Lassi With Lavina- India, Indian art & culture, Indian food, India travel, spirituality & Bollywood by Lavina Melwani » Art

Asian Contemporary Art Week 2011 – Art’s Heart

Lavina Melwani — Sat, 14 May 2011 02:51:23 +0000

The Buddha melts at the Rubin Museum and people collect droplets for blessings - Photo; Michael Palma

ACAW - The Arts of Asia Come to New York

A five foot, 1300 pound Buddha sculpted out of ice by the Korean contemporary artist Atta Kim sits tranquilly in the foyer of the Rubin Museum of Art, slowly, slowly melting away. The lit up museum is open throughout the night, as viewers come, fascinated by the impermanence of things. Throughout the weekend, the image slowly vanishes, and viewers are invited to touch and take away the melting ice home in tiny containers. Kim wanted the water from his monumental ice sculpture to nurture a growing seedling or plant, to continue the cycle of renewal…

Yes, in the month of March, Asian art came to New York in many surprising shapes and forms – paintings, sculptures, installation art, performance art and videos- heralding the annual Asian Contemporary Arts Week, a vigorous celebration of this diverse continent – with art and artists, music, dance and food.

The city of New York became a little Asia as art lovers moved from gallery to gallery, museum to museum in pursuit of that which was familiar, and that which they had never seen. So while there were noted, famous names, there were also new, emerging artists, unknown works of art and bold new ideas.

'When the Gods Came Down to Earth' by Srinivas Krishna

This feast of Asian art was initiated in 2002 by Vishaka Desai, who was then the museum director and is now the president of Asia Society. It was a collaboration of several organizations, with funding from the Asian Cultural Council, connecting leading New York City galleries and museums in a citywide event of public programs such as exhibitions, receptions, lectures and performances.

The week – actually eleven days – focuses on a kaleidoscope of artworks produced by Asian contemporary artists working in their home countries and abroad. The best part is the chance to see the works up close and meet the artists face to face, and listen to them talk about the creative process.

Where else would you be able to jump from India to Japan to Korea to Iran and China – all in the span of a few hours? Art lovers ate art for breakfast, lunch and dinner as they sped from gallery to museum to auction house. At Sotheby’s they could catch a dialogue between Pakistani artist Rashid Rana and Pooja Sood; the director of ‘Khoj’ or at Bose Pacia view Conundrum, an exhibition featuring noted contemporary artists from India, including Aditya Pande, Anita Dube, Arunkumar H.G., Raqs Media Collective, Mithu Sen, & Suhasini Kejriwal.

An entire day was devoted to the art district of Chelsea with numerous galleries participating in the Asian fest. At Chambers Fine Art, you saw Layers, the dramatic series of paintings by Xianoze Xie, depicting stacks of Chinese books and newspapers, and what they really depicted; at Jack Shainman Gallery, Delhi artist Vibha Galhotra showed her wall hangings made of ghungroos, hinting at the new generation’s challenging of tradition; at Priska C. Jushka Fine Art, video artist Almagul Menlibayeva showed the people of the Aral Sea region.

Also in Chelsea, you stopped by Sundaram Tagore’s Gallery where you had a virtual Pan Asian show with artists whose very names showed their diversity – Hiroshi Senju, Anil Revri, Sohan Qadri, Kim Joon, Nathan Slate Joseph, Bob Yasuda, Nhat Tran, Amina Ahmed, and Taylor Kuffner. In the course of a few hours you could span Asia in Chelsea.

Leeza Ahmady, the director of ACAW since 2004, has seen many changes in the scope of this festival. As she points out, there is a tremendous sense of confusion and fragmentation in reference to how Asia is presented not only in the arts, but also in spaces of politics, and policy making.

Monir Farmanfarmaian, Untitled 2010

“While I find the term ‘Asian art’ problematic, I believe it is worth tackling exactly because of that aspect,” she says. “Beyond aesthetics, there is a lot to detangle around issues of art in relationship to regions, exhibition spaces, the art market and art education, as well as the division and interconnections between local and international arenas, on how artists deal with issues of cultural specificity.”

Interestingly, ACAW includes artists from the Middle East, Central Asia, and South East Asia, and also non-Asian focused galleries and museums to broaden the program, reflecting the shifting reality of many NYC museum and galleries who were beginning to represent one or two artists in their rosters. The consortium members since then have expanded to include Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, and this as Ahmadi points out, is a reflection of changes and fluxes that occur in the scene itself.

The Asian art trail was spread all over Manhattan: At the Guggenheim Museum there was a screening of Taiwanese director Hou Hsia-Hsien on the artist Liu Xiodong – and right after that Alice Monroe, a senior curator of art at the Guggenheim, had a one on one dialogue with the artist himself. So viewers had many added pleasures to seeing the art.

You also got to see the unexpected. In recent years Japanese contemporary art has been about manga (animation) and cute Hello Kitty’s inspired art. At the Japan Society viewers got to see the work of 16 artists, who curator David Elliot said, “meld traditional styles with challenging visions of Japan’s troubled present and uncertain future.” (See sidebar)

The Indo-American Arts Council showed the work of South Asian artists. Photo - Michaeltoolan.com

AT ACAW, Asia by Taxi, Bus & Subway…

The Week encompassed all parts of Asia with intriguing exhibitions from China Institute to Gallery Korea to Taipei Cultural Center. The trip to Asia was by taxi and bus and subway, going from the upper reaches of Manhattan right down to Chinatown.

Ask Melissa Chiu, Director of the Museum at Asia Society, as to which country is producing the most vibrant art, and she says, “I think it depends how you measure that: for sheer volume you could say India and China take the lead and have very well developed markets for their work. On the other hand you could say artists in countries like Japan and Korea have not had the same level of attention but the work is just as significant in being able to portray what’s going on today in those countries.”

Indeed, Asia Society spotlighted renowned Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian in the signature event of ACAW, talking about her work with Chiu. The artist who received the 1958 Venice Biennale’s Gold Medal, lives in Iran and discussed her life and art.

“It is like I am standing in the center of a circle and seeing what is going on all around in respect to the larger picture,” says Ahmadi. “It allows for continuous hands-on learning. There is a unique collective spirit to the project. An amazing example of how profit and nonprofit institutions can come together to further a larger mission, which in the case of ACAW, is to educate.”

As for the young artists of the South Asian Diaspora, art is alive and well – and kicking as seen at the at the Queens Museum of Art. When the Indo-American Arts Council put out a call for submissions, they received over a hundred, and finally 43 were selected. These young artists each brought their own perspectives. According to Vijay Kumar, artist and curator of the show, one of the outstanding pieces was ‘Lahore of Today’ by Fasth U Ashan, done in traditional miniature style but in a contemporary fashion. Tanu Jindal, the director of the exhibition, cited the Srinivas Krishna video installation, ‘When the Gods came down to earth’ – where mythology and hi-tech mix outrageously.

At the China Institute, in a formal setting in a townhouse in a richly paneled room was a fascinating discussion with Chinese artist Xianoze Xie, and art lovers had the pleasure of shaking hands with the noted artist, of having a photo taken.

The Telltale Tart, an exhibition of the work of Iranian artist Shirin Fakim was shown at LTMH Gallery during ACAW.

Shirin Fakim – The Tell Tale Tart

And then there were some artists who were more present in their absence, in the powerful stories their work told. One such artist is Shirin Fakim, who could not venture out of Iran, but whose exhibition The Tell Tale Tart was shown at LTMH Gallery on Madison Avenue. To view this is to come away disturbed, melancholy.

Imagine a room full of women, prostitutes, lowest of the low. They are faceless – without an identity, without a future. They are created out of found objects, the flotsam and jetsam of society. Their heads are fashioned out of jars, their breasts are jars shaped like voluptuous melons– after all, aren’t women objects? They lack hands, and some even their lower limbs, they have no standing in society. Clad in flashy underwear and gold heels, they are what they wear, sexual objects in an uncaring society.

And yet to stand in that small room with these life-sized, lifeless women was to feel their presence and their pain. It seemed almost a community. As Media Farzin, a young Iranian artist, explained it, “Shirin is part of a group of artists who are very attentive to what’s happening on the streets, they are very attentive to what’s happening in society.”

