Ashok Nag - Indian Art News

Indian art cashes in on new dimensions

visionsart — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Ashok Nag

KOLKATA: Indian installation and video art has started going places. With action around this genre hotting up at the buyer’s level, including investors and collectors at auctions, these pieces are turning into powerful tools to put across political, sociological, ecological and environmental messages. Over the past 2-3 years, prices of these works have shot up 5-10 times.

“After the staggering success of Chinese art, India is the next happening story. It’s gained ground tremendously in the last 2-3 years. The auction results for Indian art stand out in this context. Installation and video art may have surfaced sometime in the 90s, but it has never seen the visibility and commercial success that it enjoys today. Moving from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, this has truly emerged as an alternative art form,” an art market source told ET.

According to the source, Indian installation and video art is showing at various fairs like Dubai, Hong Kong, Basel, Miami Basel and Istanbul. They are also being displayed in other venues like the Venice Biennale and are tipped to go to the Havana Biennale.

“The last Venice Biennale saw Indian names like Riyaz Komu and Nalini Malani. We are also figuring in exhibition venues such as the renowned Documenta mega art fest in Germany. Documenta is staged every five years. In the last Documenta, series 12, found presence of works by artists like Bhupen Khakar, Atul Dodiya, photo journalist Ravi Agarwal and film maker Amar Kanwar,” the source said.

Interestingly, quite a few international collectors are picking up this brand of Indian artworks. Among the top names are France’s Francois Pinault, the American Eli Broad, UK’s Charles Saatchi and Frankie Cohen and David Geffen from the US. The most sought after Indian artists in this field at the moment include Subodh Gupta, Bose Krishnamachari, TV Santosh, Jitish Kallat, Baiju Parthan, Anant Joshi and Jyothi Basu.

“Subodh, in fact, has been acquired by top houses like the Pompidou Art Museum. The focus has clearly shifted to the subcontinent and India. At the same time, Indian art has assumed an international character which international collectors can identify with. There is a conscious attempt to inject a crossover element in the works. Sometimes Indian artists are much more pricey than western names,” the source said.

Kolkata’s Ganges Art Gallery has also fielded an exhaustive show of installations, video art and creative photography. The artists include Adip Dutta, Debnath Basu, Paula Sengupta, Tapati Chowdhury, Jayashree Chakravarty, Aditya Basak, Sanjeet Chowdhury and Chhatrapati Dutta. The exhibit at Ganges ranges across, one video art work, around 8 installations and about 9-10 photographs.

The show seems to have broken fresh grounds since such events are just about taking off in Kolkata. Art curators from the US, who visited the exhibit, found it globally relevant. The show is slated to travel to Delhi and Mumbai and then overseas to centres like Dubai and Cuba.

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Philadelphia Museum to showcase Nandalal Bose’s finest paintings

visionsart — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:33:00 +0000

Ashok Nag
KOLKATA: Bengal School art is going places. The first-ever exhibition of Bengal School master Nandalal Bose is about to be unveiled in the US. A show comprising nearly 100 of the finest paintings by the artist will be opened at Philadelphia Museum of Art and remain on display from end-June to the beginning of September. The exhibit is being staged by the San Diego Museum of Art in collaboration with the government of India and National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. “Considered to be the father of modern art in India, Bose worked to regenerate and redefine India’s art during the region’s emergence from British colonial rule and its transition to an independent nation in 1947. The paintings on display were selected from nearly 7,000 of the artist’s works, all of which are held by NGMA which were gifted to India by the artist’s family. The exhibition marks the first time survey of Bose’s artworks — that are considered to be Indian national treasures — has travelled to the United States,” Darielle Mason, Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, said in an email to ET from the US. Mason said: “We are delighted to present this rare retrospective that examines one of South Asia’s great 20th century artists. While Bose’s art is inextricably bound to the story of India’s national awakening and independence, it is at the same time personal and nuanced. Although, he was highly influential to a younger generation of artists, his works represent an area of modern art that has been little understood in the United States. We are particularly happy to introduce these works to a broad public in the context of this museum’s fine collections of earlier paintings and sculptures from India.” Among the exhibition’s key works is an image of Mahatma Gandhi. The striking black and white linocut Dandi March, created in 1930, depicts Gandhi on the famous 248-mile journey that he and his followers took to make salt from seawater in defiance of British colonial tax. Bose’s image is now considered as one of the most iconic portrayals of the leader.
The section devoted to Gandhi also includes seven posters that Bose created at Gandhi’s request for the 1938 Haripura Session of the Indian National Congress. Bose used local materials, including handmade paper and colours ground and mixed from the earth. “The large-scale paintings celebrate Indian village life and culture in bright colours and lively scenes. Bose’s adoption of Japanese and Chinese techniques to illustrate India’s heritage, national pride and spirituality is evident throughout the exhibition. Many of these Asian-inspired paintings evoke scenes from nature. Bose also depicted traditional Indian religious icons in modern styles,” Mason said. Some of the works of this genre, in the show, embrace Flute and Drum Players, Darjeeling and Fog, Floating a Canoe, Dolan Champa, Saraswati, Annapurna and Sati.

