Outsider Art Fair New York 2016

Source Galerie Hervé Perdriolle
La galerie Hervé Perdriolle a le plaisir de vous présenter en avant-première les œuvres que nous exposerons à l'Outsider Art Fair de New York du 21 au 24 janvier 2016.
The Galerie Hervé Perdriolle is pleased to present you a preview of art works we will showcase during Oustider Ar Fair New York from 21 to 24 january 2016.
> catalogue online

Portrait of the Year in Art: Awards, protests and records

Source The Indian Express by Pallavi Chattopadhyay, Pallavi Pundir, Vandana Kalra
In September, Kapoor, 61, joined hands with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei for an eight-mile walk from London’s Piccadilly, to show solidarity with refugees around the world. He was part of Indian politics too. After a scathing column against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in The Guardian, where he compared Modi’s rule to the Taliban, Kapoor’s name was dropped from a new cultural panel instituted by the Rajasthan government. The controversial year ended with an honour though — Britain’s new passport design now features the “inspirational works” of the artist alongside cultural figures from the last 500 years, including William Shakespeare.
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Memorial For Hema Upadhyay at Vadehra Art Gallery

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare-Ghose
The tragedy has brought focus on the stellar career that Hema was always capable of having, considering that she didn’t take long to establish herself as one of the most important contemporary artists of India. Born in Baroda in 1972, Hema studied at the famous art school in her home city — the Maharaja Sayajirao University. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in painting and a Master’s in Printmaking from the Fine Arts Faculty of MS University in 1995 and 1997 respectively. In 2001, her first solo show titled “Sweet Sweat Memories” was held at Chemould Art Gallery in Mumbai, the city she shifted to after finishing her education.
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Indian Art Reaches Record Prices in Mumbai Auctions

Source Newsweek by John Elliott
Christie’s and Saffronart this week established Mumbai as an internationally significant center for Indian art auctions, with record prices being achieved not just for established modern artists, whose prices have been steadily climbing (three overall world records in the past three months), but also for classical miniature painting and sculptures that are now attracting new collectors.
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Vasudeo S Gaitonde Shatters Contemporary Indian Art Auction Record

Source Artlyst
Christie’s has recorded the highest total sales figures for an auction in India. Their third sale totalled INR 97,69,90,000 / $14.7million, well above the pre-sale high estimate of INR 75,06,30,000 becoming the highest total for any auction held in India. 95% of the lots sold, in line with the results of the previous annual auctions. Strong bidding was seen across all price points from clients representing four continents - a demonstration of the international demand for this category, reflected in the demand for the top lot this evening. Five bidders, on the telephones and in the room, battled for Untitled, an oil by the modern master Vasudeo S. Gaitonde (1924-2001), painted in 1995 which soared above its pre-sale estimate to sell for INR 29,30,25,000 ($4,416,502), breaking the previous world auction record (INR 23,70,25,000 / $3.7 million) for the artist and for the category set by Christie’s at the inaugural India sale in 2013. The previous record was $4.01m for a work by Goan artist Francis Newton Souza.
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Vasudeo S Gaitonde auction sets new world record for Indian art

Source The Guardian
An oil painting by abstract artist Vasudeo S Gaitonde has sold for 293m rupees (£2.9m) at a Christie’s auction in Mumbai, India, setting a new world record for Indian artwork. Gaitonde’s untitled painting from 1995 broke the previous record of $4.01m (£2.7m) paid for a Francis Newton Souza work at a sale in New York earlier this year, the London-based auction house said. The Gaitonde canvas was purchased by an anonymous international collector, Christie’s said, following the auction at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace hotel. “It achieved a world record for any Indian work of art sold at auction,” Christie’s international head of world art, William Robinson, said.
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Multiple records at auction of Classical Indian art

Source Business Standard
A bronze figure of Parvati sold for Rs 6.48 crores (USD 981,818) at a live sale of miniature paintings and sculptures powered by Saffronart and set three major records for works sold at auction in India. The monumental Vijayanagar bronze of Parvati led last evening's sale at the new gallery space here of the auction house, which netted a total of Rs 16.39 crores (approx USD 2.48 million). In what is termed as a "white glove" sale in auction trade all the 70 lots on offer were sold, auctioneers said in a statement today.
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We have big plans for India: Christie's

Source Business Standard
"We have big plans for India - long term and holistic. It's about being an integral part of the art scene which doesn't only entail selling, but also educating. The whole idea is to bring up the benchmark of the relevance of art from the grass root level. We have plans to do more antiquities and ramp up sales. We are getting more involved in education of art by bringing speakers to talk on art conservation and institution building," Deepanjana Klein, Christie's International Head, South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art, told IANS.
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Hema Upadhyay Murder: Trucker Leads Cops to Alleged Killers

Source NDTV
Sources said Hema had returned from Dubai just days before her murder. She had gone there with fellow artists for the opening of an art gallery, where some of her works were displayed. "She flew back to the city last week," said a close family friend. "She seemed perfectly normal and happy. She shared a suite in the Dubai hotel with her friends. None of them felt she was going through any kind of crisis." Remembering her as a warm and graceful person, another artist friend said even though Chintan and she were not on talking terms since they filed for divorce some years ago, she rarely spoke about it to friends.
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FN Souza’s Peasants in Goa goes for Rs24 lakh at auction in Mumbai

Source Hindustan Times by Apoorva Dutt & Humaira Ansari
“The reception to Thursday’s live auction was fantastic,” said Hugo Weihe, CEO of Saffronart. “As expected, it was a great opportunity for younger and newer art enthusiasts to purchase wonderful art at relatively affordable prices.” Saffronart co-founder Dinesh Vazirani, who conducted the auction, said it was encouraging to see international bidders as well. “With only two lots left unsold, it’s been a huge success,” he said.
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It’s time for art to be political

