India Art Fair 2022: Artist Atul Dodiya talks about his exhibits

Source Fistpost by Noor Anand Chawla
Atul Dodiya is an Indian artist of significant renown, having carved a well-earned space for himself in the cluttered contemporary art scene. He is best known for his paintings depicting middle-class Indian life and for his watercolour and oil series on Mahatma Gandhi. Currently, he is making waves at the India Art Fair (IAF) 2022 with his solo show at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) titled Walking with the Waves – a subtle departure from his previous works – and artworks displayed at the group show in the Vadehra Art Gallery booth. The solo show is a selection from over 365 intimate works that he painted during the year-long period of frequent lockdowns due to consecutive waves of Covid-19. This mammoth project was his attempt at preserving his own sanity and artistic composure, by dwelling on the concept of solitude. Additionally, he is set to be the first Indian artist to be part of the prestigious BMW Art Talk at the IAF, set to take place on Saturday, April 30, where he will converse with his long-time friend and gallerist, Shireen Gandhy of Chemould Prescott Road gallery on his interesting journey as an artist. He joins Firstpost for a quick chat about the IAF and his work.
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India Art Fair: Advisory Selections

Source Ocula by Annabel Downes
Extensive programming as well as a digital platform make the latest edition of the India Art Fair an exciting destination for South Asian art. Fair director Jaya Asokan calls it a 'testiment to the resilience of the Indian and South Asian art market'. Looking at offerings by galleries including Experimenter, Chatterjee & Lal, and Chemould Prescott Road, such a statement rings true. We select our favourites from the mix.
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Open-source encyclopedia puts 10,000 years of Indian art history in one place

Source CNN Style by Oscar Holland
From prehistoric Bhimbetka cave paintings to works by contemporary art stars like Atul Dodiya and Shilpa Gupta, India has a rich cultural heritage dating back over 10,000 years. So, it came as a surprise to one of the country's leading collectors, the businessman and philanthropist Abhishek Poddar, that there was no single source of authoritative information on the subcontinent's art history. "I didn't even realize that India didn't have an encyclopedia for art. And it was quite shocking that, being one of the oldest cultures in the world, nobody had thought of doing it," he said over the phone, adding: "Every kid knows about (Michelangelo's) 'David,' the 'Mona Lisa' and Botticelli, but there are Indian masterpieces that even 1% of India doesn't know about."
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An Online Platform Spans Millennia of South Asian Art

Source Hypperallergic by Jasmine Liu
An ambitious new platform aims to centralize the history of art in India and South Asia from prehistory to the present in one digital resource. The MAP Academy Encyclopedia of Art, launched last Thursday by the Museum of Art and Photography in Bengaluru, features over 2,000 articles and definitions on topics that span pre-modern art, photography, design, popular culture, and architecture. Nathaniel Gaskell, founder of the project, told Hyperallergic that he noticed “there was very little scholarship or material on South Asian art history online,” with most writing on the topic being exceedingly academic and obtuse, and even then accessible only to those with institutional affiliations.
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The family who invented an art style: ‘He was so scared he would break the pen … now the children do it’

Source The Guardian by Liz Crash
Over three generations in India, members of the Jogi family have preserved their culture with unique and detailed ink works, now on display in Melbourne. Sangita Jogi’s illustration Women Partying, a joyful depiction of an all-girl disco nightclub, looks very much like something you might see in Teen Vogue. In reality, it’s on the wall at the National Gallery of Victoria, as part of a new exhibition highlighting new acquisitions from contemporary Indian artists in rural, regional, and Indigenous traditions, some handed down for centuries. What is unique about 19-year-old Sangita is that she works in a style practised only in her family: Jogi art, an energetic drawing style using in black ink on white paper, featuring detailed patterns and large, complex composition. It’s been practised for three generations of the Jogi family – which is to say, it’s startlingly modern.
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Art Fair India 2022: Exhibitions to See

