State of the Art

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Posts tagged with Indian Contemporary Art

Project Space: Word. Sound. Power. At The Tate Modern.

June 29, 2013

Emily Jane Cushing suggests the Tate Modern exhibition ‘Project Space: Word. Sound. Power’

London: Tate Modern exhibition ‘Project Space: Word. Sound. Power’ is the first in a series of international collaborative exhibitions exhibited at the Tate Modern, London.

Anjali Monteiroand K.P. Jayasankar, Still from Saacha (The Loom) 2001, Image Credit, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Anjali Monteiroand K.P. Jayasankar, Still from Saacha (The Loom) 2001, Image Credit, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Driven by the desire of strengthening cultural exchange and dialogue throughout the world, the series presents contemporary art through a series of collaborations with cultural organisations.

Project Space: Word. Sound. Power. is curated by Loren Hansi Momodu at Tate Modern and Andi-Asmita Rangari, Khoj, International Artists’ Association, New Delhi. Indeed, what makes this exhibition so exciting is the bringing together of emerging curators from both the Tate Modern and selected international venues to create shows to be exhibited in both London and the inspired location, in this exhibition the other location will be New Delhi.

The series will show-case the work of new artists, those recently established and of rediscovered artists. Among these artists are Amar Kanwar and Anjali Monteiro and K.P Jayasankar using medium including audio documentary, video, performance, text and sound. The Tate writes that it hopes this exhibition takes a moment to listen to the harmony and dissonance of voices rising.

Amar Kanwar’s film ‘A Night of Prophecy’ was shot in several regions of India including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland, Kashmir. The artists from these regions used music and poetry of tragedy and protest to express emotions resulting from caste-bound poverty and the loss of loved ones caused by tribal and religious fighting.

Amar Kanwar, Still from A Night of Prophecy 2002, Image Credit; http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Amar Kanwar, Still from A Night of Prophecy 2002, Image Credit; http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, Still from Saacha (The Loom) 2001, Image Credit; http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, Still from Saacha (The Loom) 2001, Image Credit; http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/project-space-word-sound-power

Saacha is about a poet, a painter and a city. The poet is Narayan Surve, the painter Sudhir Patwardhan and the city is Mumbai; the birth place of the Indian textile industry and the industrial working class. The film addresses the politics of representation and the decline of the urban working class in an age of structural readjustment, whilst simultaneously exploring the relevance of art in this contemporary social environment.

Related events include Performance and music; Mithu Sen  will make public readings of a new work entitled ‘I am a Poet‘, which she describes as being ‘not bound by rules of grammar, diction, vocabulary and syntax’. Mithu Sen will be reading ‘I am a Poet‘ on Friday 12 – Sunday 14 July 13.00, 14.00, 15.00, 16.00.

And a film by Anand Patwardhan: We Are Not Your Monkeys; Jai Bhim Comrade, Monday 15 July 2013, 18.00 – 22.30

The exhibition will show from 12 July – 3 November 2013 at the Tate Modern London, and continues at Khoj, International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, 10 January – 08 February 2014.

More information about the Tate exhibition can be found here.

Hema Upadhyay and Atul Dodiya Exhibit in Ohio

March 11, 2013

Tarika Agarwal discusses the works of two Indian artists who are currently exhibiting in Ohio

Mumbai: The Contemporary Arts Center in Ohio is currently hosting two individual exhibitions of works by Hema Upadhyay and Atul Dodiya. These exhibitions opened in early February, and will go on till 5 May, 2013. The Center is known to provide people an opportunity to discover the dynamic relationship between art and life by exhibiting the works of progressive artists. Their aim is to challenge, entertain and educate.

Hema Upadhyay was born in 1972 in Baroda, India. She has lived and worked in Mumbai since 1998. She uses self-photography and sculptural installations to explore notions of dislocation and nostalgia. Since the early 2000s she has exhibited her work all over the world including Australia, Singapore, Italy, France and the United Kingdom.

In the current exhibition Upadhyay addresses the aesthetic qualities of everyday life via images she has taken of the slums and densely populated areas of Mumbai, India. She is fascinated by urbanization and its effects on Mumbai. The area she has chosen to depict was once an undesirable piece of marshland outside of the city, but as the city started to expand the area was eventually occupied by slums and became a central part of the city. She is drawn to the slums because of how they are little worlds of their own, away from reality while being situated in and around posh neighborhoods. She is also attracted to the aesthetic traits of the slums because the areas are usually marked by the juxtaposition of vibrant colours and diverse materials.

The most mesmerizing work she has exhibited is a piece titled ‘Modernization’. It is an aerial view of a slum on the floor of the gallery made up of the materials that the buildings themselves use – corrugated aluminum sheets, car scrap, enamel paint, tarpaulin, and found objects. She has installed it as a minimalistic patchwork of squares.

