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Round About | India Modern: Art of the matter

visionsart — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 17:40:00 +0000

The art show of works by Indian masters of modern art in the city is not to be missed

‘Kamdhenu’ by Gogi Saroj Pal on display at the Punjab Kala Bhawan, Sector 16, in Chandigarh.(HT Photo)

Describing the wave of abstract art in the US way back in the sixties, American cartoonist Al Capp quipped with this pronouncement: ‘A product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered’. Similar dismissal is given to modern art in general till date in the Indian sub-continent with everyday viewers staring hard at a painting and then asking ‘Par yeh banaya kya hai?’ (What is it all about?) or ‘Changaji, ehnu kehande ne modern art!’ (So this is called modern art!)

This brings to my mind a story of two Pakistani painters, Iqbal Rashid and Ahmad Zoay. Both are no more but in the 1980s they were cult figures and in 1986 they decided to cross the Indo-Pak border at Ferozepur sans passports or visas as they were convinced that as artists of the sub-continent they had the artistic right to see Khajurao or Agra. They told this story to the Colonel and he realized that they were harmless decided to test their artistic talent. When he saw Zoay’s abstract works he dismissed it as no art but admiring the realistic work of Rashid pronounced him an artist. He commanded Zoay to improve his art! The two were kept in Ambala Jail till papers were readied to escort them back to the border they had strayed in from.

Before I get into telling more tales, let’s get to the heart of the matter of the remarkable exhibition ‘India Modern: Narratives from 20th Century Indian Art’, which showcases works of 41 artists, at the Punjab Kala Bhawan, who dared to cross the borders from tradition to modernity and excel in their art and become names to reckon with. The reason why this show is evincing so much of interest is that it is a look-back at a very significant period in our country’s art history and also demystifies it for students, connoisseurs, writers and even practitioners and teachers of art. It is not easy to make the transition from tradition to modernity in any field and so also in art.

Most noteworthy facets of these pioneers and their work is that although influenced by the West, with western art education coming to Indian schools in colonial times, it took the West a very long time to accept it. They were comfortable with Indian miniatures and iconic sculptures but ignoring the painters and sculptors who reached great heights in their works in the fusion of the west with the east. Interestingly, the only Indian painter who figured in a western compilation of the great Indian painters of the 20th Century was Rabindranath Tagore, whose work is also showcased here in the Indian Moderns.

It was heartening that Indian collectors and galleries recognized many others while the west shied away. For long reputed auctioneers like Christie’s and Sotheby’s were content to promote the traditional but the game-changer came when Indians living abroad started investing in the artists of their soil be it Tyeb Mehta, Jamini Roy, MF Husain, Ram Kumar, Vasudeo Gaitonde and many others.

Also, what is it that makes the works of the Indian moderns different from their counterparts? The answer is simple but significant the artists of the east never cut themselves off from their roots to just practice a Western fad. It was impossible to cut off the umbilical cord and reckless too with a rich centuries-old tradition of iconography and a versatile tradition of folk art. Neither did they dismiss their milieu, their people, and their emotions. So what happened was that they told their story in their own language or metaphor if you choose to call it so and thus was born a new genre called India Modern that calls out for fresh narratives.

Nirupama Dutt

Hindustan Times

http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/round-about-india-modern-art-of-the-matter/story-KzK128DUIqIo8JdSUsTsxJ.html

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Seminar on Indian art in Manipal from tomorrow

visionsart — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 07:04:00 +0000

The Centre for Creative and Cultural Studies, Manipal University, will organise a national seminar and art exhibition funded by Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) on ‘Indian Art and Art History: Coastal (Karavali) Culture and Art Practices-Ideas, perspectives and challenges’ at Manipal on July 22 and 23.

Addressing presspersons recently, K. Unni Krishnan, coordinator of the centre, said the seminar aimed to analyse and debate on Indian art and art historical practices with a focus on culture and art practices of coastal Karnataka. It will reveal the reactions and reflections of artists to the regional concerns.

Experts would participate as resource persons in the seminar and deliver lectures. Prabhakara Joshy will deliver a lecture on “Yakshagana: An overview, genesis, evolution and present situation”. M.L. Samaga will speak on “Diversity in Yakshagana traditions: Types, experiments and Arthagarike”. K.M. Raghava Nambiar will deliver a lecture on “Nature and identity of Yakshagana music”. Ashok Alva will deliver a lecture on “Siri Jathre”. S.A. Krishniah will speak on “Paddy culture: Special reference to coastal Karnataka” and Sharitha Hegde on “Siri Aradhane”. Choodamani N. will deliver a lecture on “Nature of interdisciplinary dimensions in Indian Art History – Special reference to Coastal Culture of Karnataka”.

