Category: Feature

Ethics In Contemporary Photojournalism – Has Kajodi Reached Home? – Rahul Bhattacharya Many years ago, the Wanted series initiated the dialogue on ethics in photography. a seminar was organised at max muller Bhavan delhi in collaboration with goa- Cap and askar. subsequently, the goethe Institute at New delhi tried to formulate a working group which […]

CURATION IN THE ABSENCE OF ART CRITICISM Rahul Bhattacharya CURATION came to India as a curse and a charm. Just like steel and glass in architecture, it is/was shiny, ‘new’ and Global. There was also a fundamental vacuum in the pedagogical and discursive aspects of Indian modern and contemporary art. Even until the dawning of […]

An Enigma Of Colour: A Feature On Nupur Kundu Jyoti Kathpalia "I am blessed! My passion is also my profession…Each experience of my life, my training as a dancer, my thoughts, my vision, each emotion and spiritual adventures are transformed as movement and colour in my paintings." As one stands in front of a canvas […]

Artist, Craftsman & Researcher: M Reddeppa Naidu Mansi Dhiman Mandhwani In the art world, facts are sometimes given short compensation in favour of concepts and ideas. That’s good for creative enthusiasm and spirit, but perhaps not so much for the idea of making a living as an artist. Previously there were patronages and endowments, mostly […]

Aruna Sairam a musical journey through time Hema Iyer Ramani Strains of beautiful lines such as these wafted through the entire space ina homely apartment in Bombay each morning. If itwas in praise of Rama one day, it was Muruga or Krishna the other day. Aruna Sairam woke up each morning with a glimpse of […]

Urbanity-boon or bane? Kalicharan Gupta ’s colossal vision for metropolis Apurva Sinha When we talk about roots, what comes to one’s mind? Depth, strength, belongingness, nostalgia – as warming pool of personal emotions. Here we are, living in a deeply rooted society that breathes and bleeds in terms of indelible and unreadable emotions.One strongly feels […]

Figuring out with figures sculptures by K S Radhakrishnan Palak Dubey The figures created by the artist surpass the distinctions of all sorts and excel in making their presence felt as pure, quintessential human forms, embracing myriad emotional and spiritual expanses passionately. The distortion and simplification of the figure accelerates the metaphorical strengths and weaves […]

Individual Resistance to Institutional Gaze: Art Fairs, Kala Melas, Dasara Shows and the Soliloquy of K. Venkatappa H. A. Anil KUmar The tradition and history of Indian Art Fairs, Art Melas, Kala Godas and Chitrasanthes (fairs) are not comfortable in acknowledging a certain ancestry, despite knowing that they are not swayambus (selfborn or udhbhava-murthy). Most […]

Magical Realism Of A. Ramachandran Uma Nair Ramachandran at NGMA Bangalore is to be part of a chapter in the life of a Modern Master who has one eye on Renaissance and another on the power of experience. Defined by knowledge, a rich perspective of mythology, drawn from great Indian epics, the paintings of this […]

Tribal Art: An Iconic Offer at Lalit Kala Akademi Subhra Mazumdar Tribal Art displays at major galleries by and large, have been sporadic attempts to gather together a group of practitioners, with familial bonds, provide them a space and thereafter, hold a wine and cheese do, around the works. While such efforts hold merit as […]

Shampa Sircar Das’Devi Uma Nair The colours are juxtaposed to construct a range of hues that sedate and inspire a quiet meditative mood. And as the work progresses it is becomes more aesthetic and less of an idea, and the vision starts getting clearer and clearer layer-by-layer. Shampa Sircar Das is an artist who creates […]

Crafting Creative Intricaies With Time And Space: Sumakshi Singh Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat She is a designer who crafts her painted, embroidered or sculpted artistry with dexterous skill and acute perception. Her crafted creations of forms and objects have saliency of intricacy, delicacy, fragility, complexity and intrigue. She is a Delhi based educator and an […]

Traversing Inhabitants Works By Fawad Tamkanat And Nipun Kumar Palak Dubey The works by Fawad Tamkanat and Nipun Kumar clubbed together into a showtitled, ‘Crosscurrents’ were recently on display at Gallery Space, Hyderabad from July through August. The works by both the artists included in the show traverse through the urban terrain, transcending reality into […]

Kounteya’s Kolkata-Sainthood Project Uma Nair Kounteya’s photographs have become a massive draw across Italy with hundreds of people stopping to see the photos closely and learn about the city that gave Mother Teresa her name. Imagine a set of photographs that transcend boundaries of caste and creed-works that celebrate the power of culture and everyday […]

Divine Pleasures:Met Museum New York Kronos Collection 17th-19th Century Miniatures Uma Nair Divine Pleasures at the Met museum belongs to a curator who has gifted them to the Met museum-the sanctuary he worked at. This act of generosity speaks of great love, and this bouquet of miniatures is indeed an odyssey touched by the Divine. […]

Transforming Gunehar into an Art Stop Uma Nair Tucked away in the Kangra hills is a quaint hamlet called Gunehar which came alive for the Shop Art Art Shop 2 Project that was organised by three stalwarts who put their heads and hearts together. I use the word hearts because the confluence of the village […]

