Galleries and Collectors Applaud Inaugural Art Mumbai

Source Ocula by Shreya Ajmani
Mumbai's ambitious new art fair is here. Art Mumbai featured 53 galleries from India and beyond at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse from 16 to 19 November. The excitement was palpable on opening day. Galleries across India were particularly thrilled to meet new clients in the country's financial capital. For those rooted in Mumbai, the sentiment was one of gratitude as they revelled in their local advantage. Many expressed their delight at sharing this experience with friends and family who would not typically travel for a fair, but could now experience one in their city for the first time in their collecting journeys. Art Mumbai separated modern and contemporary works of art in two distinct tents.
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Experimenter 2023: “The Contemporary Art World Cannot Work in Its Own Bubble”

Source ArtReview
We had just started our programming in 2009 and were encountering such incredible exhibitions taking place all over the world, but found no place to know more or to speak about these exhibitions and learn from the amazing minds who had given them shape, had thought intensely about the ideas that anchored these exhibitions and literally brought them to life. We were quick to also realise that in other geographies the role of non-commercial institutions was significant, we had no such institution in a country as large as India (we still do not have such an institution) and if we wanted to pursue our need to know, we had to build this dialogue from the ground up. And that is exactly what we did and continue to do 13 years on. It felt like a responsibility, and a way to give back to the community we represent.
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Art Mumbai Opens With a Strong Debut Amid an India Art Market Resurgence

Source Artnet News by Anindo Sen
Mumbai has had a lot to celebrate in recent days. The city had just woken up after a Diwali hangover triggered by an extended weekend of religious celebrations, mithai-fueled foodgasms, and lively parties, when the Indian national cricket team scored a pulsating win in the semifinals of the ICC World Cup on Wednesday. And just a few kilometers away, the inaugural edition of the contemporary art fair Art Mumbai hit a ball out of its own park with a successful opening day on Thursday, November 16 (the event runs through November 19). The fair’s success is another sign of the recent resurgence in the Indian art market. So, what is behind this buoyancy? First off, India’s economy has scaled up significantly in recent decades, with more than six percent growth expected in the coming year, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. This is largely driven by private industry, particularly manufacturing, as global supply chains attempt to lessen their dependence on China.
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Said so much with understatement: Gieve Patel’s life in art and poetry

Source The New Indian Express
For a man whose disciplines were many – painting, poetry, plays, sculpting, medicine – Gieve Patel’s proficiency in each was enviable. Born in 1940, pursuing medicine for most of his adult life, turning to art in his twenties and acquiring cultish respect in whatever form he turned to, Patel died Friday. He left a legacy of depth in simplicity, in words, images, and mediums in between. For his close friend and artist Atul Dodiya, who first became acquainted with Patel after requesting him for a commentary on his first solo show in 1989, Patel’s feeling for his hometown of Mumbai will remain one of his hallmarks. “He painted the people, and didn’t just depict them. What he painted was felt from within, in a spiritual way – whether he was painting an empty railway platform, an early morning day, or a child looking into a well.”
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Best in show: India's Experimenter gallery wins Frieze in London's top stand award

Source The Art Newspaper by Kabir Jhala
The Frieze London Stand Prize for the best gallery presentation has this year been awarded to Experimenter, from India. The gallery, founded in 2009 by Priyanka and Prateek Raja, has two locations in Kolkata, and a further space in Mumbai, which opened last year. Experimenter’s winning stand, with its walls and carpet in hues of grey, is loosely themed around the concept of a grid, and brings together an intergenerational group of eight women artists on its roster. On a more abstract level, the grid also relates to how repetition and the act of small mark-making are present throughout the practices of Experimenter's artists, Priyanka Raja says. "Whether it's in the meditative dots of Radhika Khimji's paintings, or Bhasha Chakrabarti's reflection on the slow passing of time, there is a clear formal resonance between all the artists we represent." These lines of continuity also allow for a dialogue across centuries: a painting by Reba Hore, who was born in 1926 and died in 2008, focuses on erasure, and chimes with the overall practice of one of the gallery's youngest artists, Biraaj Dodiya, born in 1993, whose paintings are self-termed as "excavations".
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Hermès’s artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas speaks to Vogue India on his love for India and the importance of inventiveness