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Contemporary artists have a London date

visionsart — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:30:00 +0000

Ashok Nag
Indian artists like Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Anish Kapoor, Raqib Shaw and TV Santosh are slated to fire up Sotheby’s international sale of contemporary art in London soon. The renowned auctioneer is offering eight works by ‘cutting-edge’ Indian artists. The pieces are estimated to cost over £2 million. An untitled 2003 sculpture by Anish Kapoor leads the group in terms of value, showing an estimate of £1-1 .5 million. “Anish Kapoor’s stunning piece embodies the pioneering manipulation of space and material that characterises the very best output of this worldrenowned sculptor,” James Sevier, a specialist in Sotheby’s contemporary art department, told ET in an email from London. “It manifests dualities that have become synonymous with Mr Kapoor’s seminal canon, presence versus absence; infinity versus illusion; and solidity versus intangiblity.” An untitled black Belgian granite sculpture by Mr Kapoor will also be offered at an estimate of £400,000-600 ,000. A third Kapoor piece is a lacquered bronze sculpture titled After Marsyas. The title of the sculpture relates to Mr Kapoor’s 2002 commission for the Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern entitled Marysas. After Marsyas is estimated at £70,000-90 ,000. Subodh Gupta’s untitled 2005 creation is estimated between £200,000 and £300,000. The work will see Mr Gupta, arguably one of the most internationally recognised of Indian Contemporary artists, take the stage in a major Evening Sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s once again. A second Subodh Gupta work from an edition of three untitled (Across Seven Seas) is pegged at £40,000-60 ,000. At the same time, Bharti Kher’s fibreglass, wood and fur work, Misdemeanours is priced at £40,000-60 ,000. In step, Raqib Shaw’s Chrysanthemum & Bee (after Kotsushika Hokusai) is estimated at £80,000-120 ,000, while TV Santosh’s 2005 oil on canvas, Man-Made Famine and the Rats is valued at £40,000-60 ,000. Mr Sevier added, “The group of works by contemporary Indian artists being offered in our July sales is the largest group of its kind to be offered in our international Contemporary Art sales in London. This indicates the growing international focus on this area of the market. The tightly curated assemblage reveals the broad variety of themes, materials and ideas that are flourishing within India’s contemporary arts scene at the beginning of the 21st century. As the country’s traditional beliefs and rural way of life are confronted with the rapid pace of change exacerbated by the country’s urban transformation and the global media, the work of these artists explores the divisions and conflicts prevalent in Indian society today.” Summing up, Mr Sevier said, “We have witnessed a huge growth in demand for works by Indian (Contemporary) artists over the past 18 months. Their work is increasingly being sought by Western and Indian collectors. This demand has seen new record price levels continually being achieved at auction. We expect the works on offer in July to follow recent trends, affirming the position of these artists as some of the most innovative and influential names on the international Contemporary Art auction market today.”

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