State of the Art

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Posts tagged with Contemporary Indian Art

Experimenter Curator’s Hub 2013

July 30, 2013

Elizabeth Prendiville of SaffronArt shares a note about the exchange of ideas at the third Experimenter Curator’s Hub

Experimenter's Curator's Hub Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

Experimenter’s Curator’s Hub
Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

New York: This past weekend (July 26th and 27th) Experimenter Gallery in Kolkata hosted its two day curatorial conference. The third annual Experimenter Curator’s Hub hosted ten international curators who presented on a variety of topics including how the global economy, politics and globalization create challenges for curators in the international art market. Featured curators ranged in background and came from different international institutions. Among the curators were Girish Shahane, Director of Art at the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art and Pooja Sood, Director of Khoj International Artists Association.

Experimenter's Curator's Hub Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

Experimenter’s Curator’s Hub
Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

By reviewing their recent work, curators will present their views on the current curatorial environment and how these outside factors influence the role of a curator in our contemporary art world. Experimenter Gallery believes that this conference could not have come at a better time and that we are at a major crossroads in the curatorial world. The creation of the Curator’s Hub in 2011 was motivated by Experimenter Gallery’s desire to create positive change in the tumultuous curatorial art scene in India.

Experimenter's Curator's Hub Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

Experimenter’s Curator’s Hub
Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

Prior to the event, participant Allessandro Vincentelli, Curator of Exhibtions and Research at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead commented that curatorially, art was moving away from the western viewpoint. Indeed, this conference can be seen as a major vehicle for change in the future of how art is presented in our internationally-fused art world. Vincentelli stated “I also can see plenty of new dynamics that are entirely within South Asia, East Asia and Middle East for residencies, exchanges and for models of presentation. Ones that don’t necessarily need dialogue or mediation through Europe and America”.  All of these esteemed curatorial guests are notable due to their use of contemporary ideas and utilizing new technology in their work.

Experimenter's Curator's Hub Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

Experimenter’s Curator’s Hub
Image credit: http://artradarjournal.com

The conference concluded in a collaborative roundtable discussion with other art professionals such as artists, art writers, theorists and other curators. At this revolutionary time for art in a global economy it is essential that platforms like Curator’s Hub thrive. Overall the Experimenter Curator’s Hub was successful in its mission: to implement changes and workshop resolutions to barriers in the international curatorial scene.

‘Let The World In’ A New Two-Part on Indian Contemporary Art

June 16, 2013

Emily Jane Cushing recommends a two-part film on contemporary Indian art entitled ‘Let the World in’. 

Detail from the film’s poster with paintings by Sudhir Patwardhan (left) and Gigi Scaria (right) Image credit: http://in.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/910426/coming-soon-a-2-volume-film-on-contemporary-indian-art

Detail from the film’s poster with paintings by Sudhir Patwardhan (left) and Gigi Scaria (right) Image credit: http://in.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/910426/coming-soon-a-2-volume-film-on-contemporary-indian-art

London: A new two-part film, titled ‘Let the World in’, directed by Avijit Mukul and produced by Art Chennai, intends to document the evolution of contemporary visual art in India spanning three generations of artists and their work dating from the 1980s to the present day.

The premiere of the film was held at the National Film Archive of India in Pune on the 7th of June; and it is now travelling to film festivals in the UK from the 13th-14th and returning to India for its debut in Mumbai and Delhi.

Untitled, Arpita Singh, 2002

Untitled, Arpita Singh, 2002. Image Credit: http://www.saffronart.com/auctions/PreWork.aspx?l=8483

The film intends to document the depth and diversity in contemporary Indian art by outlining “the artists’ concerns reflected in their work, tracing it down to the present day,” according to the press release. The first volume begins discussing the monumental 1981 exhibition “Place For People” in Delhi and Bombay, in which a group of artists conveyed through their work and engagement with locality, class and politics and further touching on how younger artists have been impacted by the inherited legacy of this movement. Central characters in the first volume include artists Arpita Singh, Gulammohammed Sheikh and Vivan Sundaram; inputs are also heard from influential art critic Geeta Kapur and the late Bhupen Khakhar, a co-artist and close friend.

A Theory of Abstraction, T.V. Santhosh, 2001

A Theory of Abstraction, T.V. Santhosh, 2001. Image Credit: http://www.saffronart.com/auctions/PostWork.aspx?l=8286

The second part of the film focuses on practitioners such as Shilpa Gupta, Atul Dodiya and T.V. Santosh; major political and social changes in India make up the backdrop of the beginning of this volume. Issues such as the liberalization of the Indian economy and the funding of dangerous religious extremist that ensued and also the lack of sophisticated educational practices in Indian artistic establishments are all topics that contribute to the setting of the second volume.