Source Vogue India by Divya Bala
Prior to graduating from Brown University in art history, Pierre-Alexis began at Hermès as a teenager when the brand opened its first workshop outside of the store space in 1991. He counts his first memories as visiting his father and grandfather in the workshop after school, where he continued to work for seven years. “It was a very familiar environment, and making things with your hands, being proud of what you make, learning and transmitting [the craft], this was all my norm. My father used to say, ‘Craftsmen of the world unite.’ By that, he meant that we are all human beings, we are inventive and a creative species. We develop skills and tools and have done that for over 50,000 years,” Pierre-Alexis says. “Artificial intelligence is great, but let’s not forget we have 10 fingers and senses and an incredible apparatus [he gestures to the brain] to transform what Mother Nature gives us for the better, for the long term to make useful and beautiful objects. I really believe in that. Going to India is a confirmation of that.
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Solo Show of Mayur and Tushar Vayeda in Brussels

Source Modesti Perdriolle Gallery
Mayur and Tushar Vayeda are two brothers born in the Warli tribe, one in 1987 the other in 1992. Their grandfather founded the first school in their village of Ganjad (Maharashtra, India) and their mother is a teacher. Both have advanced education in Mumbai. After completing their studies, the two brothers have decided to leave the megacity to return to their homeland and participate in the vitalization of their own culture. Their paintings retain this fineness and sensitivity of the most beautiful Warli works. They renew the represented subjects by drawing on the popular stories told to them by their mother Grand mother and other elders from the villages.
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Amrita Sher-Gil sets record for highest price achieved by an Indian artist

Source The Indian Express by Vandana Kalra
Painted during an important period in her oeuvre, Amrita Sher-Gil’s 1937 canvas The Story Teller sold for a whopping Rs 61.8 crore ($7.44 million) on September 16, setting a world record for the highest price achieved by an Indian artist. The iconic work led Saffronart’s Evening Sale: Modern Art, which featured more than 70 artworks from prominent artists, including significant works by modern masters V S Gaitonde and S H Raza, and early works by Tyeb Mehta, M F Husain, F N Souza, and Akbar Padamsee.Before this sale, the most expensive Indian artwork sold at an auction was S H Raza’s Gestation, which had fetched ₹51.75 crore.
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Framing the contemporary at Chemould

Source Mint Lounge by Avantika Bhuyan
Chemould, started in 1941 as a framing company, grew into a contemporary arts space in 1963 after Gandhy and his wife, Khorshed, opened it on the first floor of Jehangir Art Gallery. In 2007, it relocated to its current home on Prescott Road under the leadership of Kekoo and Khorshed’s daughter, Shireen. Three shows are being held to celebrate Chemould’s 60 years: CheMoulding: Framing Future Archives, Remembering and Continuum. In CheMoulding, Wadhwana has used the term “frame” as a metaphor to hark back to the origin of the gallery as well as to place it in the ever-evolving context of Indian contemporary art. She uses the archive as a starting point to look at both the past and the future of the arts space. CheMoulding will be held in two parts, from 16 September-28 October and 14 November-24 December, at Chemould Prescott Road. She makes it clear that this is not an archival show but an exhibition about the archive itself. For instance, over 30 contemporary artists, such as Jitish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta, Anju Dodiya, Varunika Saraf and Nilima Sheikh, have responded to curatorial prompts from the archive. There is also archival memorialisation of veteran artists such as Tyeb Mehta, K.H. Ara, Bhupen Khakhar, Rummana Hussain and Jangarh Singh Shyam.
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Madhubani Art: ‘The Most Rewarding Aspect Is the Sense of Belonging It Gives You to Express Yourself'

Source The Wire by Ashutosh Kumar Thakur
Born in 1962, Santosh Kumar Das is an acclaimed Madhubani painting artist. He pursued his Bachelor of Fine Arts at M.S.U, Baroda. Following his BFA, he made a conscious decision to return to his roots in the village and continue his artistic journey in the traditional style, using a basic nib and ink to create mesmerising artworks. Ashutosh Kumar Thakur, a Bengaluru-based management professional and literary critic, speaks with Santosh Kumar Das about his life and works.
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Art and Healing on the Anniversary of India’s Partition

