Demonetisation hits Kerala tourism, ‘God’s own country’ now eyes Kochi-Muziris Biennale to get visitors back

Source The Financial Express by Rajesh Ravi
Kerala is pinning its hope on the contemporary art festival, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), to revive the fortunes of its tourism sector which seems to have been hit hard by the Centre’s demonetisation drive. India’s first contemporary art biennale, KMB, is on its third edition and will extend till March 29. Officials of the Biennale expect more than half a million visitors at the 12 venues where 97 artistes from 31 countries are displaying their creative work. In addition to its successful branding as ‘God’s Own Country’, Kerala will now also be promoted as the ‘Land of the Biennale’, Kerala tourism director UV Jose said. While the state is known for distinctive offerings such as its ayurveda therapies and houseboats, the Biennale will now be added to that list of iconic Kerala products, Jose said.
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Raza's death, rising global interest in Indian art mark 2016

Source Business Standard
As the Indian art world faced a huge void with the death of iconic painter Syed Haider Raza, fellow artists, both veteran and emerging, took India to newer heights in 2016 with greater representation in national and international art fairs and biennales. An era of modern art came to an end on July 23, 2016, as Raza, the last surviving founder of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group Movement, breathed his last at the age of 94, leaving behind towering legacy of contemporary art. "In the past 20 years or so the market for Indian art has flourished. As major institutions including the Guggenheim, Tate and Pompidou have staged substantial exhibitions of Indian artists, market interest has grown. We continue to see the market thrive," Tahmina Ghaffar from Bonhams told.
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Art aficionado Abhishek Poddar to ‘MAP’ a new art space in Bengaluru

Source Deccan Chronicle by Darshana Ramdev
Art aficionado Abhishek Poddar is giving back to the city in the only way he knows how - donating the whopping Rs 35 crores he raised when he auctioned priceless pieces by India's best known artists at the iconic Christie's India Sale auction in Mumbai this week, to fund the art project close to his heart. Poddar, who has had a 30-year-long tryst with art, conceived MAP, the Museum of Art and Photography, an admirable project, that was at the heart of the art hub he wanted to create in this IT capital.
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Recapturing lost history: Key moments in the journey of the graphic image in India

Source Scroll.In by Ranjit Hoskote
Terra Cognita? Three Moments in Printmaking: India 1556-2016 draws on the holdings of three remarkable collections: the SWARAJ Art Archive, Delhi Capital Region; the Jamshyd & Pheroza Godrej Collection, Bombay; and the Kalakriti Archives, Hyderabad. It also includes a memorable photographic installation by the Kerala-born and Goa-educated artist Baiju Parthan, who lives and works in Bombay and cyberspace. Terra Cognita? courses over the itineraries of the printer’s art and the printmaker’s art in India.
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Indian art prices dip on fear of Modi, Trump and Brexit

Source Europe Newsweek by John Elliott
Christie’s high profile annual art auctions in Mumbai just managed on December 18 to overcome growing concern about the direction of the Indian economy. They yielded a respectable but unexciting sales total of $10.79 million that acted as more of a warning than encouragement about future prospects. In an evening auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art, 53 lots were sold out of 73 (72 percent) producing a total of $10 million. That was far below Christie’s record sale last December of $14.7 million, the highest for any auction held in India, and the previous record of Rs96.5 crore that it achieved at its first Indian sale three years ago.
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'Once respect came from fighting wars. Now it's about your cellphone': Konyak headhunters look back

Source Scroll'In by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri
“I was the last man to cut our enemy’s head off and bring it back,” said Chinkhum, an 82-year-old Konyak warrior from Mon district in Nagaland. Chinkhum sat inside his hut in the picturesque village of Longwa. “I am the last head hunter,” he told photographer Fanil Pandya. The last beheading, he said, had been over a land dispute. Another tribesman, Panhpa claimed to have beheaded five men in his lifetime. “I have no regrets about it,” said the 80-year-old. Until the 1940s, the Konyak tribe’s defining characteristic was the practice of headhunting to acquire land and power. The last incident was reported in the 1970s.
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Yarn bombing: Why two Indian men are wrapping everyday objects with colourful string

