Confessions of a dealer: Conor Macklin

Source Art News Paper by Gareth Harris
I last cooked for...
I haven’t cooked for ages, except for sausages on the barbecue. However, a memorable recent meal was with Kiran Nadar, the owner of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art [in New Delhi]. After seeing some contemporary shows in the East End [of London], we settled down to a very satisfying Happy Meal at McDonald’s.
Dealers are misunderstood because…
They think they are not lice, as Marcel Duchamp once aptly described them.
I wish I had met…
The enfant terrible of Indian art of the 20th century, Francis Newton Souza. He has consumed my life for more than 20 years and counting.
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Celestial nymph from India charms New York art market

Source Livemint by Arvind Vijaymohan
What does this suggest? Anyone following the art market would notice the escalating prices for works by Ravi Varma. “Is Ravi Varma the hottest artist on the block… the one to go after?” someone asked me as the auction was winding down. The three works by Varma mentioned above reference mythology, and belong to his most sought-after body of work. A commissioned portrait of a gentleman, for instance, wouldn’t command this level of interest. Varma, the grandfather of modern Indian painting, was known for combining Indian themes with “academic realism”, a style taught and perfected at the European academies of art.
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Seven ponds and a few raindrops, and 3 rhinos at Astor Place

Source News India Times by Sujeet Rajan
The Karnataka-based artist Ranjini Shettar’s intriguing installation ‘Seven ponds and a few raindrops’, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, courtesy of the Talwar Gallery, was the focal point of a weekend reception throw by the auction house Christie’s, to commence the Asia Week in New York. Suspended from the ceiling, ‘Seven ponds and a few raindrops’ comprises of molded pieces of stainless steel worked into a series of sensual, curved, amoebic, shape-shifting elements that have been covered in tamarind-stained muslin. The work seems to defy gravity, casting a series of mesmerizing shadows, which, from a distance, evoke the sense of having stumbled upon a surreal, hidden-away oasis.
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Highlights of Christie’s annual South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art upcoming auction in New York

Source DNA
A total of 75 lots involving artworks by the likes of Tyeb Mehta, SH Raza, VS Gaitonde, Bhupen Khakhar, Akbar Padamsee, Jehangir Sabavala from India are up for bids at Christie’s annual South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art on March 21. The cynosure of all eyes is Lot 222, the 1972 acrylic on canvas painting by Raza titled ‘Tapovan’ (forest of meditation). It shows his transitioning from French style of painting landscapes of villages stumbling down hillsides to the abstract, along with looking at Rajput paintings for composition and form, and the artist’s memories of growing up in densely forested villages of Central India. Eight other compositionally strong works of Raza are lined up for auction.
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Indian galleries to make presence felt at Hong Kong Art Basel fair 2018

Source Hindustan Times
India is slowly expanding its base at the annual Hong Kong Art Basel fair, with nine galleries taking part in the gala show this year. Fair director Adeline Ooi said she hoped to see in the next editions more representation from India, which showcased the works of six galleries in 2017 and four in 2016. “I am very greedy. I want more Indian galleries because one of the roles of this show is to highlight the diversities in Asia,” said Ooi. The fair, to begin on March 26, will feature 247 leading galleries from 32 countries, including 28 first-time exhibitors.
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Chittoprasad: A Retrospective

Source Artnet News
Chittaprosad documented pivotal political and social movements in the country, such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 and its fallout in heart-wrenching sketches and drawings, alongside protests against colonialism, economic exploitation, urban poverty and depravity, just as beautifully as the many drawings, linocuts and scraper board illustrations, and marionettes he made for children that recorded a beatific phase of plenitude and family values. The show celebrates his triumph over the circumstances of his highly principled life, which he devoted completely to art, rejecting market forces to communicate a truth that was unequivocally his. The social and political relevance of his work resonates just as powerfully today as it did then.
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Deep inside Aarey, these mud huts are still a world removed from the concrete jungle

Source The Times of India by Nergish Sunavala
In recent times, the tribals of Aarey have allied with residents of the nearby high-rises for the ‘Save Aarey’ campaign, a movement that gained steam after the government proposed uprooting thousands of trees to build a metro car-shed. The campaign made Bhoir realize that his forest has well-wishers in the city. And that his way of life enriches not only his family and pada but the world beyond. “I have grown over 500 jackfruit, mango and coconut trees on my property alone,” says Bhoir. “Now, imagine how many trees all the adivasis in Aarey have grown. Together, we’ve created an oxygen factory for Mumbai.”
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The art of war: The irony of arms trader Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Subodh Gupta’s studio

Source Scroll In by Girish Shahane
A month ago I travelled from Agra to deepest Gurgaon to interview, for a French magazine, one of India’s best-known artists, Subodh Gupta. A retrospective of Gupta’s work is scheduled to open in mid-April at the Monnaie de Paris, the world’s oldest continuously operational mint. Housed since the second half of the 18th century in a neo-classical building on the banks of the Seine, the mint produces euro coins in a section of its premises, while the rest is given over to a museum displaying historical coins and shows of contemporary art.
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Pushpamala speaks art in many languages

