Monday, August 29, 2011

Exhibition at bajaj Art Gallery of emerging artists


It is my pleasure to launch an exhibition of paintings at Bajaj Art Gallery.
let us encourage and support young and talented artists.
thanks

prakash

--
prakash joshi
my sites
www.prakashbaljoshi.com
http://indiaart.com/prakash.joshi.asphtp://www.artistree.biz/ArtGallery.aspx?artistname=prakash
my blog
http://innerimpressions.blogspot.com/

Friday, August 26, 2011

The Essence of Woman, Alankrita Art Gallery, Hyderabad

Alankritha Art Gallery

in association with

Young FICCI Ladies Organization

presents

True essence of Womanhood

an exhibition of paintings

by

Durga Kainthola

Kamana Pushkale

Kanchan Chander

Kavita Nayar

Nupur Kundu

Puja Bahri

Sangeeta K Murthy

Sarla Chandra

Shobha Broota

Suchismita Sahu

Suniyata Khanna

Sushmita Chowbey

(A charity show in support of education of girl child)

Preview on 27th August 2011 at 4:00PM

Show on till 10th September 2011

Timings: 11.00 am to 7.00 pm

view show online www.alankritha.com from 27th August 2011



http://alankritha.com/images/eInvite.jpg

Prashanthi Goel,
Residence Inn,
Lane Opp. Madhapur Police Station,
Kavuri Hills, Jubilee Hills,
Hyderabad - 500 033. A.P. India.
Ph: 91-40-23113709; 40207171
email: alankritha.art@gmail.com
website: www.alankritha.com

Staging Selves, curated by Maya Kovskaya, Sakshi art gallery, Mumbai


-STAGING SELVES: POWER, PERFORMATIVITY & PORTRAITURE--opening at Sakshi Gallery on 2nd September and featuring Ravi Agarwal, Sheba Chhachhi, Gauri Gill, Han Bing, Samar Jodha, Malekeh Nayiny, Waswo X. Waswo and O Zhang.

30 min. before the opening I will be giving a curatorial walk-through for the press. It would be great it you can make it. Let me know and we can have a media packet ready for you.

Here's a brief concept note to give you a quick overview of the show. Images and the catalogue essay available upon request.

Staging Selves: Power, Performativity & Portraiture

Curated by Maya Kóvskaya, PhD


Artists: Ravi Agarwal, Sheba Chhachhi, Gauri Gill, Han Bing, Samar Jodha, Malekeh Nayiny, Tejal Shah, Waswo X Waswo, and O Zhang


Recognizing that power inheres in the gaze, and the gaze constructs as much as it captures, Staging Selves: Power, Performativity & Portraiture, curated by Maya Kóvskaya, turns on a number of questions: What does it mean to represent; to re-present; to make present again that which is no longer before us? Whose gaze counts? Whose gaze structures whom? Who has the right to “represent” whom, and how does who is doing the representing change what gets represented? Who has the right to look? Who has the capacity to see?


The exhibition features the works of artists from India, China and Iran—Ravi Agarwal, Sheba Chhachhi, Gauri Gill, Han Bing, Samar Jodha, Malekeh Nayiny, Tejal Shah, Waswo X Waswo, and O Zhang—who have made it a part of their practice to question, problematize and blur the artificial binary between the “staged and the” documentary,” self-consciously investigating the power relations implicit in the pretension of “representation.” Some have sought to create conditions for power-sharing between subject and artist, sometimes grounded in ethnographic participation in the lives of their subjects, and rooted in dialogue with the subject about how the self is to be performed before the lens. Others utilize photographic practices that de-center the position of the artist; foreground the constructed nature of the image; or highlight the role of the artist in transforming found images, such as old family portraits, to highlight a historical moment before politico-religious rupture; and in doing so push the viewer to consider how images contain the power to constitute selves in various ways.


United by the common thread of self-conscious artistic practice and a focus on subjects who are photographed at the intersection of the staged and the documentary, as they perform the roles of themselves, the works in Staging Selves offer a dialogue about the necessary incompleteness of “representation,” and the implications of asymmetrical power relations, inherent in the processes of “documenting” lives, creating “representations,” or “staging” the “performance” of an “Other” as a Self.




Hope you can make it!

Cheers,
Maya Kóvskaya
(Delhi & Beijing-based art critic/curator/writer)
www.mayakovskaya.com (launching 1 September)

Looking is not seeing-solo exhibition by Balaji Ponna, Guild Art gallery Mumbai

Looking is not Seeing – Solo Exhibition by Balaji Ponna previewing September 7, 2011.