This work would never be shown in Iran, and suddenly the impact of these 11 days became quite clear to me. As Farzin mused, “Here artists get a chance to get a visibility with a certain kind of audience. If there wasn’t a week dedicated to this kind of work, they’d have to be fighting for opportunity with everything else in New York, which is such a dense city with so much going on. So this is for people who really care about art, to give the artists a platform for their work.”

(This article first appeared in Housecalls )

Inside Japan At ACAW

History of Rise and Fall, 2006

Pen and acrylic ink on paper, mounted on board

78 ¾ × 78 ¾ in.

Courtesy Mizuma Art Gallery, Takahashi Collection

Photo: Kei Miyajima

Manabu Ikeda works in ink and acrylic paint applied by pen onto paper, creating large,

intricate works teeming with the details of lives that are socially and metaphysically

linked. In History of Rise and Fall, success and failure, nature, history, and human presence coexist within the confines of an ancient castle supported by branches and roots that simultaneously reflect the four seasons, while the missile-like streaks in the sky at top left represent the ever present threat of nuclear obliteration, in this case from North Korea.

Harakiri School Girls, 2002

Print on transparency film, holographic film, acrylic

46 ¾ × 33 3/8 in.

Courtesy Mizuma Art Gallery. Watai Collection

Makoto Aida’s work combines social critique with nihilistic humor, tempered by

the artist’s respect for the styles he lampoons. Harakiri School Girls combines the

fetishistic fashions and nubile bodies of fantasy schoolgirls with the time-honored

samurai practice of ritual suicide. Its drawing style alludes to the work of Tsukioka

Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), an artist often dismissed as “decadent” because of his violent

subject matter, madness, and Western influences. In the battle for urban cultural

life, Aida’s principal enemy is the gray-suited “salaryman,” whose conformism and

lack of individual spirit he abhors. The enormous Ash Color Mountains (2009–10)

shows the corpses of hundreds of salarymen, each depicted in loving detail, on vast

gray tumuli.

Untitled, 2008 by yoshitomo Nara at The Japan Society during ACAW

Untitled, 2008 by Yoshimoto Nara

C-print photograph

10 ½ × 7 7/8 in.

Courtesy Tomio Koyama Gallery

Well known to New York audiences thanks to his recent solo show at Asia Society,

Yoshitomo Nara, is famous in both Japan and the West for his engagement with

popular culture. Cartoonlike paintings of children, or installations of toys, form the

basis of his work, yet they undermine the kawaii (“cute”) aesthetic through their

subversive, at times malicious, self-awareness. In 2008 he published this photograph

of a beautifully maintained tomb for pets, crowned with two large, symmetrical

Hello Kitty polychrome stone “guardians.” At last, it seems, even Kitty has passed

beyond the veil of cuteness and had to say, “Bye Bye.”

(Source: The Japan Society)

Related Article:

Asian Art Week – A Love Fest

Indian & Pakistani Contemporary Art, Together

Lavina Melwani — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:10:22 +0000

The Dead Smile by Iranna at the Aicon Gallery

G. R. Iranna
THE DEAD SMILE
2007
Fiberglass and cloth
29 x 24 x 32 in. (24 Figures)

Contemporary Art from India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan may have been geographically birthed on the same subcontinent but they are relentlessly apart as nations. It is a question of so near – and yet so far. Once one people, they are now so far apart that can one understand the mindset of The Other?

Yet, art by Indian and Pakistani artists hung side by side in the Aicon Gallery in Manhattan – perhaps there were not even six degrees of separation between these canvases.

Looking at these powerful works of art one would be hard-pressed to say which artist was from India, and which from Pakistan. This only goes to prove that at heart, the dreams, the hopes and the fears are the same…

Aicon Gallery presented Reprise 2010, a group exhibition showcasing contemporary art from South Asia, and many of these artists had been featured earlier in the gallery’s two major contemporary group shows- Home and the World, and Malleable Memory. In recent years, Aicon has introduced many emerging artists from Pakistan to showcase the evolving contemporary art scene there.

The artists in Reprise 2010, which was organized by Andrew Shea, the associate gallery director, included Sana Arjumand, Ruby Chishti, John Jurayj, G. R. Iranna, Rehana Mangi, Jatinder Marwaha, Shoaib Mehmood, Nitin Mukul, Huma Mulji, Baiju Parthan, Debanjan Roy, Reena Saini Kallat, Attiya Shaukat, Anjali Srinivasan, Adeela Suleman, and Mahreen Zuberi.

'Peacocks with Drapes' by Adeela Suleman

Adeela Suleman
UNTITLED 2 (Peacocks with Drapes) (Ed. of 3)
2010
Steel
102 x 140 in

“Over the last few years, we’ve been covering more and more of the contemporary arts from Pakistan,” said Kai Matsu of Aicon Gallery. “While this show is not the first time we’ve shown Indian and Pakistani art in the same show, Reprise 2010 may very well have been the most “mixed” in terms of the number of pieces represented by region over the recent years – nearly half of the works were in fact from Pakistan.”

Walking into the gallery, one got the sense of being on edge, of being surrounded. This is not restful art but art which speaks to our troubled times. You cannot escape ‘Dead Smile’ – GR Iranna’s powerful tableaux of condemned men taking up the whole floor – the feel is more of a prison than an art gallery. Seemed almost awkward and intrusive to be standing there, sipping wine and chatting with friends, so real was the discomfort of being next to this circle of the damned.

As Donald Kuspit wrote in the catalog of Iranna’s London show, “In what is clearly a tour de force of protest art, a masterpiece of social commentary, Iranna shows us the human truth of our times, shows us how far man has fallen: abject and anonymous, stripped naked and emasculated, his figures squat submissively, like dogs waiting to spring up and do their master’s bidding. They are lined up in rows, and – the crowning touch, brilliantly simple – their heads are shrouded in plastic, effectively muffling, even suffocating them : they dare not speak out, dare not protest their servitude, dare not stand head held high and proud.”

The sense of unease, of questioning the crumbling, out-of-control world around us seemed to touch many of the artworks. Pakistani artist Adeela Suleman’s fragile stainless steel works evoke an idyllic paradise of parrots and peacocks, flowers and foliage – yet look closer and you see juxtaposed with these are missiles and suicide jackets – and the stench of death is never very far away.

Mosque-Nest by Nitin Mukul at the Reprise show at the Aicon Gallery

Nitin Mukul
MOSQUE NEST
2008
Oil, acrylic and tea stain on canvas
48 x 36 in.

Nitin Mukul, who is Indian-American, and with a foot in both worlds brings his own perspectives to his abstract canvases which are built on the myriads of photographs he shoots as the scaffolding for the final artwork. In the foreboding ‘Mosque-Nest’ he touches upon the demonizing of all Muslims that seems to have occurred in the wake of terrorist attacks in different parts of the world. As Alexander Keefe explains in his essay, “Behind the surface there are pressures more urgent than the weight of the sky: the artist is making a point here about the dangerous powers attributed to Muslims in the contemporary imagination, the easy bleed between reductive frameworks for the characterization of social groups and the ways we imagine our pests as dangerous, unwanted non-human others. The mosque-nest marks an intersection between biology, architecture, urban space and human history.”

'Then the Shadows Fell from the Sky 1' by Sana Arjumand

Sana Arjumand
THEN THEIR SHADOWS FELL FROM THE SKY 1
2010
Ink, acrylic and teas stains on canvas
36 x 36 in.

Sana Arjumand, who lives in Pakistan, paints surreal figures to explore ‘the set-up of society, social responsibility…confusion of identity, the role of religions vs. culture and the constant dilemma of being the ‘young, modern Pakistani female.’ Frequently employing symbolism, most notably elements from the Pakistani flag, to express notions such as national pride or political oppression, her work expresses the artist’s dual response towards her Pakistani identity: her pride and belief in her nationality and cultural heritage twinned with a desire to embrace the modern world, and her frustration with those whose actions and ideas might hinder this.”

As terrorism infiltrates our everyday world, it is a universal concern. Brooklyn-based artist John Jurayj, who is neither from India or Pakistan, addresses this in his powerful works done in oil and gunpowder. Be it the destroyed Twin Towers, suicide bombers or the quick dismemberment of normal lives, normal routines, these have become facts of life in the real world and in the world of art.

Mirror image by John Jurayj

John Jurayj
UNTITLED (MIRROR IMAGE #34)
2010
Oil and gunpowder on black plexiglass
48 x 36 in.

