The exhibition ‘In Transition:New Art from India’ at Richmond Art Gallery features installation-based work by R namely Shilpa Gupta, Reena Kallat, TV Santhosh, SudarshanShetty, artist collective Thukral & Tagra, and Hema Upadhyay. Following are the related events as part of the India show, among India’s most recognized contemporary artists. Her work often explores the places where the public and the private intersect.
Jiten Thukral was born in Jalandhar, Punjab and received his Bachelor of Arts from Chandigrah Art College and his Master of Fine Arts from New Delhi College of Art. Sumir Tagra was born in New Delhi and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the New Delhi College of Art, New Delhi and his Post Graduate Diploma from the National Institute of Desgn, Ahmedabad Shankar of Arts ,New Delhi. Thukral and Tagra currently work as a collective based in New Delhi.
The artist collective Thukral & Tagra present their work under the trade name of Bosedk Design. The Anglicization of an abusive term in Punjabi, Bosedk can be read as an adolescent stance taken in defiance of all that is serious and adult, ensuring that the artists never take themselves too seriously.
Working under Bosedk Design permits Thukral & Tagra to delve unrestrictedly into all media and forms, including corporate commissions, since the notion of “selling-out” is part of their artistic enquiry. The creation of a faux-industrial line of products, branded as “Everyday Bosedk”, allows the artists to challenge the values of fine art fabrication and the art market by using industrial processes to create everyday, disposable objects within the context of “high art”.
'Keep Out of Reach of Children' plays into this strategy, presenting ordinary plastic bottles on commercially produced shelving units. Through the use of commissioned labels and their strategic placement on the shelving unit however, the artists reveal the social critique underlying their work. In the current exhibition, standing at a distance from the work allows the viewer to note the deliberate arrangement of objects that create the form of an armored tank.
The title repeats a common warning found on everyday household products, exhorting care, responsibility and proper supervision of those in power to safeguard those who must be protected.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Reena Kallat and Hema Upadhyay’s new works
Reena Kallat, born in New Delhi, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. She currently lives and works in Mumbai. Her ‘Lunar Notes’ and the accompanying photographic installation, ‘Anonymously Yours’ is on view at Richmond Art Gallery. It grew out of the artist’s fascination with what she calls 'lovegraffiti'— testaments of affection in the form of names or initials scratched on the walls in public places.
Her work often incorporates names, which act as the stand-ins for personal identity. Lunar Notes consists of hundreds of bonded-marble beads, each carved with names of lovers, “strung vertically like raindrops” into a curtain. From a distance the beads can be seen to form an image of the Taj Mahal, the now public monument built as the ultimate (private) symbol of love. Like the Taj Mahal, Lunar Notes balances between the public and the private, the monumental and the intricate. Yet, where the mausoleum has traversed from being a private declaration to a national symbol, the curtain has conjoined the two realms, in a sense democratizing it, by literally inscribing the image with individual names.
Hema Upadhyay’s ‘Loco-Foco-Motto’ is part of a series she has been working on since 2007. Constructed of thousands of un-ignited matchsticks assembled into elaborate chandeliers, these pieces embody a trend in her work, which explores violence co-existing with beauty. A nascent violence is implied in these works, a commentary on the hostilities, intolerance and cruelty that touches so many lives throughout the contemporary world.
At once delicate, nostalgic and yet dangerous, the disparity of creating a chandelier out of matchsticks takes the object out of the realm of logic and situates it firmly in the metaphoric.
Hema Upadhyay, born in Baroda, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts from the Fine Arts Faculty of the Maharaga Sayagirao University Baroda in 1995 and 1997 respectively. She curently lives and work in Mumbai. Her work often reveals a concern with issues of migration and displacement, gender, and class.
Her work often incorporates names, which act as the stand-ins for personal identity. Lunar Notes consists of hundreds of bonded-marble beads, each carved with names of lovers, “strung vertically like raindrops” into a curtain. From a distance the beads can be seen to form an image of the Taj Mahal, the now public monument built as the ultimate (private) symbol of love. Like the Taj Mahal, Lunar Notes balances between the public and the private, the monumental and the intricate. Yet, where the mausoleum has traversed from being a private declaration to a national symbol, the curtain has conjoined the two realms, in a sense democratizing it, by literally inscribing the image with individual names.
