Pushpa Kumari is one of India’s foremost contemporary traditional artists

Source Biennale of Sydney 2022
Pushpa Kumari is one of India’s foremost contemporary traditional artists and divides her time between Delhi and her ancestral village of Ranti. Her artistic roots are deep within the Mithila/Madhubani folk art tradition, and she learned this art as a young child from her grandmother, the renowned artist Mahasundari Devi. Mithila or Madhubani art is one of India’s most popular folk art genres from the Indian state of Bihar. Kumari incorporates in her art the stylistic devices and signature elements of Madhubani art. She imbues her works with strong personal statements and compelling pre-occupations. They are often concerned with women’s issues and the immense ecological challenges facing humankind in the twenty-first century. Kumari both strengthens and subverts the tradition, using it as a medium for her message which can be both overt and subtle, lending a beguiling charm to her intricate black and white and colourful drawings.
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Brush of freedom: Editorial on culture of vigilantism in arts

Source The Telegraph by The Editorial Board
Art for art’s sake — the idea that art needs no justification and need not serve a political, didactic or economic purpose — is a principle that must be re-examined. There is the longstanding argument that for the market of art and, indeed, artists to prosper, their works should stay aloof from addressing difficult — political — questions. That art, in other words, should serve as a means of escaping reality to remain profitable. This may not be the case always. For instance, the 2022 edition of the India Art Fair brought together young artists who boldly tackled, in a myriad media, questions related to politics, gender and sexuality, caste, class, mental health, the climate crisis and so on and, yet, managed to achieve commercial success. The fair broke records with galleries selling works across price points — the sign of a thriving and lucrative art scene. Hearteningly, the artworks were also representative of diversity: they came from the interior corners of India, spanning Santiniketan in West Bengal to Vadodara in Gujarat to international cities such as Sydney, Brasília, New York, and London and were bought by patrons across the world.
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‘The Project of Independence’ at MoMA spotlight South Asia's modernist structures post-independence

Source Vogue India by Sadaf Shaikh
How does a country reclaim its identity after being colonised for close to two centuries? For India, as well as other emancipated South Asian nations that won independence from the British Raj between 1947 and 1971, the principal solution lay in reinventing the infrastructure, a stark reminder of the hegemonic institutions that had ruled them with an iron fist for so long. The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947–1985, an assiduously curated collection of about 200 archival and commissioned works by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, spotlights the firm mood of nation-building that gripped the countries emerging from a protracted imperialist regime.
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In the Studio With Mahesh Baliga

Source Ocula by Cleo Roberts-Komireddi
Mahesh Baliga's small-scale paintings in casein tempera are like pages from a story book. In vivid colour, Baliga renders scenes from his surroundings in Vadodara, India, transforming otherwise overlooked details into visual poetry. On the occasion of his first solo exhibition outside of India, Drawn to remember at David Zwirner in London, the artist—whose work was also recently presented by Project 88 at India Art Fair—shares how he arrived at his unique style.. "The initial starting point of any work is the pain. It starts with the self and what I've seen. Looking at those lights, I know that that building is incomplete. I know that so many people around it have lost their jobs. There's an undercurrent. It's like Satyajit Ray's films, there is so much sadness but they're entertaining... I'm working in a similar way."
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The Kochi-Muziris Biennale launches new award to boost opportunities for younger artists

Source Architectural Digest India by Shaikh Ayaz
In a step that Bose Krishnamachari, President, Kochi Biennale Foundation and Biennale director, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, proudly calls yet another "feather in our cap," the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) 2022-23 has just announced a unique tie-up with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF) and London's Hayward Gallery to institute an award for up-and-coming South Asian artists. The first recipient of the multi-year DBF-KMB award will be chosen from an array of emerging artists of South Asian descent participating in the fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and will be announced shortly after the official opening on 12 December later this year in Kochi, Kerala. Subsequently, the awardee will be invited by the Hayward Gallery to exhibit their first institutional solo show at its HENI Project Space in London’s Southbank Centre.
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Madhubani in Manhattan