Source The Hindu by Deepanjana Pal
Sometimes the protests and idealism would be meshed in artistic imagery, like in the works of Navjot Altaf and Vivan Sundaram. Repeatedly, we’ve seen artists rally together to create collectives like Sahmat, Open Circle and KHOJ, which have offered insightful socio-political commentary. Sometimes the questions would be tangled in the dense but beautiful works made by the likes of CAMP and Desire Machine Collective. Performance artists such as Inder Salim and Tejal Shah have long perplexed many with their strange and fantastic ways of exploring political issues. Recently, 400 artists signed a petition supporting the writers who returned their national awards. Before you ask why they didn’t return anything, check how many Indian artists have been chosen for state honours. It’s a disappointingly tiny number. Perhaps it is time for Indian artists and art to become less polite and more political.
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'Made in India' stall a hit

Source NYOOOZ
India has seen Green Revolution as well as White Revolution, now is the time for Cultural Revolution in our country. We need to preserve the rich heritage of the country." Inside the Made in India pavilion, one can find various art forms like Warli painting from Maharashtra, Phad painting from Rajasthan, Kalighat painting from West Bengal, Madhubani painting from Bihar and Kalamkari painting from Andhra Pradesh. The articles ranging from a book mark to Phad painting are available in the price range of Rs 10 to Rs 40,000. The artists have given a little twist to their traditional art form as paintings are available on T-shirts and stoles too preferred mostly by college-going students. Mamoni Chitrakar, a Kalighat artist, has introduced new concept in her traditional art form.
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There’s accounting for taste

Source Mumbai Mirror by Mortimer Chatterjee
Collecting began early; some of her first purchases were works by Anjolie Ela Menon and M F Husain. As her exposure to art grew the collection began to reflect her maturing taste. When asked how she selects works, Sangita remarks, "It is mostly my personal choice. I buy art based on my instinct, how a work of art speaks to me. Most importantly, a work of art should allow me to get in touch with my inner self. If I connect with the artist, it's great — I like them involved." The grand architectural statement that is the new JSW Centre (built by renowned architects Burt Hill, now Stantec) has allowed Sangita free reign over a huge space, much of which is conceived as open plan in form. To encounter an Anish Kapoor installation upon entering the building is an exercise in shock and awe. Other major statement pieces that have been installed onsite include Shilpa Gupta's constellation of steel books, Rana Begum's meditative installation and a massive mural canvas by Dhruvi Acharya, that occupies the entire back wall of the company's all day dining restaurant.
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A Little Bit More of F N Souza Through Works on Paper

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare-Ghose
There are so many layers to the intoxicating story of Francis Newton Souza that it is best handled one layer at a time. One well-known fact, for instance, is that Souza holds the record for the most expensive Indian painting ever sold at an auction; his “Birth” went for $4.01m (approx. Rs 27 crore) at a Christie’s auction in New York in September this year. But that’s just one of the several layers, many of which most of us don’t know yet. And that’s why it takes a focused auction like the upcoming Saffronart sale, “F N Souza: A Life In Line,” to peel and unravel the many aspects of the highly interesting individual that Souza was (he was born in Goa in 1924 and passed away in Mumbai in 2002).
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Fabric of India at the V&A

Source Christies by Chiara de Nicolais
On 3 October the exhibition The Fabric of India opened to the public, the main highlight of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s India festival. It will remain on view until 10 January 2016. The Fabric of India focuses on the production of textiles in the Indian subcontinent. It showcases many pieces from the V&A collection which only recently came to light and have never been shown before.
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Baby steps for India art market, best yet to come

Source News India Times by Ankush Arora
Despite the high expectations, Klein said India is still a conservative market. The culture of buying and collecting is still at a nascent stage, with few speculators. This conservatism probably stretches to Indian education as well, where the culture of cultivating an interest in art is noticeably absent. While the country has the world’s third largest number of billionaires, it remains a low middle-income economy. Such wide income disparities and the preoccupation with daily sustenance reduces art connoisseurship to an elite minority of non-resident Indians, foreign collectors, institutions and the super rich.
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The Vernacular at the Asia Pacific Triennial

Source Aboriginal Art Directory by Jeremy Eccles
Venkat Ramen Singh Shyam, talking about the revival of the Gond vernacular traditions in central India in the late 20th Century, surprisingly paid tribute to Australian Aboriginal artist, Djambawa Marawili. He'd travelled to India in the 90s, met up with Venkat's pioneering uncle, Jangarh Singh Shyam, even creating an artwork with him in which the importance of water and its relationship to various totemic animals from either side of the Indian Ocean was put down collaboratively on canvas, a coming-together of tribal cultures. But was it “tribal art”, as it was delimited in India?
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KBF to Co-host Summit on Art Education

Source The New Indian Express
Addressing a growing concern over the state of art schools in the country, the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) will organise the first south zone conference on art education. The three-day conference, titled ‘State of Art Schools: Reality and Prospects’ organised in association with the Foundation for Indian Art Education (FIAE) at Casino Hotel, Willingdon Island, will begin on Thursday.
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WP University Galleries

"Many Visions, Many Versions: Art from Indigenous Communities in India" November 2 - December 11, 2015 Installation View WPU Galleries New Jersey.
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Arpita Singh: The artist of ideas

