The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory

August 24, 2013

Ipshita Sen announces the newly released book on Nalini Malini and William Kentridge’s art of shadow play

William Kentridge Nalini Malani: The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory by Andreas Huyssen

New York: “The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory”, is an enchanting book, featuring works by two prominent artists of our time; William Kentridge and Nalini Malini. It is an exquisite comparison of their art works incorporating the use of shadow play as a medium of memory. Emphasis is placed on two significant installation pieces created by the artists for dOCUMENTA (13) Exhibition in Wassel, Germany 2012. These works were considered to be epitomes of their artistic careers; William Kentridge’s “The Refusal of time” and Nalini Malini’s “In Search of Vanished Blood”.

In Search of Vanished Blood, Nalini Malani @ Documenta 12

In Search of Vanished Blood, Nalini Malani @ dOCUMENTA (13). Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/g_i_r_a_f/7690241934/sizes/h/in/photostream/

“In search of vanished blood” a colossal installation by Nalini Malini highlighted the prestigious 100-day exhibition. Being a refugee of the India partition, Nalini’s work explores the boundaries of gender and displacement, comprising of cultural imagery through mixed media installations. The installation involves light projecting onto painted acrylic cylinders that revolved, creating dramatic shadows on the wall. The imagery used on the cylinders was off Hindu Goddesses along side western icons creating an interesting juxtaposition between the two cultures. The installation had fantastic aesthetic dynamism stressing on the aspects of the social issues of gender, feminism, violence and religious fundamentalism.

William Kentridge’s “The Refusal of Time” was envisioned through the artist’s several encounters with composer Philip Miller and scientist Peter Galison. This video art piece explores the concept of different perspectives of time and the complexities associated with changing time. It combines drawing, music, dance, movies and concepts creating a dynamic theatrical performance, which brings Kentridge’s notion of questioning time on the pedestal.

The Refusal of Time by William Kentridge @ dOCUMENTA (13). Image credit: http://documenta13blog.noz.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/890_0008_5505908_32040413.jpg

Both artists independently have works that share similar themes of traumatic pasts, partition, apartheid, expressing these aspects of their being in their own unique but aesthetically complex ways. They have been instrumental in creating a dialogue between modernism and the historical Avant-grade, which is appealing and encourages an audience to see things through the lens of a fresh new perspective.

The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory is definitely a must read!

EUROPALIA!

August 21, 2013

Kanika Pruthi of Saffronart talks about the upcoming European international art festival that will celebrate the cultural heritage and contemporary arts of India

New York: Europalia is a major international arts festival held every two years in Europe. It aims to celebrate the cultural heritage of a selected country through different kinds of programs that are hosted all over Europe. Its name is a combination of two words: “Europe” and “Opalia,” an ancient Roman harvest festival held in mid-December in honour of Ops, earth-goddess and fertility deity. Her name lies at the root of the Latin word “Opus”, that denotes a work of art.

Since its debut in 1969, Europalia has organized around twenty three festivals. The festival runs from October to February and boasts of a diverse program that includes music, dance, theater, art, literature, photography and cinema. The venues are spread all across Brussels, other Belgian cities and neighboring countries. Through this unique initiative, Europalia hopes to provide the guest country an opportunity to present their cultural heritage and contemporary art practices to the rest of the world, which in turn would promote better understanding between countries and further cultural exchange between global citizens from around the world.

2013 is India’s year! Each festival enjoys the patronage of the King of Belgium and the guest country’s Head of State.

The Europalia festival strives to include every cultural aspect of the guest country, from past national treasures to contemporary works, from the arts, science and fashion to design, folklore and even gastronomy. This all-inclusive approach makes Europalia a vibrant festival pulsating with life. Working closely with the guest country enables the festival to showcase outstanding works and experiences that have not be accessible to a larger global audience.

The spirit of the festival encourages and fosters partnerships and collaboration between artists and performers. During each festival, Europalia invites celebrated artists to create a project that throws new light on a creative discipline other than their own, bringing an element of surprise and new creativity to the fore. It presents a heady mix of the past, present and the future- with many artists, who have met via this platform, collaborating on future ventures.

Select highlights from the upcoming festival

NALINI MALANI: BEYOND PRINT, HISTORY, TRANSFERENCE, MONTAGE
A self-curated debut exhibition of the Indian artist in Belgium, this show has a lot to offer. Consisting of a selection of her works, from her first artist books to big digital prints and video projections, to unseen works which are part of the collection of the Centre de la Gravure, including a collaborative project with students.

Nalini Malani – Listening to the Shades2 – 2008 © Nalini Malani-courtesy Burger Collection – Zurich. Image Credit: http://www.europalia.eu/en/article/nalini-malani_136.html

THE BODY IN INDIAN ART
Curated by Naman Ahuja, the exhibition brings together 250 masterpieces from approximately 50 of India’s museums, archaeological institutes, and private collections, in an exploration of the complex and multifaceted understandings of the ‘Body’ in Indian art. This exhibition reveals the body not only as the subject of art, but also as the medium used to convey the values, preoccupations and aspirations of the times.