Source Scroll'In by Rhema Mukti Baxter
Rahul Chaudhary grew up admiring his grandmother knit. During winter vacations, he would watch with concentration as one needle overlapped the other. When he first held yarn in his hands, his fingers automatically seemed to imitate the needles. In November, the subconscious lessons came in handy. Chaudhary, 37, a self-taught artist whose repertoire includes figurative paintings that reflect distorted versions of reality, and fellow artist Pankaj Saroj, also 37, parked themselves between two rickshaws in Kolkata. And with the help of the rickshaw pullers, the two started covering the carts with colourful yarn.
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Demonetisation-Generated Worries Curb Bids at Christie’s Auction

Source The Wire by John Elliot
Christie’s high profile annual art auctions in Mumbai just managed yesterday to overcome growing concern about the direction of the Indian economy. They yielded a respectable but unexciting sales total of Rs 72.17 crore that acted as more of a warning than encouragement about future prospects. In an evening auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art, 53 lots were sold out of 73 (72%) producing a total of Rs 68.01 crore. That was far below Christie’s record sale last December of Rs 97.7 crore, the highest for any auction held in India, and the previous record of Rs 96.5 crore that it achieved at its first Indian sale three years ago. An afternoon sale of classical Indian art produced dismal results with just 38 lots sold out of 71 (53%), including 50 miniature paintings of which only 42% found buyers. The total was Rs 4.13 million. That is not the sort of result that Indian art’s leading international auction house expects to achieve, though it was the first time Christie’s has held a dedicated classical sale in the country.
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Gaitonde goes for Rs15.63cr at Christie’s art auction in city

Source Hindustan Times by Riddhi Doshi and Anesha George
“Out of all our four auctions here, this one was the hardest,” said William Robinson, international head of Christie’s. “While the modern and contemporary sale was better as it invites international bidders as well, the classical art and antiquity sale was more uneven as the response from local bidders is not at par compared to last year’s.” The overall energy and enthusiasm seems to be down, added participating collector Aakash Belsare. “I guess it’s the demonetization.”
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India’s leading Kochi-Muziris Biennale overcomes country’s ‘demonetisation’ crisis

Source The Art Newspaper by Tim Cornwell
Organisers of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the flagship art gathering in India founded and organised by some of country’s leading contemporary artists, struggled through India’s “demonetisation” crisis to make poetry and performance the beating heart of the exhibition, which opened this week (until 29 March 2017). Organised this year by the artist-curator Sudarshan Shetty, whose work has been shown in the Tate and the Guggenheim, the biennial includes an increased number of international artists among nearly 100 on show.
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‘My highlight of 2016’ — Calder’s sculptures from India

Source Christies
In 1954, a young architect named Gira Sarabhai wrote to Alexander Calder inviting him to her family home in Ahmedabad, India. In the three weeks that the artist spent at the Sarabhai compound between January and February 1955 he produced a group of sculptures that rank among his finest works. Largely unseen by the public since their creation, a selection of these works was brought to auction for the very first time in May. ‘Entitled Calder’s Voyage to India, the collection not only told the story of the artist’s relationship with the Sarabhai family, but also of a new country asserting its independence through culture,’ explains Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art for Europe.
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Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 opens

Source E-flux
Yesterday, India’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), opened to a crowd of thousands, marking the start of three months of contemporary art, culture and design in the city of Kochi. Titled Forming in the pupil of an eye, the third edition of the Biennale will run for 108 days until March 29, 2017, with works by 97 artists displayed in heritage properties, public spaces, and galleries across Fort Kochi and Ernakulam.
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Abhishek Poddar: From teenage collector to a titan of Indian art