Source The Hindu by Shailaja Tripathi
When Pushpamala N. embarked on her artistic voyage in the late 70s, she chose to do it with sculpture. She studied under Balan Nambiar in Bangalore, and Raghav Kaneria in MS University, Baroda. "Making sculptures used to be a solemn activity and I remember, once when I was stuck, my teacher Raghav Kaneria suggested that I turn my funny sketches into sculptures and it worked. This led to my first body of painted plaster sculptures of women which were very humourous - and I continued using wit and humour in my work,” remembers Pushpamala, one of Karnataka’s finest creative minds.
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Auction Preview – Analytical Insights – Sotheby’s New York: Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art – March 19, 2018

Source Blouin Art Info
The Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction on March 19 in New York will feature masterworks from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Some of the most important and avant-garde artists from India and the subcontinent will be represented, including an exceptional painting of the Apsara Tillottama by Raja Ravi Varma, a monumental semi-abstracted landscape by Sayed Haider Raza from 1980 as well as several iconic works by Maqbool Fida Husain, Francis Newton Souza and Ganesh Pyne. Also featured in the sale are two important Bikash Bhattacharjee works from the collection of one of his earliest patrons, Helen and Herb Gordon, the American Consul General to Calcutta in the late 1960s. This sale will also feature an exciting and diverse selection of modern and contemporary photography of India, including Margaret Bourke-White’s “Gandhi and the Spinning Wheel,” identified by Time magazine as one of the “100 most influential images of all time.”
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«EN INDE, LES RESPONSABLES POLITIQUES NE S'INTÉRESSENT PAS À L’ART»

Source Libération par Laurence Defranoux
C’est un grand entrepôt très loin du centre de New Delhi. Gurgaon est une banlieue récente, le royaume des nouvelles classes moyennes, où les chefs d’Etat ne s’aventurent pas en général. C’est pourtant là que, dimanche soir, Emmanuel et Brigitte Macron ont visité l’atelier de Subodh Gupta, célèbre artiste contemporain indien, au deuxième jour de leur visite d’Etat en Inde.
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‘If you bring out important work, there will be collectors’

Source The Indian Express by Vandana Kalra
In 2006, when SH Raza’s Tapovan was auctioned for $1.4 million, it created a record for the artist. Now, more than a decade later, the 1972 work will once again come under the hammer at the Christie’s New York sale on March 21. Deepanjana Klein, International Head, Department for South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art at Christie’s, feels it is among the most seminal works of the artist. A PhD in Indian Art History from De Montfort University in England, the art expert talks about the upcoming auction, art market in India, and Christie’s operations here.
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A photographer confronts racism in post-Brexit England and explores what it means to be British-Asian

Source The Washington Post by Chloe Coleman
“My mother, father and brother have been cremated and have had their ashes placed within running water in the lakes and rivers of this country. What is it to be a Punjabi in England? I speak Punjabi; understand the language. My mannerisms are English, yet when I speak Punjabi, the movement of my arms and head tend to elaborate and mimic the rhythmic tone and vocabulary of the forms and sounds generated by the Punjabi vocal cord. It’s quite beautiful and liberating,” Max Kandhola wrote in an artist statement for his body of work, “Roti Kapra aur Makaan” (Food Cloths and shelter).
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Anniversary tribute: ‘Messages from Bhupen Khakhar’ offers rare insight into the Indian artist

Source Scroll In by Aakash Karkare
Bhupen Khakhar inhabited many worlds. There was the ordinary world of the Mumbai-born man who spent much of his life working as a chartered accountant in Vadodara. And then there was the colourful universe of his paintings, where, with immaculate detail and sharp observation, he satirised the ordinary lives of everyday people, a milieu to which he too belonged. That mileu is explored in extraordinary detail in Messages from Bhupen Khakhar, a 1983 documentary by the Arts Council of Great Britain, which was given unprecedented access to the contemporary artist.
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PEM Appoints New Curator of Indian and South Asian Art

Source India New England
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) announced the appointment of Siddhartha V. Shah as Curator of Indian and South Asian Art. Shah comes to PEM from Columbia University with academic interests that include the aesthetics of imperial rule in British India, Tantric cults of the Divine Feminine and late 19th century British and French painting. In addition to working as an independent curator, Shah spent 15 years as a gallerist, specializing in Hindu and Buddhist art of the Kathmandu Valley as well as modern and contemporary Indian art.
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A date with contemporary India in Houston

Source The Hindu by Tejal Pandey
Stories have a universal appeal in making the mundane intriguing. It’s no wonder then, that storytelling happens to be one of the oldest tools of passing on information in the world. Traditions, customs, laws of the land and events might differ amongst cultures, but as soon as they’re transformed into stories, they become accessible experiences for one and all.
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Art without borders