Source Livemint by Chanpreet Khurana
Singh is interested in getting to the root of violence and speaks of experience and memory as inheritable. “Inherited memory gives you form, not the exact situation which may have been faced by my great-great-great-great ancestor. I may have just inherited the shock or delightfulness of it,” says Singh. Indeed, where the memory of violence is inherited, it is divorced from specific incidents.
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Bollywood œuvre pour l’unité indienne

Source Le Monde par Julien Bouissou
Les Indiens, qui ont été touchés par de nombreux attentats, adorent les films où se mêlent histoires d’amour à l’eau de rose, chants et danses. Mais au-delà du simple divertissement, les productions de Bollywood questionnent souvent les différences religieuses et les raisons du terrorisme. La force de frappe de Bollywood n’a en tout cas pas échappé aux Etats-Unis : des documents publiés par WikiLeaks en 2010 ont révélé que des diplomates américains avaient le projet d’enrôler des réalisateurs indiens pour lutter, par le cinéma, contre la radicalisation des jeunes musulmans de Londres.
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EN VERS ET CONTRE TOUS

Source Paris Match par Elisabeth Couturier
En huit chapitres, via des films, des archives, des mandalas tibétains, des œuvres de plasticiens amis, le visiteur suit le labyrinthe d’une existence placée sous la double influence de la culture pop américaine et du bouddhisme. Un cocktail détonnant qui semble avoir protégé l’artiste des conséquences néfastes de ses excès passés. En ouverture, un portrait sous forme de projection : pieds nus, en costume blanc sur fond noir, Giorno danse sur place. Avec son phrasé syncopé typique, il débite une drôle de litanie intitulée « Thanx 4 Nothing » (merci pour rien), un long poème composé en 2006 à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire, repris ici, à l’aube de ses 80 ans. Extrait : « Merci d’exploiter mon ego énorme et de faire de moi une vedette pour votre profit… merci pour toutes les saloperies… puissiez-vous fumer un joint avec William… Bob, Jasper, Ugo… que tous mes autres amants innombrables, d’une sexualité fabuleuse et sans limite… puissent-ils tous venir ici pour vous faire l’amour. »
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Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Rothko on rare display in Teheran

Source Press Trust of India
Some of the world’s most expensive and rarely seen modern art, including works by the Americans Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, went on display today in a major exhibition in Iran. They are part of a collection bought in the 1970s by dealers acting for Farah, the wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who fled into exile in 1979, heralding Iran’s Islamic revolution later that year.
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15 young curators selected for Student's Biennale

Source Business Standard
The curators will now travel to art colleges across India and select their students' works before eventually lining them up at a show beginning December next year in Fort Kochi alongside the third edition the country's only Biennale. The curators for the KMB Student's Biennale were selected by a four-member panel, comprising KBF's President Bose Krishnamachari, Director of Programmes Riyas Komu and Consultant (Learning) Meena Vari besides Vidya Shivadas, Director of Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, the release said. The curators chosen are Faiza Hasan, Aryakrishnan Ramakrishnan, Shruti Ramlingaiah, Rajyashri Goody, Sumithra Sunder, Paribartana Mohanty, Adwait Singh, Vivek Chockalingam, Shatavisha Mustafi, Harshita Bathwal,Naveen Mahantesh,Sarojini Lewis, Ajit Kumar, Lleah Smith and Noman Ammouri, it said. The KMB Student's Biennale is a platform that brings together works of art students from across the country under one roof. Komu said it was "exciting" to see young curators showing interest to take up the responsibility of reviving art in India. "The Student's Biennale not only looks at emerging talent; it also inspires confidence in the new generation of artists," he pointed out.
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Urban aesthetics of contemporary Indian folk art

Source Hindustan Times by Kanika Sharma
Violence against women, female infanticide and communalism are among the new themes that Indian folk artists are exploring, as they create new contexts for their art and woo urban Indian audiences. Some consider it a new genre altogether - contemporary Indian folk art. “Folk and tribal art have moved beyond mass-producing the same mythological themes and this has led to galleries identifying them as contemporary artists,” says art and cultural historian Jyotindra Jain. “You can map this change back through the past decade. When such forms began to be recognised worldwide, artists began to get a different kind of exposure and some started rethinking their oeuvre altogether.”
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The grande dame of art

Source India Today by Gayatri Jayaraman
For someone who has candidly claimed she remains untutored in art, beginning her collection as a personal enterprise, and extending it into a permanent collection at the museum, it has been a focus that has not come lightly. "I have no formal education in art. There was a feeling of inadequacy; that I should know more so I would read and try to keep abreast of things. That was a self-learning process I had to put myself through to acquire the vocabulary and community of art." The grande dame of the Indian art scene swooped in to save the Kochi-Muziris Biennale last year after the Kerala government, its primary patron, was unable to extend full support. She pitched in with the now ongoing Rs 83-lakh endowment from the CSR budget of husband Shiv Nadar's HCL to support students. "India has many billionaires but few who carry a sense of responsibility," says Bose Krishnamachari, founder and curator of the biennale. Such is her influence that long before her retrospective of Nasreen Mohamedi in 2013 sparked worldwide interest in the artist, prices of her work began to rise. Nadar's Mohamedi show is opening the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new Bruer building.
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Contemporary Indigenous and Vernacular Art of India

Source ArtsHub by Chloe Wolifson
QAGOMA Associate Curator of Asian Art, Tarun Nagesh explained that a thread running through this APT examines how the vernacular informs contemporary practice in both subject matter and process. ‘We wanted to acknowledge that in India there’s a huge range of what’s often referred to as folk practices as well as Indigenous practices. We couldn’t cover everything, but have focussed on some traditions and styles that are developing quickly, with artists working experimentally in those practices and transforming them.’ The exhibition will focus on eight traditions or styles, showcasing beliefs, inherited customs and local art practices which have been transformed relatively recently by artists whose expanded world view invokes commentary on contemporary life, social issues and global events.
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Indian life and culture, framed by outsiders and natives