Source Christies
‘I don’t know why I collect, but I enjoy doing it,’ says Abhishek Poddar who, with his wife Radhika, has become one of the world’s most important patrons and collectors of modern and contemporary Indian art and crafts. ‘Often, I look at a piece and feel that if I don’t have it, there would be something missing in my life.’ Thirty years ago, when Abhishek Poddar began buying art, collecting in India was easier said than done. There were very few galleries in Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata and artists rarely had representation, meaning that they had to be tracked down to their studios across all points of the subcontinent. Now, in order to take their collection of Indian visual culture and design in exciting new directions, the couple has decided to sell 41 works collected over many years, all of which will be offered as a highlight of The India Sale on 18 December at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai.
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Why the Indian antiquities market is important to Contemporary art

Source Vogue India by Rosalyn DMello
Interestingly, eschewing the outmoded white cube model, institutions are electing instead to stage works within a framework that strengthens the connection between the region’s artistic past and present. At the Dr Bhau Daji Lad City Museum in Mumbai, for example, a series titled Engaging Traditions has invited artists, such as Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty and Tallur LN to respond to the museum’s architecture and archives. At the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a similar commitment to challenging linear notions of time permeates through every edition. South Asian artists, both home and away, continue to look to the region’s past to navigate their own journey.
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Earth songs: Exploring tribal art

Source Times of India by Uma Nair
Researching the archives at the Lalit Kala Akademi is an experience of great learning and involves unending explorations about art as well as artists and their techniques. Secretary Dr. Sudhakar Sharma wanted this show of tribal and folk art curated and ready to be unveiled as an archival collection. Earth Songs the show of 70 paintings and 10 sculptures unraveled as an aperture of multiple odysseys over time. India’s narrative dipped in the vernacular is based off a core idea of humility and love for nature. The work of the tribals carries traditions and narrative allusions that weave unique qualities of their lives and takes measure of subtle references and details from an ecological system in order to tell so many stories within their limited space. This collection that ranges from 1978-2015 stands apart for its ecological echo.
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Announcing selected artists for the 2017 Pernod Ricard Fellowship

Source E-flux
The Pernod Ricard Fellowship is conceived as a research and artistic platform, experimenting with non-linear models of generating and distributing knowledge to encourage different possible connections between researchers, contemporary artists, cultural institutions, non-profit organizations and the general public. Pernod Ricard and Villa Vassilieff are delighted to announce the four selected artists for the 2017 Pernod Ricard Fellowship. Sami Das will investigate the visual vocabulary of Indian modern art in resonance with Paris as world cultural capital, attempting to reassess the idea of modernism in India and the role of Western art, with a special focus on the numerous Indian artists who visited and stayed in France.
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A window to native cultures

Source The Hindu
The paintings and sculptures on display at Shrishti, at first glance to an art novice, might seem like generic figurines and drawings one brackets under tribal art. Tribal art it is, but those created by master artists who emerged from these regions. Their work speaks volumes of their technique and provides a window into native cultures.
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Bhupen Khakhar’s ‘Man In Pub’ Lives up to Pre-Auction Expectations

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare-Ghose
The year 2016 will be worth remembering for the special focus that it bestowed on the art of Indian modernist, Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003). Long recognised within the fraternity as one of the important modernists of India, who charted a new, bold territory with his unconventional, unschooled art — that continues to defy all attempts to pigeonhole it into any movement, any category, any style — Khakhar scaled newer peaks of fame this year. In the wake of two seminal retrospectives — at the recently-concluded Tate Modern, London, and the ongoing one at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin — his canvas “Man In Pub” has become the proverbial cherry on the icing by becoming one of the most expensive lots of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art sold at an auction this calendar year.
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Saffronart’s ‘Ties That Bind’ Auction on Nov 30-Dec 1 is Truly South Asian

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare-Ghose
Most auctions of South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art broadly mean Indian art with only a nodding acknowledgement of art from Pakistan, and hardly anything from any of the countries that make up South Asia. However, Saffronart’s upcoming auction, “The Ties That Bind: South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art” on Nov 30 - Dec 1 not only has big presence of art by Pakistani artists but also takes a deep look south of the subcontinent and puts focus on the art from Sri Lanka. Works by leading artists from the island nation — George Keyt, Pala Pothupithiye and Senaka Senanayake — make up one of the highlights that make it an excellently curated auction.
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Deidi von Schaewen, Femmes peintres du Hazaribagh

