Category: Feature

REMEMBERING BHUPEN Sandhya Bordewekar In Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie’s autobiography that spans the 14 years he spent in hiding after the Ayatollah’s fatwa in the wake of The Satanic Verses, there are a good three-four pages devoted to Bhupen Khakhar. Rushdie was extremely impressed with Bhupen Khakhar whom he specifically chose to paint his portrait […]

JAIPUR ART SUMMIT: WHERE THE MUNDANE MET THE MASTERS Yasra Daud khoker The Jaipur Art Summit left me with some homework. I have to go out on my own, buy groceries and experience an auto rickshaw ride. I shall elaborate on that later, but first, let us contemplate as to what the event brought to […]

Domains of Eco-Criticism – Siddharth Sivakumar While upstairs, we discovered an angry young man with an interest in western modernism, down stairs we meet a happy old man contemplating on his own cultural moorings. His large sculptural installation Bahuroopi and two large canvases dominated the large central hall, through which one entered the exhibition on […]

Metro Dreamin’ (or.. ‘Buy one get one free’) – Aditya Dhawanfor survival begins all over again…and again…and again. Sometimes my story, sometimes his story, sometimes our story. That worn out shoe beneath the glitter and flare. Quiet acceptance or simmering revolt? Like that man who stared right back at me through a parted sea of […]

A Decisive Market for Cameras Anurag Sharma The mention of the place known as ‘Chandni Chowk’ to any photography enthusiast, amateur or professional, has the potential to create a plethora of images in one’s mind. And if you want to add an element of ‘desire’ to this imagery just mention the ‘Camera market’. Markets have […]

Photography as Reconciliation : The Art of Chandan Gomes Johny ML Only with a shudder, Chandan could remember 16th December, 2012. After a house party at a friend’s pad, he was returning home with a female friend in a chartered bus at night. The next morning he woke up seeing the horrifying news of the […]

Baroda’s Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University Sandhya Bordewekar This is perhaps the only art institution in the country offering programs leading to Diploma and PG Diploma, Bachelor’s (BVA) and Master’s Degree (MVA), and finally, Ph.Ds in full-fledged departments such as Painting and Mural, Sculpture and Ceramics, Graphics, Applied Arts, Museology, and Art History […]

Kala Bhavana : A Living Tradition Siddharth Sivakumar It is said that a true universal man is inspired to look beyond his time and space, while being constantly motivated by ground realities and local interests. Managing the seemingly paradoxical was the crucial task set by Tagore, and achieved by Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Binodebehari […]

The J. J. School Of Art Brand Sushma Sabnis The Applied Art department offers the same in Illustration, Typography, Design Display, Computer Graphics and Photography. Applied art offers 100 seats each year, 95 are for the open category and 5 for outside Maharashtra state applicants. Any student who has cleared 12th standard in any stream […]

The CAPTION A probe into the birth and use of text to make meaning of photographs and its revolution in recent times R. Dhanya Probably the easiest to go without captions are landscapes or images of ‘natural beauty’. How often have we seen the Yosemite peaks pasted onto walls without the slightest idea of where […]

PHOTOGRAPHY….. WHERE TO FOCUS? Dr .Meghali Goswami There is no such thing as true objectivity, of course, in photography or any other medium. By its nature, a photograph is an incomplete and therefore slanted picture of reality; it is a stylized depiction that represents exactly what the photographer wants us to see, and no more. […]

Enticing Images: Malls as Albums Sushma Sabnis If one travels into a distant future, one might nostalgically look at their then favourite mall structure with some then old actress selling the then used to be lotion-potion for eternal beauty. When one looks at the older photographs of the ‘mall’ family archives, one will be able […]

The prior substantiating the current: miniature Bhoomika Jain Anindita’s Bhattacharya’s works are a personal interpretation of a collective experience woven in and around the traditional consort of miniature paintings. Having lived and studied in Baroda and witnessing the perpetual communal tension in the state, she was drawn to explore Mughal history as an attempt towards […]

God is in the details: Tradition of the Islamic Arts Yasra Daud With the crowning of Akbar as emperor, the art of manuscript illustration began accommodating regional influences along with Persian technicality. Abd as –Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali were appointed master painters and they trained Mughal court painters in the Safavid tradition. Akbar is […]

Rahul Kumar Bhoomika Jain Rahul is among the fortunate ones… he does not have to wait for his art to sell to pay his bills, or to keep his conviction ridden quirky creativity, sinuous. This he says is liberating! That is perhaps why he succeeds “to use this medium to express, to honestly and genuinely […]

Reading the aphorisms on love by Akka Mahadevi and Muddupalani Aparna Roy Baliga She in her vachanas talks about love and longing, love in separation and union . ‘Once I beg the cupid Once again beg the moon humbly let go this viraha’ Her verses reflects Barthes‘…..the other comes here where I am waiting, here […]

Seema Kohli – Parikrama The Yoginis, a group of tantric divinities (usually 64 or 81 in number) are not mothers, though the principal Yoginis are identified with the eight or Asthamatrikas. The Kaulajnananirnaya text (probably 11th century CE) tells us that the Yoginis live in the sky, and that when they wander the earth they […]

FOLK AND TRADITIONAL ART OF ASSAM : Dr. Meghali Goswami If art becomes a specialized vocation, the urge to deny tradition in viewing art as a totality becomes strong and often leads to a narrow-minded representation of life in a creative medium. The urge to express, communicate, and share something beautiful, gave birth to visual […]

Play for Joy of Seeing Celebration of Partha Pratim’s CreationPartha Pratim Deb need not know that there was a long tradition of thought on creative motive, in Sanskrit, comprising copious discourses on Leela as the prime mover in creativity, or better, the creative activity. Leela is the no-win-no-loss game that the divine creator plays, resulting […]

DIRECTIONS – IN NEW NARRATIVES – Rahul Bhattacharya Probir Gupta’s artistic practice has always found its edge by producing art which is a constant subversion of the fashionable, in the manner that medium, form, motifs are chosen, rendered and images presented. Yet Gupta’s subversion does not take the direction of the anti aesthetic. In fact, […]

THE ART OF AKASH CHOYALJaipur based Gallery Artchill in upcoming India Art Fair will take the World’s breath away showcasing truly unique 3D artworks and airy sculptures by Indian artist Akash Choyal. As the Cherry on Top will be other one-off project by Artchill – launch of the first Contemporary 3D Art Book in the […]

CONVERSATIONS WITH ETERNITY Just two days aft er the passing away of India’s renowned abstract landscape artist, Rajendra Dhawan, on the 2nd November 2012, a new kind of nature based abstraction s being born. It marks a signifi cant departure from the understanding of nature and abstraction, and the politics of stillness and pause. Deepak […]

THE MAKER OF LARGEST WOOD CUT PRINTS IN THE WORLD, INDIAN ARTIST SANJAY KUMAR PAVES HIS WAY INTO NGMA & GUINESS WORLD RECORDS His wood-cut prints were exhibited along with that of Raza and Souza in French Biennale in the 7th Biennale Internationale de la Gravure d’Ile de France, 2009. Recipient of nearly 38 awards […]

Paresh Maity was born in 1965 at Tamluk, a town of great antiquity, with a remarkable heritage of terracotta art, situated on the banks of the Rupnarayan river, located in the south-west part of Kolkata. The river’s cape with its boats, the lush green fields near it’s bank, the sea, the canal and the vast […]