Source Boston Globe by Cate McQuaid
“Seeing the Elephant” features mostly non-Indian artists contemplating India. “Looking In/Looking Out,” drawn from the extensive collection of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur, spotlights works by Indian artists. The elephant in the room is British imperialism. Western outsiders’ gaze shaped perceptions of Indian culture for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, framing it as exotic, alluring, hot, and dirty — as “other” in enticing and off-putting ways.
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Indian Artists take the spotlight at 'Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art'

Source New Kerala
India is set to celebrate contemporary indigenous and vernacular artwork as part of 'The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' from November 21 at the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Director, Chris Saines, said in a statement, "A diverse range of Indian artworks, from major installations to contemporary forms of indigenous and vernacular art, would be among the works by over 80 artists and artist groups from more than 30 countries across Asia and the Pacific."
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Global Recognition for Bose, Riyas

Source The New Indian Express
Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, well known Mumbai-based Malayali artists, co-founders of Kochi Muziris biennale, the only one of its kind in the country, have been ranked among the top 100 most influential people in contemporary art world by leading British magazine ArtReview. The vintage London-based publication’s latest issue features Krishnamachari and Komu in its list of ‘Power 100’ for their contribution to contemporary art by organising the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) which completed its second edition earlier this summer.
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Why F.N. Souza matters

Source Livemint by Sanjukta Sharma
Francis Newton Souza lived the last years of his life in a New York apartment, the floors of which had risen with the debris of forgotten canvases, art tools and unremarkable stockpiles of everyday life. Around this time last year, Mint Lounge published a moving piece by Goan writer and journalist Vivek Menezes about his visit to the artist in that apartment in the late 1990s, and how, while helping to clean up the space, he stumbled upon a painting by the other great Indian modernist painter V.S. Gaitonde. “Gai” had signed it, and presented it to Souza.
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Resurrecting the Rajah of High Kitsch

Source The New Indian Express by Sangeeta Cavale Radhakrishna
A vision long in the works, the Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation has recently been set up in Bangalore. The founders hope to make it at par with the Monet Foundation and the Rembrandt Research Project. It is the lifelong dream of the reclusive Rukmini Varma which has finally been realised. “It is going to be the single point of verification of authenticity of originals and lithographs,” says the managing trustee, gallerist Gitanjali Maini who is also the CEO of the Trust. Shivaswamy is the honorary secretary while Rukmini Varma will be the chairperson of the Board of Trustees. Her son, Jay Varma, an artist, has been nominated as trustee.
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The passports of paintings

Source Blink by Aditi Sriram
1947 is a significant year for India in more ways than one. Art created prior to that year is labelled ‘modern,’ and work produced after is ‘contemporary,’ explains Nishad Avari, associate specialist in South Asian Art at Christie’s. He is standing in the centre of Gallery VI, which houses over $5 million worth of art by FN Souza, SH Raza, MF Husain, Akbar Padamsee, VS Gaitonde and Ram Kumar, to name a few. They are some of the artists featured in the 73 lots, or pieces, up for auction. I attend the opening reception, so the atmosphere is relaxed and inviting, even if the air conditioning is unnecessarily strong. People walk in to either admire or to decide what to buy. Avari smiles a greeting at the former while escorting the latter through the exhibition and answering their questions.
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Madhubani artist Shiv: I'm a Paswan, and I will vote for Paswan

Source Catch by Shadab Moizee
Elections are not just about politicians. They're about people and issues. And what will really drive their vote. Catch is, therefore, starting a 'People of Bihar' series, which will daily capture what different impact groups across the state are feeling. This is true insight on the Bihar election: up-close and hyper-personal. Shiv Kumar Paswan is an artist. More specifically, he has mastered the art native to his home district - Madhubani painting. The 23-year-old needs to use crutches to walk because of his physical disability. But he has never let that interfere in his life.
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India Inc's artistic acquisitions

Source Forbes India by Jasodhara Banerjee
Our family resided in Kolkata, where I spent my childhood. Art and culture was all around. My family had a collection of Indian miniatures and my job, as a young boy, was to catalogue them. Although I didn’t like the tedious work, it built an awareness of, and association with, art. I think this is when my love affair with art began. The art world, to me, reflects a hotbed of intellectual issues: Every piece of art deals with politics, philosophy and emotions, and is an attempt to grapple with meanings. When I moved to Mumbai, I discovered the need to decorate my walls, and that’s when I first bought my paintings.
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Amrita Sher-Gil Self-Potrait Sold for 1.7 Million Pounds in London

Source NDTV
A rare self portrait of modernist painter Amrita Sher-Gil created in 1931 sold for 1.7 million pounds in London at an auction by international auction house Sotheby's, which posted sales of over 4.9 million pounds. The Modern and Contemporary South Asia Art auction, which was part of the Indian Art Week in London set new records for four artists Gagendranath Tagore, Prodosh Das Gupta, Gieve Patel and Nasreen Mohamedi, auctioneers said today.
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Indian artist Khakhar’s paintings fetch Rs 1 cr in New Zealand

Source The Tribune
India's modern artist Bhupen Khakhar's two rare paintings, found at an Auckland basement, went under hammer at an auction in New Zealand, fetching over Rs 1 crore by a compatriot, media reported today. Auction house Cordy's put the distinctive works by Khakhar last night after they were found in an Auckland basement. Both the paintings have been sold for 119,595 New Zealand dollars (Rs 51,44,565) each. The paintings depicting a red elephant and the interior of a Hindu house were bought by a local Indian man present at the auction.
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The power of ideas in art