Source Hyperallergic by Rhea Nayyar
Based in both Mumbai and New York City, Anagh Banerjee has pursued retellings of the Partition through his woodcut printmaking series The Other Side (2017–ongoing). Inspired by Käthe Kollwitz’s woodcuts born from the terrors of World War I and other such outputs of German Expressionism, Banerjee told Hyperallergic that the medium’s “gritty mark-making quality” lends itself to the subject of the Partition. The project began with Banerjee’s grandmother, who left her family behind in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh as of 1971) for India without returning for 15 years. Banerjee noted that she recalled her experience of the Partition in a very matter-of-fact tone — “There’s a sense of ‘what’s the point of talking about all of this now?’ that she and others I’ve interviewed for this project express,” he said. “I don’t think she or anyone else had the space or the time or the bandwidth to really grieve the loss of life, language, culture, and home, and they lack the vocabulary to talk about it because they haven’t ever been asked,” Banerjee continued. “I feel there needs to be a more nuanced way of talking about the individual experiences of this migration beyond the violence. I would like to balance the political narrative with the human story as the Partition generation is in the twilight of their lives.”
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How graffiti gangs became mainstream ‘street artists’

Source Scroll In by Stefano Bloch
Graffiti has become so mainstream in recent years that auction houses, museums and entire art shows cater to street art connoisseurs and collectors around the world. Images in the news of young vandals responsible for marking walls have been replaced by sleek websites belonging to global phenoms such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey. In cities around the world, graffiti is now associated with “street artists” rather than violent street gangs. Today, many cities, from Pittsburgh to Pretoria, invite street artists to help brand neighborhoods that are being revitalized and gentrified as legitimately hip destinations for business owners, home buyers and influencers. Some up-and-coming neighborhoods in cities like Dakar, Senegal; Mexico City; Brisbane, Australia; and Seoul, South Korea offer street art tours and host graffiti festivals.
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Zasha Colah appointed curator of 13th edition Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

Source E-flux
Zasha Colah is a curator and writer. Her exhibitions and texts have been an exploration of artistic imagination under conditions of sustained oppression, often through the prisms of liveliness and restorative laughter. Her work considers a range of cultural practices as an unspoken infrastructure of acts and channels of counter-expression in disobedient terrains that confound militarization and earthly extraction. She is particularly interested in the point at which these practices may cross over to become collective. Colah was raised in Lusaka, Zambia, and Mumbai, India, where she lived and worked until 2014. She divided her time between Berlin, Germany, and Mumbai from 2014 to 2017, and for the last six years has been based in Turin, Italy.
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Nalini Malani Wins 2023 Kyoto Prize

Source Artforum
The Inamori Foundation in a statement credited Malani with “creating phantasmagorical spaces with approachable art forms using various media,” lauding her as having “contributed to the ‘decentralization’ of art that has been ongoing for more than thirty years since the end of the twentieth century.” The foundation additionally noted that she “comes from a region of the world where many women face difficulty achieving social advancement.” Malani participated in the fifty-first Venice Biennale in 2005 and exhibited at Documenta 13 in 2012. In 2017, she became the first Indian artist to be given a retrospective at Paris’s Centre Pompidou. Alongside Yanagimachi and Lieb, she will receive her prize at a ceremony taking place in Kyoto on November 10; the event will mark the first time in four years that the award has been presented in person.
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Why aren’t more artist x artisan collaborations acknowledged?

Source The Hindu by Georgina Maddox
In the dictionary, an artist is defined as “a person who creates art [such as a painting, sculpture, music, or writing] using conscious skill and creative imagination” and an artisan as “a worker who practices a trade or handicraft”. This hierarchy has been starkly visible in the art world for many years. The Udaipur-based American and his collaborating team of local artisans walked in on the opening day wearing the signature white fedoras that the protagonist of his works usually dons. But, despite the display of camaraderie, there was change brewing behind the scenes. Shortly after the Art Fair, two of Waswo’s long-time collaborators left to pursue their own careers. (Their names have been withheld for legal reasons.) The catalogue featured two new names: Chirag Kumawat, a dab hand at realistic style painting, and Dalpat Jingar, a border artist and miniaturist. “I am excited about the new collaborations, but, of course, doubtful too. What has been lost, and what has been gained?” ruminates the artist, who has exhibitions coming up in London this month, and plans in motion for a show in Mumbai next year. Incidentally, Waswo is one of the few artists who publicly validates the inputs of his artisan collaborators. The majority do not acknowledge them, treating them instead as fabricators and craftspeople.
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Mithu Sen on Art, Poetry, and Lingual Anarchy