Hema Upadhyay’s ‘Loco-Foco-Motto’ is part of a series she has been working on since 2007. Constructed of thousands of un-ignited matchsticks assembled into elaborate chandeliers, these pieces embody a trend in her work, which explores violence co-existing with beauty. A nascent violence is implied in these works, a commentary on the hostilities, intolerance and cruelty that touches so many lives throughout the contemporary world.
At once delicate, nostalgic and yet dangerous, the disparity of creating a chandelier out of matchsticks takes the object out of the realm of logic and situates it firmly in the metaphoric.
Hema Upadhyay, born in Baroda, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Masters of Fine Arts from the Fine Arts Faculty of the Maharaga Sayagirao University Baroda in 1995 and 1997 respectively. She curently lives and work in Mumbai. Her work often reveals a concern with issues of migration and displacement, gender, and class.
Encapsulating the vibrancy and vitality of Nalini Malani’s practice
The vibrancy and vitality of Nalini Malani’s practice is evident in select video installations, paintings, as well as theatrical collaboration projects on view at Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland. It’s a major retrospective of acclaimed Indian artist work of the past decade and a half.
Figures drawn from mythical tales of different cultural background (Alice in Wonderland, Cassandra, Akka etc.) form scenes that depict the consequences of capitalism, orthodox fanaticism, war, and the environmental destruction in an epical narrative outpour. In her new suite of works on display, a gallery stages an engaging conversation between female figures that stem from diverse myths, as they sometimes melt into one another.
The artist relates Cassandra’s tale through thirty painted panels. They are arranged like a large stained-glass window wherein Cassandra simultaneously appears both young and old - as a skipping girl and as a young lady, who imbibes her prophetic gifts through a blue umbilical cord connecting her ear to that of a sage. Yet it traverses the whole pictorial space, thus deftly linking up a realm of action to the next one.
Each of these settings is meticulously arranged on a round surface resembling a curious cell culture or Petri dish. An enormous smoke cloud billows out over one of these. These swathes of smoke that emanate from explosions are a frequent motif in her work. It is actually alluding to the nuclear tests India has conducted and to the blatant insanity of further nuclear escalation. On close examination, calamity and terror can be noticed issuing from it.
Some thirty tondi (circular formats) that fan out around the Cassandra polyptych form a planetary system of tableaux, to reiterate the deft juxtaposition of the stencil-like image of an aged woman and a young girl, thus uniting in the same compositions two recurring figures in her work: Alice in Wonderland and Mother Courage. The colors cannot mask the horror of these scenes. This chromatic exquisiteness prompts the viewer to inspect more closely, and registering the mutilations of human beings in a specific historical and global context.
Figures drawn from mythical tales of different cultural background (Alice in Wonderland, Cassandra, Akka etc.) form scenes that depict the consequences of capitalism, orthodox fanaticism, war, and the environmental destruction in an epical narrative outpour. In her new suite of works on display, a gallery stages an engaging conversation between female figures that stem from diverse myths, as they sometimes melt into one another.
The artist relates Cassandra’s tale through thirty painted panels. They are arranged like a large stained-glass window wherein Cassandra simultaneously appears both young and old - as a skipping girl and as a young lady, who imbibes her prophetic gifts through a blue umbilical cord connecting her ear to that of a sage. Yet it traverses the whole pictorial space, thus deftly linking up a realm of action to the next one.
Each of these settings is meticulously arranged on a round surface resembling a curious cell culture or Petri dish. An enormous smoke cloud billows out over one of these. These swathes of smoke that emanate from explosions are a frequent motif in her work. It is actually alluding to the nuclear tests India has conducted and to the blatant insanity of further nuclear escalation. On close examination, calamity and terror can be noticed issuing from it.
Some thirty tondi (circular formats) that fan out around the Cassandra polyptych form a planetary system of tableaux, to reiterate the deft juxtaposition of the stencil-like image of an aged woman and a young girl, thus uniting in the same compositions two recurring figures in her work: Alice in Wonderland and Mother Courage. The colors cannot mask the horror of these scenes. This chromatic exquisiteness prompts the viewer to inspect more closely, and registering the mutilations of human beings in a specific historical and global context.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
‘Nothing Lost in Translation’ by Mithu Sen
An apparent tinge of sarcasm in her work is meant to prompt the viewers to play with ideas and meanings of 'self'. By engaging with the work, they are subconsciously applying ‘my caricatures to their own lives’, Mithu Sen elaborates.