Source L'Oeil de la Photographie
Une tradition multi-millénaire, qui remonte à l’âge rupestre, est en train de s’éteindre peu à peu, dans l’indifférence générale. Celle des murs peints par les femmes des tribus du Hazaribagh, une région du Nord-Est de l’Inde dont le nom signifie « mille jardins ». Inlassablement, moussons après moussons, les femmes repeignent les murs des maisons des villages, à partir de pigments naturels, longuement travaillés avant d’être appliqués. Les scènes colorées sont élaborées pour les fêtes d’après la moisson (le style Sohrai). Celles en noir et blanc sont réservées aux mariages (le style Khovar). Jusqu’au 27 novembre 2016 ENSA Paris-Malaquais, Espace Callot 1 rue Jacques Callot 75006 Paris
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A conversation with Raqs Media Collective

Source Ocula by Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi
The 11th edition of the Shanghai Biennale (SHB 11) opens to the public on 12 November 2016 under the chief curatorship of the New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective. Anchored by the idea of biennale making as a form of posing questions, the SHB 11 is titled Why Not Ask Again: Arguments, Counter-arguments, and Stories. In this Ocula Conversation Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi speaks to members of Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta) on the relevance of engaging with the biennale form today, and their specific plans for the SHB 11.
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Today art is about production, not creation: Curator Uma Nair

Source Business Standard
Questioning what contemporary artists are doing for society, prominent curator Uma Nair has said that they are concentrating on producing art and not creating it. "What is happening today is production, not creation, of art. People like Alphonse Mucha and Pablo Picasso would find their own stone and material and create their works with their own hands," Nair told IANS. "I feel that contemporary artists don't want to draw. Suddenly, everybody has gotten into this thing of fabrication. You don't know who did the fabrication for you. You never give credit to the person who has created your sculpture, but you say that this is your sculpture when you haven't even touched it with your hand," she added. To that extent "Earth Songs", a tribal art and sculpture show curated by Nair that is on at Lalit Kala Akademi till November 15 is an attempt at course-correction. The exhibition will travel to many cities after Delhi. "The show needs to travel for people to realise that India's marginalised population has so much talent. Galleries also need to look at tribal art and not just elitest works by those who are earning millions. They are earning it for themselves; what are they doing for the art world?" she asked.
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Lalit Kala Akademi Unveils Folk & Tribal Art Collection

Source Blouin Art Info by Archana Khare Ghose
At a time when India’s indigenous art — referred to as folk and tribal art in popular jargon — is gaining wider recognition and acceptability, even on the international auction platform, the Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) has opened its rich reservoir of this genre of art in an exhibition, titled 'Earth Songs'. Curated by art critic and writer Uma Nair, it is on view through November 15, 2016. 'Earth Songs' features 66 paintings and a few sculptures that have been created at the art camps held by the country's premier visual arts academy, the Lalit Kala Akademi, over the past three years.
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Artist's attempt at reviving the age-old pichvai painting

Source The Indian Express by Arya P. Dinesh
or THIS Udaipur-based fashion designer-turned-artist, engagement with art began at home. When I meet her, Pooja Singhal tells me that following her mother’s interest in pichvai—a hand painting tradition from Rajasthan with spiritual undertones—was the most natural thing. With barely 40 days to go for the Biennale, Singhal’s seven-year-old atelier is putting together an installation giving a contemporary avatar to this dying art. Titled Pichvai Tradition & Beyond, her ensemble comprises seasoned artisans who specialise in this art form.
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Quand des street-artistes du monde entier se réunissent à Lyon