This was art that brought into the open issues of terrorism and fundamentalism, of identity and loss of hope. The modern dance performance of Mariko Reynolds choreographed to the mournful Okinawan funeral music played by violinist Leyna Papach, was somber, a bit surreal and in sync with the mood. The young downtown crowd seemed to love it all as they buzzed around, viewed the art and socialized, in the midst of death and destruction.

Living on the edge is the only way to live, it seems, in these frenetic times.

Ricardo Mazal, Life, Death on Mount Kailash

Lavina Melwani — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:15:00 +0000

Kora by Ricardo Mazal

Ricardo Mazal, life & death on Mount Kailash

Mount Kailash, Tibet’s holiest summit, gives lessons in life – and death. It can even inspire people who have never seen it. Mexican contemporary artist Ricardo Mazal was mesmerized by the images and took a trip, one of the most difficult he’s ever attempted, to do the ‘Kora’ or pilgrimage which is a 33 mile trek around the peak, and is undertaken by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Bonpos alike.

It is believed that 108 rounds of Mount Kailash can lead to nirvana. The Kora became a pilgrimage for Ricardo Mazal to unearth larger truths about life and death. A noted Latin American artist, he has had ten individual museum exhibitions in Mexico and the US, including a recent retrospective in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.

The result of his visit to Mount Kailash is ‘Kora’, a stunning exhibition at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery, recreating a landscape of mountain peaks, prayer flags and silence. It is the last in his trilogy of the sacred burial rituals of three cultures, the others being inspired by the Mayan tomb of The Red Queen in Palenque, Chiapas Mexico, and the Peace Forest cemetery in Odenwald, Germany. His work embraces multicultures, and has a global touch to it.

Mazal, a self-taught artist who did not begin painting till he was in his 30’s, has been working on the Burial Trilogy for over six years and ‘Kora’ is the culmination of the trilogy which received a grant from the Mexican government. All of his work starts out with digital photographs, rooted in his personal experiences and then becomes progressively abstract

“It’s probably one of the most difficult trips I’ve ever done,” he says. “It’s a very remote, very difficult area and high altitude. We flew to Nepal, drove through Tibet and spent four days on Mount Kailash. The Kora is a pilgrimage around the mountain. We were warned when we arrived at the site that 16 people had already died that summer from different problems.”

Does one have to be a Hindu or a Buddhist to do the Kora?

“No. You can also be a crazy artist to do it too!” he says with a smile.

Although Mazal jokes about it, undertaking the pilgrimage was a big commitment and a lot of hardship. “The correct form of pilgrimage here is not a climb, a conquering of the summit but a kora – a circumambulation of the mountain,” explains poet and novelist Henry Shukman in ‘Kora- the Cycle of Birth and Death’ in the catalog accompanying the exhibition ‘Kora’. “At an average walking pace, the journey takes three days, and is arduous in itself, involving steep, long ascents, as well as the endurance required by any walk at heights above 18,000 feet.”

“For most devotees, clockwise is the preferred direction; but Bon adherents are required to go counter-clockwise. Some employ special breathing techniques that propel them around the mountain in a single day and night. Others undertake to make a complete prostration with every single step, or even several prostrations, which can result in a single circuit of the mountain taking years to complete.”

Kora C1 by Ricardo Mazal

Mount Kailash is the holiest place in the Tibetan Buddhism but is also venerated in Hindu and Jain tradition. In the Tibetan sky burials, the tradition is for bodies to be left segmented for the animals, the vultures and nature to recycle. The sky burials are about letting nothing go waste and giving yourself back to the elements. Mazal says, “It’s a way of regeneration through nature.”

How has his work on the Burial Trilogy changed his outlook?

“It’s about life and death and about examining different cultures on how they approach death,” he says. “But it’s really more about life because it’s how we humans create that end of our lives. When I was in Germany in the forest and I saw the cemetery of trees, I saw children playing hide and seek amidst the trees – I realized that my project was dealing more with life – challenging death and celebrating life. I feel I’m still not finished. Right now I call it a trilogy but I don’t know where it will go, and I want to take the painting to different levels through exploration.”

Henry Shukman on Ricardo Mazal’s ‘Kora’

“All of this mystery, this beautiful paradox, can be found in Mazal’s work. First, the cyclical way he comes to the final canvases, reworking the images digitally, letting canvas and computer speak to each other over and over; the image leapfrogging over itself from medium to medium, until a final result is settled; and the way there is so much movement from the gorgeous generosity of the flying prayer flags, to the radial circularity of the blocks of color inspired originally by the pigment boxes – and yet underlying it all, that wonderful quality of stillness. Motion and immobility; life and death; suffering and liberation: Mazal’s Kora speaks to us from the center of all of them.”

Kora - Ricardo Mazal exhibit at Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Ricardo Mazal – Mount Kailash, Fluttering Prayer Flags

For years Mazal has explored the cycle of life, death and regeneration. In each of his investigations, photographs have been the impetus. For Mazal, photography is a bridge that links reality to abstraction. His process begins by manipulating his photographs on the computer to compose a digital sketch. He then moves onto the canvas, delicately layering oil paint using foam-rubber blades. To reveal luminous passages of color, Mazal sweeps a dry blade with varying degrees of pressure across the canvas. The vestiges of paint are almost embryonic in structure with faint texture and hue.

At regular intervals, Mazal photographs his painting in progress. Returning to his computer, he creates hybrid sketches that fuse the photographs of the painting with the virtual drawing allowing him to revisit his composition. Often, Mazal’s influences will also spring from images of previous paintings, which he incorporates into new digital sketches. It is a regenerative and cyclical process closely paralleling the themes he explores.

During his 21-day journey, Mazal documented the striated façade of Mount Kailash, the wood-frame boxes of pigments in the frontier town Darchen, and the streams of prayer flags quivering in the wind. What emerged from these studies were three distinct bodies of work. In paintings such as Kora MK8, blurred areas of black and white paint sweep across the surface of the canvas in a flickering motion.

The repetition of horizontal streaks recalls the snow-streaked surface of the black mountain. The imbricated lines are also suggestive of a geological diagram indicating the passing of time. Meanwhile, in works such as Kora PF5, Mazal’s forms become looser echoing the freedom and fluidity of the vibrant prayer flags positioned across the mountain.

According to Tibetan belief, the fierce winds deliver the blessings inscribed on the flags to the world. Finally, in the Cajas paintings, Mazal draws on the form of compartmentalized boxes of pigments. In Cajas Amarillo/Ocre/Rojo, for instance, he creates a geometric grid-like composition housing intense saffron, red and orange hues characteristic of Tibet. Each of Mazal’s works is charged with exuberance and movement. Thus while his paintings may emerge from sites relating to death, they are in fact a deeply spiritual celebration of life.

(Source: Sundaram Tagore Gallery)

Asian Art Week Love Fest

Lavina Melwani — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:52:26 +0000

Cinq Sens by M.F. Husain at Sotheby's -estimated $500-700,000

Contemporary Indian Art at Asian Art Week

Sometimes you buy a piece of contemporary Indian art and get a love story too in the bargain! Cinq Sens (Five Senses) by M. F. Husain is a powerful work originally gifted by the artist many, many years ago to film director Roberto Rossellini and his Bengali wife, Sonali Dasgupta. It was a love match he helped bring about, for at that time Rossellini was married to the noted actress Ingrid Bergman and Sonali was the wife of a documentary film-maker in Calcutta. The painting is estimated at $500,-700,000 and is being auctioned by Sotheby’s, and here’s the story behind it. Update – the artwork sold for $782,500

M.F. Husain’s Cinq Sens

MF Husain, who celebrates his 95th birthday the day after the auction, was great friends with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini and his wife Sonali Dasgupta. He was a frequent guest at their Italian home and it was during one of these visits in 1958 that he painted Cinq Sens (Five Senses) which he then gave to the couple from whom it was acquired by the current owner.

Rossellini fell in love with his future wife whilst making a documentary in India on the request of Nehru in 1956. At the time Dasgupta was married to a documentary filmmaker, whilst Rossellini was married to Ingrid Bergman. Husain played an important role in getting the two together by surreptitiously traveling with Dasgupta to Delhi to meet up with Rossellini. Soon after this meeting the couple would leave India to get married in Rome.