Source Forbes by Kishor Singh
Beginning with the Bengal ‘School’ of revivalist art, a number of movements were set into motion in centres as far apart as Kolkata (then Calcutta), Chennai (then Madras), Mumbai (then Bombay), Baroda and New Delhi. Each helped in the emergence of varied tropes of art practice that have resulted in the diverse idea of modern art in the 20th century. While some were facilitated by ideologies, others were merely gathering points with little or no agenda. Each provided the stepping-stones for a vibrant culture of art practice that has remained in prevalence.
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How not to lose of what little is left behind

Source Daily O by Shaguna Gahilote
Traditions and culture cannot be put in a box, more so because, when you mummify them, it is then that they decay, rot and die. Why these traditions have lasted so long, is because they were vibrant, they were adapting and changing with the time, they were relevant to the daily life of people. Even sites which did not find a place in the daily life of people, died a slow death. Perhaps the ancient temples lost and later found in a dilapidated state are an example, and the recent ones would be the museums and cultural centres, losing out to malls, if we do not adapt them to the needs of the times.
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Indian Contemporary Vernacular Art in USA

Several exhibitions dedicated to Indian Contemporary Vernacular Art in American Universities:
"Birth of the Painted World: Jivya Soma Mashe and the Warli Tradition" curated by Dr. Stephen Hirshon, Robeson Gallery Penn State University Pennsylvania USA Sept 25 – Nov 19, 2015
"Painted Songs & Stories - Contemporary Gond Art from India" curated by John Bowles, Radford University Art Museum Virginia USA Sept 3 – Oct 25, 2015
"Recent Indigenous Art of India" curated by Aurogeeta Das and Dr. David Szanton, William Paterson University Galleries New Jersey USA Nov 2 – Dec 11, 2015

The tribal art paradox

Source DNA by Gargi Gupta
But over and above these, the Ganga Devi episode reveals the more fundamental paradox of Indian tribal art. Traditionally, these paintings were part of the artists' daily lives — they decorated their walls with them, re-touched them when they became faint and when they had completely worn out, the walls would be repainted and covered again with art. This changed in the 1960s, when under the likes of arts administrator Pupul Jayakar, artists J. Swaminathan and Bhaskar Kulkarni, and American anthropologists Raymond Owens and David Szanton, those like Ganga Devi were persuaded to switch to paper. That gave their art-works longer shelf-life and mobility, and brought prosperity as well as new identity as artists.
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With All Its Art and Soul

Source The New Indian Express by Pallavi Rebbapragada
Amit Sood, who heads the project, says museum visits didn’t feature in his growing up years in India. “Extract whatever you can out of art, there is no age, no community, no class barrier that stops you,” he tells the world. The project has enriched itself with material from 10 new partner institutions from India: Salar Jung Museum, Victoria Memorial Hall Kolkata, Dastkari Haat Samiti, Devi Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, Kalakriti Archives, Heritage Transport Museum, Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres & Ashrams, and the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute.
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Breaking The Mold: Artist's Modern Miniatures Remix Islamic Art

Source NPR by Bilal Qhreshi
As a young art student at Lahore's National College of Arts, Shahzia Sikander says she was fascinated by miniature paintings. And while she acknowledges it was a strict and "craft-oriented way of working," she saw miniatures as a language to say new things. For her graduate thesis, she created a miniature painting that broke the mold: a scroll that was 13 inches tall and 5 feet long and featured more than a dozen interconnected illustrations. More importantly, it was a deeply personal piece depicting the daily life of a modern Pakistani woman.
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“The Indian Frida Kahlo” Tops Sotheby’s Asian, Islamic Art Sale Plans

Source by Marck BeechBlouin Art Info by
A self-portrait by the modernist painter Amrita Sher-Gil, who is sometimes billed as the Indian Frida Kahlo, is one of the highlights of Sotheby’s London’s annual Indian and Islamic Week sales. Sher-Gil, who died in 1941 aged 28, is considered as one of the mother of Modern Indian art. Like Kahlo, with whom she shares Hungarian heritage, Sher-Gil was a rebel who broke barriers in art and life. With about half her 174 documented works in that brief career held by the Indian National Gallery of Modern Art, few appear at auction.
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The pioneering photographer who influences almost every Indian Instagram user

Source Quartz India by Phalguni Desai
At a talk recently organised at a gallery exhibiting the works of Raghubir Singh, a gentleman remembered the time spent with the master photographer in the early 1980s while helping him navigate Bombay. He recounted Singh asking to be taken to a particular spot early in the morning. But once there, Singh didn’t take a single picture. Instead, he walked around and eventually asked to be taken back there in the evening. The storyteller, then a green photographer, could not understand Singh’s requests. He questioned him repeatedly until Singh explained that he was looking for that perfect light, the colours that could alchemise the image he was looking for. > read more

La diaspora indienne, un moteur de la Silicon Valley

Source Le Monde par Corine Lesnes
Au-delà des grands noms, c’est une réussite collective. « Les produits conçus par les diplômés indiens ont aidé à révolutionner le monde », a salué Sundar Pichai, dans une vidéo de bienvenue au premier ministre. Selon une étude de 2014 du politologue et entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, 15,5 % des entreprises de la Vallée ont été fondées par des Indo-Américains, alors que ceux-ci ne représentent que 6 % de la population active. Ils sont à l’origine de 32 % des créations d’entreprise effectuées par des immigrants, soit plus que les expatriés issus des quatre pays suivants réunis : Royaume-Uni, Chine, Taïwan, Japon.
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Contemporary Indian Art: Fine Works at Good Prices