Source Les Inrocks par Aurore Cros
A l’origine de l’exposition, deux grands voyageurs, l’un passionné de graffiti, l’autre d’art contemporain : Julien Malland, alias Seth, artiste issu du graffiti et auteur de Kapital : un an de graffiti à Paris et Hervé Perdriolle, spécialiste de l’art mural indien. Pour Julien, l’idée était de “faire intervenir des artistes du monde entier qui utilisent les codes de leurs cultures traditionnelles dans leur travail pour évoquer des problématiques modernes, souvent liées à la globalisation”. C’est lors d’un voyage en Inde que les deux spécialistes de l’art urbain ont eu l’idée de cette exposition. Hervé Perdriolle, qui vécut en Inde à la fin des années 1990, années durant lesquelles il s’intéresse à des artistes issus de cultures populaires tribales, dit apprécier cette “diversité culturelle dans l’art urbain, qui se nourrit d’un dialogue avec les cultures locales de chaque pays”.
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Not my grandfather’s Kerala

Source Condé Nast Traveller by Manju Sara Rajan
the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) (website), the third edition of which begins this December, in Fort Kochi. Malayalis don’t consider themselves contemporary art connoisseurs. Nevertheless many successful Indian contemporary artists have risen from Kerala and its art colleges. Six years ago, a minister of the state government goaded Mumbai-based artists Riyas Komu and Bose Krishnamachari to use their success to do something for their home state. It is a common and effective refrain; most Malayalis would heed a call for the homeland. Begun in December 2012, the Kerala government-supported event has grown into the region’s largest art exhibition, drawing almost a million in audience and some of the world’s best artists. The nearly four-month-long 2016 edition, curated by Sudarshan Shetty, will feature more than 90 international names working with all sorts of media, from modern art to dance and poetry. But perhaps the most important takeaway from the Biennale is simply that it can be done. In Kerala.
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Many Indians in one man

Source The Pioneer
Curator Dr Jyotindra Jain views art as a process that could initiate a conversation. He speaks to S.S. Balan on how being contemporary is a natural reaction to a creative environment. On his attempts to make art a process that can initiate a conversation, he says that the works of village artistes are at times autobiographical. “Hence, their creation becomes a personal process, imbued with a lot of originality. A village artisan does reflect contemporary art. Traditional art becomes contemporary, when you have the freedom to experiment. For example, Madhubani artistes in the initial years had the opportunity to paint solely on walls or as part of wedding or religious ceremonies. When they were exposed to alternative canvases like textiles, the said constraint disappeared with amazing results,” he elaborates. He avers that individualism comes with modernity and democracy….rather individual subjectivity is modernity. Being contemporary is the way traditional artistes naturally respond to a creative environment: “It’s like a live, responsible process. And it’s a language that comes from the contemporary environment. It eliminates barriers. There is an explosion of creativity that creates an opportunity for the public to see art forms, which are not repetitive or mechanical in nature.”
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Exchange offer

Source Mid-Day by Benita Fernando
Mumbai’s Chatterjee and Lal and New York’s Aicon Gallery talk to us about their upcoming gallery swap and why it’s a refreshing change from art fairs. The concept of the gallery swap has been around for some time now but not one that has found too many takers world over. So, what’s in it for galleries that do sign up for a swap? “Presenting an exhibition this way, we can really set down roots in a new city,” says Chatterjee. Aicon Gallery’s two-week-long exhibition, titled Delicate Bond of Steel, opens on November 9 at Chatterjee and Lal; in turn, the Colaba gallery will present a show at Aicon Gallery slated for 2017.
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Hazaribag's tribal wall art at Paris exhibition

Source Times of India by Jaideep Deogharia
"The Paris exhibition is an amalgamation of age old tribal art and modern photography in which Deidi has highlighted the mud houses of Sanskriti and some of the remote villages as well in real scale," Imam said. The exhibition that began on October 6 is concluding on November 26 and has witnessed a huge footfall including some of the world famous art lovers. On Tuesday Jean Hubert Martin, leading art historian and curator of international exhibitions would be attending the exhibition to participate in a debate titled "Women painters of Hazaribag, painted houses in India and Africa a living tradition".
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Why the India Story is a success story