Atul Dodiya was born in 1959 in Mumbai, India. He began exhibiting his works in the early 1980s after he graduated from Sir J.J. School of Arts in Mumbai. He later went onto study further at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Dodiya is currently one of the most prominent figures of contemporary Indian Art. Like Upadhyay, he has exhibited his works globally. Dodiya combines both Eastern and Western influences in his installations and paintings through film, popular culture and literature. His works are usually personal since they imbibe his own thoughts with reference to the history of art and his home country, India.

At this show, his work is created on metal shutters of store fronts salvaged from the streets of Mumbai. He wants viewers to interact with the pieces – to open and close the shutters with their original pulley mechanisms in order to experience each in it entirety, as both the front and the interior of the shutter are painted. So don’t feel shy to touch his works, when you decide to go to the exhibition.

The reason Dodiya uses shutters is because in Mumbai, the shutter is a symbol of security and marks the sharp contrast in the aesthetic of the city between day and night. Post sunset or during times of civil unrest, the shutters become a form of armour that protects the various goods of shop owners from the dangers of the outside world.

As there are only two images (one per artist) available from the exhibition, I have taken the liberty to put up images of similar works by both the artists so you can have an idea of what you would get to see if you did attend the show.

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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.

Urban Art in India

February 14, 2013

Guest blogger Hena Kapadia reflects on street art in Delhi and Mumbai and its value

Banksy Maid, London, Courtesy BBC

Banksy Maid, London, Courtesy BBC

Mumbai: Of late, there have been several instances of urban art in India and internationally that have grabbed the attention of people in both the art world and everyday life. While graffiti has been a part of urban life for years now, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art  (LACMA) held the first major show of street art in the United States in 2011, creating a new and more formal context for street artists like US based Shepard Fairey and UK based Banksy. These artists have worked extensively both in the street as well as through a concentrated and decidedly commercial studio practices. Read more about this exhibit.

Street Sign, Daku, New Delhi, 2013

Street Sign, Daku, New Delhi, 2013

India has it’s own brand of urban art – which so far hasn’t found its way into museums, and exists exclusively on the streets. Some of it is created organically, appearing innocuously all around us. Organic street art like the work of Daku, seen above on street signs in Delhi and below, as graffiti in Mumbai, have a sense of the uncanny, making them subtly provoking. By almost becoming part of our urban surroundings, Daku’s works leave viewers pleasantly surprised and amused.

Graffiti, Daku, Lower Parel Mumbai, 2012, Courtesy NH7

Graffiti, Daku, Lower Parel Mumbai, 2012, Courtesy NH7

At other times, street art in India is created for specific festivals and public spaces as temporary installations on the street. Mumbai recently saw the return of the Kala Ghoda Festival, which serves as host to several installations on the street, some of which are constrained by the public nature of the festival. For example this work by Paresh Maity titled “Ants” that blends in with the surrounding mechanical environment in the city. What is lost at times is the sense of subtly and cheek that is evident in Daku’s work.

Paresh Maity, Ants, Scrap Metal, Mumbai 2013

Paresh Maity, Ants, Scrap Metal, Mumbai 2013

What is interesting is which we perceive to be as street art  and  how we value these types of works. How much are these installations or reproduced pictures of them worth? Is its value in the free access it allows individuals to art? How is value ultimately affected by the artist’s decisions to work more out of a studio than on the street? Would you buy this kind of work from an art fair?

Hena Kapadia is a Mumbai based art professional, who has a Master’s Degree in Modern and Contemporary Art World Practice.

Zarina’s Contemplative Art

February 5, 2013

Guest blogger Bansie Vasvani visits Zarina: Paper like Skin at the Guggenheim, New York

New York: Zarina Hashmi’s long overdue retrospective, Zarina: Paper Like Skin, at the
Guggenheim, New York, opened to an audience struck by the work’s serenity, quiet
dignity, and artistic impact. Combining her evocation of language and place to chart her
personal, itinerant trajectory, Hashmi’s work explores the notion of home and identity
with enormous depth and perspicuity. An established printmaker, she is often considered the precursor to a generation of artists for whom transience and its impact has permeated
through their work.