Source Ocula by Natalie King
Among visceral works on view is Sen's early video performance, Ephemeral Affair (2006), in which the artist is recorded flinching and contorting her face while being tattooed, but we cannot see her skin being perforated. Inducing states of unsettlement and discomfort, mOTHERTONGUE begins with an 'unacknowledgement' by Sen projected on the wall, signalling the awkwardness of Australia's colonial history, complete with word puns. A backlit kangaroo drawing rendered in ink and watercolour hangs nearby (Kangaroo, 2023). Sen's Un-acknowledgement (2023) questions the role of traditional land acknowledgements, which recognise the Aboriginal custodians of Australian land while amplifying its historical seizure—statements that often emphasise their position as foreign guests in Australia, or a museum.
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20 contemporary artists share their perspectives on time

Source Hapers Bazaar by Diya J Verma
Notations on Time, a group exhibition showcasing the works of 20 contemporary artists—on display at the Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai between January 18 and June 02, 2023—poses the compelling question: how does one measure time? Prompting a dialogue to highlight the complex, intertwined relationship between the past, present, and future—creations by artists Soumya Sankar Bose, Anoli Perera, Ayesha Sultana, Gauri Gill, Dayanita Singh, and Lala Rukh, among others, address the tangibility of time and explore its physiological dimensions. “Notations on Time is an experiment in conjuring an eco-system of time where dreams intersect with history, and seasonal cycles with the measure of each breath.
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9 new art shows in India to add to your June 2023 calendar

Source Vogue India by Huzan Tata
As we eagerly await the first monsoon showers to bring respite to our sunburnt selves, the latest art shows in India are continuing to satiate our creative souls as always. A special mention for Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery, which is showcasing works by the legendary Arpita Singh at London’s Frieze Art Fair—do catch it if you’re in the UK before the 17th of the month. Akara Art has diversified into two galleries recently, hosting separate spaces for their Modern and Contemporary art respectively, leading to SoBo gaining a new art gallery in the bargain. DAG’s Mumbai space is now displaying Iconic - Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art that was earlier on display in the capital and brings to its walls works by everyone from Amrita Sher-Gil to Raja Ravi Verma. Here’s our pick of more shows to head to this June:
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Early painting by Bhupen Khakhar makes auction debut at Bonhams

Source ArtDaily
Residency Bungalow, an important early work by Bhupen Khakhar, leads Bonhams’ Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art sale on Tuesday 6 June in New Bond Street, London. Painted in 1969, the work was exhibited at the 1969 Sao Paulo Biennale before being acquired by a private American Collection in the early 1970s, where it has remained ever since. The work has an estimate of £250,000-350,000. Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) played a central role in modern Indian art and was recognised for his unique figurative style and incisive observations of class and sexuality. He often explored openly homosexual themes at a time when it was not generally addressed within India, and celebrated the day-to-day lives of the common man. An accountant turned self-taught artist, who came to painting quite late in life as a member of the Baroda Group, Khakhar approached his work with humour, attentiveness, and a boldness which gained him a reputation as ‘India's first Pop artist.’ In 2016 he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Tate in London. His work is included in major galleries and private collections across the world.
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Dayanita Singh Dancing with my camera

Source 9Lives Magazine
Depuis quatre décennies, Dayanita Singh (1961, New Delhi) développe une œuvre qui se distingue par la manière dont elle brouille les genres et explore les limites du médium photographique. Dancing with my Camera, qui constitue la plus importante exposition dédiée à l’artiste indienne à ce jour, parcourt l’ensemble de son œuvre, depuis son premier projet photographique consacré à l’univers musical du percussionniste indien Zakir Hussain (1951, Bombay) jusqu’à ses œuvres les plus récentes, parmi lesquelles Let’s See (2021), inspirée de la forme des planches contacts. Témoignant de l’invention formelle qui caractérise l’œuvre de Singh, l’exposition met également en valeur le regard singulier qu’elle porte sur des thèmes tels que l’archive, la musique, la danse, l’architecture, la disparition, le genre ou encore l’amitié.
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Interview: Mithu Sen centres “lingual anarchy” to question institutions and the art market

Source Art Guide Australia by Amelia Winata
The title of the exhibition alludes to the more primal and corporeal relationship we have with language, through our bodies. I present it as an invitation and a provocation to abandon our known languages, and, instead, reflect on unintelligible and unknown languages to search for our common denominators. For me, language is a sign of imposed cultural differences, and English, a reminder of colonial dominance. Over two decades, I have identified an uncodified subconscious language through visual and performative practices, which I call “un-language”. It is the primary material around which everything revolves. In this vein, the exhibition also elaborates on tropes and tools of identity and communication that I have used over the years, primarily the use of first-person singular to command an agency for my voice and complicating the guest-host relationship through radical hospitality, which in this case is exacerbated by me being an artist from the global south in Australia.
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Partition - Partage