Balaji Ponna received his B.F.A in Graphics from Andhra University with Gold medal and his Masters in Graphics from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. He has also been a recipient of H.R.D. National Scholarship for young Artists (2004–05). He has exhibited in Solo Projects India Art Summit 2011, Arte Fiera Bologna 2010, Art Basel 09 and at Art HK 09. Balaji has also participated in "Contemporary Exoticism" curated by Marco Meneguzzo at Studio La Citta, Verona. His works have been currently selected for the France print Biennale 2009. His recent solo titled ‘The Things I Say’ was held at Studio la Citta, Verona in collaboration with The Guild.












“Looking is not Seeing” – a critical note

Responding to the socio-political and cultural realities of the time is one of the modes in which artists engage thematically through work. Within this engagement there are several trajectories of expressions that had emerged corroborating the subjective experiences of the artist in relation to the objective existence in society. Balaji’s pictorial expressions and the kind of rhetoric that he constructs on the surface of the picture is one of these responses but the language through which this response is articulated involves certain syntactic complexity. At the same time these responses are not some politically neutral and visually “interesting” objects of aesthetic desire but implied with a sharp political consciousness that is critical to the established cultural and social imaginations/ambiguities in the society.
Balaji’s works comprise a crucial relation between the painted text-phrases and the images. In fact this text, composed in two phrases, frames the meanings and the subtext of the visual images. Written in a simple typography, this text does not intervene in the picture format but stays on the surface, by virtue of its flat, two-dimensional nature. In one sense this text is equal to the status of parergon, as theorised by Derrida – Parergon is “neither work (ergon) nor outside the work, neither inside or outside, neither above nor below, it disconcerts any opposition but does not remain indeterminate and it gives rise to the work” (Truth in Painting, 1978). The textual phrase belongs to the work (painting) as well as stays unrelated pictorially to the painting. When a viewer approaches these paintings, the sight is drawn towards deftly manoeuvred images, but quickly, the verbal text catches the eye, as if intervening between the pictorial image and the sight of the onlooker. This moment of rupture is also the moment of introduction of specific meanings to the work. The phenomenological and aesthetic experience of the viewer, in this context, is guided by the text-phrase, written in English. And in this moment of quick shifts between the textual phrase and the image, signification gets complicated and acquires a double signification which correlates each other – the text and the image. At one level the text-phrase puts forward a literal or direct meaning of it. When the signified or the meaning interacts with the image, this signified becomes empty and acquires a second level signification, whose signified belongs to the social and political realms.
One can say that two tendencies of pictorial representations – modern and postmodern – interweave into a syntactic network that produces an easy communication of the meaning of the work at the first level. But at another level this communicated meaning gets re-projected onto the image that is developed by rendering certain pictorial density which engages the experiential realms of the viewer by virtue of its deferment of the signification. So the interesting dimension to the structure and the process of Balaji’s work is this apparent oscillation of the meaning/signification between its straightforward communication through text/words, and its deferment through pictorial rendering. The pictorial surface of these works follows the procedure of image making and abstraction of the form that develops the visual density and opens a space for aesthetic engagement in time at length, which works with the logic of deferment. Most of the times, Balaji’s image sources and references belong to the mundane and popular categories like posters, photographs – old and new, illustrations, popular prints etc. And he consciously maintains their discursive/visual character as if quoting from the popular visual culture and juxtaposes these, with an arbitrarily rendered picture surface. These visual quotes become pronounced through their easy recognisability and draw the eye of the viewer to navigate the entire surface of the painting that correlates and rearticulates the idea represented. Balaji formulates his own phrases sometimes; or he picks up some popular phrases that are re-structured in a sarcastic form or in an incomplete form. These text-phrases introduce a chiastic reversal of their primary or first level meaning when they interact with the painted image. For example “the favourite drink of our farmers” when the viewer relates with the image, and the history of farmers committing suicides in the recent past in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, India, the primary meaning of the phrase gets reversed and certain moral contradictions get interjected. Sometimes Balaji uses double or two parallel phrases that involve this chiastic relation in between them as well as with the image.
Apart from painting Balaji also experiments with sculptural language. The choice of material and the corresponding form that he evolves through, follows the same tendency of chiastic relation between the form and material that is popularly used and, the idea that is represented. For example in the work “New designs for our country’s pavements” he modelled the upper surface of the tiles used for pavements with human figures. These figures are represented in sleeping gestures and postures along with a bag or a small property, a site that we witness on the pavements in Indian cities; migrant people, labourers or the citizens of the “unplanned city” dwell on these pavements. Balaji chose the tiles that are presently used at large for the pavements and sculpted these figures in relief on them. Suggesting that these tiles to be used for pavements involve a parody, he in fact pointed out a double reality about the status of Indian pavements – as elements of modern city plan as well as its haunting underside that is attached so close to it, the alienated and unaccounted poor at the heart of the city. In another work “...is weaver weaving for himself” Balaji reflects at the contemporary reality attached with the weavers in rural India. Here too the irony is framed sharply by using the real looking loom that weaves a hanging rope, a signifier immediately invokes suicide. It is this reversal of the logic and purpose of the form articulates the contradictions that exist prominently and sometimes inherently in the society.
His works at the outset look simple and straightforward comments on the contemporary events and realities that are popularly known and are circulated through various means of media in general. They display the irony that persists within the forms of human relations and conditions of socio-economic existence. For example, those works that deal with the images of construction labour, farmer suicides, and certain established notions and expressions of patriotism etc. There is nothing pedagogical and serious about the way Balaji constructs the narrative of these acute political expressions. In fact, as the artist himself believes that the humoristic mode of expression develops a sharp impact, a shock to the viewer that shakes and destabilises the metaphysics of moral and ethical codes. But in retrospect Balaji’s works do not involve an effort to subvert those moral and ethical codes; rather they are in consonance with certain popular consciousness and the relative subtexts that are specific to the artist’s observations. Now, when Balaji says “looking is not Seeing” the emphasis is not just on what is seen through eyes but to engage at different discursive levels with the social, political, cultural and economic issues of the present time.