The horse and the nude are both common in Husain paintings, however a male nude is rare in his art. The dancing figures in the background are reminiscent of frieze work found in some Indian temples, while the horse and man have similarities to Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse in the MOMA collection. The painting can therefore be considered to be bringing together both India and the west – echoing the cultural exchange between Husain and Rossellini.

Quite a story!

Of course not every painting has a dramatic romance behind it, but during Asian Art Week 2010 viewers and browsers will get a chance to connect with art and create their own love stories. Sotheby’s, Christies and the online auction house Saffronart are all offering works by the noted contemporary Indian art artists.

OK Mili by Subodh Gupta - Stainless steel tiffin boxes, armature Est. $250/350,000

Sotheby’s is offering 112 works of art from 18^th century miniatures and sculpture to contemporary Indian art, including 16 works of art from M.F.Husain. Other works are by the leading Modern Indian artists including FN Souza, SH Raza, Akbar Padamsee, and Tyeb Mehta, as well as contemporary artists like Subodh Gupta whose OK Mili is estimated at $250/350,000. The auction is expected to fetch $6/8.8 million.

Indian art at Christie’s, Asian Art Week.

M.F. Husain - Untitled (Sitar Player) at Sotheby's Asian Art Week

MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (B. 1915)
Untitled (Sitar Player)
oil on canvas
Painted late 1960s
$350,000-500,000

Christie’s is showcasing major works from the Modern Masters as well as contemporary artists . The auction is on September 15. Here’s a glimpse of some of the offerings. More details at www.christies.com

Large Head by F.N.Souza at Christie's sale of contemporary Indian art during Asian Art Week

FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924-2002)
Untitled (Large Head)
oil on canvas
Painted in 1962
Estimate:$1,200,000-1,800,000

Indian art at Saffronart’s Online Auction

Jehangir Sabavala's Wayfarer II at Saffronart during Asian Art Week

At the Saffronart online auction there is a feast of modern and contemporary art including work of modern masters like S.H. Raza, Jehangir Sabavala and Jogen Chowdhury, as well as contemporary artists such as Subodh Gupta, N.S. Harsha, Jitish Kallat and G. Ravinder Reddy. Major works being offered include Jehangir Sabavala’s ‘The Wayfarers – II’, S.H. Raza’s ‘Bhartiya Samaroh’, N.S. Harsha’s ‘Conversing Cleansers’, Jogen Chowdhury’s ‘Untitled’, Subodh Gupta’s ‘Untitled’, Ravinder Reddy’s ‘Untitled’ and Manjit Bawa’s ‘Untitled’. The sale is on September 9 online at www.saffronart.com

So if your cash flow is in the right direction, make a bid. And if not, browse the exhibits and just relish the sight of the fabulous works of art. The best things in life, they say, are free.

Related Articles:

Indian Contemporary Art Rakes in Millions

Malleable Memory: How True is Truth?

Lavina Melwani — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:58:49 +0000

Celebration by Nitin Mukul, Malleable Memory Group Show

Malleable Memory: Artists and their Truth

We are a simmering bundle of the past, the present and our hopes and anxieties about the future – what we remember and what we choose to forget becomes the world around us. Memories often trespass from locked rooms and forbidden places in the mind into the present. Some of them become the scaffolding for art, for the truths artists want to share through their work. Yet seen through the distancing telescope of memory, how true is truth? Can something as subjective as the creation of art be objective in truth-telling?

In Malleable Memory at the Aicon Gallery several artists come together cutting across borders, and participate in a fascinating exercise in telling their version of the truth, anchored in personal memories.

Chitra Ganesh, Exquisite Cruelty of Time, Malleable Memory

Malleable Memory, curated by Nitin Mukul, features works by Jaishri Abichandani, Eric Ayotte, Shelly Bahl, Ruby Chishti, Mike Estabrook, Chitra Ganesh, Gisela Insuaste, Mala Iqbal, John Jurayj, Jen Liu, Naeem Mohaiemen, Sandeep Mukherjee, Nitin Mukul, Anjali Srinivasan, and Jaret Vadera. As the names of the artists suggest, in this group show the art has traveled across international borders to unravel the commonality of the human experience.

To walk through the gallery is to see many lives and the juxtapositions of memory on everyday realities. All these artists bring their past, their perceptions into this show. Even passing comments, remembered childhood hurts can find their way into the creative process and become part of a meaningful dialogue with viewers.

“To question the existing norms that somehow affect our lives, how these are formed, penetrates and become an absolute truth in the society has been one of the strong motives of my work,” says Ruby Chishti

Ruby Chishti, "...And then I buried My Pride with You" - Malleable Memory

Malleable Memory: Dying Young

Her work ‘My birth will take place a thousand times no matter how you celebrate it’ is a very personal one. “Born as a fourth daughter in my family who were waiting for a son, I was always reminded by my grandmother how my family received the depressing NEWS of my birth, everyone cried, and my father did not take the meal that day. Growing up with these thoughts had always raised doubts about the beliefs.”

The griefs and heartbreaks that we endure often become the underpinnings of creative work. In another work, Chishti’s title “....and then I buried my pride along with you...” is taken from a poem by her brother who died at a young age and who himself had written it for a father who died young. “But I used it in a different context which is related to my own experience as a woman raised in a society where it very common to expect to cease a woman’s life in an unfortunate situation when something happens to her male counterpart,” says Chishti

“I experience a different reality here in United States that made me think of creating this particular work, a woman’s life would not end with a protected shell that male-dominated society believes in … but again which version of reality is to be considered the right one?”

Nitin Mukul’s powerful triptych titled Celebration leaves you a bit off-kilter because the immediate perception it evokes is of some major disaster as orange flames spew out of the canvases. Yet it is about the burning of the giant effigies of the demon Ravana and his two brothers – central to the celebration of Dusshera, the triumph of good over evil.

Mukul’s personal memories serve as a reference point and he has based the artwork on 100’s of photos that he took. And as you look at it, you cannot help thinking of ominous events. As Mukul points out, “The impact and cathartic energy captured in the paintings also triggers associations with our collective consciousness of mass media events; war, environmental disaster. Things are not always what they appear to be. What I want people to do is map their own feelings about the work, their own perceptions.”

Chitra Ganesh’s ‘The Exquisite Cruelty of Time’, for example, evokes memories of the time when the truth we lived by was the one of the comic book universe, when what we saw within those action-packed multicolored pages was real, and hence true. An enthralling story-teller, Ganesh distills her own truths about feminism, about the social and political world into the engrossing world of myth, folklore and comic books, subverting the genre to reveal her own truths.

Jaishri Abichandani, "Silicon Valley, Bangalore "- Malleable Memory

Malleable Memory: Reconciliations

As we move between several worlds in our global age, Jaishri Abichandani’s image of Silicon Valley, Bangalore is particularly striking as it blends the two cities together – and to the casual observer it looks like the authentic thing. Isn’t that how our lives are now, increasingly split between cities, countries and cultures?

This is a part of a series called Reconciliations and uses appropriated images from the Internet, merging different international cities together and weaving a fabricated world. In these dramatic images, scoffing at borders, very different cities are locked in an embrace – Ramallah and Jersulaem, New York and Tokyo, Lima and Santiago. In her portrait of Bombay and London, she shows the slums in both places, in a way upsetting the neat preconceptions we may have of London the cosmopolitan city, and the epicenter of the once mighty British Raj. She says, “It’s really exploring what’s going on in the world today.”

Michael Estabrook - What do Sleeping Monsters do for Reason?

Malleable Memory: Cultural imagination

Michael Estabrook, who has been to India a few times, is originally from Illinois and it is his memories that you see in his video work, ‘What do Sleeping Monsters do for Reason?’, superimposed on the collective cultural memory of Americana. He combines footage of the JF Kennedy assassination and works in animated monsters into it.

“I work with my imagination juxtaposed into a larger cultural imagination,” he says. “What I’m trying to determine is what exactly makes us have our own imaginations, makes us all individuals versus just sharing this huge, mass media global wellspring of imagination. Each person’s experience is different and each of us reacts differently.”

John Jurayj - untitled (Woman's Travel Case)

Malleable Memory: Fragmentation

Then there is John Jurayi’s “Untitled (Mirror Image)” which startles you and makes you somewhat uncomfortable. Best described in Jurayi’s words, “They use reflection, duplication and fragmentation to hijack the author and the viewer into historical events. Representation is radically obstructed and debased by the appearance of the image; the “Social Spectacle” becomes violence as social theater.”

