Art Exhibition - THUKRAL & TAGRA: "3227, Sector 23 (German Returned)"- at Nature Morte

Pic courtesy: http://www.naturemorte.com/exhibitions

What is the event?

THUKRAL & TAGRA: "3227, Sector 23 (German Returned)

A solo exhibition by the dynamic duo of Thukral & Tagra

“The desires, fantasies, hopes and dreams of The Great Indian Middle Class converge into an installation steeped in saccharine sweetness and morbid longing. Thukral & Tagra, living and working in Gurgaon, paint pictures of the garishly inappropriate mini-mansions that pop up like weeds all around them in this precocious satellite city of New Delhi. But these paeans to conspicuous consumption are not rooted in the soils of Mother India. Rather, they float on clouds of limpid pastels, trussed up by gossamer threads and floral tributes, more Heaven than Home, their facades of an ersatz Classicism and unrecognizable references signaling a whole-hearted embrace of a Post-Modern Globalization. T&T wallow in the contradictions, lathering on the Kitsch with a sardonic wink that acknowledges the ancestry of European Surrealism in the construction of the contemporary Indian identity, the vampiric relationship between fashion and prestige which has come to define our domiciles.”

Pic courtesy: http://www.naturemorte.com/exhibitions

Who are the Artists?

Thukral & Tagra

Jiten Thukral
Born 1976, Jalandhar, Punjab, India
The Artist Lives and Works in New Delhi
Education: 1998 BFA, Chandigarh Art College
2000 MFA, New Delhi College of Art

Sumir Tagra
Born 1979, New Delhi, India
The Artist Lives and Works in New Delhi
Education: 2002 BFA, New Delhi College of Art
2006 PG, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
1999 Shankar’s Academy of Arts, New Delhi

Where?

Nature Monte’s gallery space in the luxury retail arcade of The Oberoi hotel in Gurgaon. 

NATURE MORTE
THE OBEROI, GURGAON
443, Udyog Vihar, Phase-V,
Gurgaon-122016 INDIA
Gallery: (91) 124-4010443
Off. (91) 11- 2956-1596
info@naturemorte.com / nmoberoi@naturemorte.com
www.naturemorte.com

(Note: this exhibition is not in their main gallery space at A1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi.)

When?

Opening on Friday, December 23rd from 6 to 9pm.
Exhibition continues to Tuesday, January 31st, 2012.

Contact:

Nature Morte at The Oberoi Gurgaon is open every day, from 11am to 9pm. For more information and press photographs please contact Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596 or Gary Jacob at (0124) 4010443.

'Art Beat' in Delhi and 'Art Attack' in Mumbai?

Art Beat in Delhi and Art Attack in Mumbai?

"Stop, Indians ahead"

 The grand success of the third India Art summit in Pragati Maidan Delhi raises a question as to  why such mega events are not happening in Mumbai, which was supposed to be the art capital of India, a decade ago. Has Mumbai lost its thriving Art capital status to the Capital of India?

Here are some excerpts from a noteworthy   article from Bombay Times of today, on this subject:

• While in Mumbai art is found only in traditional galleries and exhibition halls, Delhi has art in malls and even in night clubs!
• Mumbai has no art event close to the scale of Art Summit of Delhi which attracted 1,28,000 visitors over four days. The works of 500 Indian Modern and contemporary artists were showcased in 84 galleries.
• Number of art galleries is more in Delhi and it is geographically wide spread across the entire city. Whereas in Mumbai the galleries are concentrated only in South Mumbai. “Delhi is more open to public installations, which Mumbai does not permit. The NGMA in Delhi is active and doing greater shows, but the one in Mumbai is pathetic. During the Art Summit in Delhi, the entire Government machinery gets involved. The Mumbai art fair gets no such support from the Government” says Mumbai-based gallery owner  Pravina Mecklai
• Exploring new avenues for art proves to be successful for Delhi, whereas it is not working in Mumbai. Kiran Nadar the wife of Siva nadir has opened the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in a mall. “to bring visibility and appreciation t art”.
• Mithu basu of Dolna Art Gallery explains “I tried to have an art event along with a fashion week and tied up with MCEA club to host art events, but exploring nontraditional spaces in Mumbai isn’t easy”
• Delhi is showing creativity in spaces where art is exhibited. The capital’s corporate art lovers, industrialists and hoteliers are indulging in new creative projects and redefining art spaces.
• “Lado Sara in Delhi is coming up as art hub while Jamia is coming up with Hussain gallery. However Mumbai’s Bhau Daji Lad museum has also started doing some interesting work. I think it will be interesting to see where the two cities go from here” – Peter Nagy of Nature Morte gallery Delhi.