Source E-flux
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) today presents an architectural model of its new building. Designed by renowned Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye in collaboration with S. Ghosh & Associates as local architect of record, it is set to be India’s largest cultural centre when it opens in Delhi in 2026. An installation showcasing the model is presented as part of the Curator’s Special Projects at the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Lesley Lokko and coincides with the breaking ground of the new museum in New Delhi. It responds to “Mnemonic,” the theme of Curator’s Special Projects’ section in the Arsenale and includes works from the museum’s collection by major Indian artists Tyeb Mehta (1925–2009), Zarina (1937–2020) and Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–1990). This is accompanied by Touch AIR (2023), a film by contemporary filmmaker Amit Dutta. The museum’s collection of over 10,000 modern and contemporary works draws on the region’s rich cultural history. The new location, covering over 100,000 square metres, will be located on the National Highway (NH8) in Delhi, near the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
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Art and revolution: Vivan Sundaram, an artist whose work captured the turmoil of contemporary times

Source Scroll.In by Sujata Prasad
His political orientation took a dramatic turn during the 1968 anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, organised by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, a revolutionary Trotskyite organisation. At his memorial meeting held in Delhi on April 17, Indian economist Prabhat Patnaik spoke about the massive rally at the Grosvenor Square where he and Sundaram were both present. They marched with Pakistani-British activist and writer Tariq Ali from Trafalgar Square to Oxford Street to Grosvenor Square where English actor Vanessa Redgrave made a surprise appearance. The espousal of radical Left politics across university campuses in the US, and in Paris, London, Berlin, Mexico City, Warsaw, Belgrade and Czechoslovakia – where tanks rolled to silence the Prague Spring, the strike of workers’ demanding better working conditions – and the virulent contestation of everyday reality left its impact on the sixty-eighters. The paroxysms of the 1968 student politics continued to reverberate in Sundaram’s life. He lived in a commune with friends, incubating an emotional hunger for social transformation. He returned to India in 1970 after hitchhiking across North America, Europe, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan – drawing acclaim almost immediately when his ink drawings of the Heights of Macchu Picchu, based on poet Pablo Neruda’s 12-poem sequence were displayed.
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Arpana Caur – An empathetic activist artist

Source Indica News by Sonia Dhami
Amongst the multiple reasons of the heart and mind, which draw me time and again to return to my motherland, is to get to meet Arpana Caur. Despite her exalted position as one of India’s leading contemporary artists, she always maintains a humble and modest demeanor. As my friend and I entered the beautiful red brick building, she received us with her trademark warmth and love and took us up to her studio on the fourth floor, which opens onto an expansive terrace. Amidst the call of the peacocks and birds flying in the skies above, we marveled over the dense tree cover surrounding Siri Fort Auditorium. Arpana explained to us the legal battles that she & her mother, the celebrated author Ajeet Cour, have had to fight to keep the authorities from brutally cutting down these very trees just to make way for the ubiquitous modern malls and restaurants, one sees sprouting unchecked in towns over India. Arpana’s life has been fuelled by activism around the many causes she & her mother have taken up. Whether it is filing legal cases to fight for protecting the environment or distributing blankets to the needy, or running vocational training courses for poor students or exhibiting art –folk, contemporary & miniature, in their in four in house art galleries, the mother-daughter duo have freely given of their time, resources and above all love.
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In Captivating Animations, Nalini Malani Builds Feminist Visions of Justice

Source Artsy by Ayanna Dozier
Over the past 50 years, Nalini Malani has captivated audiences with her feminist mythological landscapes across animations and large-scale media installations. Born in 1946 in Karachi (which was then part of pre-partition India, and is now Pakistan), the artist had her early beginnings in the 1960s experimental film and video movement in India. There, she was a participant in Vision Exchange Workshop (VIEW), the experimental artist workshop in Bombay (Mumbai) led by artist Akbar Padamsee. Throughout her practice, Malani challenges narratives and foregrounds women’s rights, influenced by her experience with colonialism and migration following the partition of India. This is partly influenced by her experience watching many of her female peers get married and give up their artistic practices. “Many of my [female] colleagues in the art school were lost to matrimony,” she told Artsy. “I’m sorry to say that we lost really great artists to marriage.”
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