past 2 weeks

catching up with art in india

Akshay 
Rathore, 
Chorpai 
2010,
 Barbed Wire,
 Milled
 Steel,
 Wood.

Something about the white elephant in the room: what are the connections and distinctions, between art from one country and another? By all mean it will take forever to figure this out, much more than one post at least. For me the countries being compared will be India, America, Nepal, and now the Netherlands.

It is clear that tendencies in art can and are differentiated by the trajectories, histories, and traditions of art and artists that emerged in a country. Room is also made for transnational influences as artist practices are informed by artists and movements from all over the world. Presently, media allows images and news to be exchanged very quickly, and museums and especially galleries have a new found reach across countries. In her article Modernity And Its Visual Response: The Last Six Decades, Shukla Sawant (artist and academician) writes about art in India and outlines the movement of Indian artists across, inside, and outside the country's boundaries after independence; 'modern', 'folk', formal, narrative, and nature influences on their work; development of new art schools, collectives, and organizations in the country, and even the relations between 'First World' and 'Third World' countries. A highly recommendable article to those interested in Indian art!

Also, in my experience, artists from India or Pakistan, for instance, might opt for a graduate education outside their birth-lands. For me (I've studied in too many places perhaps) this process of variables, exaggerated by other instabilities or subversions and choices, suggested a terrain of communication that was constantly being re-negotiated. Painting and drawing took a back seat during my graduate career because my primary concerns of the time--language, translation, communication, hospitality, and food--were most malleable in my hands when dealt in video, performance, poetry etc.

It is interesting now, how there is such a remarkable presence of artists from India (or even Pakistan or China) in the transnational art scene. I can't say too much about the subject, because I am introducing myself to it as I write these posts. On a side note, I am starting many lists in the periphery of this posts that will gather gallery paces and artist organizations from all the countries in my network.

The images in this post are from an interesting show (by Indian or Pakistani artists? ) being held at Nature Morte in Berlin. Looking at the latest contemporary art from India is an entry point to many new discourses to me. For instance the discourse of material. I really love the use of silk in the Gahlot's 'When you leave me' (pictured below)--vibrant colors and you can almost feel the luscious stuffed organs in your hands. Even the use of barb wire in Rathor's 'Chorpai' pictured above is a visceral connection between materials and experiences for those who have slept on a charpai (khat or cot) or jumped over barb wire in India. Visceral indeed!

Suchitra Gahlot, When You Leave Me, 2010, Installation in Silk, Velvet, Glass & Steel.

textile design

Textile of Purple Hare in Foliage, 4th-5th Century C.E., Egypt (Brooklyn Museum Collection)

On passing the surface of an ancient textile (or even a contemporary one) through a scanner: one can see the details of the weave and inner life of color. I am very excited about textile prints nowadays. More interesting than pieces of art, or rare prints even, I think are mass produced prints. I want to catch up on the story of mass produced prints. I know the history of fabric might be deeply entangled with the colonial past, and that the present of the industry probably deals with the reality of non-environmental friendly dyes... but prints are beautiful all the same! I am tempted to leave the image below at the high resolution I found it: it captures surface nuance so seductively. The man's face is haunting as well-- his the missing eye... I've left it quite large (although you can magnify it further if you click on it so it can fill the entire screen.)

I would love to write about these images, but I just keep staring at them instead. Thinking about "nothing or something": have the missing portions gone missing, or do they still haunt the design, and what about the interface where the missing is missed by the present as can be seen in the lower right corner of the violet hare.

Drawing of a man, 6th-7th century (Coptic Museum in Cairo Collection)