Thinking Big Auction, Of Masters and Heroes and more..

NEWS


Of Master and Heroes

(Work on display at the show)

Art Spice art gallery, New Delhi presents an exhibition of selected paintings by modern artists and distinguished masters of South India.The modern masters belong to a generation of progressive artists of the late 1950s and the early 1960s in Madras, the artistic centre of South India.

The participating artists are P Gnana, Pon Raghunathan, C Dakshinamoorthy, A Viswam, P Perumal, N Manoharan.

The style vary from realistic figuration to absolute abstraction. The show is on view till 31st October 2013.


Thinking Big Auction

( Public Notice 2 by Jitish Kallat)

Christie’s and Saatchi Gallery, present a week long show and an evening auction of monumental sculpture and installations during the Frieze week. The special feature of this auction titled; ‘Thinking Big’ is that it features the work of 50 artists who have been shown at the Saatchi Gallery, such as Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers, as well as newer talents Toby Ziegler, Kader Attia, Conrad Shawcross, Kris Martin and Sterling Ruby. Among the many leading contemporary artists included are Berlinde de Bruyckere, Gert and Uwe Tobias, who had a solo show at London’s Whitechapel Gallery earlier this year; and David Altmejd, Karla Black and Liu Wei, all of whom were selected for Art Basel’s Art Unlimited show of large-scale sculpture this year. Amongst the 50 works is ‘Public Notice 2’ by Mumbai born artist Jitish Kallat. The work was made in 2007 and consists out of four thousand four hundred and seventy-nine painted fiberglass parts and its dimensions are variable.

Thinking Big auction will support the Saatchi Gallery’s ongoing policy of free admission to all exhibitions and its free education program with over 2000 school visits each year.

The exhibition is on from 12th October to 20th October 2013 at London and the Auction is t obe held at 5:00 pm on 17th October 2013.

Poetics of explosion and the drifter

( Work of  Ramesh Pithiya)

Chatterjee & Lal, art gallery, Mumbai, presents the works of CONA resident artist Ramesh Pithiya, ‘The poetics of explosion and the drifter’.  The residency program at Chatterjee & Lal, lasted for 240 hours in collaboration with Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation and CONA.

The artist Ramesh Pithiya, creates interventions into the white–cube space of Chatterjee & Lal; trying to address the issues of the grammar that lie beneath hybridized contemporary art language. 

The show is on view till 17th October 2013.

Blue & Red

( Work by Ravi Mandlik)

Tao Art gallery, Mumbai presents a solo show of recent art works by eminent artist Ravi Mandlik. The show titled ‘The Autumnal Cadences in Blue & Red’ displays a collection of recent abstracts by the artist.

Ravi Mandlik is a J J School graduate in G D. Art in Painting, and was a teaching faculty at L S Raheja School fo art, Mumbai. He has had many solo and group shows to his credit. 

Ravi’s works are primarily abstractions of nature and his interpretations of the world around him

The show is being hosted at the Auditorium of Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, and on view till 14th October 2013.

( News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

Art The Way Forward

Young girls from troubled backgrounds in Delhi find a home to empower themselves through art and movie-making

(Expressing through art: at the centre)

A year ago, Meena (name changed), then aged 10 years, was sexually and physically abused by her step father, for the mere reason that the mother was not around to satisfy the man. Today, she has buried the ghost of her past and can expertly solve complex mathematical equations on the abacus. Suman, a deaf and mute girl, does not let her physical disabilities get in the way while expressing herself through art.

Meena and Suman are among the many girls who have found a shot at a dignified life, which in some cases, even their parents can’t provide, at Protsahan India Foundation, in west Delhi. Protsahan has about 250 children enrolled in its two centres at Vikaspuri and Uttam Nagar. The Vikaspuri centre is a drug abuse rescue centre for children and the Uttam Nagar centre caters to girls coming from the red light areas, families involved in the flesh trade, or children who are sexually and physically abused, mostly by their own kin. It works on empowering the children through creative arts, information technology, education, craft work and enables them to support themselves for a sustainable livelihood.

Protsahan boasts of many in-house movies and short films on issues of social relevance, all of which are written, directed and acted in by the students. The children have been trained through a movie-making module and their films show expert handling of camera and cinematography.

Started by Sonal Kapoor in 2010, a former ad film maker, whose encounter with a sex worker in a red light area, during one of her shoots, became the deciding factor in starting Protsahan. Fraught with extreme poverty, the woman was forced to send the eldest of her six children, an eight-year-old, to a red-light area. Meanwhile, pregnant with her seventh child, she admitted to Ms. Kapoor that if it was a girl again this time, she would strangle her just as soon as she would be born. Within an hour of the encounter, Sonal decided to open a creative arts school for sexually abused girls.

The centre at Uttam Nagar has a regular attendance now and has become a popular after-school centre for girls from around the neighbourhood. The children in both centres are taught many styles of art including Warli, Madhubani and Decoupage and are encouraged on experimenting with art. Most sketches and art works are often tales surrounding their personal and community lives. They have also launched a 10-month bridge course where children who have never been to school before and are directly admitted to classes IV or V, after the course.

Ms. Kapoor with her team presented Protsahan at ‘Project Inspire- 5 Minutes to Change the World’— a joint initiative of Singapore Committee for UN Women and MasterCard to help young change makers around the world working for welfare of women and girls around Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and won the top prize of US $25,000 among 577 participants from 60 countries.

“Currently we are in the process of launching the Australian chapter of Protsahan,” said Ms. Kapoor.

( Report by Hansika Chopra for The Hindu)