Source Ocula Magazine by Elaine YJ Zheng
India Art Fair returns to New Delhi (28 April–1 May 2022) for its 13th edition this spring. Ocula Magazine selects exhibition highlights around the city, as well as those in Mumbai and Kolkata.
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Horror and Hope: Shubigi Rao Documents the History of Book Destruction

Source Art Review by Adeline Chia
There are bookish children, and there are bookish children of bookish parents with a fantastic library in which to lose oneself. Born in Mumbai in 1975, Rao spent part of her childhood in Darjeeling and the jungle outskirts of Kaladhungi, then a village in the foothills of the Himalayas. Access to her parents’ beloved library, described in Pulp I as composed of natural and political history, literature and travel, is one of her formative influences. But over time, it suffered several losses (robbery, termites) before being torn apart during her parents’ divorce, when she was a teen. So, while her subsequent research in library destruction around the world is a testament to a lifelong bibliomania, it also a way of processing personal loss.
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Nalini Malani’s Utopia

Source MoMA Magazine by Lucy Galun
In the summer of 1969, Nalini Malani began to explore moving-image art making. A recent graduate of the J.J. School of Art in Bombay (now Mumbai), she was the youngest—and only female—participant in the legendary though short-lived Vision Exchange Workshop (VIEW), a Bombay artists’ hub founded by artist Akbar Padamsee. Malani’s first stop-motion animation film, Dream Houses, made at VIEW that same year, was inspired by utopian modern architecture—including the Indian architect Charles Correa’s plan for New Bombay (later known as Navi Mumbai, 1964), drawings of which are featured in the MoMA exhibition The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947–1985. Seven years later she paired Dream Houses with a new film to form a diptych, Utopia, which is currently on view at MoMA in Gallery 419.
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Christie’s Asian Art Week Totals $67,890,084

Source Salon Privé Magazine
Christie’s Asian Art Week New York achieved a total of $67,890,084 with 83% sold by lot and 160% hammer above the low estimate. There was global participation with bidders from 33 countries across six continents. During the week three records were achieved and eleven lots exceeded $1 million across all sales. The top lot of Asian Art Week New York was an important and very rare inlaid bronze faceted jar, fanghu, which sold for $2,760,000, more than six times above its low estimate of $400,000. Additional notable results included Gathering of Scholars at the National Library (Dokseodang), 16th Century, circa 1531, which totaled $693,000; a bronze figure of dancing Krishna, which realized $693,000; a magnificent and extremely rare imperial famille rose-enameled glass snuff bottle of the Qianlong period, which achieved $693,000; and Bhupen Khakhar’s The Banyan Tree, from the prestigious collection of Mahinder and Sharad Tak, which realized $2,460,000. Tina Zonars, Co-Chairman of Asian Art, Christie’s, comments: “We are delighted by this week’s results, which demonstrate the strength and resilience of the Asian art market across all categories.
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The 6 best Indian art events to look forward to in 2022

Source QG India by Shikha Sethi
After a sluggish start to the year, the Indian art world is thrumming back to life. There’s a spate of art and design galleries opening across the country, from Mumbai to Kolkata. Young artists are finding new audiences through group shows such as Immerse, curated by Shaleen Wadhwana and held at Mumbai’s Somaiya Vidyavihar University earlier this year. Instead of logging in to online viewing rooms, we're visiting galleries in person once more. And reflecting this renewed sense of enthusiasm is a jam-packed Indian art calendar. Bookended by the India Art Fair in April and the Kochi Muziris Biennale in December, there’s a host of openings, museum launches and exhibitions to look forward to in-between. Here’s what you shouldn’t miss.
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India Art Fair Announces Full Programme

