Tangerine Tales, The Greatest Journey of Ideas, and more..

NEWS

The Greatest Journey of Ideas

( Work on display)

Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) New Delhi presents a solo show titled, 
‘The Greatest Journey of Ideas - The Spread of Buddhism', a photo exhibition that showcases over 100 photographs that capture the Buddhist heritage in different countries.

The pictures have been clicked in countries India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Mongolia, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Kalmykia (in European Russia), Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam. 

They depict the Buddhist traditions of the whole of Asia through birth and development of different schools of Buddhism in India and their spread to many countries of Asia.

The pictures have been clicked by photographer Benoy K Behl who is also a prominent art historian and documentary film maker. 

The show is on view till 30th November 2013.

Memories

(work on display)

Uniq Art Gallery, Bangalore is featuring an exhibition of five artists in a show titled, ‘Memories’. The artists participating are Ashok U, Babu Jatkar, Gavi Gangadhar, Lingadevaru and Veena Srinivas. The exhibition was inaugurated by chief guest Harish J Padmanabha, an art promoter. The emerging artists for this exhibition are all art college graduates.

A person from city located in village recalls his city life when he notices a city environment. ‘Memories’ is conceptualized to connect to the nostalgia of days lived with nature or the village life and traditional values and rituals of life. 

The show consists of black and white art work like painting, line drawing and pencil works. Each artwork has been carried out by its own style, techniques, aesthetics and speaks of similar subjects.  

The show is on view till 18th November 2013.

Tangerine Tales

(work at the show)

Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, New Delhi presents a photography show by upcoming photographers titled, ‘Tangerine Tales’ celebrating the spirit of the colour orange. On the display will be work of photographers and eminent artists, such as  Ahmed Firoz, Ambika Sethi, Dinesh Sethi, Krishan Sharma, Lubna Sen, Marta Martinez, Nitin Arjun, Rajesh Ramakrishnan and Rohit Kumar, among others, will be displaying their works.

Each participant has interpreted the theme in a different manner, from a peeling orange wall depicting disturbed calmness to the explosion of vibrant expressions and colours of festival Holi, from abstracts and still life to surreal frames in motion, sunrise to sunset, the contradictions in the photographs may be obvious yet they all are tied by the common thread of colour – orange. The exhibition is focused on the colour orange which means different things from the burst of energy, the passion of a glowing fire to the calmness of a sadhu’s robe and symbol of the autumn leaves.

The show is on view till 24th November 2013.

Reminiscence

Sublime Galleria, Bangalore presents a show titled, ‘Reminiscence’ an exclusive exhibition of art works that displays a mix of modern and contemporary art works. 

With a unique blend of art works by upcoming and established artists, the art works on display are a must to check out. The exhibition will feature the works by Ramesh Terdal, Raju Terdal, Aditi Babel, CPB Prasad, Kartik Poojappa, Priyanka Gupta Agarwal, Vishnu Narayan, Sujata Sah Sejekan and Thota Tharrani.

The show is on view till 18th november 2013.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

The inside view

Vivan Sundaram transforms an ordinary mannequin into a work of art, as he shifts his gaze from what is on the body to the body itself in his latest show.

(Artis Vivan Sundaram with his works)

From outside to inside. That’s the journey Vivan Sundaram has undertaken in his latest outing “Postmortem (After Gagawaka)”. Two years ago, when he mounted the show “Gagawaka: Making Strange”, with his bizarre clothes made out of sanitary napkins, plastic pipes, rubber tubes, surgical instruments and other such material, it was with the idea to probe what covers the body. So as his models walked the ramp wearing his sculptural garments at Lalit Kala Akademi, the lines between art and fashion blurred, posing several questions.

While with the former, Vivan made an entry into the world of fashion, his onging exhibition marks his exit from there.

“It’s like that entry into fashion also implies an exit for me to critique that notion of beauty in some manner of speaking…how the garbage or the readymade, made of so many different items, finally becomes an attractive garmenT and to disinvest it of that and to open it out, and the support is the mannequin. The clothes are draped on it,” says the artist, who shifts his gaze from what is covering the body to the body itself.

Assuming significance, mannequins begin to move into the realm of sculpture. And as Vivan undertakes that exercise, from being lifeless, the mannequins acquire a new identity and life.

Reconfigured, dismembered, mutilated, Vivan’s mannequins occupy the Vadehra Art Gallery, rendering it stark. They stand as a whole, fixed into the walls (a lower limb even juts out of the facade of the gallery) re-arranged and reconfigured with hollow parts of the dummy cut and stuffed with medical body parts allowing the viewer a connect at various levels like sexuality and violence.

Found objects are integral to Vivan’s conceptual art practice, so much so that many of his shows have revolved around it, with “Trash” being a case in point. However, in this show, the concept of recycling enters through a different route. The benches for the ramp show Vivan made for his previous show re-emerge as framing devices here, getting a new lease of life like mannequins. So if at one instance, they are fashioned into a coffin, at another place, they beautifully frame two mannequins, whom Vivan calls lovers. The frame doesn’t limit the two bodies; in fact, it adds to the lightness Vivan seeks to create in this work.

Vivan has recycled from his shows in the past, but not at this scale. A sequel to a show is also a first for the artist, who trained in fine arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda, and Slade School of London.

Also part of the show are two video channels and a sound installation created in collaboration with German composer Bettina Wenzel and Ish S. of the Delhi-based electronic outfit sound reasons.

Influenced by a range of movements like Dadaism, Surrealism, Fluxus and artists Joseph Beuys and British American painter R.B. Kitaj, Vivan recalls that the fashion world didn’t relate too much to “Gagawaka”.

“So little of that kind of thing happens here. Young students see what the Alexander Mcqueens and very avant garde western fashion designers do, but that’s theirs, ours is not about that. Also, today most fashion in the world is done out of textiles. Fashion is an industry which works 24 x 7. There is a supply demand thing, but it isn’t the same thing with art. Fashion is about finish, it is not about how you cut and you stitch. And a lot of people told me that we get nothing from your work, this is something very exotic,” says Vivan. The show is on at D 53, Defence Colony, Vadehra Art Gallery till 5th December 2013.

(Report and photo by Shailaja Tripathi for The Hindu)