KNMA Film Screenings, Pageants of the Raj show and more..

NEWS

The Machine Age - Screening at KNMA

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, (KNMA), New Delhi launched its film club Echo Chamber in association with Lightcube film society. The club has set up a series of film screenings for every Friday of the month. 

The first series of screenings is of  ‘The Machine Age, a film which aims to study in detail the manner in which a machine relates to another machine; where the tracking shot examines the parallels and diagonals of assembly lines and the geometry of modern factories. The film also captures how cinematic interactions can revitalise those who work relentlessly in these industries.

The screenings are open to registered members only. Interested viewers should register in advance for the screenings.

The films can be viewed till the 27th of September 2013.

Manga Art and Comic Book launch

(The Manga comic book)

The Japan Foundation, New Delhi presents an exhibition-cum-book launch of manga comic titled, ‘Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms’. The book to be launched is a Japanese manga comic book  ‘Yunagi no machi, Sakura no Kuni’. This book has been translated into two books in Hindi by Tomoko Kikuchi, titled Nirav sandhya ka shahar and Sakura ka Desh. 

The exhibition displays installation art inspired by the comic book. The illustrated book is a unification of two stories, and a portrayal of the lives of a family which survives the Hiroshima atomic bombings, which is based on true stories from people who survived the bombings in real life.

The book launch took place on the 6th August, 2013 and the exhibition will be open for viewing from 7th of August to the 31st August, 2013 

An Innocent Relation

The Visual Art Gallery of India Habitat Centre, and Dhoomimal Art Centre, New Delhi  jointly host a solo show of art works, consecutively at their premises. The show is titled, ‘An Innocent Relation’ by upcoming artist, Manoj Kachangal.

Manoj is a MFA -painting from the Institute of Fine Arts, Indore. His works delve in abstraction and he subtly depicts nature through them. The works are vibrant and colourful with intense textures and relief work.

The show is on view till the 7th August 2013 at the Visual Art Gallery and at Dhoomimal Art Centre from 9th August to the 21st August 2013.

Pageants of the Raj

( A painting from the show)

Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad presents a unique solo show of artist Devangana Kumar. The show titled, ‘Pageants of the Raj’ focuses on the depiction of an identity of numerous anonymous people, who worked in the homes and offices of the colonial rulers.

Devangana Kumar’s work imitates her experiment with different types of techniques, crafts and materials evolved into her own distinctive style. This Delhi based artist layers her work with painting, printing, juxtaposing images, old photographs and colourful Indian art. The intriguing faces of the nameless people in the picture were derived from postcards that she discovered at a flea market in London.

The show previewes on 10th of August and will be on view till the 25th of August 2013.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)


FEATURE

Take A Look

Lalitha Shankar’s sculptures invite you to reflect upon yourself

As soon as you enter, you see six pouches hanging from the wall. Some of them are empty, some contain something that looks brown, wait, it’s soil. That can be inferred by the fact that the pouch in the middle actually has a plant growing inside. Intrigued, you take a closer look, only to realize that the pouches are not made of plastic, they look like glass, but as the title next to it reads, it’s cast acrylic and the piece is called “Looking In – VIII” one of the eight sculptures by Lalitha Shankar on display at Gallery Sumukha.

(A work from the show)

Lalitha has used a whole range of mediums, stainless steel, wood, bronze, even fabric to create sculptures that are textural and tactile; have clean, sharp lines, subdued colours and are, most of all, very visual, meaning that you are drawn to come and take a closer look.

Take “Looking In- VII”, the sculpture is composed of a stainless steel pedestal facing inwards. The pedestal has a peephole through which there is a colour-changing light. The pedestal is cordoned by concentric metal wires with hook-ends.

Then there are geometric shapes in cast bronze, sometime grouped together in different arrangements on wooden table; placed on white rectangular pedestals made of acrylic and gauze or carved into cast bronze cubes placed on a low table. The introductory note describes that the artist as trying to “bring forth the subtle meanings and interpretations of the spiritual concepts of the manifestations in reality and non-duality. Her intention is to provoke a certain intrigue, inquisitiveness and introspection in every individual viewer.”

But Lalitha is quite emphatic about the visual grammar of the sculptures.

(A work from the show)

“The works have to touch the viewer visually, impact them in some way, like a music concert would. The very idea of ‘Looking In’ is to both look at the physical level as well as offer a way of looking in to oneself with the idea of ‘who are you’,” she explains. When she conceives something in her head, she is clear about its every aspect, whether it’s the material or the colours.

Each of the geometric shapes or colours are that she has used here is representative, the square represents the earth, the triangle represents procreation, the circle represents birth, the rectangles represent birth and death.

“But it is a visual medium and you cannot separate these aspects into boxes. My work is a reflection of who I am, and I have been studying yoga since 1981 so that percolates into my works, but in an organic way.”

(Report by Harshini Vakkalanka for The Hindu)