Source Verve by Ranjabati Das
Putting the spotlight on Indian design, and with a promise to ‘Revive Reinvent Relove’ quintessential Indian aesthetics, this mega event, that’s rooted in its ‘made in India’ philosophy, took over the sprawling grounds of Swabhumi heritage centre in Kolkata last week. The India Story (TIS) 2016 is an initiative conceived by Madhu Neotia, spearheaded with the help of food entrepreneur Abhilasha Sethia, co-initiator and trustee of Neotia Arts Trust, and curated by designer Nil. “India is so vast that there are many possibilities to explore and it’s only going to get bigger with every passing year. This year we had 70,000 visitors and despite being a ticketless event, the crowd was really good. We could have done it in New York or Toronto but we didn’t want to deprive the people of Kolkata…this is our gift to them and the city,” says Neotia.
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Resistance Through Reconstruction: “Staging the Past” at Art Heritage, New Delhi

Source Blouin Art Info by Paroma Mukherjee
Resistance has become a way of life in Iran and a long period of censorship (especially during the fall of the Shah and the war) has resulted in artists working around the harsh political and social realities. Azadeh Akhlaghi and Babak Kazemi, two Iranian photographers, are showing their work, presented together as “Staging the Past” at Art Heritage, Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi. Both artists have faced restrictions of the political regime and their individual responses in their artistic expression are a reflection of the socio-political situation in Iran.
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This is how Sangita Jindal and daughter Tarini Jindal Handa are promoting contemporary art

Source Vogue India by Gayatri Rangachari Shah
From setting up the 10-acre-large arts village Kaladham in the JSW township in Vijayanagar to starting Art India, the country’s leading magazine for contemporary art, Sangita Jindal is a patron whose engagement with art goes far beyond the act of acquiring. A champion of Indian art for more than a quarter of a century, as the chairperson of JSW Foundation, the non-profit arm of JSW (a colossal steel and energy conglomerate run by husband Sajjan), Sangita proactively promotes heritage as well as contemporary art. “Art is not a vanity project for her,” observes Shireen Gandhy, director of Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai.
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Review: Bringing Tribal Art Into the Mainstream Arena

Source The Wire by Deborah Thiagarajan
Tara Books’ editors Gita Wolf and Arun Wolf took the opportunity to create discussions and dialogues with the artists about their relationship to the museum and the exhibitions they have installed. Along with their interviews and interactions with the artists, they put forth arguments that indigenous peoples in India need to be projected on an equal footing with other artists and art forms, and that their rich individual and community resources and knowledge need to be recognised and encouraged so that much of their traditional wisdom will be preserved and passed on to future generations. Museums, they say, have a major role in projecting indigenous art and artists into the mainstream and for creating opportunities for them to experiment and connect their art to the world around them. As they rightly noted, the world of tribes is swiftly changing and this too needs to find a place in their work and how their work is perceived.
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Sonal Singh on India's developing art landscape

Source Femina
“I would argue that there is already a global market for Indian art. We have been selling in this category in New York and London for almost twenty years and see ever increasing interest in the category from all collectors, regardless of where they are based. Many of the artists included in our inaugural India sale are increasingly shown in major museums and institutions around the world. For example, there will be a major retrospective of V.S. Gaitonde’s work at the Guggenheim in New York this year.”
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Plus jamais seul

Source La Maison Rouge

Plus jamais seul, Hervé Di Rosa et les arts modestes, poursuit le cycle des expositions de La maison rouge consacré aux collections privées. Après Arnulf Rainer en 2005 et Jean-Jacques Lebel en 2010, la fondation invite pour la troisième fois un artiste à mettre en regard son travail avec les œuvres et objets qu’il a collectés. Figure incontournable de la scène artistique et acteur majeur de la Figuration Libre, Hervé Di Rosa (né à Sète en 1959) s’est engagé à partir des années 1980 dans la reconnaissance de l’art modeste qu’il définit lui-même comme « proche de l’art populaire, de l’art primitif, de l’art brut mais ne s’y réduit pas. Il est autant composé d’objets manufacturés que d’objets uniques, pour la plupart sans grande valeur marchande mais à forte plus-value émotionnelle. Les amateurs se retrouvent au-delà du regard critique, de la notion du bon ou du mauvais goût, de la rigueur esthétique, dans un sentiment de bonheur éphémère et spontané, aux parfums de souvenirs d’enfance et de plaisirs simples et non théorisés ».
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Souza’s Depiction of Christ’s Burial Fetches 80 Times 1998 Price at Sotheby’s Auction