Source Livemint by Rahul Kumar
For Tarshito, the collaborative process seeks creativity that combines the sensibilities of East and West. “My purpose is to find unity through love and compassion. My art is the reason I travel, and the art-making process for me is like taking a selfie, something that helps me see who I am,” says Tarshito over a south Indian meal at Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village, as he prepares to open his solo show, Tarshito Falls In Love With India. His practice involves a collaborative approach, combining folk and contemporary sensibilities. Travelling around the world to work with traditional craftsmen, he likes to immerse himself in the moment, and enjoy and embrace whatever it has to offer. “We must unify what we think, speak and do to live a complete life,” he adds.
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Community of Colours

Source The Indian Express by Vandana Kalra
Out for sundry work, Bhopal-based artist Bhajju Shyam recalls picking a call from an unknown number, late January, that turned out to be an official from the Ministry of Home Affairs informing him that he had been conferred a Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honour. Rooted in the folk tales and culture of the Gond community, Shyam feels the award belongs not just to him, but also others from the tribe. “I could not even dream of this award and it is a matter of pride for all artists pursuing the genre,” says Shyam, 46.
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Why the Indian contemporary art market is in the doldrums

Source Hindustan Times by Udayan Mukherjee
Indian art infrastructure is pathetic. China has 4,000 museums, we probably have 40. China considers art a “pillar industry”; it hardly ever finds mention in the annals of our policy landscape. Our art schools are crumbling. There was a time when titans of our art scene adorned the faculties of schools such as Kala Bhavan (Santiniketan), Sir JJ School (Mumbai) and MS University (Baroda) and inspired the next generation. Those days are gone. Relatively recent initiatives like the India Art Fair and the Kochi Muziris biennale are welcome but ironically may serve to highlight the huge quality gap between Indian and global contemporary artists. The Indian government is simply not interested. Our minister of culture and arts has no time. There are some private initiatives like the Kiran Nadar Museum, but it’s a drop in the ocean.
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The enchanted forest, the legacy of Jangarh Singh Shyam

Source Art & Deal by Indira Lakshmi Prasad
Last October, Bikaner House in New Delhi hosted the exhibition of legendary modern Gond tribal artist Jangarh Singh Shyam. The exhibition was held following the release of the book ‘The Enchanted Forest’ by Aurogeeta Das and published by Roli Books, which focuses on the life, work and legacy of the artist. Work from the early days of Jangarh’s career was exhibited alongside the works he produced towards the end of his life, and the progression evident in the works is a visual journey of the development of an artist who emerged from humble and rooted beginnings, and was catapulted into the international art scene as a pioneer of the modern tribal art movement. In fact the term ‘Jangarh Kalam’ was coined after Jangarh Singh Shyam paved the way for others like him to bring their ancestral craft into relevance in the contemporary art scene.
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9 women artists across the centuries whose bold brush strokes left a mark

Source Yourstory by Tamanna Mishra
When it comes to the world of art, the difference between men and women appears to be stark. The work of women artists has not only been undervalued over the centuries but also overlooked. Women have faced multiple challenges in selling their art and getting commissions, and even travelling around to paint has been fraught with challenges.
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10 artworks from the 10th Edition of the India Art Fair you would want to own

Source Architectural Digest by Shailza Rai
The 2018 India Art Fair, New Delhi brought together the who’s who of the art world — artists, gallerists, academicians, writers, collectors, connoisseurs, and revellers — to appreciate, scrutinize and engage in discourse on art from the subcontinent. Over three intense days of booth hopping, we came across art works that ranged from the monumental to the abstract. While some works represent the maker’s meditative relation with the universe and self, others stand in for their rigorous engagement with the political climate of the country and abroad. Some of the artworks are paintings while others are experimental, three-dimensional works and sculptural installations. Here’re 10 artworks we considered the most impactful, both in terms of the themes explored and the material nature of the work.
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India's Indigenous Art

Source Galleries West by Beverly Cramp
India, like Canada, has hundreds of Indigenous communities that may lack material wealth but are rich in stories and visual creativity. And like Indigenous art in Canada – think Inuit art from the 1950s onward and West Coast art from even earlier – there’s been a push in India to have their work recognized as fine art. A large touring exhibition, Many Visions, Many Versions: Art from Indigenous Communities in India, showcases more than 45 works from 24 artists at the Surrey Art Gallery in Greater Vancouver, its only stop in Canada.
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Artist Rithika Merchant Gives a Whirlwind Tour of Her Favorite Cities, From Barcelona to Mumbai

Source Vogue by Elise Taylor
Artist Rithika Merchant has lived in Mumbai, New York, and Paros, Greece, but it’s the seaside city of Barcelona that’s stolen her heart. There’s her favorite tapas restaurant just around the corner from her apartment in La Barceloneta that makes savory, spicy Spanish tapas for even a vegetarian like her. Or the Vietnamese spot where she celebrated her last birthday. Then there are the urban beaches and Labyrinth Park of Horta, the elaborate hedge maze perched high above them. But what really won her over? “The tiny little gardens and tiny little squares all over the city,” she says.
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Indians Celebrating India at Houston FotoFest

Source The New York Times by Rena Silverman
Photography in India is a paradox. There are ample commercial opportunities, but not a single school devoted to the medium. So, for the people of the world’s seventh largest country — with a population expected to overtake China — choosing a career in photography means either learning on the job or studying outside the country.
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