Nature Morte presents her first solo exhibition in Berlin, entitled ‘Nothing Lost in Translation’. A trained painter, Mithu Sen now works in various media, making site and time specific installations with sculpture, video, sound, design and drawings, even dabbling in poetry. Born in 1971 in West Bengal, Mithu Sen earned her BFA and MFA in painting at Santiniketan and studied in Glasgow as well.
She has had residencies in New York, Brazil, China, and Kenya. She has held solo exhibitions at Nature Morte and the British Council in New Delhi, Gallery Chemould in Mumbai, Bose Pacia in New York, Krinzinger Projekte in Vienna, and Suzie Q Projects in Zurich. She lives and works in New Delhi.
Although much of her oeuvre is on paper, her work is conceptual in nature and often interactive. Forming the centerpiece of the exhibition, the series 'Nothing Lost in Translation' is the product of Mithu Sen's residency in Japan in 2008. During this time she made works for the exhibition Emotional Drawing at The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, which then traveled to Kyoto and Seoul.
Drawing from local and popular culture—most noticeably erotic Manga—the series confronts us with visceral representations of bodies fused into hybrid creatures. Blending fact and fiction, Mithu Sen incorporates representations of herself alongside her fantastical creations, complicating conventional representations of the self with humor and charm. Swinging between distance and intimacy, her works deal with the politics of identity, sexuality and gender.
Search for a new idiom in contemporary art
It’s a journey that started as a spate of itinerant seminars and involving talented artists from all corners of India. The same has resulted in a niche platform for alternate art.
In just over a decade, Khoj has managed to establish itself as a credible initiative for all ‘artists by artists’ efficiently dealing in public art. Some of the country’s most popular artists have been integral part of the whole process. Indeed, Khoj International Artists’ Association has provided art a new interactive nature using public projects and workshops.
Constant experimentation and sustained international exposure has been a major part of their strategy. The workshops have been known for their noteworthy public as well as performance art acts. This fruitful journey has been well captured in The Khoj Book. It takes a broader view of contemporary art practice in the country from 1997 to 2007.
The founder of the Triangle Arts Trust Robert Loder, assisted Khoj director Pooja Sood in finding a permanent address for the prospering group in Delhi in 2002. It has acted as a site for both emerging artists as well as emerging art. Illustrated with more than a thousand colored images of works, this 680-page book covers younger artists across India and some of foremost contemporaries. Nancy Adajania writes in her essay, entitled ‘Probing the Khojness of Khoj’:
In just over a decade, Khoj has managed to establish itself as a credible initiative for all ‘artists by artists’ efficiently dealing in public art. Some of the country’s most popular artists have been integral part of the whole process. Indeed, Khoj International Artists’ Association has provided art a new interactive nature using public projects and workshops.
Constant experimentation and sustained international exposure has been a major part of their strategy. The workshops have been known for their noteworthy public as well as performance art acts. This fruitful journey has been well captured in The Khoj Book. It takes a broader view of contemporary art practice in the country from 1997 to 2007.
The founder of the Triangle Arts Trust Robert Loder, assisted Khoj director Pooja Sood in finding a permanent address for the prospering group in Delhi in 2002. It has acted as a site for both emerging artists as well as emerging art. Illustrated with more than a thousand colored images of works, this 680-page book covers younger artists across India and some of foremost contemporaries. Nancy Adajania writes in her essay, entitled ‘Probing the Khojness of Khoj’:
“The advent of the Khoj International Artists’ Workshop in 1997, with the formation of a working group comprising six artists and a gallery director, is such a benchmark in the history of post-colonial Indian art. The achievement of the Khoj model is that it has transformed the lives and work of its practitioners. It has anticipated and provided for the consequences of the mobility that globalization has imparted to Indian artists in the post-colonial world.”The document traces the rapid evolution of the art organization through meticulous accounts of its various workshops. It has interviews of artists who have contributed to Khoj over a decade.
A profusion of figures and disparate elements from animate and inanimate spheres
One of the most significant artists of her generation, her artistic output is mostly in cycles (polyptychs), employing multiple-projection video installations. A profusion of figures and disparate elements from animate and inanimate spheres like fragments of machines, tadpoles, worms, larvae, winged creatures, monsters etc are portrayed in elementary colors like yellow, blue and red.
She has depicted the women's revolt in a nation – now the world’s largest democracy - first caught between the legacy of colonialism and the third-world socialism ideal, and later pushed by forces of globalization into dramatic socio-political and economic transformations. Her artistic world, largely constituted by visible overlays, is fluid with everything in a constant state of metamorphosis.