Source Baron's by Richard C. Morais
When the recession hit, sales of India’s top 100 modern and contemporary artists fell by three-quarters. The Chinese market, in contrast, continued to explode. Kiran Nadar, considered perhaps India’s foremost collector of modern and contemporary art, is in the process of building a home for the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi, to house her 3,200-piece collection. “In the 1990s,” Nadar says, “a lot of Indians came into the market thinking, ‘This bubble will never burst. It’s a good way to make money.’ Unfortunately, they didn’t have the love of art to sustain them. They got their fingers burned and withdrew from the market. And so, six years after the crash, prices still remain relatively depressed. Today, powerful and possibly seminal works by talented contemporary Indian artists can be had for just $1,000 to $20,000 apiece. A subjective call? Determining the true value of an object is only possible by comparing it to similar items.
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Whatever You Do, Don’t Become an Artist: Revisiting Prabuddha Dasgupta

Source The Wire by Piyush Wadhera
Prabuddha turned a regressive situation into an opportunity to reflect on his own role as an artist. His later inquiries took the form of spiritual quests, first in his melancholic landscapes for Ladakh (2000), and then in the detailed portraits of the Goan Catholic community in Edge of Faith (2007). His approach to his subjects was full of grace, and in his lifetime, Prabuddha himself seemed like a certain embodiment of this word. The empathy that he shared with his subjects was taken to a new level with his most ambitious – though unfinished – project, The Longing, an intimate yet abstract journal of his life. Prabudha died in 2012, but the retrospective of his work at the NGMA testifies to a quiet victory against ideas about uniform, conservative Indian culture. The NGMA should be applauded for it, and for seeing through the twin blinds of commerce and conservatism, to the coded message of encouragement that Prodosh gave to his sons: Whatever you do, never forget that an artist is exactly what you are.
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The Worlds Turned Upside Down

Source E-flux
Contemporary art and folk cultures. Indeed, the notion of folk culture encompasses countless ambiguities, even mystifications, and has never ceased to undergo various extensions and repositioning produced by the various disciplines that have touched it (literature, art history, ethnography, history, etc.) since the eighteenth century. Thus, this project aims at approaching folk cultures by using the sociological distinction between the traditions and art forms of the working classes (low culture) by opposition to those of the cultivated elite (high culture). In the steps of Stuart Hall, the exhibition approaches this articulation like a “constant fight” between low and high culture where artists of all eras have played a crucial role through quotations, formal, methodological or conceptual borrowings or even appropriations.
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Prem Mardi vs Union of India :- Did the Court fail the tribes and adivasis?

Source Live Law by Manu Sebastian
“It is the duty of all people who love our country to see that no harm is done to the Scheduled Tribes and that they are given all help to bring them up in economic and social status, since they have been victimized for thousands of years by terrible oppression and atrocities. The mentality of our country towards the tribal’s must change, and they must be given respect they deserve as the original inhabitants of India” – Supreme Court of India, in Kailas vs State of Maharashtra (2011). Whether a movie which openly brands ‘adivasis’ and forest dwellers as ‘devils’ ‘demons’ and ‘uncivilized’, and has the plot of a demigod protagonist using his divine force and superhuman powers to ‘civilise’ the tribes by using force, is offensive to the sentiments of tribal communities; and if yes, whether such offence warrants the ban of the screening of the movie :- these were the broad issues which had arisen before the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi, in Prem Mardi vs. Union of India.
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LuLu Donates Rs 1 Crore to Kochi Muziris Biennale

Source The New Indian Express
“The Biennale is a vast canvas where art transcends boundaries with the participation of international artists. It is now a world-renowned contemporary art festival, thanks to the organisers. Promoting such an event will help to boost Kerala’s cultural tourism. The public and the industrial world have a collective responsibility to support the event,” he noted.
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Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to showcase arts of India

Source Trib Live by Alice T. Carter
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust will spotlight the art and culture of India during a seven-week festival planned for this fall. From Sept. 25 to Nov. 9, the Cultural Trust will present a multidisciplinary program that will provide a glimpse into the classical and contemporary arts of India. So far, 15 dance, theater, music and visual arts events have been scheduled. More may be announced as plans continue to evolve. The events include work that has been created in and influenced by the richness of India's culture, according to organizer Paul Organisak, outgoing vice president of programming for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Not all of the artists are from India.
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Small Talk with Hugo Weihe: Indian Art finds its Weihe

Source Mumbai Mirror by Reema Gehi
Getting nostalgic, Weihe recalls, "I was the auctioneer that day. He (Tyeb) was sitting on the isle. We reached one million dollars. Everyone was clapping and we weren't even done yet. He was speechless when the auction was over. He was an extraordinarily sensitive and wonderful human being." Having completed his PhD in art history from the University of Zurich, Weihe's interest in art began through his grandfather's collection. "He was in the German Navy and once brought back some art from Asia. That inspired me. I was always fascinated by cross-cultural, interrelation connections. And how that has grown historically. I was looking at Chinese and Japanese art and I found my way to India and Indian art," he says. "I want to do the best for Indian culture. My goal is to build connoisseurship in modern and contemporary art and ultimately antiquities."
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Desi Road New Indian Restaurant in Paris