Apsara, Hoysala Karanataka, 12-13th c, National Museum New Delhi.
Image Credit: http://www.europalia.eu/en/article/the-body-in-indian-art_89.html

SUSHEELA RAMAN AT VALENCIENNES, FRANCE
The British Indian artist known for her sensual voice mixed with rhythms and melodies that she carefully blends has earned critical acclaim and an international following. A trained carnatic vocalist, her mesmeric voice and style of singing which blends different musical traditions while maintaining a quintessential Indian soul, sets her apart from her contemporaries.

Image Credit: http://www.europalia.eu/en/article/susheela-raman-_110.html

CHARISHNU BY LEELA SAMSON
One of India’s leading dancers, Samson brings together in this brilliant and rare production, several pre-eminent dancer and choreographers and their troupes to showcase the richness of India’s dances and martial and percussion arts. Charishnu, literally ‘the desire to move’, will in a single presentation showcase different dance styles, each in dialogue with the other, culminating in a spectacular finale.

Image Credit: http://www.europalia.eu/en/article/charishnu_93.htm

For additional information about the festival click here.

Nalini Malani: Fukuoka Prize Award Winner 2013

July 2, 2013

Elizabeth Prendiville of Saffronart shares a note about Nalini Malani’s Arts and Culture Fukuoka Prize

Nalini Malani Working at Home, Mumbai, 2013. Image Credit: http://fukuoka-prize.org/en/laureate/prize/cul/nalinima.php

New York: Acclaimed Asian artist Nalini Malani was awarded the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize 2013. The Fukuoka Prize (Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize) was inaugurated in 1990 with the intent of promoting and understanding the distinctive cultures of Asia and it celebrates those who have made outstanding contributions to academia, arts, and culture in Asia.

Malani is most notably known for her large scale paintings and installations. Her work focuses on controversial and intricate topics such as religion, gender, war and nature.

Nalini Malani Installing the Retrospective Exhibition, Nalini Malani: Splitting the Other at Musèe Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, 2010. Image Credit: http://fukuoka-prize.org/en/laureate/prize/cul/nalinima.php

Born in Pakistan, Malani received her primary art education at the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai. She then went on to pursue her artistic studies in Paris with a scholarship awarded from the government of France. She now works primarily in Mumbai, but her work displays a variety of international inspirations. Additionally, she was the curator of the first all female organized exhibition in India, Through the Looking Glass. Malani is well known both in India and internationally for creating memorable work that takes on controversial topics, even in the most conservative art markets. From this international perspective, she addresses great universal problems that our world faces today. Her dedication to discuss these issues through her work has opened international opportunities in esteemed institutions such as The New Museum in New York City, the Venice Biennale and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan.

Listening to the Shades 7, Nalini Malani, 2008. Image Credit: http://www.nalinimalani.com/painting/shades.htm

Although she has chosen very controversial themes for her work, Malani balances these with a classic and historical aesthetic. She utilizes traditional Indian motifs as well as employing a mystical use of color and light in her work.

This internationally influenced and applauded artist is a commendable recipient of the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize 2013. On September 14, Malani will give a lecture in Fukuoka titled “For a More Progressive Society-The Potentials in Our World and Arts”.

To learn more about the Fukuoka Prize and Arts and Culture Prize winner Nalini Malani click here.

‘Move on Asia’ – Video Art From Asia 2002 – 2012

June 23, 2013

Emily Jane Cushing suggests the ‘Move on Asia’ exhibition of Asian video art from 2002 to 2012.

London: The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany opened on February 9th their exhibition which shows the development of the video art genre and the increasing importance of Asia in contemporary art; the exhibition runs until August 4th 2013.

Meiro Koizumi: „My Voice Would Reach You“ (2009). Video still; Image Credit: http://regator.com/p/259249425/move_on_asia_video_art_in_asia_2002/

The increased interest in Asian arts resulted in the 2007 exhibition at the ZKM | Karlsruhe curated by Wonil Rhee entitled “Thermocline of Art. New Asian Waves”. This exhibition was hugely successful in attracting world-wide attention to the Asiatic ‘moving image’; despite being only six years prior and fifty years since the emergence of video art, the need for a follow on exhibition showing the huge development in this genre is needed.

It is noted that as an art genre video art has continually been associated with the West despite much of the technology originating in Asia. This exhibition proves that over the last couple of decades the culture of video art has gained greater independence from Western models by showing at biennale’s and art exhibitions across the world.

The vast exhibition, containing over 140 works, is made up of works from video artists originating from thirteen Asiatic countries including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition to the showing of established artists, recent works by new artists are also shown.

The exhibition displays a wide range of Indian art; Indian artists showing are Vishal K. Dar, Chitra Ganesh, Shilpa Gupta, Tushar Joag, Shakuntala Kulkarni, Nalini Malani, Pushpamala N., Sharmila Samant, Tejal Shah, Valay Shende, Shine Shivan and Thukral & Tagra.