The film also conveys the new Indian artistic generations preoccupation with the past and engagement with history; one of the films main goals is to re-ignite to public consciousness the significant role played by the senior generation of Indian artists who were dedicated to forming their unique artistic styles in previous times.

If you are in Cambridge on 20 June, then you can view the film at 17:30 pm at the Center for South Asian Studies; more information here.

For details of the multi-city screening schedule, visit the film’s Facebook page. The DVD will be released shortly.

stART&D: A New Digital Platform for Contemporary Indian Art and Design

May 29, 2013

Nishad Avari shares a note about this new, exciting initiative, and offers a sneak peek of one of its first projects – a film on Shilpa Gupta’s ‘I Live Under Your Sky Too’

stART&DMumbai: Scheduled to launch later this year, with a host of interesting content focusing on contemporary Indian art, design and culture, stART&D is an inventive, edgy digital platform created by Anita Horam and Mozez Singh that will promote, produce and present all forms of arts and design that  represent “India cool”. stART&D promises a digital magazine, public exhibitions and more through Indian and international collaborations and partnership programs.

Their first project is a video presentation on the public installation of Shilpa Gupta’s site specific animated light work, ‘I Live Under Your Sky Too’, in Mumbai. This project was curated by Diana Campbell of the Creative India Foundation, who is also one of our guest bloggers.

Gupta’s piece was first installed in front of the Arabian Sea at Carter Road in Bandra, Mumbai, and is currently on view in the courtyard of Phoenix Mills mall at Lower Parel, Mumbai. First created in 2011, this piece has been exhibited at indoor and outdoor locations around the world, including in the exhibition ‘All You Need is Love’ at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo this year.

Here is stART&D’s video on the installation:

 

Stay tuned for more information on stART&D.

To learn more about Shilpa Gupta’s installation, see the Creative India Foundation website and their Facebook page.

Atul Dodiya at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

February 25, 2013

Josheen Oberoi shares a note on the artist talk given by the renowned artist Atul Dodiya

New York: The Philadelphia Museum of Art recently inaugurated a new series of artist talks with a presentation by the very established and respected contemporary Indian artist Atul Dodiya.  Held on February 13, the talk titled Somersault in Muddy Waters – A Creative Journey took the audience on a trip with the artist, along the many roads his work has traversed. This was an interesting journey to undertake with this artist in particular because of the diversity of his chosen mediums and the complexity of his oeuvre’s visual language. As Darielle Mason (The Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art) said in introducing Dodiya, “…his works and he so clearly bridge times, cultures and concepts…”.

Atul Dodiya
Sabari with her Birds, 2005
Lithograph and Chiri Bark paper collage on paper
50 x 40 inches
Purchased with the Stella Kramrisch Fund, 2007
Image credit: The Philadelphia Museum of Art

The artist began by speaking of the diverse western and Indian artistic traditions that have consciously been a part of his art. Starting with his first solo show from 1989, his talk went through the stages of his artistic processes and mediums. Self-identifying as essentially a painter, he spoke of the varied mediums he has worked in including his world famous shutters, cabinets, and watercolors. A significant component of his talk focused on the importance of Mahatma Gandhi in his life and his pervasive presence in his work, which had culminated in the artist’s 1999 series on the Mahatma titled An Artist of Non-Violence. We were also fortunately able to see a series of delicate watercolors by the artist that have not been shown in public – these are ornithological studies of birds that he said were done for leisure, for relaxation.

The Museum plans to post the talk online and I will update this post with a link when that is available. In the meantime, if you are in Philadelphia, please visit the museum. The work above, Sabari with her Birds, is part of the museum’s collection and is on exhibit for the next six months.

‘Radical Terrain’ at the Rubin Museum of Art

January 17, 2013

Josheen Oberoi shares a note on the ongoing ‘Radical Terrain’ exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York

New York: In November 2011, the Rubin Museum of Art opened a three-part exhibition of modernist art from India. The thematic series, curated by the museum’s Assistant Curator Beth Citron, started with an exhibition titled Body Unbound focusing on figuration, followed by Approaching Abstraction. The final installment, Radical Terrain currently on view, opened in November 2012 and examines the genre of landscape in post independent India. Interestingly, this third exhibition also features contemporary artists, not all from India, whose praxis is centered within a broad definition of landscape. The resultant dialogue adds an incredible depth to the experience of viewing both the modernist and contemporary works on exhibit.

The museum also has an ongoing Artists on Art series which sees Assistant Curator Beth Citron in an informal conversation with international contemporary artists. Currently this series features the contemporary artists from the Radical Terrain exhibition. You can find the schedule for these talks here.

You can read Holland Cotter’s New York Times review of the exhibition here. It is a great, informative read as always.

Watch this space for more of our thoughts on the exhibition. Till then, enjoy a few images of the show and please go visit!

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