Santhosh Kumar Sakhinala, 22.08.2011


BALAJI PONNA
Born 1980

Qualification

M.F.A. (Graphics) from Visva - Bharati University, Santiniketan
B.F.A. (Graphics) from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, A. P.

Scholarships & Awards
1998 – 2001 Merit award from Andhra University
2001 – 2003 Merit award from Visva - Bharati University.
2004 – 2005 H.R.D. National Scholarship for young Artists.

Solo Exhibitions

2010 The Things I Say, at Studio La Citta, Verona, in collaboration with The Guild.
2009 Black Smoke, at Bose Pacia, Kolkata, in collaboration with The Guild.

International Art Fairs and Participations

2011 Solo Project at India Art Summit, New Delhi, India with The Guild, Mumbai

2010 & 2009 Art Basel, with Studio La Citta, Verona

2009 France Print Biennial
India Art Summit, New Delhi, India with The Guild, Mumbai.
Artverona 09, with Studio La Citta, Verona.
Art Hk 09, Hongkong

Selected Group Exhibitions

2010 10 x 10, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi
I think therefore graffiti..., The Guild, Mumbai
Art Celebrates 2010: Sports and the City, an Exhibition of Indian Contemporary Art by
Rupika Chawla

2009 Contemporary Exoticism curated by Marco Meneguzzo at Studio La Citta, Verona
A New Vanguard: Trends in Contemporary Indian Art, Saffron Art, New York; The Guild, New York

2008 The July show, The Guild, Mumbai.

2007 In the Midst, a group show organized by Zamaana arts, at the Tehresharan Gallery, New York
Chronicles of Unspoken group show at Travencore Art Gallery, New Delhi
Cross Roads, Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi.

2006 Stepping In - Stepping Out, by Art Konsult & Threshold art gallery at India Habitat Centre.
Modus Operandi, a group exhibition at ABS Lanxess Gallery, Baroda.
Sense N Blend, Kaleidoscope art gallery, Baroda.

2005 Distilled Embers, exhibition of prints organized by Alternatives & Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi.
Are We like This Only, curated by Vidya Sivadas by Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi


Lives and works in Baroda.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Video and Animation festival @ The Guild invited for show at LASALLE, Singapore

he Guild is delighted that the video and animation festival - VAF@The Guild has been invited by Institute of Contemporary Arts, LASALLE College of Arts, Singapore to show at their institute. The New Indian Film and Animation opens on the 17th August and artists’ talk by Dr. Vidya Kamat and Gigi Scaria will take place on the 18th August at 4.00 pm at ICA, LASALLE, Singapore.



New Indian Film & Animation
www.lasalle.edu.sg



The Guild
02/32, Kamal Mansion, 2nd floor
Arthur Bunder Road,Colaba Mumbai 400005
+ 91 22 2288 0116 / 0195
admn office
+91 22 2287 5839 /6211 fax + 91 22 2287 6210
www.guildindia.com
www.theguildny.com

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

On the Sidereal, curated by Prayas Abhinav







Guild logo -original.jpg

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Eelco Wagenaar, Motion of time

amitabh kumar copy.jpg

Amitabh Kumar, Projectile Prophecies: Magicians do not exist

ON THE SIDEREAL
Curated by Prayas Abhinav
July 27 – August 28

Amitabh Kumar
Eelco Wagenaar
Kiran Subbaiah
Prayas Abhinav
Tahireh Lal
Umesh Kumar PN

www.guildindia.com

The Guild is pleased to present “ON THE SIDEREAL”, an exhibition curated by Bangalore based artist and curator, Prayas Abhinav, featuring a multidisciplinary range of works by the six artists – Amitabh Kumar, Eelco Wagenaar, Kiran Subbaiah, Umesh Kumar PN, Prayas Abhinav and Tahireh Lal. The exhibition draws on the Jungian concept of time to propose the notion of Sidereal Time, which in a way sidesteps our knowing of multiple realities and universalities, but still is a part of our experience.