Source Time Out
Devanture blanche, nom discrètement inscrit sur la baie vitrée et à l'intérieur, décoration et mobilier sobres et modernes. On est très loin des clichés que l'on peut avoir en tête sur les restaurants indiens. Et pour cause : le Desi Road propose une cuisine indienne contemporaine, atypique et surprenante. L'établissement a ouvert en juillet 2015 en lieu et place de Yugaraj, considéré jusqu'alors comme la meilleure table indienne de Paris. Il fallait donc un peu d'imagination pour marcher dans les pas de ce prestigieux prédécesseur sans souffrir la comparaison. Mais Stéphanie de Saint Simon et son mari Arnaud, les propriétaires, n'en sont pas à leur coup d'essai. Ces passionnés de l'Inde ont déjà créé il y a un peu plus d'un an le MG Road, une cantine indienne très populaire du 3e arrondissement.
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New York Auction Sets Record for Indian Painting

Source Newsweek by John Elliot
A new record price for an Indian painting was set on September 17 at a Christie’s auction in New York when India’s most prolific collector, Kiran Nadar, bid $3.5 million ($4.01 million including buyer’s premium) for Birth, a monumental 8 feet by 4 feet oil on board by F.N. Souza, one of the country’s most famous artists, who died in 2002. The previous record price of $2.59 million for a Souza work was set just last week at a Saffronart auction in Delhi, when his 5 feet by 4 feet Man and Woman Laughing went to the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) for a hammer price of Rs14.6 crore – Rs16.84 crore ($2.59 million) including the premium.
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Erasing Ganga Devi and the idea of Mithila

Source Mydigitalfc by Amita Sharma Sep
Awarded Padma Shri in 1984, Ganga Devi placed an ancient folk art on a contemporary, international horizon, moving beyond the limited vocabulary of symbols and images, to investigate the unlimited potential of line drawing and incorporating the ‘brave new world’ in paintings as America series, Moscow Ho­tel, Festival of American Folk Life, and Ride in a Roller Coaster. She demonstrated the power of an Indian village artist to mythologise contemporary urban symbols. Is erasing Ganga Devi’s painting the tribute to Bharat? Is there an equality in the government’s treatment of an artist and a craftsperson?
Ironic, that a museum sho­uld be so history-less at a time when the government asserts its pride in India’s ancient past and more, seeks a mandate in Madhubani the land of ‘forest of honey’. The Taliban and the ISI demolish their art deliberately as ideological statements. The wh­ite wall that replaces Ganga Devi’s Mithila art — whose ideology is that?
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Smuggling India's Antiquities

Source The Diplomat by Neeta Lal
Yet despite the punitive nature of law, Indian antiquities worth billions continue to be smuggled out of the country or hoarded in private collections sans documentation. Among the most audacious of Indian smugglers has been Subhash Kapoor, currently on trial in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. In 2011, Kapoor, owner of the “Art of the Past” gallery in Manhattan, was nabbed in Germany and subsequently extradited to India. Among other activities, he is alleged to have sold the 900­-year-­old bronze Nataraja for $5 million to the National Gallery of Australia in 2008 and a 1,100 ­year-­old stone sculpture of Shiva to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2004. American authorities – who confiscated 2,622 items worth $107.6 million from Kapoor’s storerooms in Manhattan and Queens – have described him as the most ambitious antiquities smuggler in American history.
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India Art Fair is well established, the focus is now on quality

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare-Ghose
“There are so many art disciplines in the subcontinent, and so integral to the artistic culture of the region,” she elaborates. Though she doesn’t give away much, she does ask to be prepared for “surprises in January during the next edition of the fair.” The inclusion of crafts and tribal art is going to be a seminal part of the fair’s approach to bring other disciplines under its wings, shares Masud. “We are hoping to include crafts and tribal art as that’s what 80% of the country and it is important to reflect that in the art fair,” she says. The focus is going to be region-wise, country wide. “Even as we want to include everyone, our focus will remain on quality.”
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Celebrate India at The Bakalar & Paine Galleries at MassArt in Boston

Source India New England
Showcasing the works of international contemporary artists documenting and drawing inspiration from India, Seeing the Elephant and Looking In/Looking Out: Contemporary Indian Photography from the Gaur Collection are two complementary exhibitions offering myriad viewpoints and a multi-faceted lens through which to examine and understand one of the world's oldest, most diverse civilizations. The College is also presenting the world premiere of Looking In/Looking Out: Contemporary Indian Photography from the Gaur Collection, highlighting selected works from the collection of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur, one of the largest repositories of contemporary Indian art in the country.
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An Artist’s Lifework Painted Over by the Brushstrokes of Bureaucracy

Source The Wire by Sangeeta Barroah Pisharoty
In an act of bureaucratic vandalism that is being condemned by art lovers in the Capital, the Crafts Museum has destroyed an iconic representation of a bridal nuptial chamber from Mithila known as a kohbar ghar that was specially painted for it by an acclaimed artist from Bihar, Ganga Devi (1928-1991). Breaking the news of the chamber’s demolition, Jyotindra Jain, a former director of the museum, said the walls of the room had been “painted from top to bottom by Ganga Devi over a period of 3 to 4 months” despite suffering from cancer. As for the idea that the museum can simple “get another made”, Jain says the work is irreplaceable. Ganga Devi was a true legend as an artist and was nationally recognised with a President’s Award, a Padma Shree. Ganga Devi’s was the “only example of a complete iconographic rendering of Mithila’s kohbar ghar and that too, painted in her extraordinary personal idiom.” The painted chamber was “an extraordinary and unique monument in the history of contemporary folk and tribal arts of India.”
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Allen Ginsberg, a Calcutta Story

