Tiny Dots To Create These Wild Illustrations

NASREEN Mohamedi @ MET Breuer

NASREEN MOHAMEDI

@ The MET Breuer The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

CLOSING Sunday, June 5, 2016

…is a beautiful survey of the closely related drawings and photographs of Nasreen Mohamedi(1937-1990) of India, finally becoming known for her visionary, culturally inflected vision of Minimalism. …The museum is on solid ground with its Mohamedi survey…

Little known in her life­time, she has become an emblem of Modernism’s global reach and of the currents flowing outside western capitals.

In her monochrome, quietly utopian world, diagonals slice across white paper like the contrails of jets flying in formation. Lines intersect, form nodes, and make waves. They cast shadows and coalesce into hovering forms. In her photographs of pavement stripes, coastlines and walls, she is always alert to the world’s mysterious rhythms.…The more her body betrayed her, the more exacting she became, as if to insist that random suffering could be palliated by the discipline of beautiful geometry…

Her fine-drawn linear planes floating in space, or shattering into cascades, feel both timeless and futuristic, calligraphic and architectural. …As with work by Agnes Martin, to whom she has been compared, Ms. Mohamedi’s art feels rounded-out and complete, but open-ended, too. Her last drawings, which must have demanded superhuman control, are of tiny spaceship-like chevrons shooting into deep space…

A retiring presence in Indian art during her life, Nasreen Mohamedi is now at the center of global issues of contemporary art.

Mohamedi emerged in the wake of the first generation of Indian artists to gain recognition on the international scene and quickly defined a pristine, profoundly meditative approach to abstraction that both isolated her from most Indian art of her time and earned her a place among the leading artists of the late 20th century. …Mohamedi’s independent photographs evince a developed sensitivity to the beauty of barren landscapes and the power of an eccentric viewpoint to turn a mundane scene into a tautly structured composition. Inspired by patterns of shifting sands, breaking waves, and scintillating light, she soon translated these phenomena into drawings—throbbing grids of fluctuating lines. Their radical austerity far surpasses the relative naturalism of her mentors and connects to her roots in Islamic traditions of abstraction…

For that, spend time with the Mohamedi show, which is magnificent. The artist, who died in 1990, used drafting equipment to create works of astonishing subtlety, faintly traced pencil drawings that have both architectural and musical overtones. Small deviations from perfect regularity set up cascading patterns, as if an Agnes Martin painting began pulsing like the ripples on the surface of a pond. …The photographs are particularly intriguing, making explicit some of the delicate architectural suggestions of the drawings. All Mohamedi needed to make an image was a basic geometrical idea, which her camera often detected in landscapes that were otherwise arid and ugly. There’s something immeasurably touching about the way her camera found beauty in the world, and her drawing concentrated that beauty into something entirely new; the photographs don’t ground her abstraction in the world, but connect it to worldly ideas, like kindness, gentleness and delicacy...

Even more encouraging and heartening is the choice of artist for the first solo presentation at Met Breuer. Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-90) was a minimalist of exquisite poise, rigor and resoluteness. This comprehensive retrospective focuses on her graphic works and monochrome paintings. The quiet austerity of her vision is the perfect complement to Breuer’s dignified architectural understatement. But more significant is the defiance of marketing expectation on the part of the Met’s curators in choosing a relatively unknown artist from outside the international mainstream and contemporary fashion: “difficult” art in “slow” mediums. It signals, let’s hope, that Met Breuer is to be placed at the service of the best that museum scholarship can come up with, defeating any sense that modern and contemporary equals flashy and populist…

The exhibition of Mohamedi’s delicate, exacting, wordless drawings, elegantly installed in the low-ceilinged Breuer building and accompanied by impressive photographs and notebooks, does precisely what Wagstaff was brought in to do: it rewires the history of modernism into something more complex and more simultaneous than the flow-chart progression many western museums still often indulge…

Another fine sign is the elegant, understated retrospective of Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–1990) on the Met Breuer’s second floor, which signals that the institution is staking a claim as a vital venue for presenting alternate strains of modernism, developed by artists from beyond the United States and Europe, which remain too little seen in the city’s museums…

Another section of the Met Breuer is devoted to an exhibition of the work of the Indian modernist artist Nasreen Mohamedi, whose extraordinary works bespeak a combination of precision and strength, delicacy and power, further enhancing the sense of subtle connection between the architecture and the art…

Mohamadi is often compared to Martin, though I believe that comparison is superficial at best. Martin’s work is nearly always a gestalt that can be summoned to mind visually even if only approximately as a simple grid with shadings, dots, etc. By contrast, Mohamedi’s work is altogether to complex and varied within the comparison itself to be summoned to mind like a gestalt…

On the second floor is a retrospective of the esteemed Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-90), who is virtually unknown in the United States. With an extensive array of paintings, drawings, photographs and diaries on view here, one can follow the development of her distinctive version of geometric abstraction.