“What do we do after we de-shackle time from its commodity exchange value? Few can bear the weight of naked time. We seek ways to dullen, fragment and diffuse our awareness of it. Media creates a dream world for our waking selves. A dream world in which we are told that we have agency to reconfigure the worlds around us. A dream world that placates us when we cannot do so, offers us periodic piecemeal victory and hope to keep us engaged, keep us locked-in, prevent our “sidereality” to come alive.

This “sidereal” time and its voice can transform into anything it seeks. Desire, confusion and recklessness are tools which can be used towards this. With time made open to an alchemical manipulation and transformation, space invariably will be persuaded to take on other contours as well. And spaces will dream with all the things they contain. This brings us to the Wheel of Time – the packet within which all else floats. The Ouroboros. The reason why time can be cast in no permanent mould – except nostalgia maybe, for some time” – Prayas Abhinav

The exhibition is the culmination of a nine day residency program at The Guild. The residency saw art practitioners from diverse fields associated with the arts, architecture, culture studies and science talk and debate about the many concepts and notions of time, the arguments centering of course on the sidereal concept of time. Performance artistes also explored the semblance of what we call as normal or real time through the audio-visual medium. There were also individual presentations of previous works by the participating artists. For the first time in the history of art galleries in Mumbai, some of the talks and seminars were web-cast live. An interactive web discussion was also one of the highlights of this project which was initiated prior to the residency. Artists, art-lovers, intellectuals and students participated in the talks and discussions on all the days.
Amitabh Kumar’s work is part of his ongoing Prophesaur series; the new secret cult that had joined the cycle of cults that would one day control the world. It is about that operator who watches time. Doesnt pass it, use it, fetishize it, run from it, run to it, shut it, kill it. He watches it. And by virtue of that reveals his location to the prophesaurs. It's always outside time.
But this piece is not about his location either. Neither is It about him and the tragedy that became his sole preoccupation.
It is about the prophesaurs and the operator and the friendly arm twisting between them.

Eelco Wagenaar’s work is called ‘Duality’s of Time; A Triptych’. His multimedia work consists of a fan placed above a wall, where the wall serves the purpose of dividing the space into time zones. A clock made out of digital alarm clocks forms the second part of the triptych. The alarm clocks are representing the numbers of the clock. There are no arms that move, but the hours are moving from one clock to the other, in a counter clockwise motion. The minutes appear to be synchronized, but they aren’t. To complete the triptych there is a poster with a recent published thesis Artist as System Engineer. The text deals with issues regarding dual practices and interactivity in times of rapid development of (digital) technology and how art could be functioning in the construct of science and society.

Prayas Abhinav’s work is all about the textual narrative. As he puts it lucidly “Another pattern is apparent (and all narrative is fiction)”. Experience of time is fractures and like a piece of broken glass reflecting in an infinite loop, hypertexts are created in each living moment. This is complimentary to a Hydra of Incandescence, which is a corollary to the experience, that if trajectories are followed and pursued for what they are, we have to witness the Hydra of Incandescence.

Kiran Subbaiah’s work is the Black Box. A black box recovered from the debris of a time-machine that crashed in the vicinity of the artist's space-time. It contains a vital SOS message from the future addressed specifically to the world of contemporary art.

Tahireh Lal explores ideas and works that have their own physicality, time and space. Tending to abstract and pure form and using elemental aspects of the visual experience, the work explores the immersive, self-reflective environments that are connotative rather than denotative. The explorations deal with the convergence of seemingly disparate ideas where each narrative lead is stripped to its bare minimum both in content and aesthetic.

Umesh Kumar PN constructs assemblages/sculptures using everyday objects and materials by subverting their basic design and function. The process is as important as the final visual and where the aesthetics of the ordinary is part of the artist’s visual vocabulary. He works with the economy of material and fabrications with importance to the nature of the material. The intention is to locate and subvert cultural, economic productions and situations as part of the construct of the specific philosophical landscape with its inherent contradictions and irony.


The Guild
02/32,Kamal Mansion, 2nd floor
ArthurBunder Road,Colaba Mumbai 400005
+91 22 2288 0116 / 0195
adminoffice
+9122 2287 5839 /6211 fax + 91 22 2287 6210
www.guildindia.com
www.theguildny.com