Equally disturbing is his other work – foreboding looking, abandoned luggage which makes you think of terror plots and hijackings. He says, “The luggage pieces cast from gunpowder inscribes the personal object with a violent potential reflective of world travel in the present. The viewer, standing in the now is confronted with a detournement of the modern romantic consumer object (luggage), while the real has gone missing.”

To enter the anteroom at the Aicon Gallery is to enter yet another world within a world, the mind of artist Shelly Bahl who has recreated a fictional, fabricated world, appropriating the lives and idiosyncrasies of four different actresses of the past, who all lived real lives of pretense, of posing as who they were not. Stitching aspects of their lives Bahl gives us Parveen Banu – someone who seems so real that you’re almost sure you’ve read about her in some gossip magazine or have seen some of her movies. Through installations, videos, photography and stills she lays the bricks of the life of this imaginary woman, fictional clues dropped into real events until you believe it all – almost.

International Woman of Mystery, mixed media installation by Shelly Bahl

Malleable Memory: Fiction, Fabrication

Bahl, who grew up on a voracious diet of Hindi cinema, juxtaposes Bollywood with opera, video and miniature paintings to make a larger statement about the absurd and fantastic nature of real life. After all, isn’t life all Maya or Illusion – so what is true and what is not?

“I think the need to redefine art after 9/11 and geographical dispersal has made the art world quite complex,” says Chishti. “Artists are dealing with much broader questions like identity, time, ethics, history and globalization. So their issues are common yet personal, and to access to the world on your fingertips and to the rest of the artists, the influence and interaction is obvious.”

Afsan's Long Day, single channel video by Naeem Mohaiemen

Malleable Memory: Rambling, Looping, Meandering

Naeem Mohaiemen’s ‘Afsan’s Long Day’ is a single channel video, a short excerpt from a research project that he’s been working on for few years now, about radical left movements and the twilight moment for a push to utopia. “It’s a rambling project in many segments and platforms, over many years, and that looping, meandering process has worked well for me,” he says.

So is the art world getting more flattened where artists are free to dabble in influences from all over and are also interact with artists from all over? ”People were always free to enter at an angle,” says Mohaiemen. “Structurally, that has accelerated from the entry of new disciplines such as historiography and architecture. A little less market madness and bubble collecting would probably help create even more conducive environments.”

And what of ‘mainstream audiences’? Are they more receptive to this more ‘difficult’, more cerebral art which is not always pretty to look at?

Media Event by Eric Ayotte

Malleable Memory: Unknown, Unstable

“ When I think of the term ‘mainstream audience’ and the art world, I have a hard time reconciling the two, unless you think of visitors to, say the National Gallery in DC or the MoMA, but not the gallery scene,” says Mukul. “So I guess my answer at this point is no, and that’s because there really isn’t a mainstream audience for this type of work yet, but that could change over time.”

John Jurayi puts it a bit more darkly. “The art world has become disturbingly conservative and fear-based around what it is willing to represent,” he says. “Work that truly engages both politically and formally the complicated, rich and terrifying realities of our times is bypassed for safer, more decorative work that is easier to digest, easier to sell to collectors who want easy, easy, easy. The unknown and the unstable would turn this market-driven art world upside down and release art which would be an unvarnished mirror of who we are.”

Mohaiemen points out that at the the lowest point of the recent market crashes, when New York stores didn’t have tenants, some temporarily allowed their spaces to be taken over by roving art projects. This may have been a short-lived phenomenon but he feels it was a healthy break from the make-to-sell conveyor belt ethos.

Autoretrato - Looking In, Looking out by Gisela Insuaste, Malleable Memory

Malleable Memory: Transcending Borders

One noteworthy aspect of the show is that it seems to have transcended the Indian or South Asian label to attempt a more ambitious gathering of artists across borders, with a mix of South Asian, Latino, Chinese and Caucasian artists – making their ethnicity irrelevant. Mukul believes that there is some momentum building towards a more inclusive approach in the commercial arena. He feels that shows based on identity politics are fine, so long as they don’t become a reason for pigeon-holing south Asian artists in their own slot.

“However, I sometimes get exasperated by seeing so many shows based on the ethnicity of artists, especially when major institutions can’t even get the designation right.” He points to a major show in London titled ‘The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today’, which included Pakistani and other artists of the South Asian Diaspora who were being generically labeled Indian.

“I think it’s time to see South Asian artists as being just part of the bigger family of artists driven by conceptual concerns and the quality of the work, rather than by ethnic identity politics and cultural issues,” he says. “It’s happened here because that’s what I wanted to do and I’m glad Aicon Gallery was receptive to do that. I would like to think that what we are doing is part of a paradigm shift of some kind.”

Photographs courtesy: Aicon Gallery

Curator’s note:

Nitin Mukul on Malleable Memory.

Truth is elusive, motivated by self-preservation. In the film Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa, various eyewitnesses describe their recollections of a violent crime. The accounts and their outcomes vary, leaving viewers to weigh each version against another. In the process the characters’ stories collectively show the nature of truth as unstable and always susceptible to being shaped. Indeed, we have built-in survival mechanisms that may lead us to selectively edit or even invent memories to forge ‘objectivity.’ Besides showing the often self-centered nature of people, the film suggests a multitude of perspectives is necessary, objectivity impossible.
In a similar spirit, this show calls upon a diverse range of artists and media. Taken together, they reveal a variety of positions, a multiplicity of voices drawing upon their own memories, expressing their own truths. Each has a kind of accuracy, yet are often at odds with grand narratives and official accounts, undercutting neatly kept categories and borders. Through the various mediums, these artists examine the conceptions and expectations of reality each with their own unique interpretation. They present to us the idea of memory as a continuous and multifaceted representation in a constant state of flux. What emerges is a kind of objectivity that rests less upon tangible reference points, but rather associative recollections. Whether appropriated and reconfigured from popular sources, or registered as pigment on a surface, works in this show explore the crafting of reality, and how memory serves us.

(This exhibition runs from 22 July – 4 September 2010 at the Aicon Gallery.)

Indian Contemporary Art, The Comeback Kid

Lavina Melwani — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:56:58 +0000

Tyeb Mehta, Untitled

Indian Contemporary Art Rebounds:

A Chat with gallerists, specialists and collectors.

The art world seems be booming, if the March auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York are any indication. Pre-auction, a swirl of collectors, dealers, and buyers filled the chic spaces of the auction houses for cocktail soirees to view the bounty. You were bumping into hordes of collectors, art consultants, dealers and gallery owners, many of whom had traveled internationally for the auctions during Asia Week.

The sale results showed that quality trumped all else, and collectors were willing to show the money for top works by the senior modernists. An untitled painting by M.F. Husain sold for over a cool million dollars – $1,058,500 to be exact, over five times the estimated price. ‘Gestation’ by H.S. Raza, which was estimated at $600,000 and 800,000, fetched $ 1,202,500. An untitled Manjit Bawa sold for $602,500, double the pre-sale estimate.

“Prices for art around the world including modern and contemporary Indian art peaked in 2007-2008, and the Indian art market activity was dominated by art funds and speculative Asian buyers,” says New York art collector Umesh Gaur. “The speculative mania in Indian art market has corrected dramatically in the last 18 months.”

Contemporary Indian art is certainly the comeback kid if the auction results at Christies, Sotheby’s and the online auction house Saffronart are any indication. The recently concluded sales revealed a healthy appetite amongst collectors for buying the best of Indian modern and contemporary art after the slowdown experienced immediately after the economic downturn.

M F Husain

“Last year was a very difficult time in the market but I think this year there are definitely signs of improvement and there seems to be more energy coming out of the marketplace with people expressing more interest,” says Peter Louis, gallerist at RL Fine Arts. “People realize that it’s definitely a place where they can invest money and buy with confidence because it’s rebounded very quickly from last year.”

At this season’s auction, Sotheby’s sold 74 contemporary Indian paintings for $5.4 million, including an Untitled painting from 1955 by MF Husain which achieved the highest price of the day when it fetched $1,058,500, over five times the estimate. Sotheby’s auction included the Emanuel Schlesinger Collection of which all the works sold, totaling $ 921,650 against an estimate of $237/352,000. A Tyeb Mehta Untitled painting from 1959 from the Schlesinger Collection went for $566,000, although it was estimated for $100/120,000.