R.H. Kulkarni will speak on “Coastal architecture and sculpture – An art historical view”, Ramesh Narayan Rao on “Design and technology at the interface of tradition and contemporary art and education”, and H.A. Anil Kumar will deliver a lecture on “Coastal Art of Karnataka and Diaspora (an intervention into historiography of art experiences)”.

Janardhan Rao Havanje will speak on “Extinction of epic Kaavi mural art of Coastal Karnataka and Goa”, Ranga Pai on “Propagation of Hindustani classical music in Dakshina Kannada district”, V. Arvind Hebbar on “Carnatic Music in the Coastal belt of Dakshina Kannada” and Bhramari Shivaprakash on “Classical dance tradition in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada”.

B.A. Vivek Rai, former Vice-Chancellor of Kannada University, Hampi, will inaugurate the conference. Poornima Baliga, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Kasturba Medical College, will preside over the inaugural function.

July 21 2017

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/seminar-on-indian-art-in-manipal-from-tomorrow/article19321095.ece

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India in his heart

visionsart — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Legendary strokes: Artist Sayed Haider Raza

Remembering the master artist, S.H.Raza on his first death anniversary that falls on July 23

Every day after breakfast, Sayed Haider Raza would walk to his studio, close his eyes, mumble something and then begin to paint. “I thought it was a prayer,” says Ashok Vajpeyi, one of Raza’s closest friends and chairperson of the cultural organisation, the Raza Foundation. Raza who died last year on July 23, was a believer of all faiths. He visited the church, temple and a mosque almost every week, yet didn’t practice any other rituals. Till the end, Vajpeyi was intrigued about Raza’s everyday routine. One day, Vajpeyi mustered the guts and asked the artist what he muttered before colouring the canvas. The answer was telling, “Listen to that voice of silence lies buried somewhere”, which is a line from late German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s works. The late artist has the distinction of having been awarded the Padma Shri in 1981), Padma Bhushan in 2007 and Padma Vibhushan in 2013.

Unique vision

There is perhaps and nor will be any other artist like Raza – so dedicated and passionate towards art and his country. He was a founding member of the Bombay Progressive Art Group along with F.N. Souza, V.S. Gaitonde and M.F. Husain, which sought to make a mark for the newly independent India in 1947. In the same year Raza’s mother died and next year his father. While some of his siblings migrated to Pakistan, Raza went to France to accomplish his group’s mission.

In the beginning, Raza often painted French landscapes, the country where he now lived and also became a visiting faculty at an art school in Berkley. But by 1970 he felt lost and restless. His trip to Benaras, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Ajanta and Ellora caves in Maharashtra gave birth to his life-long quest for the ‘Bindu’ (an Indian, tantric philosophical concept, which broadly describes the merging point of masculine and feminine energies). The epic, Mahabharata and practise of tantra also influenced his paintings.

“Raza combined the best of West’s sensitivity and influences that with the spirit of his work, which always carried India in its heart,” says Hugo Weihe, CEO of the auction house, Saffronart. Raza’s ‘Saurashtra’, sold in 2010 at a London auction, to an Indian collector, broke the record of highest priced Indian painting at an auction. “It’s exemplary of the artist’s connection to Indian places, the feeling of earth and Indian colours,” says Weihe. “But it’s also reminiscent of the time he was introduced to acrylic colours in Berkley, US, in 1960s.” Raza was sensitive to what other artists had achieved in the West of the world and combined it with Indian sensitivity. “There is an inherent logic to his oeuvre and how it evolved. I find that extraordinarily brilliant,” says Weihe.

Most of Raza’s creations are signed in Devanagiri and several of them influenced by Hindi, Urdu, English and even French poetry. He combined and promoted all kinds of art and the Raza Foundation, formed after his return to India, from France, in 2010, has awarded the likes of Ranjit Hoskote, poet and cultural theorist, visual artist Atul Dodiya, dancer Kelucharan Mahapatra and vocalist Kumar Gandharva.

Dedicated to art

To mark Raza’s first death anniversary the foundation will host an art camp for final-year art students at his native town and final resting place Mandala, Madhya Pradesh, to expose them to different forms of art. “Raza Saab was perhaps the only senior and celebrated painter who kept a keen eye on what young artists are doing,” says artist Manish Pushkale. “He taught me to have conviction in my work through constant dialogues and emotional support.”