Zarina Hashmi
Homes I Made/ A Life in Nine Lines, 1997
Portfolio of 9 etchings and one cover plate printed in black on Arches Cover white paper, Chine Colle on handmade Nepalese paper; Image credit: Luhring Augustine, New York

In the front room, a portfolio of nine etchings titled Home I made/A life in Nine Lives, (1997) line the walls in geometric resplendence. Made on Arches Cover handmade Nepalese paper this series of simple, two-dimensional grids capture the structure of a basic dwelling. Zarina’s bare bone depiction can be best described by art critic John Berger’s definition of home as the center of the universe in an ontological rather than a geographical sense. Letters written by her sister Rani, that often described the passing of family members in Pakistan, become grist for her etchings and woodcuts. Her reductive images distill the sentiments of home to architectural forms and capture her nostalgia without being maudlin or dramatic. For Zarina, home becomes the place from which the world can be founded and it is the heart of the real. In these etchings, the original Urdu script of the letters is cut in metal for the prints, and the remainder of each image is rendered in woodcut. Zarina’s work underscores the sculptural aspect of her printmaking process acquired from the renowned British printmaker Stanley William Hayter while living in Paris in the 60’s. The painstakingly delicate renditions of Home I Made/A life in Nine Lives are steeped in a worldview inspired by the Minimalist tradition.

Zarina Hashmi, Cage, 1970. Relief print from collaged wood blocks. Printed by the artist. Image credit: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Zarina Hashmi, Cage, 1970. Relief print from collaged wood blocks. Printed by the artist. Image credit: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Untitled (1970), Cage (1970), and Kiss (1968) are a series of relief print collages made by inking assembled pieces of wood. Each work is constructed on handmade paper distributed by an organization founded by Mahatma Gandhi to promote Indian
handicrafts. The varying tones of the papers obtained from different regional workshops impart a particular character to each print emphasizing the quality of the material as much as the concept behind her creation. Using bits of wood assembled together, she
ingeniously creates a corral, a home, and a shelter suggestive of a protective surrounding.
The fragments and wood pulp produce dense fields that highlight the material properties
and spatial presence of an object in the convention of European Constructivism. Reminiscent of Carl Andre, her work appeals at a very basic, emotional level. Even in Kiss, inspired by Constantin Brancusi’s stone sculpture, the two pieces of wood placed side-by-side capture the primitive, folkloric precedents that Brancusi’s work expresses.

Zarina. Kiss, 1968. Relief Print From Collaged Wood, Printed In Black And Burnt Umber On Bfk White Paper
Image credit: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Perhaps one of the most riveting series in the exhibit is her Untitled (Pin
drawings), 1977. Here a sequence of works on pure white paper creates a meditative,
trance like effect on the viewer. Grid formations are devised through columns of
perforations from pinpricks. These three-dimensional mounds that rise above the paper
give the composition texture without disrupting its immensely soothing quality. Very
much in the vein of Agnes Martin’s biomorphic spiritual effect, and the visual impact of
Robert Ryman’s white on white paintings, Zarina’s personal, highly individualized art
stands out for the quality of its conception and the reductive feel of the cosmos on paper.

Zarina Hashmi, Home is a Foreign Place, 1999
Portfolio of 36 woodcuts with Urdu text printed in black on Kozo paper, mounted on Somerset paper
Image credit: Luhring Augustine, New York

Zarina’s most well known piece, Home is a Foreign Place (1999), examines the larger issue of identity by implying that a home is what you make of it. From her residence in many countries as a diplomat’s wife, the artist believes that the idea of home and identity comes from an amalgamation of diverse cultures and experiences without
attributing any one single influence. In this woodcut portfolio of 36 basic architectural
lines, the drawings reveal how evocative a simple gesture can be. Triggered by Urdu
words like door, threshold, warm etc. that are etched into the drawings, the geometric
abstractions of crisscrossing lines and circles evoke the actual experience of entering such
spaces. Deeply nostalgic of both the loss of moving away from her homeland, and the
gradual extinction of Urdu, her mother tongue, the artist is able to revive her memories
through the deliberation of her deft craftsmanship.

Zarina Hashmi
Blinding Light, 2009
22 carat gold leaf on Okawara paper
Irregular vertical and horizontal slits
Image credit: Luhring Augustine, New York

In Zarina’s art beauty and aesthetics push the viewer towards new modes of
enlightenment. Her gold leaf piece that she initially felt might turn out to be garish,
connotes a sense of purity and sublimity that relays the quality of the metal itself. In
Blinding Light (2010) a 6 foot by 3 foot sheet consisting of layers of fine gold leaf
Japanese paper hangs from a bar. Vertical slits in a grid like pattern allow light to enter
and create shadows against the shimmering reflective surface. Imbued by Sufi
philosophy, the work resonates with the poetry of her imagination. Ultimately, Zarina’s
brilliant machination of paper that she believes is as malleable as skin compels us more
than ever towards a fulfilling experience.

This exhibition traveled to the Guggenheim , New York from the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and will be on view until April 21, 2013.

Bansie Vasvani is an independent art critic based in New York City.  She has a Masters Degree in Modern and Contemporary Art, and has traveled extensively to art fairs all over the world.