The Untitled Manjit Bawa which went for $602,500 set a world record for a painting at auction by the artist. Zara Porter Hill, International Head of Indian Art at Sotheby’s, says, “It is by far the most important work by Manjit Bawa to have appeared at auction in the past 10 years and it attracted interest from all around the world.” She notes about the high prices achieved for the art, “These results again show the appetite for good quality works with distinguished provenance offered at attractive estimates.”

It was a similar story of buzz and big sales at Christie’s: Syed Haider Raza’s Gestation, painted in 1989, brought in $1,202,500 at Christie’s. Other big names which brought in big bucks were Maqbool Fida Husain, whose Sita Hanuman, painted in 1979, sold for $842,500, Akbar Padamsee, whose Jeune femme aux cheveux noirs, la tête inclinée, painted in 1962, sold for $578,500, though estimated at $250,000-350,000. Blue Abstract by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, painted in 1965, was estimated at $ 250,000-350,000 but sold for $554,500.

F.N. Souza's Decomposing Head

“We definitely see a pick up in the interest from a year ago,” says Yamini Mehta, Director of Contemporary and Modern Indian Art at Christies, London: “People are a lot more comfortable and willing to spend – some of the speculators are gone so now we have a solid market and a solid base, and we’ve had that for a while for the very established artists.” She points out that there is a sense that the work of many artists of the Progressives generation has been undervalued as compared to artists across other categories, so there is the feeling that now is the time to buy.

Another interesting fact was that many individual buyers were active in the sales this year, rather than museums or dealers, and even more telling was the fact that many collectors were Indian, laying claim on their heritage. At the exhibition before the sales you could also spot some Chinese and Korean collectors too, as the great value of Indian contemporary art gets more internationally known.

Sonal Singh, Associate Vice president of Modern and contemporary Art at Christies, noted that a number of new and established collectors from India and many other countries actively bid on the works. She said the high prices and enthusiasm showed “how the market had come to recognize and value really good quality works. These demonstrate the maturing of the market and the collectors’ tastes.”

Hugo Weihe, International Specialist for South Asian Modern and Contemporary art at Christie’s, says of the competitive bidding and the active participation of many individual collectors, “It was fantastic to witness so many new, as well as established clients in the room, on the phones, and on Christie’s LIVE™ making the atmosphere in the room very energetic.”

The auction world was also buzzing online with Saffronart, which is a large online fine-art auction house, selling contemporary art in its Spring Sale for $4.6 million, with 60 percent of the sold lots exceeding their high estimates. Akbar Padamsee’s 1953 portrait, Prophet which sold for $278,875, more than triple its higher estimate; M.F. Husain’s 1970s Untitled went for over $ 400,000; Subodh Gupta’s Doot, sold for $391,000, and F.N. Souza’s Decomposing Head sold for $350,750, exceeding its high estimate of $ 250,000.

Dinesh Vazirani, CEO of Saffronart, credits the strong sales to the renewed confidence of the growing collector base for Indian art: “The results from the auction indicate a consistent demand from collectors for top quality and rare works with important provenance.”

Collectors Virginia Akhoury, Mr and Mrs Bhaggeria and Umesh and Sunanda Gaur at Christie’s

As Anu Nanavati Chaddha, director of Saffronart in New York, pointed out, the moderns did extremely well with $ 1 million mark being crossed three times whereas last year there had been just one lot that had crossed this mark. It seems collectors are willing to chase pieces with impeccable provenance and excellent aesthetic quality, like the 1953 Prophet by Padamse.

Asked if the buyers were different this year, and if India is the place where the money for the art is currently, she points out that the makeup is not that different this year but the focus is definitely on the buyers from India where the moderns are concerned. While European and Western collectors for the past several years have concentrated on contemporary art, Indian collectors have always been focused on the moderns.

As Umesh Gaur notes, this rally in Indian art is being led by the senior artists such as M. F. Husain, Syed Haider Raza, Manjit Bawa, Akbar Padamsee and F. N. Souza: “One can compare this Indian art surge to a new bull phase in financial stock markets. Significant advances in financial markets are invariably led by blue chip stocks. So it is to be expected that an initial advance in the Indian art market would be led by well established modern Indian artists.”

Peter Louis agrees that collectors are paying higher prices for the senior modernists because they feel more secure with these acquisitions: “Let’s be honest, the pool of really good works of the senior modernists from the particular golden periods is getting smaller and smaller so there is a little bit more of a race on to get those works. Are they out in the market or are people holding on to them?”

Subodh Gupta's Doot

There’s always interest in contemporary Indian art, though at a different price range from the modernists and the crossover factor also comes in. “We have seen international non-Indian collectors buying modern and contemporary Indian art,” says Yamini Mehta. “A lot of younger artists like Subodh Gupta and Atul Dodiya have large followings because they’ve been seen at art fairs, biennales, and museum shows. It’s a very good time to buy because you don’t have the frenzy or hype that you might have had two or three yeas ago.”

Sanjay Reddy, a New York collector, who is also an economist explained his thinking this way: “One of the reasons we think it’s a good idea to buy Indian modern and contemporary art is because it’s an excellent hedge against the depreciation of the US dollar – it’s one of the few assets that is really international and not dependent on the fortunes of any particular country. Indian and Chinese art is one of the things that will do that because these are portable objects and in demand everywhere in the world – London, India, China, Dubai – unlike property in New York or the US shares which are focused on the US market.”

(This article first appeared in Hi Blitz magazine)

Ayesha Durrani’s Women

Lavina Melwani — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:15:52 +0000

Hearts and Souls by Ayesha Durrani

Who would think that a dummy, the fashion store mannequin, would have so much to express about the lives of real women? You find these headless, faceless, voiceless fashionistas in the work of Pakistani contemporary artist Ayesha Durrani, showing at the Aicon Gallery in New York. Without saying a word, they tell the stories of women subjugated, of lives lived on half empty.

Growing up, Durrani had attended fashion design school but soon realized that she did not want to spend the rest of her life making clothes. So she went to art school instead – and found her true calling. She received a BFA from National College of Arts, Lahore in 2003, and her work has been shown in galleries in Pakistan where she works, as well as in India, the US and in the UK.

A feminist, Durrani is unusual in that she grew up in Peshawar, in the North-west frontier region of Pakistan, which has a very male dominated society. She certainly marched to the beat of a different drummer, following her own path. She even retained her maiden name after marriage, and now lives and works in Lahore. Her current work is all about the sacrifices women make and how they start falling apart in the end.

Falling Apart by Ayesha Durrani

“The mannequins stayed with me from my stint at the design school,” says Durrani. “I use the mannequin to symbolize women. “The mannequins don’t have heads because no one is interested in what women are thinking. Like the popular saying goes ‘Women should be seen and not heard.’ Everyone is interested in the woman’s body but not her mind.”

The connections between mannequins and the realities of real women persisted in Durrani’s mind and mannequins started populating her canvases. “I started slicing up the mannequins to show the way women struggle with themselves in order to fulfill the demands made on them by society, and in the process they lose themselves and their identity.”

Ask her how her art has been received in Pakistan, especially by males, and she says: “Everyone asks me this question! I have never gotten any negative feedback about my work, from men or women, even though my work is considered very feminist. The reason is probably because my work is subtle and the medium of miniature painting is visually pleasing and not threatening, so people can take it in their stride.”

Surrounded by her work at the Aicon Gallery, I asked her to walk with me and explain some of the subtext and the inspiration behind her paintings.

Tarnished Idols by Ayesha Durrani

Tarnished Idols:

This painting is about the traditions and social pressures that bind women, hence the ropes and threads.

It is also about the concept people have of women being pure and perfect. I don’t know where women got this persona of perfection. Everyone expects them to be perfect, whereas they are not. They have faults like men do, but women are not even allowed to make mistakes. They are put on pedestals and if they make a wrong move they are condemned. On the other hand, men can get away with anything because ‘men will be men.’

Fairy Tales by Ayesha Durrani

Fairy Tales:

This painting is about the way women weave their dreams. They have this idea of Prince Charming sweeping them off their feet and saving them from all evil and then living happily ever after. I object to this idea of women being helpless and needing to be saved. We grow up dreaming of that prince saving us from all evil and we develop into helpless needy people. We never allow the woman to grow up as a strong, intelligent person who can take care of herself and make her own decisions. Especially in the Subcontinent, women are completely dependent on their Prince Charming – who might not be that charming after all!