Source The Wire by Deborah Baker
In February 1990 I married my husband before a crowd of strangers on the rooftop of his parents house in Calcutta. That first year I worked on a book in the back room of a borrowed apartment in Ballygunge while he worked on his book a few kilometers away in his childhood bedroom in Jodhpur Park. Every month or so we would go to the home of a popular and prolific Bengali writer named Tarapada Ray. He lived with his wife on the second floor of a big house near the Astor Hotel closer to the city center.
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Crafts museum ‘renovation’ wipes out famed Madhubani murals

Source Times of India by Neelma Raaj
The Charles Correa-designed Crafts Museum is under the textile ministry. Despite several attempts, Navraj Goyal, additional development commissioner, handicrafts, could not be reached. A museum official who did not want to be named said the demolition was part of a modernization plan conceived under the previous director. Curator Yashodhara Dalmia said the murals were one of her favourite art works and she had watched Ganga Devi create the wonderful narrative in the Mithila style. "No plan to revamp a museum should include wiping out such an important part of our history and heritage." The country's cultural fraternity reacted with similar expressions of horror on social media, with artists Gigi Scaria and Praneet Soi calling it a shame and a crime while noted collector Lekha Poddar said she was saddened.
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Artists in Their Floating Worlds

Source The Indian Express by Vandana Kalra
Dressed in a collared shirt and trousers — unlike the kurta that he now adorns — KG Subramanyan is seated in the midst of paper and paints. He seems indifferent to the clutter. The pieces of paper cuttings are possibly primal material that transformed into celebrated artwork. “He was an excellent teacher. This photograph was taken at his Baroda studio, visited by several of his students,” says artist Jyoti Bhatt. The photograph, taken in the late 50s or 60s, is cherished by Bhatt for being his portrait of the revered teacher at MS University in Baroda.
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Sotheby’s Opens Office in India and Announces Strategic Appointments in its Indian Business

Source Blouin Art Info by Ameta Bal
Speaking of her new appointment, Mathew says, “The art scene in India has never been more vibrant. There are new galleries, museums and initiatives emerging all the time that are engaging more people than ever before. The crowds at our events earlier this year showed that there is a real hunger for the sort of international outlook that Sotheby’s offers, so we are thrilled to be expanding our operations here to become a bigger part of this mix. In this new role I will use my experience both at Sotheby’s and in my previous career on Wall Street to increase the visibility of the Sotheby’s brand, drive more business with our existing clients and engage with a new audience of private and corporate collectors.”
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F N Souza's painting for 16.8 crore tops Saffronart auction

Source The Economic Times
Modern Indian painter F N Souza's oil-on-masonite artwork titled "Man and Woman Laughing" sold for approximately Rs 16.84 crore ($ 2.5 million) topping the 15th anniversary auction here by Saffronart. The sale held here late last evening featured 75 lots of some of the most sought after names in modern and contemporary Indian art and posted total sales at approximately Rs 82 crore ($ 12.7 million) 97 per cent lots sold. Four lots including that of Souza's achieved world record. Other lots that achieved world record prizes were a fibreglass sculpture by Ravinder Reddy titled "Devi" that sold for approximately Rs 2.7 crore ($ 415,385).
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On the Record: Theory of Art

Source The Indian Express by Pallavi Chattopadhyay
What are your plans for Saffronart? We want to expand on all fronts online and describe other categories — tribal art, popular art and Bollywood, among others. The field that we are particularly looking at is the antiquities field, particularly the Indian miniature paintings, stone sculptures and bronze sculptures that I would really like to develop within India. We want to explain their context for new collectors to come in and understand it in an efficient way. India has 5,000 years of history and culture behind it and it is time for India to embrace it.
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Sotheby's s'implante en Inde

Source News of the Art World par Pauline Le Gall
La célèbre maison de vente aux enchères déploie actuellement une nouvelle stratégie pour étendre son activité et attirer les collectionneurs venus d’Inde. Après Londres, New York, Hong Kong ou Paris, Sotheby’s va ouvrir un bureau à Bombay. Cette semaine, la firme a annoncé le nom de ceux qui tiendront les rênes de cette nouvelle antenne. Edward Gibbs, responsable de la deuxième édition de la semaine de l’art indien et islamique, sera le nouveau président de Sotheby’s pour l’Inde, le Moyen-Orient et l’Afrique du Nord. Priyanka Mathew quitte son poste de spécialiste sénior en art moderne et contemporain d’Asie du Sud à Sotheby’s New York pour devenir directrice régionale en Inde.
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Natl conference on 'Tribal Art' in Kumaun university in Oct

Source Business Standard
According to 2011 Census, 104.28 million tribes cover about 15 per cent area of our country with its 8.61 per cent population. In India, more than 700 tribes are registered and residing in the 30 states and union territories,including Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadeep islands. Most number of tribes, 62, are in Orissa while Sikkim has the lowest with only four, Uttarakhand has five. They are rich in cultural heritage and skilled in art and craft. They need special attention to develop their overall livelihood, Joshi said.
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The Slow and Steady Death of the Delhi College of Art

Source The Wire by Gauri Gill
To begin at the beginning, why does art even matter? What made me, at 15, get into a face-off with the art teacher at my school, to insist that I would hold my own exhibition outside the girls dormitory in response to the school’s more formal one, to convince my friends to help me cut and carry the six-foot-tall sheet of ply up from the quarter masters; what made it so evident to me that the complex and unfathomable interiority of the seated thinking man I had made (some kind of mash-up of Rodin and Giacometti) would be best represented with a zero for a head – well, OK, the tangled scrawl of a few zeroes, egg-shaped zeroes to be precise? The art teacher immediately banned this inchoate experimentation; in my own view, he was needlessly bent upon realism.
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