Pushkale vividly remembers that 2002 day when he visited the master after he lost his artist wife Janine Mongilat’s to cancer, “He was distraught. We all knew that. But he still painted and kept at it,” says Pushkale. “That taught me one of the greatest lessons of life. If you love your work it will be your respite even in the toughest times and that’s exactly what you must do all your life.”

Raza did that. Even during his last days he continued to paint with shivering hands and was resolute to give it back to the art and the art fraternity he so dearly loved and lived for. “It took me three whole days to convince Raza that the foundation be named after him,” says Vajpeyi. This despite, having bequeathed all his wealth, properties and paintings to the foundation. He was so principled that he paid rent to live in the foundation building, which was in fact, built by him.

Riddhi Doshi – 21 july
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/india-in-his-heart/article19326078.ece

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An Exile’s Eye on India

visionsart — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 06:31:00 +0000

Exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2014, the last works of MF Husain will now be showcased in the US for the first time.

M F Husain. Traditional Indian Festivals, 2008–2011. Photo © The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

At 95, when he died in exile in London, MF Husain was still painting several hours a day. He dreamed of returning to India, his muse. When he breathed his last, the artist was immersed in Indian history and was researching its rich civilisation and painting it on his canvas. In the series, titled Indian Civilisation, commissioned by Usha Mittal, wife of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, the artist was to create 32 giant triptychs to celebrate the nation.

Before his death, Husain had managed to paint only eight of the panels. Exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2014, the works will now be showcased in the US for the first time. The exhibition, “India Modern: The Paintings of MF Husain”, will be held at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Interspersed among centuries of Indian sculpture on view in the Alsdorf Galleries, Husain’s paintings are presented in dialogue with and contextualised within the continuum of Indian art,” says a press statement.
Each triptych in the series displays a different aspect of Indian culture. In Three Dynasties, Husain paints interconnected panels of Mughal, British and Mauryan rule, with the Ashoka pillar in the centre. If Hindu Triad is a painting of the three principal gods of the Hindu pantheon — Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer — the painting, Traditional Indian Festivals is a tribute to the celebrations across regions and religious of India.

In Language of Stone, Husain uses the words of Rabindranath Tagore, “How the language of stone surpasses the languages of man”. The triptych, Tale of Three Cities, has Varanasi at its centre, with Delhi on the left, and Kolkata being represented by its luminaries Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Mother Teresa.

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New York exhibits. A retrospective of the Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi opens at The Met Breuer

visionsart — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 07:12:00 +0000

New York exhibits. A retrospective of the Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937 – 1990) will open at The Met Breuer, the new location for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s expanding modern and contemporary art program opening to the public 18 March 2016. The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, with the collaboration of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.

Nasreen Mohamedi at The Met Breuer

Nasreen Mohamedi (18 March – 5 June 2016) at The Met Breuer, New York, is by far the most comprehensive exhibition of any Indian artist in the United States. With more than 150 works by Mohamedi on display, the exhibition brings to an international audience more than three
decades of her work, comprising of her few early oil paintings, collages, drawings in ink and graphite, watercolours, and photographs. Mohamedi rarely theorized or spoke about her work but documented her internal dialogue in a form of soliloquy, in tiny personal diaries and notebooks, some of which will be on display in the exhibition. The exhibition explores the conceptual complexity and visual subtlety that made her practice unique in its time.

In the history of Indian Modernism, Mohamedi remains a distinct figure who broke away from the dominant figurative-narrative mainstream practice and became one of the outstanding artists who pioneered the trajectory of non-representational and non-objective art in India, as well as creating a body of work vital to the evolution of international modernism and abstraction.

In cultivating an interiorised vision, Mohamedi sought to reflect beyond the familiar and the known, arriving at a pristine form of abstraction quite apart from her contemporaries. The grids and geometry she leaned toward in the 1970s were not without precedent though. In the West, closer to her time, were Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Constructivists. Closer to home were the mystical traditions of the East that relied on geometry for a symbolic manifestation of the universe and its creative force. Drawing upon this range of inspirations, Mohamedi evolved her own formal vocabulary with delicate grids using only line, and this aesthetic informed and infused the photographs she took throughout her life.

Mohamedi’s practice has garnered serious attention within India and globally only in the last fifteen years. Though admired in her lifetime, she remained enigmatic and elusive, quite the reflection of her work – a distilled oeuvre that does not lend itself to ordinary comprehension. Through her uncompromising singular pursuit, Mohamedi arrived at a harmonious melding of the rational and the poetic, the philosophical and the mystical.