 …That the curators have begun with such a serious body of work in a presentation that avoids spectacle is a statement in its own right. It also sets them up to exhibit modern art from different places in a way that frames modernism not as a chronological sequence of Western ideas that can only be imported colonially or imposed imperially, but as an anachronic relay of international practices in complicated conversation…

It is a remarkable gathering of exquisite yet robust photographs and drawings by Nasreen Mohamedi. …Some float on the page like a gossamer veil. They are infused with the rhythm of a Bridget Riley, the playfulness of Piet Mondrian and the lyricism of an Ellsworth Kelly line leaf drawing – Mohamedi’s diaries reveal she saw his work in Washington. Like him, she was permanently preoccupied by the essence of line and shape…

… Mohamedi was a great artist. She was increasingly audacious in her experimentations with space, and in the late 1970s and early ’80s she abandoned grids and vanishing points. Her work took on a new intensity, suggestive of movement and spirit, and an almost transcendent idea of pure vision.

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ALSO ON VIEW

ALWAR BALASUBRAMANIAM Rain in the midnight @Talwar Gallery, New York Through August 13, 2016

N.N. RIMZON Forest of The Living Divine @Talwar Gallery, New Delhi Through August 13, 2016

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TALWAR GALLERY

New York | New Delhi

www.talwargallery.com

BALA @ Talwar New York | Opening March 5

ALWAR BALASUBRAMANIAM Rain in the midnight March 5 through June 4, 2016 Opening Preview, Saturday, March 5, 6-8pm @TALWAR GALLERY 108 E 16 Street New York 10003 www.talwargallery.com N.N. Rimzon @ TALWAR Gallery, New Delhi Through May 28, 2016 Nasreen Mohamedi @ The MET Breuer / The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York March 18 – June 4, 2016

Sagarika Ghatge, Namrata Barua, Krsna Mehta, Jaideep Mehrotra at the Art Week 2015

Sagarika Ghatge, Namrata Barua, Krsna Mehta, Jaideep Mehrotra at the Art Week 2015

Mumbai

Sagarika Ghatge, Namrata Barua, Krsna Mehta, Anavila Misra, Bose Krishnamachari, Rouble Nagi, Kahini Arte Merchant, Editor of Good Homes Ronitaa Italia Dhani attended artist Jaideep Mehrotra's multimedia art display at Gallery Art & Soul, Worli, Mumbai, where Good Homes Magazine announced their fourth edition of  'GoodHomes for Art presented by Hafele and powered by Asian Paints in association with New India Assurance. 

Jaideep Mehrotra's preoccupation with sociopolitical issues manifests itself in his video work- a subconscious expression, reinforcing the message into the mind of the viewer through seemingly benign visuals.  

This year the art week will be held from 28th to 30th October 2015 at Carter Road, Bandra and will allow the public to witness some of the brilliant and creative works by renowned artists and art students.

Artist Jaideep Mehrotra says, Right from the inception of Good Homes Art Week, my association with them has been to bring Art out of the confines of galleries and to exhibit it in the common expanses of the city. I wholeheartedly endorse their commendable efforts  and  extend my full support to see them grow in their endeav​our.

Ronitaa Italia-Dhani, Editor, Good Homes says,“The whole point of our endeavor is to blur the conscious boundaries and take art out of the galleries, to the people. GoodHomes would like to be the catalyst that facilitates an open dialogue between art and its observers… age, caste, class no bar!”

About GoodHomes:

GoodHomes is India’s leading home and décor magazine, published by Worldwide Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Times Group. The magazine was launched in India in 2008. It reaches out to the contemporary Indian home-owner, who is always on the lookout for inspirational ideas. House proud and homeward-bound, the magazine reflects the modern

Osianama Osianama at Liberty : Opening Daily from 18th September 2015 with Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Retrospective & Gandhiji : The Fuller-Full Life of a Mahatma

Osianama at Liberty : Opening Daily from 18th September 2015 with Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Retrospective & Gandhiji : The Fuller-Full Life of a Mahatma

It has only been twenty years in the making, but through thick and thin, crises and boom, the mind has kept its focus - that India must have a strongly independent, intellectually vibrant & financially self-sufficient, private-sector driven cultural & educational institution which daily showcases the holistic living classical, medieval and modern creative traditions as well as the new emerging contemporary forms of India's cultural civilization. 

Osianama is that hopefully Institution, coming to you, first from Mumbai, across three exclusive venues - Osianama at Liberty (Opens daily from 18th September 2015 with a focus on Indian, Asian, Arab & World Cinema and the Indian Popular Cultures); Osianama at Tao (Opened on 8th September 2015, with a focus on the Indian & Asian Modern & Contemporary Fine Arts & Antiquities) and Osianama at HQ where the Osian's Archive, Library and Research Centre opens in December 2015. The fourth venue will be Osianama at Vanraja, New Delhi which will focus on Animal Welfare, Veterinary Sciences & Nature Studies. 