In it, bones, brain, blood vessels and body organs often float outside it - in both volatile and exploded state because of the Splitting. On the concluding day, an Erasure Performance will take place, wherein they will be washed with milk. This material alludes to the milk powder imported from Chernobyl, a site of nuclear fallout, more than two decades ago. Her Mutants also refer to children born with radiation-related deformities after nuclear tests in the US.
In a rather gloomy gallery at Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland that is holding a major retrospective of her works, creepy creatures surround spectators. The artist terms them ‘Mutants’. Two of them are drawn on the wall; rest painted on milk carton paper.
Put in a larger perspective, her awkward figures remind us of the violence the planet and its inhabitants are infected with under the garb of progress. In a hemi-cycle carrying five large video projections, Nalini Malani makes us confront with the birth of the India that was also the cleavage of the nation, whereas in ‘Transgressions’, she deploys a new type of installation work she terms a ‘video/shadow play’.
‘Splitting the Other’ section has fourteen panels that present a procession of monsters, human figures and angels, free-floating brains and some grub-like entities. They peer through blank eyes, of canons, anti-tank mines, bones, embryos, and umbilical cords.
She has depicted the women's revolt in a nation – now the world’s largest democracy - first caught between the legacy of colonialism and the third-world socialism ideal, and later pushed by forces of globalization into dramatic socio-political and economic transformations. Her artistic world, largely constituted by visible overlays, is fluid with everything in a constant state of metamorphosis.
In it, bones, brain, blood vessels and body organs often float outside it - in both volatile and exploded state because of the Splitting. On the concluding day, an Erasure Performance will take place, wherein they will be washed with milk. This material alludes to the milk powder imported from Chernobyl, a site of nuclear fallout, more than two decades ago. Her Mutants also refer to children born with radiation-related deformities after nuclear tests in the US.
In a rather gloomy gallery at Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland that is holding a major retrospective of her works, creepy creatures surround spectators. The artist terms them ‘Mutants’. Two of them are drawn on the wall; rest painted on milk carton paper.
Put in a larger perspective, her awkward figures remind us of the violence the planet and its inhabitants are infected with under the garb of progress. In a hemi-cycle carrying five large video projections, Nalini Malani makes us confront with the birth of the India that was also the cleavage of the nation, whereas in ‘Transgressions’, she deploys a new type of installation work she terms a ‘video/shadow play’.
‘Splitting the Other’ section has fourteen panels that present a procession of monsters, human figures and angels, free-floating brains and some grub-like entities. They peer through blank eyes, of canons, anti-tank mines, bones, embryos, and umbilical cords.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
'In Transition:New Art from India' show
In collaboration with the Vancouver Biennale the Richmond Art Gallery presents 'In Transition: New Art from India'.
A curatorial note states: "India is experiencing a period of remarkablegrowth and transformation and its artists (like contemporary artists everywhere)are responding to these changes. With an eye on its past and a view to the future,these artists are examining the social, political, economic and religious implicationsof becoming a major world economy."
The exhibition features installation-based work by six of India’s most recognized contemporary artists, namely Shilpa Gupta, Reena Kallat, TV Santhosh, SudarshanShetty, artist collective Thukral & Tagra, and Hema Upadhyay. Following are the related events as part of the India show:
- Hema Upadhyay will create several sculptures on-site at Aberdeen Centre whichwill be unveiled the week of May 24 to June 2.
- A lecture in Richmond with Biennale sponsored artist, Hema Upadhyay from Mumbai ‘Dream a Wish, Wish a Dream’ on May 20 in Council Chambers.
- 'Contemporary Art in India: At Home and in the World' - Walk through the exhibition with Keith Wallace as he discusses contemporary art in India today.
- Co-presented by Cinevolution Media Arts Society and Richmond Cultural Centre, New Asia Film Festival showcases cutting-edge films centered on contemporary, progressive,and controversial themes related to Asian culture.
The Richmond Art Gallery believes that art allows us to visit concepts that give us the power to transform our lives, to change our mind and spirit; and art objects embody knowledge of our past and present. It plays a dynamic role in the growth of visual art in Richmond, BC. A vital part of the contemporary art network in British Columbia and Canada, the art gallery strives to enhance an understanding and enjoyment of contemporary art through excellence in exhibitions and education.
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