.

Read more about prints on Waswo X. Waswo’s blog: Collection of Indian Printmaking

 

 

Francis Bacon: Five Decades

August 21, 2012

Sneha Sikand of Saffronart on the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ upcoming retrospective

Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976
Image credit: Art Gallery NSW

Sydney: Opening this November to commemorate British born artist, Francis Bacon’s twentieth death anniversary is the first major exhibition of his work in Australia. Considered one of the most controversial figurative artists  of the twentieth century, Bacon’s works usually garner an instantaneous reaction from the viewer.

The Curatorial Director of the gallery, Anthony Bond says, “We’ve done Caravaggio, we’ve done Monet, we’ve done Picasso…we need another figure of that sort of monumentality.” Francis Bacon’s name is almost always mentioned along with the other greats. Having borrowed over fifty major works and studio material from thirty-one collections across the world, including five from the Tate gallery in London, the exhibit will provide an extensive and detailed account of five decades of the artist’s life. From the artist’s shocking post-war images to his later large-scale paintings from the 1980s , viewers will be able to experience his entire oeuvre under one roof.

Bacon’s works have always projected the subject with morbidity and brutality. His paintings were always appreciated for their finesse, but people would often ask him to paint more beautiful and lively subjects. He however felt that all subjects, beautiful or not, were meant to whither – whether the next day or next year. So there really wasn’t much of a difference between his subject matter and something more beautiful. Watch this video to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the collection was put together. The exhibition will open on 17 November, 2012, and will run till 24 February, 2013.

Visit the gallery website for more information

Jyoti Bhatt: Rediscovering Photography

August 9, 2012

Sneha Sikand of Saffronart on the artist’s presentation at a TEDx event

Jyoti Bhatt at the TEDx event in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad: Renowned painter, printmaker and photographer, Jyoti Bhatt, recently gave a talk at a TEDx event held in Ahmedabad. One of the founding members of the Center of Photography in Baroda, Bhatt shifted his focus from painting to photography early on in his career. He speaks about his love for photography and why he keeps going back to it despite being an equally successful printmaker and painter.

Having studied printmaking, fresco and mural making, one can see these various methods influencing his body of photographic work. Even while capturing the visual culture of rural Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, or just landscapes and individuals, he bears in mind the finer details which can be grasped with the single click of a camera.

Focusing particularly on his love and passion for photography, Bhatt presents several examples of  how he likes to photograph different textures and forms. He also gives an interesting account of a sketch made by him in the 1950s and a photograph that he took fifteen years later being a mirror image of the sketch. He goes on to compare the two works but obviously prefers the photograph as he feels the nuances are captured better.

Watch the TEDx video here