 Courtesy: intach.org

"Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai :  INTACH won the Award of Excellence in the UNESCO 2005 Asia Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation for the restoration of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Opened in 1872, it is the oldest museum in Mumbai and documents the city’s history and diverse cultural heritage"

Art galleries can express their views as comments to this post  

Of Value and Labour - The first solo exhibition of Ravi Agarwal at The Guild art Gallery

What is the event?

The first solo exhibition of Ravi Agarwal

Of Value and Labour

 

Some of the works being presented in the exhibition were documented in a monograph titled ‘Down and Out :Labouring under Global Capitalism,’ Jan Breman, Arvind Das and Ravi Agarwal, OUP, 2000, New Delhi.

The body of the work was produced between 1996 and 2000 and was sited in South Gujarat, in and around the city of Surat, as a collaborative project with Jan Breman, the well known Dutch labour anthropologist who has been researching in India for over 45 years

 Who is the Artist?

Ravi Agarwal

Ravi Agarwal is a photographer artist, writer, curator and environmental activist. He explores issues of urban space, ecology, capital in an interrelated ways working with photographs, video, performance, on-site installations and public art. 

Agarwal has participated in several international shows including Documenta XI (Kassel 2002), ‘Horn Please,’ Kunstmuseum, Bern, 2007; ‘Indian Highway’ (2009 ongoing); ‘Generation in Transition,’ National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; ‘The Eye is a Lonely Hunter, Images of Humankind,’ at Fotofestival Mannheim_ludwigshafen_Heidelberg; ‘After the Crash’ at Museo Orto Botanico, Rome; his recent solo show being ‘Flux: dystopia, utopia, heterotopia,’ Gallery Espace, New Delhi.

Agarwal recently co-curated a twin city public art project, Yamuna-Elbe.Public.Art.Outreach. He writes extensively on ecological issues, and is also founder of the leading Indianenvironmental NGO, Toxics Link. He is an engineer by training.

Where?

The Guild 

02/32, Kamal Mansion, 2nd floor
Arthur Bunder Road, Colaba Mumbai 400005
+91 22 2288 0116 / 0195
adminoffice
+9122 2287 5839 /6211 fax + 91 22 2287 6210 
www.guildindia.com 

 

When?

16th December, 2011 – 2nd January, 2012

Preview: Thursday, December 15, 6.30 – 8.30 pm

Entry Free

Visit to Art Galleries - The Guild art Gallery Colaba Mumbai

I have heard and read a lot about the gallery ‘The Guild’ and it was a dream come true  when I made my first visit to this most popular gallery on 23-11-2011  It was a pleasant experience that  I was treated  like a ‘chief guest’ by their  courteous staff Urvi, though I was a new visitor to the gallery. This  warm hospitality  is definitely the one that distinguishes ‘The Guild’ from other art galleries.

How to reach there?

Address:

 02/32, Kamal Mansion, 2nd floor, 

Arthur Bunder Road, Colaba,

Mumbai 400 005 India.

Phone number : + 91 22 2288 0116 / 0195

Mail: theguildart@yahoo.com , theguildart@gmail.com 

Land mark:  Radio club Colaba  Mumbai.

A detailed Google map is also available in the site of the gallery: http://www.guildindia.com/aboutus.htm

Gallery Timings:

Monday - Saturday 10.00 am - 6.30 pm

Please note that the gallery timing is extended during 2^nd Thursday of every month up to 9:30 PM and  to accommodate the art enthusiasts, it is open on every 4^th Sundays also  from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm

 About the gallery?

