CONTEMPORARY ONE WORD SEVERAL WORLDS

vendredi 26 mars 2021

In new SH Raza biography, Yashodhara Dalmia shines a fresh light on the iconic artist's life and work

Source Firstpost by Ankush Arora
One of the most successful artists of post-independence India, Sayed Haider Raza would have turned 100 next year. His birth centenary celebrations, launched by the Raza Foundation this year through exhibitions, etc, are an opportunity to ask an important question about his legacy: how do we re-interpret his life and art as we reach the anniversary milestone? This question can be expanded further: how do we read his work in the 21st century, especially in an era of radically transforming styles and methods of art production and exhibition-making? One way of responding to this question is to re-contextualise his work, especially his spiritually loaded Bindu vocabulary, in our present times of social and political crises. For example, in a recent exhibition of Raza’s geometric works at Akar Prakar, New Delhi, the curator and author Ranjit Hoskote interpreted the artist’s paintings as a point of symbolic return in the midst of widespread displacement and migration: In an epoch of displacement and migration, many of us are homeless under the sky. How do we find our way back to the consolation that Raza’s Neelambar offers, the blue mantle of the cosmos? In Raza’s late paintings, insistently, we find ourselves returned to the point of origin, Aarambh, and the process of descending into the world, Avtaran.
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Sudarshan Shetty: challenging limits through art

Source Artchitectural Digest by Anindita Ghose
Sudarshan Shetty, 60, is one of the first Indians to wear the tag of “conceptual artist”. He is also among the most political, though in his characteristically measured way. In 2019, two days after some of his curated exhibits were barred from viewing at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, allegedly for oblique references to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests, Shetty issued an impassioned statement about the need for art spaces to function freely. “As far as the show I curated is concerned, why (should) a caption saying an artwork could not reach on time for the exhibition due to transportation delays (because of) CAA protests in the northeast be a problem,” his statement said. Over a call from his home in Mumbai, Shetty spoke about why it is important for artists to register their protest, the function of art, and a return to painting after 12 years.
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jeudi 25 mars 2021

Art Basel OVR: Two Indian art galleries make a splash at the special digital presentation

Source Architectural Digest by Shweta Vepa Vyas
Even as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, art has found a way to endure, like it always does. In the brave new world of 2021, where social distancing and a virtual life is the norm, art too has gone digital. Art Basel's latest edition OVR: Pioneers—that brings together 100 galleries from 25 countries opens virtually with a 24-hour VIP preview that took place yesterday, and runs up until 27th March. Vadehra Art Gallery and Experimenter Gallery bear the honour of being the only two Indian galleries participating in the event. AD spoke to Roshini Vadehra, Director, Vadehra Art Gallery and Priyanka and Prateek Raja, founders, Experimenter Gallery on their respective presentations for the event.
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samedi 20 mars 2021

Gaitonde breaks Indian art auction record—again—but Amrita Sher-Gil painting falls flat in uneven South Asian sales

Source The Art Newspaper by Kabir Jhala
A work by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde has, once again, broken the record for an Indian artist at auction after his 1961 painting from the collection of the dancer Aditi Mangaldas made £3.9m ($5.4m with fees) at SaffronArt in Mumbai. This comes just six months after he last made this record. Records were set for seven artists, several of whom, such as Sunayani Devi and Manishi Dey, come from the Bengal School. Interest from art historians and institutions in this early 20th-century group of Indian nationalist artists has surged in the past decade, with prices steadily rising in tandem.
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lundi 15 mars 2021

'Marg' art magazine: The trailblazer at 75

Source The New Indian Express by Soumitra Das
For any magazine to have survived 75 long years is a huge achievement. Even more so, when it is a niche magazine like Marg devoted to art. The magazine takes a holistic view of art embracing architecture, photography, sociology, heritage, textiles and archaeology, latest developments in research, besides reviews of exhibitions, photography, books, cinema and what have you. And at this juncture, when the media is desperately trying to keep itself oxygenated, Marg Sanskrit for pathway has taken the bold decision to set off in a new direction by presenting a streamlined look (it has shrunk) with an austere cover that is a far cry from the feast for the eyes that it was in its original avatar. In the editorial of the first issue, Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004), the magazine’s founder-editor, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi as he was, wrote he sought “…a true synthesis between the lasting values of our past heritage and finest impulses of the new modern civilisation…”
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dimanche 14 mars 2021

Coming back home: The art of Mayur and Tushar Vayeda

Source The Hindu by Anusua Mukherjee
Mayur (29) and Tushar (33) belong to the indigenous Warli community of Maharashtra. They grew up and live in the village of Ganjad, surrounded by ancient trees, rushing rivers and the wall paintings that are an inextricable part of their tribal culture. Warli art is not just an art form but a way of life. Going back centuries, when human life and nature were still conjoined, it is an outgrowth of nature, with its geometric patterns representing the sun, moon, mountains and trees. Man and his possessions, like the house, are placed within this schema, suggesting that human life gains meaning only in relation to nature. Mayur says, “Our childhood was full of adventure — we would go hunting, fishing, swimming in the river night and day. That part of our lives somehow still survives and is expressed in all the stories we draw on canvas.” /.../ While individuals usually migrate from the countryside to the city to find success, Mayur and Tushar have decided to stay back in Ganjad. Mayur explains their decision: “In the course of our travels, we had the opportunity to talk to a researcher who was studying the effect of pollution on the Pacific coral reefs. We learnt how the corals are getting bleached due to rising sea temperatures and how plastic waste has been found even in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of earth. All that shook us. How do we change this, we wondered. We decided to start the process of conservation from our own village.”
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Christie's upcoming sale to paint a web of stories

Source Livemint by Avantika Bhuyan
“Did I tell you about my Hindu friend? Imagine that her sister has been at the Beaux-Arts for two years and is very talented and very knowledgeable. So when she saw me, she went crazy about my hair and absolutely wanted to do my portrait with my hair loose. As it was for a competition and she had very little time, I posed almost non-stop for three days, and that’s why I couldn’t write to you as I had promised you.” This was a letter written by art writer and critic, Denyse Proutaux to her boyfriend Philippe Dyvorne in November 1931 about Amrita Sher-Gil. She became friends with the artist and her sister Indira during their stay in Paris between 1929 and 1934.
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vendredi 5 mars 2021

Almost 90 Years Out of Public Eye, Rediscovered Portrait by Indian Modernist Amrita Sher-Gil Heads to Auction

Source ArtNews by Angelica Villa
Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil was one of India’s foremost modern artists, even though her career was tragically cut short when she died in 1941 at the age of 28. Because the volume of her output was relatively modest, few works by Sher-Gil ever come to market, but now Christie’s will sell a rarely seen portrait by the artist later this month. Being sold during the house’s South Asian modern and contemporary art sale in New York on March 17, the artwork, which has been out of the public eye for almost 90 years, is expected to fetch a price of $2.8 million, the portrait. The subject of the portrait is Sher-Gil’s close friend art critic Denyse Prouteaux, whom she met while studying in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The work is thought to have been executed around 1932, when Sher-Gil was just 19-years-old.
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