Kiran Nadar, Chairperson and Founder of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, “This is a momentous occasion for KNMA, having collaborated with two veteran institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States and the Reina Sofia Museum in Spain, in bringing Nasreen Mohamedi’s individualistic/distinctive practice to the western world. The museum’s mandate is also focused on artists whose practice is yet to receive desiring attention and critical acclaim. We believe that their stories be told.”

Credits http://www.yareah.com/2016/02/08/new-york-exhibits-a-retrospective-of-the-indian-modernist-nasreen-mohamedi-opens-at-the-met-breuer/

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From Husain to Picasso, the Indian buyer is getting eclectic

visionsart — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:47:00 +0000

After years of selling Indian art to affluent NRIs, international auction houses are now looking to expand the market to Indians at home.

After years of selling Indian art to affluent NRIs, international auction houses are now looking to expand the market to Indians at home. Neelam Raaj spoke to Edward Gibbs, chairman and head of the India department at Sotheby’s London, and Yamini Mehta, senior director for South Asian art, about the changing tastes of the Indian collector.

Your first India office is opening in Mumbai next month. Is there now an India auction on the cards?

EG: We’re certainly listening to the needs of our clients, and at the moment we are bringing a series of travelling exhibitions, lectures and other bespoke events. In the future, auctions are a strong possibility. Indians have become more active in our international sales. Just last year, there were 25-30% more Indian buyers.

You recently described Indians as buyers and not sellers. Is it difficult to make them part with their works?

EG: I stand by that. Indians are primarily buyers. Indian clients start with items of cultural heritage, transition into luxury categories such as jewellery and watches and then trophy pieces like impressionist and modern paintings. There has been a five-fold increase in Indian buyers in 2015 in the jewellery and impressionist-modern categories.

Have Indians taken a shine to jewellery auctions?
EG: If you look at a five-year span from 2010-2015, Indian buyers have bought and bid $400 million in jewellery alone in our global sales. Some look for stones, others for heirlooms and yet others shop for weddings. There is no typical buyer but they are very active in the top end and are driving global sales.

Has the Indian art market recovered from the slump post 2008, especially contemporary art?
YM: There have been multi-million-dollar prices for the modernists like V S Gaitonde, S H Raza etc. Even mid-career artists are getting more visibility. There’s a collector in Ohio who is going to showcase Sudarshan Shetty, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher at the Pizzuti museum later this year. Nasreen Mohamedi is having a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new space which was formerly the Whitney. It’s such a coup that this brand new space will open with an Indian artist. Come summer, Bhupen Khakar will be featured at the Tate. So Indian artists are beginning to be shown in new places.

With modern artists so much in demand, isn’t it tough to get your hands on that special piece that can be the star at an auction. Aren’t there just that many Gaitondes or Razas?
EG: You have to scale the mountain every time. But it’s a challenge we relish. We are like hunter-gatherers, looking for trophies, and the next cover lot. This time we’re very fortunate, and we have sourced a Gaitonde for the South Asia sale in March that’s become a talking point.
YM: It’s the largest work he’s ever done on canvas, and was initially done for Air India. It has that airy feel, and a sense of space and eternity. It eventually didn’t go to Air India and ended up with another artist-collector called Bal Chhabra who supported many of these artists. Chhabra parted with works like Raza’s Maa but this was the one piece that he didn’t want to part with in his lifetime.

Edward, you’re an expert in classical Indian art. Are miniatures a good investment bet?
The miniature market is extremely buoyant. In October 2015, the collection of a Londoner, Sven Gahlin, which included many miniatures went on sale. It was a 95% sell-through rate. There are a lot of new buyers from India. We see some collectors of modern and contemporary looking at it seriously as they expand their collections to the classical period. It’s a niche area and the quality is fabulous. Compared with other areas of the global art market, they do represent very good value for money.

Indians have always had a comfort level with art from their own country. Is that changing and are they open to looking beyond their borders?
YM: As people are travelling and becoming more global in their mindset, you’ll have all kinds of eclecticism in collecting. Even here you can have a home that looks completely western in its decor or completely traditional or a mix of both. So you have people who have an M F Husain and a Damien Hirst on their walls. There are several Indian collectors who buy top names in western art like Picasso and Van Gogh.

Any other highlight of the South Asia sale?