“40+4. Art is Not Enough! Not Enough” Image Credit, http://vimeo.com/48543105

An interactive installation entitled “Global Fire” by the Paris-based artist Du Zhenjun may also be viewed in connection with the exhibition. “Global Fire” is a large inflatable dome in which the visitors may ignite the flags of 200 countries with lighters on heat censors. Also on show in the ZKM_PanoramaLab is the interactive video installation “40+4. Art is Not Enough! Not Enough” in which forty Shanghai based artists are interviewed about their works and asked to question their art in relation to the environment and the social impact of their artistic production. This installation resulting from the collaboration between the curator Davide Quadrio, the filmmaker Lothar Spree as well as the video artist Xiaowen Zhu is truly insightful and fascinating.

“Global Fire” by the Paris-based artist Du Zhenjun, Image Credit; http://duzhenjun.com/installations/global-fire/

This exhibition runs until 4th August 2013; view the website for more details on this exciting exhibition.

Also, for those wishing to read more about Indian video art, I have found a really interesting article from Tehelka Magazine with Pakistani artist Bani Abidi discussing Indian Video art and it’s increased popularity here; it’s a great read!

Clark House Initiative (Bombay) presents L’exigence de la saudade at the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris

May 20, 2013

Padmini Chettur, choreography notes for ‘Pushed’ 2005-6
Image courtesy: Clark House Initiative, Bombay

Manjari Sihare shares details of an exhibit that opened today at the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris

Paris: Mumbai’s Clark House Initiative opened an exhibition entitled L’exigence de la saudade at the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, today. The exhibition is curated by Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma who are currently curators in residence at the Kadist Art Foundation. Quoting the show’s press release, “the exhibition brings together three artists from distant geographies within India – Padmini Chettur, a contemporary dancer, Prajakta Potnis, a visual artist, and Zamthingla Ruivah, a master weaver, whose works are conceptually engaged with remnant cultural forms, not as endangered traditions, rather to reinvent them in the present. These reinventions spring from the exigencies of political anguish, or the scouring for identities and representations, after the violence of cultural amnesia, experienced over the numbing of years as a kind of saudade. These artists create a complex backdrop of the Indian subcontinent, too culturally conjoined to other geographies for any sense of the nation to arise. In this word saudade, as in the name ‘Bombay’ (bom baía), is heard the persistence of a Portuguese past. Exigency and saudade, retain the tension of opposites; the consciousness of the past in the present, which permits the envisaging of what is still to come.”

Padmini Chettur was trained in a tradition of dance, revived in the 1930s after a century of forced amnesia. She displaces the choreographic tradition to a minimalistic language, which visually translates philosophical concepts of time and space as they relate to contemporary experience. The sculptural reliefs of lace and light, realised in situ by Prajakta Potnis come out of her observation of fissures or peeling walls, as witnesses of the social imaginary of the people who live within them. Zamthingla Ruivah revives the tradition of weaving, from the north-east of India, to narrate the events of a community. However, the stories she puts into geometric form, testify to a brutal political history.

In the exhibition, the works will be in dialogue with those of certain Indian artists who were living in Paris in May 1968. Nalini Malani described her time in Paris as a ‘prise de conscience’. She lends to the exhibition a small papier mache head, ‘For the Dispossessed’ made in Paris in 1971, out of the vivid pages of Le Nouvel Observateur, and referencing photographs of refugees fleeing the genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War. The head also references what was happening in Paris at the time, demonstrations for Angela Davis, and protests of the Vietnam War. ‘Demonstrators’ a sculpture by Krishna Reddy, is an eidetic memory of students outside his window in Paris in 1968. The last is a series of sketches made in Paris that year, by the polymath artist and magician Jean Bhownagary. Certain cues and gestures – of dance, theatre, magic or music – can come close to those used in protest marches, and fall under social engagement, as much as art. The exhibition intertwines artistic practice with historical contexts, to understand the manoeuvring possibilities of culture.

Details of the exhibit:

L’exigence de la saudade
Friday 17 May, 6-9pm: opening of the exhibition at Kadist Art Foundation – Gallery
dates and hours: 18 May – 28 July 2013 | Thur-Sun 2-7pm
Kadist Art Foundation, 19 bis-21 rue des Trois Frères, F-75018 Paris.
tél. +33 1 42 51 83 49 | www.kadist.org

Artists
Padmini Chettur, Prajakta Potnis, Zamthingla Ruivah

With the participation of: Jean Bhownagary, Tyeb Mehta, Nalini Malani, Krishna Reddy, Maarten Visser

Cues: Yogesh Barve, Judy Blum, Sachin Bonde, Poonam Jain, Mangesh Kapse,
Carla Montenegro, Amol Patil, Nikhil Raunak, Amrita Sher-Gil, Alexandre Singh
in a place hidden: Prabhakar Pachpute in the public realm: Justin Ponmany

State of the Art

Posts tagged with Nalini Malani

The Shadow Play as Medium of Memory

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Nalini Malani: Fukuoka Prize Award Winner 2013

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‘Move on Asia’ – Video Art From Asia 2002 – 2012

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Clark House Initiative (Bombay) presents L’exigence de la saudade at the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris

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