Source Ocula by Sam Gaskin
India Art Fair has announced the full list of galleries and programming for its 13th edition, which takes place in Delhi from 28 April to 1 May 2022. Sixty five galleries will take part, including seven Indian galleries who are participating for the first time—APRE Art House, Art Incept, Gallery Art Exposure, Modern Art Gallery, Ojas Art, Terrain.art, and Vida Heydari Contemporary. They'll rub shoulders with fair stalwarts such as Experimenter, Jhaveri Contemporary, Vadehra Art Gallery, and Nature Morte, as well as 14 institutional participants, including the Kochi Biennale Foundation, Chennai Photo Biennale, and Serendipity Arts Foundation.
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CAP TOWN : JUXTAPOSITIONS BY SHINE SHIVAN AND JANE ALEXANDER

Source Times Live by Sanet Oberholzer
What the gallery refers to as “idiosyncratic two-person exhibitions” is a new initiative by Stevenson to reintroduce the joy of art to viewers after two years of having to enjoy viewing through a screen and two years of “rapid regionalisation” after 15 years of “rapid internationalisation”. The first exhibition of this kind is Juxtapositions, an exhibition featuring works from Shine Shivan and Jane Alexander: “two artists from different continents working in different mediums whose work resonates in unexpected ways”. Indian artist Shine Shivan is known for his depiction of mythological figures and gods from Indian cultures while South African artist Jane Alexander sculptures portray figures of animals and mythical alterations.

Tyeb Mehta painting makes record as second most expensive work of modern or contemporary art

Source The Indian Express by Benita Fernando
All eyes were set on a Raja Ravi Varma painting at Saffronart’s spring live auction on Wednesday evening, yet some others emerged as winners and personal bests. A Tyeb Mehta sold for $5,596,000 (Rs 41.97 cr), inclusive of buyer’s premium (hammer price $4,750,000). This is the highest selling work for the artist globally in an auction. Now, it’s the second most expensive work of modern or contemporary Indian art. Mehta’s Untitled (Bull on Rickshaw) (1999) is a meeting of some of his key motifs and themes—the falling figure, the trussed bull and the rickshaw. The bull writhes on the rickshaw, conveying a picture of vulnerability, suffering and bondage. Both human and animal are yoked to their respective places in life. As Amrita Jhaveri noted in A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists (2005), .”..the bull, with its fiery energy is inescapably doomed to man’s violence. Mehta’s experience at an abattoir in Bombay marked him indelibly; in his art, it achieves metaphoric significance — an animal in the throes of death becomes a symbol for the conflicts of modern life.”
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The Surprising Mix of Tradition and Innovation in Nepal’s Contemporary Art Scene

Source Hyperallergic by Erin L. Thompson
Chitrakar took a sip of tea and looked at his current project: another massive painting, this time of the Buddha refusing to let his meditation be disturbed by swarms of tiny figures symbolizing the “defilements”: hatred, delusion, and greed. He told Anderson he believed that the defilements are not entirely evil. For example, Chitrakar explained that he uses the sense of pride he takes in his work as motivation to drive him to create more, to help more viewers catch a glimpse of true peace. Chitrakar’s reminder that nothing human is wholly good or evil applies to all the factors shaping the lives of Nepali contemporary artists. Tradition and innovation; global connections and local roots; meditation and marketing: all these can be tools for creating better lives and communities. The different solutions and goals of Chitrakar, Sadhu X, Bajracharya, and many others in Nepal show that there’s no one best path to the future of art.
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From Raja Ravi Varma to Tyeb Mehta, your chance to bid for some of India’s finest art

Source Conde Nast Traveller by Diya Kohli
Two masters interpreting the same scene of Draupadi’s vastraharan from The Mahabharata; the strong socio-political commentary that defines the iconography of a trussed bull on a rickshaw; the cross-pollination between rural and urban Bengali society in Kalighat’s patachitra paintings—Mumbai-based gallery Saffronart’s Spring Auctions 2022 will feature masterpieces that span geographical diversity, cultural context and showcase the talent of some of the most distinguished names in modern and contemporary South Asian art. The live auction will be held on 6 April featuring 55 important works by modern masters. It will be followed by an online auction on April 6 and 7.
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