Images of the People and the Rhetoric of Images Aparna Roy Baliga How can one write about Bosnia, Biafra, Bangladesh, just to take only the atrocities that began with B…… – Bosnia by A.K. Ramanujan The forms of violence had been commoditized in the present art scene; there is a construal of an aesthetic of […]

Tallur’s Stones For Summer Uma Nair Galleries in Delhi usually partake of a humdrum torrid summer by doing a summer show culled from their archives.When one such showof 5 sculptures circles around an art genius who travels the world, it’s a must see. Skoda winner (2011) Tallur LN’s New Stone Sculptures at Nature Morte, draw […]

Cultural Entrepreneuship Tanya Abraham Cultural Entrepreneurship is a topic, which has interested me for a long time. The challenge, having been in the creative field for a while now, lies in the idea of lucrativeness. Entrepreneurship brings alive the picture of lucrativeness, a certain element of profit involved in an activity concerning business. Interesting. But […]

Power And Pathos : Arun Pandit Uma Nair “ For me the internet experience is a kind of disorientation which is the beginning and end, and in that way it’s like a closed question, that operates in a basic perceptual textbook in the human psyche, which also tells the reader, You see the image one […]

Renegotiang Imagery : Collages of V. V. Ramani Dr. Ashrafi s. Bhagat The contemporary discourse on Indian art is a witness to artists actively engaging with technology and manipulating its versatility to speak in many voices in order to express their concepts. Despite easy access to technology as the virtual world, computer graphics, videos, audios […]

Vineet Kacker : Grace and Poise Uma Nair Vineet Kacker the ceramist once described his works as originating from a deep appreciation of history and spiritual elements. This artistic passion, rooted in tradition, was the launching point that propelled him to eminence in India, and then to the international contemporary ceramic art world. Vineet’s solo […]

Musings On Womahood Lina Vincent Sunish The BBC recently produced a video that morphed 50 female portraits from the history of western art. ‘Changing Faces: 500 years of women’ showed portraits in chronological order, from Russian icon painting to Renaissance portraits of Titian, Raphael and Botticelli, to Picasso’s 1946 sketch of his lover and much […]

Bodies without garments and robe s of wisdom: The female bodies as imagined in Arpana Caur’s paintings Aparna Roy Baliga “This body that you are fussing over, This body that you’re dolling up, This body that you’re wearing to the party, This body will end as ash. Wear the robe of wisdom, BrandLalla’s words on […]

Acts of Occupation Waswo X. Waswo Waswo X. Waswo probes the shifting boundaries of the collaboration of different minds behind the exhibition “Sleeping through the Museum”. Collabor ation: 1. The act of working with another or others on a joint project 2. Something created by working jointly with another or others 3. The act of […]

Promise of Poise, Amrita Shergill : NGMA Uma Nair Marking the birth centenary celebrations of Amrita Shergill, NGMA along with Yashodhara Dalmia showcased an arresting collection of paintings reflecting not only her aesthetic sensibility, but also her strong upfront persona. Uma Nair explores the legendary artist’s works maintaining the delicate balance of Indianness with a […]

Horses, Mothers and Husain Sandhya Bordewekar Sandhya Bordewekar pays a tribute to the ‘Picasso of India’, Maqbool Fida Husain, as she attempts to live and breathe with the legendary artist through his personally signed serigraphed scrolls. Maqbool Fida Husain almost single-handedly gave Indian modern and contemporary art a global platform. At an informal survey that […]

Once Upon a Time: The Wonder Year s Yasra Daud Khoker As we grow older, we lose the ability to wonder. Big words and big things overshadow the little things that once seemed so big. Logic takes over solutions wrung dry of magic – not the technically sophisticated, ‘rational magic’ that J. K. Rowling taught […]

Alternative Art : Functional art-craftwork by artists Sandhya Bordewekar Exploring the concepts of a ‘product laboratory’ through innovative platforms like 0265, bridging the artwork versus craftwork divide in contemporary or traditional realms, Sandhya Bordewekar analyzes the nurturing kinship between the artist and the artisan. There has always been this rather uncomfortable turf between art and […]

The real, the palpable and the unseen in Kavita Jaiswal’s Compositions Mariam Karim There is a seeking and evocative quality in Kavita’s compositions which is an essential component of the mind of the contemporary abstract artist. It comes forward more in her work, deliberately involving the viewer in the process of artistic generation rather than […]

The print making idiom , route and milieu of Ajit Seal Dr.Meghali Goswami “I believe that art is a creative bridge between our imaginative vision, which tends to recreate the primal human condition, and our current artistic sensibility, which responds to the existential paradoxes ingrained in the human psyche” – Ajit Seal Some are born […]

GAITONDE LEADS CHRISTIE’S TO INDIA,- CONTEMPORARIES MAY WAIT JOHNY ML At Mumbai airport on 22nd December 2013 evening I was waiting in the lobby to catch a flight to Delhi. A middle-class family was sitting next to me. The father, who seemed to have nothing to do with art or art related activities, was reading […]

BACHHAWAT FOUNDATION: The Legacy Continues Art and Deal Correspondent With an aim to uphold their interest in promoting art and artists, writers and litterateurs, critics, craftsmen, poets, collectors, theorists, connoisseurs, the Bachhawat Foundation lays the foundation stone of building a culturally sound society in the city of joy, Kolkata, for generations to come, reports Art […]