YM: There’s a wonderful Amrita Sher-Gil titled In the Garden. This comes from the Hungarian side of her family. It was painted in her grandmother’s garden. It has influences from Bruegel, Gaugin and Cezanne and elements of Indian miniatures such as the multiple perspectives.

The recent India Art Fair changed its focus to art from the subcontinent this time. How do you see the South Asian art scene shaping up?

YM: India is still dominant but new markets are coming up. After the India Art Fair, collectors and curators have headed to the Dhaka Art Summit which is going on as we speak, and this time it has big international artists like Tino Sehgal taking part. A Lahore biennale is also in the works. Sri Lanka is doing quite well, especially works from the 43 group. In fact, we have an early work by Senaka Senanayake, one of Sri Lanka’s best artists, in the New York sale.

Credits – Neelam Raaj | TNN | Feb 6, 2016, 10.20 PM IST

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The abstractionist: Ram Kumar’s art

visionsart — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 04:11:00 +0000

The opening sequence of Laurent Bregeat’s Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing, a documentary on Ram Kumar, shows the ageing artist, bent over his easel, drawing lines and curves with charcoal on a white canvas. “Ultimately nothing may remain of these shapes, but this is just an exercise in trying to find out something (…) important,” he says, as the camera zooms in on his face. Through Bregeat’s 48-minute film, the camera returns to this painting as it comes to life with every successive dab of oil paint. It’s fascinating to watch layers of yellow and green, dulled cream and translucent white fall over Kumar’s canvas and get shaped into abstraction with his palette knife.

Ram Kumar in a still from the film by Laurent Bregeat.

Kumar, now 91, is one of India’s most renowned abstract modernists, whose oeuvre evolved from figurative to abstract landscape over a successful career spanning more than 60 years. In the film,, we see one phase segue into another, each distinct for its colour palette as for the evolution of the artist’s thoughts and inspirations.

The first screening of this five-year-old film in Mumbai will take place as part of an event planned around an exhibition of Kumar’s works at the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai. The film was made in 2010 as part of a series on four modernists—Akbar Padamsee, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, were the other three—commissioned and produced by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Dadiba and Khorshed Pundole, who run Pundole’s auction house, asked the director to make another four films on other Indian modernists. The new films by Bregeat are on Krishen Khanna, Rajendra Dhawan, K.G. Subramanyan and Krishna Reddy, the last of which has only just been edited.

It’s a valuable endeavour, especially since the moderns drive Indian art auctions worldwide.

Kumar’s story however, refers to none of that—shop talk is eschewed in favour of artistic practice. The film begins with Kumar talking about the first time he saw a painting, as a final year postgraduate student of economics in New Delhi. He began taking evening classes under Sailoz Mukherjee, a prominent modernist in whom Kumar found a “profound and sensitive” teacher. In 1949, the artist borrowed money from his father and travelled to Paris on a princely scholarship of Rs.100 from the French embassy. There, he studied art from Cubist painter Fernand Léger and sculptor and figurative painter André Lhote. Unsurprisingly, when Kumar returned a year later, his first flush of works were figurative paintings. But the landscape of the city with tall buildings with squarish windows filled the background. Italian film-maker Roberto Rossellini told Kumar that these figures reminded him of Franz Kafka’s stories. “My figuratives were more of the urban predicament, fuelled by socialist realism,” says Kumar. In 1958, another visit to Paris, where he spent six months staying with close friend Raza, yielded further changes to his figures, but all that changed when the artist visited Varanasi shortly afterwards.

The historical city in Uttar Pradesh was, then as now, crowded, colourful and bustling. Kumar went with Husain, and the duo would spend all day—separately—roaming the ghats, sketching what caught their fancy. The effect it had on Kumar was “not just visual, but also psychological,” the artist says, adding that he made it a point to visit Varanasi several times afterwards. The landscapes that emerged in this prolific phase of the artist’s life depict a vivid range on the colour palette: from dull greys and mustards, to bright bursts of greens, blues and yellows.

Kumar says he never studied the science of colours, but his later works—inspired by the bare greens and browns of the Himalaya in Ladakh—prove his uncanny sense of achieving maximum visual effect from the colours he chose to deploy on canvas. Painting, says Kumar, who also wrote short stories in Hindi as a young man, is not like a novel, which has a definite ending. “Painting is a continuity. One painting leads to another. What you want to say is not finished with one painting,” he says.

Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing will be screened on 23 June, at 5.30pm, at the Visitor’s Centre Auditorium, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.

A new biopic on one of India’s last great moderns explores his ideas and artistic practice
Dhamini Ratnam

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