Thus Osianama together with www.osianama.com will create its unique online-offline cultural, cinematic and artistic learning experience, allowing each Member and individual to customize their interests and needs so as to study and explore anew India' s cultural civilization. There is still much progress to be made. However, in the days to come we will share and clarify the Calendar of various events for your participation, review and joy as the building process continues... 

Among the highlights for this first month of activities 'Jashn-Osianama' (8th September to 4th October 2015) are Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Retrospective & his 1st Director's Masterclass along with the 1st Photography Masterclass by Raghu Rai; the 1st Panel Discussion on India's Cultural Renaissance (with Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Dr. Kanak Rele, Gieve Patel, Sen Kapadia & Neville Tuli); a mini-Film Festival, Round-table Discussion and major Exhibition on Gandhiji : The Fuller-Full Life of a Mahatma, featuring the first complete showing of his last days photographed by French master photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson from the Osian's Archive Collection and the rare personal artifacts of Gandhiji from the Collection of Kamal Morarka which were purchased so as to bring them back to India from British Collections. 

SHEILA MAKHIJANI NowNotNow September 15 through December 19, 2015 @ TALWAR GALLERY 108 E 16 Street New York, NY 10003

SHEILA MAKHIJANI NowNotNow September 15 through December 19, 2015 Opening Preview, Tuesday, September 15, 6 – 8 pm @ TALWAR GALLERY 108 E 16 Street New York, NY 10003 Talwar Gallery is delighted to present NowNotNow, an exhibition of paintings on canvas and works on paper by Sheila Makhijani. The exhibition opens on September 15 and will continue through December 19, 2015. In Makhijani’s canvases the first impact is of movement, forceful and definite. Rising vertically, diagonally, spreading or converging they seem to expand beyond their frames. Planes of color jostle amongst themselves, merging and overlapping as if being directed by hidden energy fields under the canvas. Constructed with layers of paint, Makhijani creates depths with light filled planes alongside dense dark surfaces. Their presence is bold and full on, and unlike in her sparsely executed drawings not a single spot remains untouched on Makhijani’s canvas. Everything here belongs to her and her brush. In contrast to the canvas works, on paper Makhijani proceeds with precision abled brush strokes gently borrowing space for her lines to exist. In the recent works, amidst the meandering markings, there appear floating planes as if the result of an overflowing river system revealing the possible depths within the structure. Playful, imaginary and exacting these self contained, self governing worlds appear to unfold according to some unknown logic. The compositions appear as unified forms, singular if confoundingly complex: the course of a thought, as if it was presented all at once. Sheila Makhijani was born in Delhi in 1962 where she has since lived and worked. She graduated from Delhi College of Art with a Bachelors in Arts in 1984 and later with a Masters of Arts in Painting in 1988. After leaving the academic setting, Makhijani’s practice departed from the rigidity of representational and figurative forms to a more intuitive, inventive and personal one. This exploration was enhanced further by her travels abroad and artist residencies especially in the Netherlands and in Kanazawa, Japan. The importance of the surface and the line learned during this early nineties period augmented her understanding of color. Sheila Makhijani stands distinctly apart in her consistent commitment to an oeuvre that stands resolute in its singular pursuit of abstraction. A quotidian practice that has been rigorously maintained over the last quarter century, as artists abandon painting for other mediums, Makhijani has steadfastly remained engaged in discovering its limitless possibilities. Makhijani’s works have been exhibited worldwide, including at the Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) at the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Australia; Kuntsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Gemeentemuseum, Netherlands. This is the artist’s fifth solo exhibition at Talwar. __________________________________ TALWAR GALLERY New York | New Delhi www.talwargallery.com UPCOMING EXHIBITION RUMMANA HUSSAIN Breaking Skin @Talwar Gallery, New Delhi September 30, 2015 – January 9, 2016

Opening Exhibition Preview - Kohei Sugiura | 6:30pm Tuesday 8th September 2015, Osianama at Tao

magnificent Exhibition on the artworks designed by one of the world's finest graphic and book designers - the Japanese master Kohei Sugiura, as part of the month long cultural and cinematic festival "Jashn-Osianama : Celebrating Creative Obsession" (8th September to 4th October 2015).

This month long celebration will include a major Retrospective on one of India's most eminent film directors - Adoor Gopalakrishnan - and a mini film festival plus a host of engaging and educational events focusing on the Life and Times of Gandhiji, which includes an Exhibition featuring the rare artworks and photographs from the Osian's Archive & Library Collection including those by French master photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson capturing the last days of Gandhiji's life along with the original and rare artifacts, letters and personal belongings of Gandhiji from the Private Collection of eminent patronKamal Morarka. 

Thereafter Osianama will share its first full quarterly Calendar (October to December 2015) for the public and members.