What was a bhajan by saint-poet Gorakhnath, became a nirguni rendition by Pandit Kumar Gandharva in the 20th century, which entered contemporary Indian artist Sudharshan Shetty’s consciousness and triggered a morphosis into a film and art installation last year. The much lauded show, Shoonya Ghar, metaphorically found many homes, first the coveted National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi), then Sydney Biennale (Australia), the Yinchuan Biennale (China), coming back to Shetty’s home, Mumbai at Bhau Daji Lad Museum next month. One of the major parts of the show is an eclectic film of the same name that Shetty conceptualised and shot. This week, the film will be screened at National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Law College Road.

Based on Gorakhnath’s “Shunya Gadh Shahar”, Shoonya Ghar has been Shetty’s muse since his art school (Sir JJ School of Art) days. “I was introduced to poetry as a bhajan by Pandit Kumar Gandharva. In fact, I became interested in poetry because of Kumar Gandharva, especially his nirguni bhajans. “Shunya Gadh Shahar” remained with me for a long time. Poetry has been a part of my life by way of pure poetry, or songs. My father was a yakshagana (a dance theatre form from Karnataka) artist, and an environment full of music and songs introduced me to a lot of poetry. It (poetry) influenced my art, and how I learned to make art,” says Shetty. It was only earlier in this decade that the poem made its way into his art. “I wondered if I can mediate the two, poetry and art. Finally it led to this piece of work,” he adds.

Much like the contrast of stillness and movement in a raag, Shetty’s film (perhaps as an ode to Pandit Gandharva) too tries to draw on the contradictory elements of the poem to fore. The film also dwells on the subliminal duality presented in Gorakhnath’s version. “There are four architectural objects made of wood sourced from secondhand markets. They must have belonged to many owners before us. They bring with them those stories. Just as they look like a fully formed structure, they can be dismantled, showcasing the duality. I have tried to replicate the strategies of the poem,” says Shetty, who set the film in a quarry in Lonavala.

While poetry is a visible influence on Shetty, there is another practice which has been a recurring motif in his works, architecture. “The poem has many architectural elements to it — Gadh, Shahar, Basti…Jal bich kamal, kamal bich kaliyan, bhanwara baas na leta hai, is nagari ke das darwaze… I try to respond to the poem by building. Architecture has a huge role in it,” says Shetty, who has used it earlier as well as for his upcoming works. There is the most recent one, another film called Song and Stories, which weaves architecture with a story he once heard a long time ago. There is also the upcoming Cave Inside, which features domestic items, that are quotidian in many ways. The show will open on November 14 at Gallerie Krinzinger, in Vienna, Austria. “I think I got interested in architecture because I build things, I am a sculptor. There’s a thing of attributing permanence. Yet there is also my interest in storytelling and my love for the impermanent oral transmission of knowledge. Maybe that’s why I make these films. It is interesting to see the evolution of information through people’s telling and retelling, the oral vs museumisation of things,” says the artist who is a perfect ambassador for his work, carrying duality within. The screening of Shoonya Ghar will be followed by an interactive session with the artist.

WHERE: NFAI, Law College Road Bypass Road, Baner, Pune
WHEN: Monday, October 23, 2.30-4.30 pm
CALL: 2565 2259
ENTRY: Free

Source & Credits – http://punemirror.indiatimes.com/entertainment/unwind/shifting-shapes/articleshow/61166124.cms
By Navjyoti Dalal

The post Shifting Shapes first appeared on Indian Art News.

The ShContemporary is a sign of a mature Chinese art market.

Come September, and eight galleries from various Indian cities will be travelling to the Middle Kingdom.

Their desintation, the ShContemporary 2008, or the Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair as it’s formally called, held in Shanghai from September 10-13. This is only the second year of the fair, which was instituted as something of a meeting ground for the best of contemporary art from the East and the West.

Quite successfully, since as many as 130 galleries from 23 countries participated last year, along with dealers, curators, museum representatives, artists and visitors numbering around 25,000. The Indian presence was not inconsequential (considering that Indian galleries are relatively recent to the art-fair scene).

Four galleries � Bodhi, Chemould Prescott, Sakshi and Nature Morte; three artists in the “best of discovery” curated section, showcasing young and promising talent � Shilpa Gupta, Sharmila Samant and Ravikumar Kashi; and another three in the “best of artists” section for the more established names � Jittish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty and Zarina Hashmi.

Sales were good says Geetha Mehra, founder of Sakshi Gallery, adding “There was a lot of energy in the air.” Nivedita Magar, director with SKE Gallery in Bangalore, reports much the same.

“Many inquiries are still coming in,” she says. The gallery, which specialises in new age, mixed media kind of work, was recommended for participation at the inaugural ShContemporary by Pierre Huber, a Geneva-based dealer who was artistic director of the fair (he has since stepped down after allegations of “conflict of interest”).

Despite a few glitches like very high import duties � which meant Magar spent far more on transporting the art works within China than she did shipping them from India � and taxes on Chinese nationals buying foreign art, the Shanghai experience was valuable, Magar feels, “as it set off a network”.

This year, the Indian contingent to Shanghai is far larger than 2007’s � eight galleries, with such established names as Gallery Espace, Vadehra and Threshold, among them. The “best of discovery” section announced already has six Indians � Deeksha Nath (curator and critic), Tushar Joag, Vibha Galhotra, Ved Gupta, Sumedh Rajendran and Suhasini Kejriwal.

But there’s more to the China-India art encounter in recent times than the ShContemporary. The most important here is the 2006 exhibition at the Arario gallery in Beijing, “Hungry God”, which had a large selection of contemporary Indian artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Tallur L N and Sonia Khurana.

Lately, these isolated encounters look set to become two way. “We already collect Chinese art and have been showing them selectively in our group shows at Sakshi,” says Mehra.

In art, as in their economies, there is a tendency in the West to see the two countries together as the two Asian giants with the most “happending” art that collectors must watch out for.

To give just one example, last year’s Rencontres D’Arles, arguably the most important international photography festival on the calendar, focussed on both India and China. The truth, however, is a little more complicated. While we celebrate the record $2.48 million that Souza’s “Birth” recently went for at a Christie’s auction, Yue Minjan’s 1995 oil “Execution” went for $ 5.9 million last year at Southeby’s, while the “Mask Series 1996 No.6” by Zeng Fanzhi fetched the highest price ever by an Asian artists � $9.7 million, at Christie’s Hong Kong auction in May.

High prices, of course, don’t mean anything. But fairs like the ShContemporary, especially the importance they are given by galleries and curators globally, show how much more mature the Chinese art market is.

The post Fair Ground first appeared on Indian Art News.