Source The New Indian Express by Tanisha Saxena
at the bus shelter on Manhattan’s 86 street, right between the Broadway and West End Avenue, is exhibited a unique and unexpected work of art. Unexpected because it is not a work by a celebrated impressionist or an avant-garde contemporary artist as one would expect it to be in the heart of New York City. Instead, it is the work of Pushpa Kumari, a third-generation Madhubani artist from a small town in Bihar. Titled ‘Joy of Living’, the painting is a nuanced representation of hope, particularly in light of the last two years that were taken over by the fear of the pandemic. Kumari’s work is being exhibited as part of Global Positioning, an art show by the Public Art Fund, a non-profit in the United States of America. Madhubani or Mithila is an age-old Indian art form. Often characterised by complex geometrical patterns, these paintings have traditionally been depictions of religious rituals. But Kumari uses the intricacy of this timeless folk art to address issues of the current times. read more

'Painted villages' Reviving Hazaribagh's traditional tribal art resembling ancient cave paintings

Source News9Live by Hiren Kumar Bose
This art was fading away until a chance finding of a similar ancient cave painting. Now the art not only has international recognition, but is being documented and fused with modern design thanks to art conservators Justin and Alka Imam. Searching for the lost art and its artists Accompanying his father to rock shelter sites and helping him in his research on Hazaribagh's folk arts, Justin Imam naturally got interested in heritage. Justin and Alka Imam took it upon themselves to revive the prehistoric Khovar and Sohrai arts (Photo credit: Justin Imam) As there were only a few women continuing the Khovar and Sohrai painting tradition, Justin decided to help them revive the art. When he got married, his wife Alka too joined him. "In the early years we'd load our car with earth colours and scour the villages to identify women still practising the arts. We'd gift them the colours and motivate them to keep their art alive," Alka Imam told Village Square.
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India Art Fair 2022: In Photos

Source Ocula
Taking place annually in India's capital, New Delhi, view highlights of India Art Fair's 13th edition of modern and contemporary art from South Asia.
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Venice Post-Mortem: Reflections on The Milk of Dreams*

Source Ocula by Stephanie Bailey
There are too many great artists and works to name. Like masters Safia Farhat, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Pinaree Sanpitak, and Tishan Hsu.Or young guns Carolyn Lazard, Sandra Mujinga, Hannah Levy, and Elisa Giardina Papa, whose 2022 video installation "U Scantu": A Disorderly Tale, turns the Sicilian myth of hybrid women into a Mad-Max revenge fantasy where girls on bikes rule.
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Despite a Heat Wave, Crowds Returned in Full Force to the India Art Fair and Collectors Bought Up Work Quickly

Source Artnet News by Skye Arundhati Thomas
“Watch out, it can be addictive,” states the opening paragraph of How to buy your first piece at India Art Fair, an online guide for new collectors. And on the fair’s opening day last week, eager art buyers showed just how much of a compulsion collecting can be, arriving in force despite record temperatures in New Delhi and a new wave of the pandemic looming. During the VIP preview on Thursday, rows of orderly, plush cars patiently waited to reach the fair entrance and the white tents were packed with crowds.
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‘A turning point’: Indian art fair challenges gender and sexual stereotypes

Source The Guardian by Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Even through the haze of shimmering heat and thick Delhi dust, the mural is impossible to miss. Pinks, blues, greens and yellows pop off the wall, coming together to form a utopian scene of equality, and splashed across the middle is emblazoned a slogan designed to challenge India’s male-dominated society. “The future is femme,” it declares. The artwork stands at the entrance of this year’s India art fair, the country’s largest event showcasing Indian artists and galleries, which opens in Delhi this weekend after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. For the first time, this year’s art fair is showcasing rare items of Indian folk art, some dating back 100 years, illustrating changing perceptions towards older indigenous art within the Indian market, which has always been focused on the modern and contemporary. Among the works on show are a series of bronze mukhalingam sculptures, a representation of the Hindu god Shiva, which have never been seen in public before. “Our folk culture has been much more popular overseas in the last four decades than it has on the Indian domestic market,” said Amit Jain, who curated the folk art booths at this year’s fair. “I’m used to this art and these artists being seen as on the peripheries so it’s amazing to see India’s full history brought into this contemporary space. It’s high time that museums in India look at art laterally and not compartmentalised into modern and folk.”
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