Falling Apart by Ayesha Durrani

Falling Apart:

This painting is about the struggle women have to go through to make everyone happy and sacrifice her own dreams and aspirations, because a woman is automatically expected to do all that, and in the end, she loses herself and falls apart.

Garden of Eden by Ayesha Durrani

Garden of Eden:

In our part of the world, the east especially the sub-continent, women are compared to roses and our poetry is full of references to women resembling a rose. But this is all in theory and the reality is very different. These same roses are wrenched and scattered to perfume the world.

In her latest works, Durrani paints a lot of hearts but these are not the cheerful red hearts of the Valentine’s Day cards – they tell a story of pain and struggle, of the sacrifices women make to fulfill their perceived roles.

“They say a woman’s heart is like an ocean, the depth of which cannot be measured, and that it carries as many secrets,” says Durrani, in her artist’s statement. “In most societies, girls are brought up to fulfill very specific roles. They are trained to sacrifice their happiness and needs in order to make others happy. It is this concept of self sacrifice that I have tried to portray, and the price of that sacrifice that women pay.

Women are supposed to think with their hearts and not with their heads, at least that’s what we are told. This is also probably why women are not taken seriously; why people hesitate to give them positions of power and importance. In my paintings I have shown the heart as more than a muscle that pumps blood through the body.”

Contemporary Indian Art Rakes in Millions

Lavina Melwani — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:40:50 +0000

Syed Haider Raza, Gestation, acrylic on canvas, painted in 1989

M.F. Husain, Raza, Souza and More…

Recession? What recession?

An untitled painting by M.F. Husain just sold in auction in New York for over a cool million dollars – $1,058,500 to be exact, over five times the estimated price. ‘Gestation’ by H.S. Raza, which was estimated at $600-000 and 800-000, fetched $ 1,202,500. An untitled Manjit Bawa sold for $602,500, double the pre-sale estimate.

Prices for art around the world including modern and contemporary Indian art peaked in 2007-2008. “At its peak, the Indian art market activity was dominated by art fund and speculative Asian buyers,” says noted New York art collector Umesh Gaur. “The speculative mania in Indian art market has corrected dramatically in the last 18 months.”

Contemporary Indian art is certainly the comeback kid if the auction results at Christies, Sotheby’s and the online auction house Saffronart are any indication. The recently concluded sales during Asia Week revealed a healthy appetite amongst collectors for buying the best of Indian modern and contemporary art after the slowdown experienced immediately after the economic downturn.

Sotheby’s sold 74 contemporary Indian paintings for $5.4 million, including an Untitled painting from 1955 by MF Husain which achieved the highest price of the day when it fetched $1,058,500, over five times the estimate. Sotheby’s auction included the Emanuel Schlesinger Collection of which all the works sold, totaling $ 921,650 against an estimate of $237/352,000. A Tyeb Mehta Untitled painting from 1959 from the Schlesinger Collection went for $566,000 although it was estimated for $100/120,000.

Untitled Manjit Bawa

It was a similar story of buzz and big sales at Christie’s where a swirl of collectors, dealers, and buyers filled the vast space of Christie’s for an animated evening of cocktails to view the collection. You were bumping into collectors, art consultants and gallery owners, many of whom had traveled from around the world for the event.

Syed Haider Raza’s Gestation, painted in 1989, brought in $1,202,500 at Christie’s. Other big names which brought in big bucks were Maqbool Fida Husain, whose Sita Hanuman, painted in 1979, sold for $842,500, Akbar Padamsee, whose Jeune femme aux cheveux noirs, la tête inclinée, painted in 1962, sold for $578,500, though estimated at $250,000-350,000. Blue Abstract by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, painted in 1965, was estimated at $ 250,000-350,000 but sold for $554,500.

Maqbool Fida Husain, Sita Hanuman, oil on canvas, painted in 1979.

Yet another great master, the late Francis Newton Souza was in demand. His Beasts of Prey, painted in 1963, sold for $458,500. It was almost as if collectors realize that time is running out, and the time to acquire these icons of Indian art is now. An interesting fact was that many individual buyers were active in the sales this year, rather than museums or dealers, and even more telling was the fact that many collectors were Indian, laying claim on their heritage. At the exhibition before the sales you could also spot many Chinese and Korean collectors too, as the great value of Indian contemporary art gets more internationally known.

Untitled by M.F. Husain

Sonal Singh, Associate Vice president of Modern and contemporary Art at Christies perhaps summed it up when she noted that a number of new and established collectors from India and many other countries actively bid on the works. She said the high prices and enthusiasm showed “how the market had come to recognize and value really good quality works. These demonstrate the maturing of the market and the collectors’ tastes.”

Hugo Weihe, International Specialist for South Asian Modern and contemporary art says of the competitive bidding and the active participation of many individual collectors, “It was fantastic to witness so many new, as well as established clients in the room, on the phones, and on Christie’s LIVE™ making the atmosphere in the room very energetic.”

The Prophet by Akbar Padamsee

The auction world was also buzzing online with Saffronart, which is a large online fine-art auction house, selling contemporary art in its Spring Sale for $4.6 million, with 60 percent of the sold lots exceeding their high estimates. Akbar Padamsee’s 1953 portrait, Prophet which sold for $278,875, more than triple its higher estimate; M.F. Husain’s 1970s Untitled which went for over $ 400,000; Subodh Gupta’s Doot, which sold for $391,000, and F.N. Souza’s Decomposing Head which sold for $350,750, exceeding its high estimate of $ 250,000.

Untitled, Tyeb Mehta

Dinesh Vazirani, CEO of Saffronart, credited the strong sales to the renewed confidence of the growing collector base for Indian art: “The results from the auction indicate a consistent demand from collectors for top quality and rare works with important provenance.”

As Umesh Gaur notes, this demand in Indian art is being led by the senior artists such as M. F. Husain, Sayed Raza, Manjit Bawa, Akbar Padamsee and F. N. Souza: “One can compare this Indian art rally to a new bull phase in financial stock markets. Significant advances in financial markets are invariably led by blue chip stocks. So it is to be expected that an initial advance in the Indian art market would be led by well established modern Indian artists.”

Betrayed by Wall Street and burnt by the inconsistencies of the financial markets in the past year, art collectors seem to be placing their faith in the world of aesthetics. Art may well be the new gold, the diamonds and jewels people tended to hoard away for a rainy day.

Photos courtesy: Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart.

Walking with the Dalai Lama

Lavina Melwani — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:22:35 +0000

“I am convinced that if more of us could spend a few minutes every day trying to develop a sense of inner peace, eventually it would become part of our lives; then everything we do will contribute to peace in the world.” – The Dalai Lama

These were the words of the Dalai Lama about The Missing Peace project which took place in 2007 at the Rubin Museum, sponsored by the Committee of 100 for Tibet and the Dalai Lama Foundation. The exhibit may be long over but here as we browse some of the images and the text, re-walk the galleries in memory, the exercise becomes both a meditation and a benediction.

Indeed, sometimes in life, the missing piece is the missing peace. This exhibition was sponsored by the Committee of 100 for Tibet and the Dalai Lama Foundation. Over 88 contemporary artists from around the world, working in a variety of media, offered works inspired by the vision and values of the Dalai Lama. It includes the work of established and emerging artists including Chuck Close, Lewis deSoto, Bill Viola, Ken Aptekar, Pat Steir, Jane Alexander, Anish Kapoor, Laurie Anderson, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Tenzing Rigdol, Michael Rovner, Jenny Holzer, Richard Gere, and Marina Abramovic.

I visited the exhibition while doing a photo gallery piece for Beliefnet.com, the spirituality website. Beautiful images and beautiful words just become more so with the passing of years. Looking at them again, I feel the same sense of well-being as when I walked the space of the Rubin Museum surrounded by these offerings to the Dalai Lama.

Photos and text from The Missing Peace: Artists and the Dalai Lama

Evolution into a Manifestation, 2005. By Chase Bailey

Slide 1 – Chase Bailey – Evolution into a Manifestation, 2005. Oil on linen 59×53 inches.