History:

·         Established in late 1997

·         From 2006 , for a period of 5 years it had its presence in New York to show works of artists from Diaspora and other South Asian Regions

“The focus of the gallery has been to discover and promote young emerging artists, to provide a platform for discursive practices, innovative ideas and to promote the represented artist at international levels.”

Ambiance:

Since its inception it has moved to different places coping with the growth and now in the above address in a building surrounded by contemporary art galleries. The ambiance of the art gallery is so good that it is in a building with a high raised ceilings and a  spacious hall to display art work of any size in a magnificent way.

Books published by the gallery:

Apart from conducting art exhibitions, The Guild is promoting great awareness about contemporary art in many ways like annual workshops, interactive sessions with artists and audiences. 

As a part of awareness creation process, The Guild has published 7 books which are the landmarks in contemporary art world:

  

        

                                                                 

The gallery is having very good inventories also.

Current Event in The Guild Gallery:

       

Ravi Agarwal - Of  Value and Labour

 16th December, 2011 – 2nd January, 2012 

Preview: Thursday, December 15, 6.30 – 8.30 pm

A detailed post on this will come soon.

Mario Miranda (1926- 2011) RIP - the 'Goa'toonist who made us laugh by an inimitable style of pen sketches

From yesterday, Goa stopped sending laughter to the world. Thought that it was time for Mario to go and entertain the Paradise. But the creations of eminent cartoonist Mario Miranda will remain eternally forever  in  our world– a distinct style of cartoon featuring a team of naughty characters like  buxom secretary, Ms. Fonseca’ the Boss, office clerk Godbole, Mrs Nimboopan, Bundaldass and Moonswamyi .

Mario was born on 2 may 1926 in Daman, studied in St Xavier College in Mumbai. He attended JJ School of art only for a day and decided to have his own style of drawing. His natural talent saw him as a freelancer and brought him awards and honors.

In 1998 he was conferred Padma Shri and in 2002, Padma Bhushan.

He was the first Indian Cartoonist  to get invitations from across different parts of the world. His creations appeared in international cartoon magazines like ‘Punch’ , ‘Mad’ and ‘Peanuts’ of Charles Shultz in US.

Any one, who thinks of Mario would immediately imagine Goa and vice verse. Nobody would have depicted the packed variety of Mumbaikars and the spirit of the busy Mumbai better than Mario with the pen strokes. He used to say “Salam Mumbai” in his own style.

 In my early years when I open Illustrated Weekly,  used to get amazed at  the way he filled a entire big  page of  the  magazine with lot of characters  sometimes with traffic jam and sometimes with the Goa beach, travelers with big hats and lot of palm and coconut trees. ‘Laff it off’ was his comic series appeared in the Weekly regularly.  Nobody can  forget the ‘sardarji in a bulb’ an icon for Kushwant Singh.

“ I am greatly grieved by his death. Mario was one of our first friends in Mumbai. His drawings and sketches endowed with a special quality that was un matched.” – R.K.Laxman.

Diego Rivera - Renaissance fresco painting and modern art of Cubism in murals

Picture Courtesy:http://en.wikipedia.org

Today is the 125^th birthday of the greatest Mexican painter of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera  who is credited with the reintroduction of Renaissance fresco painting of Italy into modern art of Cubism and architecture.

 

Diego Rivera ( de A go rih VEH rə) was born in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1886. Even at the very young age of six years  Diego loved to draw and his father made a studio for him by covering the walls with black canvas on which he could draw with chalk. He enrolled in evening art classes at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. At age 16 he left and started his career as a painter. In Paris, Rivera encountered the works of such great masters as Cézanne, Gauguin, Renoir, and Matisse. When he was looking for a new attractive and massive medium for complex painting to depict history and the life of people, he was attracted by the Fresco mural forms. After adopting this , his fame grew with a number of large murals depicting scenes from Mexican history.

Picture Courtesy:biblelessonsite.org

Frescoes are mural paintings done on fresh plaster. Using the fresco form in universities and other public buildings, Rivera was able to introduce his work into the everyday lives of the people.

In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form— the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics.