Source The Wire by John Elliott
London: Sotheby’s on Tuesday dispelled some of the gloom and uncertainty emanating from a poor Christie’s $3.8m auction of South Asian art in New York last month when its annual London auction yielded sales totalling £4.02m – $4.90m – at the depleted pound’s current post-Brexit level. The top lot was a memorable depiction of Christ’s burial by Francis Newton Souza titled ‘The Deposition’ that sold for a hammer price of £1.30m – £1.57m ($1.92m, Rs12.78 crore) including buyer’s premium. The hammer price was just over two to three times a surprisingly low estimate of £400,000-£600,000. The tragic but colourful painting – of Christ’s body being moved by his followers – was last sold in 1998 for £12,000 by London’s Grosvenor Gallery. In a demonstration of the surge in top prices since then, its value has risen 80 times in the intervening 18 years (after adjusting for inflation).
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Les icônes urbaines du street art

Source ArtsixMic par Laurélia Torno
Contemporain, éphémère et terrain de prédilection des graffitis, pochoirs, stickers, affichages, yarn bombing et autres installations, les icônes urbaines du street art quittent les murs de nos rues pour envahir à leur manière le MAC Lyon pour cette fin d’année 2016 avec comme représentants Charley Case de Belgique, Jaz d’Argentine, Kid Kréol & Boogie de La Réunion, Addam Yekutieli aka Know Hope d’Israël, Reko Rennie d’Australie, Saner du Mexique, Teck d’Ukraine, Elliot Tupac du Pérou et Wenna de Chine, l’universalité de l’ensemble de ces artistes permettant de confronter et de fondre des univers éloignés et variés. Le commissariat de l’exposition a été confié à Julien Malland, plus connu dans le monde du graffiti sous le nom de Seth et apprécié pour son ouverture au monde et au dialogue artistique, et à Hervé Perdriolle, promoteur de la Figuration Libre, cofondateur de l’Art Modeste au début des années 90 et passionné d’art indien représentatif des cultures populaires et tribales qu’il a exposé en France.
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WALL DRAWINGS - ICONES URBAINES EN IMAGES

La Fondation Cartier au Printemps de Septembre

Source ArtsixMic par Jean-Marc Lebaupin
Depuis 1984, date de sa création, la collection de la Fondation Cartier s’est enrichie au fil des expositions, rassemblant aujourd’hui quelques 1400 œuvres et réunissant environ 300 artistes originaires du monde entier. Faite d’expériences vécues, nourrie du temps passé et des dialogues noués avec les artistes, cette collection présente des géographies hors des sentiers battus, des idées et échanges dans les domaines du savoir les plus divers et les plus actuels, des œuvres uniques nées de commandes. Ces œuvres, qui ont toutes fait l’objet d’exposition à la Fondation Cartier, sont les témoins des liens forts, uniques et durables que la Fondation entretient avec chaque artiste. La collection de la Fondation Cartier raconte une autre histoire de l’art contemporain qui fait de l’ouverture sur le monde dans tous ses aspects, de la dimension humaine et de la relation privilégiée avec les artistes, les éléments essentiels d’une programmation.
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Waswo X. Waswo’s “Photowallah” at Exhibit 320

Source Blouin Art Info by Paroma Mukherjee
Having travelled in India for over sixteen years, artist Waswo X. Waswo built himself a home and a studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Nine years of living there and several collaborations down, his latest exhibition promises a thorough reexamination of the photograph as an ethnographic document. A careful consideration of photography as a medium that lent itself to the traditional posed portrait style in the studios in India during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is what makes this show a homage to the very tradition that it also critiques. “Photowallah,” presented by Tasveer, opened at Exhibit 320 in New Delhi on October 8 and binds together three series (“A Studio in Rajasthan,” “Gauri Dancers” and “New Myths”), which were produced in Waswo’s studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan.
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‘Dedicated To Building Our Business In India’