“My intention was to create in the viewer a meditative sense of the Dalai Lama, his reincarnation, and his evolutionary journey; I tried to communicate a feeling of his enduring evolution, and not simply present an image of his physical body. His aura is captured and expressed to give the viewer an experience of his inner strength, his peace, and to create an occasion of oneness with the wonderful and paradoxical sentient presence of infinite compassion.” – Chase Bailey

Lewis de Soto -Paranirvana -Mixed media with nylon, painted cloth 7x25x 6 feet

Slide 2 Lewis de Soto -Paranirvana -Mixed media with nylon, painted cloth 7x25x 6 feet

In Buddhist scriptures, Shakyamuni Buddha remained on the earth after attaining enlightenment in order to teach others his insights into achieving salvation. At the age of 80 he came to Kushinagar, where he preached his final sermon and died. This episode is the Paranirvana, the physical death of the historical Buddha and his entering into Nirvana, the state of oneness and perfection. This work by deSoto was occasioned by the loss of his father; he has superimposed his own face on the Buddha as he asks the universal question: “How will we all face the moment of our death?”

Om Mani Padme Hum, 2005 Bernard Cosey Black and white cartoon

Slide 3: Om Mani Padme Hum, 2005 Bernard Cosey Black and white cartoon on heavy paper

20 x 16 in.

The work reverberates with the Buddhist mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, which translates as “The Jewel of compassion and the lotus of wisdom dwell in the innermost heart.” The notion that ultimate wisdom and compassion are already within each of us is communicated.

It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender - Jenny Holzer

Slide 4: Selection from the Survival Series: “IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER”, 1983 – 85

Jenny Holzer

White danby imperial marble footstool

17 x 23 x 15 3/4 in.

The Dalai Lama, 2005 Chuck Close

Slide 5: The Dalai Lama, 2005

Chuck Close

Digital pigment print

50 x 40 in.

Close is known for his large, iconic portraits such as this photograph of the Dalai Lama. The artist achieved his international reputation by demonstrating that a very traditional genre, portraiture, could be resurrected to become a challenging form of contemporary expression.

Untitled, 2006 Yoshiro Negishi

Slide 6: Untitled, 2006 Yoshiro Negishi
Acrylic on Canvas. 15 x 18 inches

“In watching the ever-changing mists and clouds rising about the mountains, I can lose all sense of time. In my paintings also, change is ever-present. From moment to moment, a different emotion is revealed. Catching hold of the delicate balance of these emotions as they appear, I attempt to bring out a condensed expression of these brief moments.”

The Golden Thread, 2006 Kirsten Bahrs Janssen

Slide 7: The Golden Thread, 2006 Kirsten Bahrs Janssen

Mixed media 60 x 60 x 26 in.

Through touch and physical interaction, the viewers physically link their arms around the world, connected by a single golden thread.

At the Waterfall, 2000-2003 Marina Abramovic

Slide 8: At the Waterfall, 2000-2003 Marina Abramovic

Continuous video loop projection 11 x 45 ft.

“After 20 years of visiting Tibetan monasteries in India, the director of Tibet House in Delhi asked me if I would be a choreographer for Tibetan lama dancing and chanting. I was supposed to compress the performance into one hour and 20 minutes, without losing its essence. I ended up working in the monastery with 120 monks, using a megaphone to teach them how to come on stage, go off stage, remember the positions of the lights, how to change their elaborate costumes in less than 30 seconds, etc. I decided to project all 120 videos simultaneously on a large wall. Then I was hit with a realization: when you hear all the prayers from different monasteries and traditions at the same time, they sound like a huge waterfall.”

Bodies of Light, 2006 Bill Viola

Slide 9: Bodies of Light, 2006 Bill Viola

Video diptych 2 min., 6 sec.

The male and female torsos shown here are tracked by a light, which traverses the bodies vertically, moving over the charkas – internal points of physical and spiritual energy. In the course of this process, we witness the dissolution of the figures into emptiness. Through his work Viola strives to connect the viewer with the image via the body as well as the intellect. Believing that a special form of knowledge can only be gained through a direct and visceral experience of an event, he uses the video medium as an avenue to self-knowledge.

Blue, 2005 Pat Steir

Slide 10: Blue, 2005 Pat Steir

10-color screen print, edition of 40

56 1/2 x 43 in.

Steir’s image of the waterfall, like a chant, evokes stillness. Over the past ten years the stillness in her work has become more dense. She makes her marks by flinging, pouring, and dripping paint. Steir has said that she makes her work with the attitude of a gymnast, “first the meditation, then the leap.” In her art, she has given up chasing the self in favor of “something larger.”

(Photos and text courtesy – Rubin Museum of Art)

Related Article:A Journey to the East

This Ravaged Land

Lavina Melwani — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:36:06 +0000

Madrassa in Amritsar Photo (C) Sarah Singh

The tragedy of Partition is almost Shakespearean in its fallout. It’s been over sixty-three years since this catastrophic event occurred yet its effects continue to unfold, like seismic aftershocks. No one on the Indian sub-continent has really escaped its scathing wounds as the two countries carved out of undivided India in 1947 - independent India and Pakistan – reel even today from the legacy of hatred and suspicion unleashed by the Partition. In reality, one people, one culture, today stand on opposite shores – We and They – talking in tongues which neither understands.

Like many families in North India, mine too was devastated by this life-altering event. The British Masters, playing God, had redrawn the map of India, and our home fell into newly created Muslim Pakistan. Our Hindu family, which had wealth, stores and homes in Sindh, overnight became refugees running for their lives to the sanctuary of independent India. Older family members still have tears in their eyes as they remember the sweetness of the homeland they lost and can never reclaim.

For Hindu Sindhis it was not only the loss of their state, but also of their culture and their language as they scattered, landless and homeless, across India and the world. In India, there is no Sindh – it is now just a mere word in the national anthem. Now many grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles have passed away and the memories of Sindh have died with them.

Harappa Settlement, Pakistan Photo(C) Sarah Singh

One would think that everything that had to be said about the Partition has been said but along comes Sarah Singh, an intrepid film-maker who has boldly gone into this troubled, calloused territory. Although she was born in the Punjab in India, she has lived most of her life in the US, and perhaps because of that distance, she brings the gaze of the outsider, and a fearlessness in her unbiased telling of this tragic tale.

The young photographer and film-maker has turned witness and chronicler with her startling documentary ‘The Sky Below’ in which she captures the ghost of many voices which may soon be lost to us. She visits archeological sites on both sides of the border, tracing the common history of the subcontinent, and meeting families who seem to have recovered from the trauma and moved on – but can one ever truly recover?

As she crisscrosses across the border and talks to people on both sides of the divide you see the utter futility of this enmity and also realize with a sinking heart that it will not end any time soon.

To get background on the movie, read the blog Sarah kept while making the movie. Here’s an excerpt:

“The general idea behind the flow of the doc stems from the phrase Kissa Khawani which is Urdu for “street of storytellers”. There will be an emphasis on camera movement (the partition was about massive movement: the largest migration of people in history). The storyteller idea is a conceptual take on the environment as a whole (how religion, myth, ritual, ancient ways dictate much of the structure of life here; i.e. the relevance of story/folktale/and in not so beguiling a fashion, gossip).

The beauty in this is the bridge it creates between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’: the double-vision of interpretative story-telling which in turn layers our experience of daily perceptions, and thus, our recorded and oral history. And given the steady influx over thousands of years of invasion, there are many stories that flow here in this part of the world.”

Kashmiri Girl in Valley Photo (C) Sarah Singh

Singh who has worked for MTV, Showtime, History Channel and on independent feature films, is currently working on a coffee table book, and her photographs are in several private collections. ‘The Sky Below’ has been shown in 15 film festivals, in universities and museums, and has received well-justified praise internationally, winning the Best Film Debut award and a nomination for the Social Justice award.

For those who don’t know enough about India’s partition, Singh has put together some intriguing resource materials on her site and invites others to share their mementos.

With ‘The Sky Below’, Singh’s achievement is all the more striking because she’s shot this powerful film solo without a crew and little budget, fitting her belongings into a backpack and traveling as a woman alone in some of the most hostile and dangerous territory including the Khyber Pass, Kashmir and the desert of Kutch. A gifted photographer, she has brought her keen eye to the moving camera, and you sit, astonished as you see the terrains of this sparse, beautiful land unfold before you.

She has also uncannily caught the sweet, aching strains of folk songs and rhythms of these territories and after the film is over, these stay with you for a long time, like a sad wailing in your ears that makes you want to weep for the futility and myopia of the human race.

Sarah Singh, director of 'The Sky Below'