Picture Courtesy:http://en.wikipedia.org

 

During 1930, he was invited to paint murals in the United States. He painted for American Stock Exchange Luncheon Club and for the California School of Fine Arts. Then went to Detroit where in 1932 and 1933 he painted scenes from a Ford Motor plant.

Man at the Cross Roads- pic Courtesy- http://constellationdefiant.wordpress.com

Wherever possible he depicted his views supporting communism and the struggle of working class.Because of his radical politics and independent nature Rivera faced lot of  criticism during his early years in America. Rockefellers asked Rivera to paint a mural for the lobby of the RCA building in Rockefeller Center. “Man at the Crossroads” was to depict the social, political, industrial, and scientific possibilities of the twentieth century. In the painting, Rivera included a scene of a giant May Day demonstration with  portrait of Lenin leading the demonstration. When Rivera refused to remove the portrait, he was ordered to stop and the painting was destroyed.

Rivera’s  mural Dreams of a 'Sunday in the Alameda' depicted  his atheistic views by a text reading as  "God does not exist". This work caused a furor, but Rivera refused to remove the inscription. The painting was not shown for 9 years – until Rivera agreed to remove the inscription.

His personal life was eventful as he married and divorced many times and lost his child. He married Angelina, a Russian artist he met in London and later on Frida Kahlo a young artist of Mexico. In later years, his right arm became paralyzed due to stroke and he continued to paint with his left hand. He died of heart failure in 1957 at the age of seventy-one.

Visit to Art Galleries - 'ART MUSINGS' Colaba, Mumbai ,shaping contemporary Indian Art

My dream to visit art galleries came true on 23-11-2011 during my stay in Mumbai. With great eagerness and thrill I started my journey from my place to Church gate and reached the galleries that are located in and around Colaba area.

Art Musings

How to reach there?

Address:

No 1, Admirality Building

Colaba Cross lane, Colaba, Mumbai.

Phone number :91 22 22163339 and 91 22 22186071

But it is difficult for any one to reach the place by just following the above postal address. However when I contacted the gallery over phone they readily helped me , talked to the cab driver and guided him.What you need to know is  the land mark. Unlike the Public Galleries, the private and popular  gallery is situated in a small lane adjacent to Colaba Bus Station. You can reach the place by taxi from Churchgate at a very reasonable price. The Bus route numbers are 132, 137 and 70.

later on when I browsed their web site I saw a very useful location map ( I should have checked it before starting my trip !)

About the gallery?

The gallery though situated in a small lane, is very appealing and spacious with ground floor and first floor having enough space to display large art creations.

Picture Courtesy: http://www.artmusings.net

The gallery was founded in 1999 and around 60 shows have been conducted here within the 12 years of its establishment.

 In their own words, "The gallery has been extremely responsive to the emergent vocabularies shaping contemporary Indian art and has played a key role in nurturing a spectrum of artistic practices. Over the years Art Musings have offset exhibitions by renowned Indian modernists such as F N Souza, Ram Kumar, S H Raza, M F Husain, Akbar Padamsee, K G Subramanyan, Anjolie Ela Menon, Sakti Burman, and Jogen Chowdhury with shows by contemporary artists such as Nalini Malani, Baiju Parthan, Reena Saini Kallat, Gopikrishna, Smriti Dixit, Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Suneel Mamadapur, Maya Burman, Shibu Natesan, Raghava KK & Nilofer Suleman. It is our endeavour to take the works of these artists, and others, to a collector base that is spread across Asia, Europe and North America."

What was the event on the day of visit?

Besides visiting the gallery my another motivation for this trip was the Art Exhibition called "Exquisite Cadaver" by the great artist K.K. Raghava. To know about this artist please see our post in art bay india blog

 

The gallery looked bright with narrative text in style about the title of the exhibition and about each creation displayed.

I spent lot of time in seeing around 16 abstract paintings of acrylic and water color media, displayed in both the halls. Of them the best paintings of my choice are - 

"24:00" Acrylic on canvas

" In addition to Domestic Disaster Relief" - Water color on paper

"Preferred to the shadow" -Water color on paper

"The six digit Fidget" - Water color on paper

Current Exhibition:

'50 REVOLUTIONS AROUND THE SUN'

A Solo Show by NIKHIL CHAGANLAL