Source BW BusinessWorld
Souza and Gaitonde works, which will be displayed at your forthcoming auction, are garnering a lot of attention. What according to you makes these master artists of modern India so special? As leading figures of the 20th century avant-garde, both Souza and Gaitonde transformed the face of Indian art. These artists, alongside other Indian modernist masters, are now rightly receiving critical reappraisal in major institutions across the globe. The Guggenheim Museum recently staged a landmark exhibition of Gaitonde’s work in both New York and Venice, and we’re incredibly excited to offer an important work by the artist in our upcoming sale from the 1970s. Souza was the intellectual founder of the Progressive Movement and has been already shown and collected by the Tate in London in 2005.
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Artist residency programmes in India have opened up new space for creativity

Source Sunday Guardian Live by Bhumika Popli
An art centre dedicated in developing contemporary art practice, Khoj International Artists Association also offers a number of art residencies. Sitara Chowfla, curator, Khoj, sheds light on the selection process of residencies offered by Khoj. She says, “We look at the artists who are developing new and different kind of works; often who are experimenting with new mediums and ways. We focus on thematic works, for example we decide on a topic and ask artists to send applications based on the set of ideas, which can be explored further. We put this call on our website and examine the proposals sent to us. Ultimately when we are building a residency we try to build a group of artists who we think would work together and gain learning from each other.”
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La Tate Modern organise la première rétrospective consacrée à l’artiste indien Bhupen Khakhar

Source Connaissances des Arts par Laurent Issaurat
À travers les Trade Paintings, qui marquent le début de l’exposition, on découvre d’abord des commerçants et artisans de Baroda (province de Gujarat, où l’artiste a passé sa vie adulte), des tailleurs « de luxe », laveurs de vitres, barbiers, horlogers, ouvriers manifestant devant leur usine et autres personnages ordinaires, « insignifiants », de la vie quotidienne, dépeints avec un soin méticuleux. Les huiles sur toiles, appliquées en couches fines et légères, les acryliques et aquarelles rayonnantes de Khakhar sont mise au service d’un concentré d’influences hétéroclites : on retrouve ici le Company Style (genre développé par des portraitistes indiens, consistant à peindre des modèles locaux selon des normes esthétiques de l’Europe coloniale des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles), mais également le primitivisme et la nature luxuriante du Douanier Rousseau, les compositions narratives des maîtres de Sienne du 14ème siècle, en passant par l’imagerie religieuse hindoue traditionnelle et les collages kitsch du Pop Art, rappelant l’usage de l’iconographie populaire par Robert Rauschenberg ou Jasper Johns. Ces sources bigarrées, assumées explicitement et fusionnées, forment la base d’un style unique, et font de Khakhar l’un des plus importants peintres contemporain indien du XXe siècle.
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The magical world of Gond art

Source The New Indian Express by Palak Dubey
The folk art done by the tribes belonging to Central India is called Gond art. Kalakriti Art Gallery in its ongoing show has brought forth a set of works done by four artists who belong to the Gond community. These artists manifest a strong artistic foundation that reflects the rich ethos of the tradition. The effervescence and the simplicity of recreating surroundings gets exemplified in all tribal/folk art forms. Often considered as immensely decorative and illustrative nonetheless these traditions have the energy and strength to be loved for their freshness and can stand strong and at par with the high art forms/streams of expression.
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Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 forming in the pupil of an eye

Source E-flux
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is pleased to announce the curatorial vision for its third edition, entitled forming in the pupil of an eye, and names further participating artists. The Biennale, opening on December 12 and running for 108 days, closing March 29, is the largest contemporary art biennial in South Asia. The main exhibition and an ancillary programme of talks, seminars, workshops, film screenings, and music will take place across a range of venues in Kochi, Kerala, India. The third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale is curated by acclaimed Indian artist Sudarshan Shetty. Long recognized as one of his generation’s most innovative artists, and best known for his enigmatic sculptural installations, the Biennale will be Shetty’s first curatorial project.
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