Contemporary Art through My Vision

"I don’t think about Art when I am working. I try to think about my Life.” - Jean Michel Basquiat (American Artist)

The above lines are what each & every artist all over the globe can relate to & agree even more. All artists whether dead or alive had or have this in their mind; maybe sub-consciously, while they were or are making an art piece. Their life, culture, upbringing, beliefs, eating habits, body language etc.; each & everything is some way depicted in their work. The artwork/paintings, right from those on various cave walls ages ago up to the colorful canvases, sculptures & all the other art categories if studied carefully depict the gradual evolution of that respective stream art.

While art has its own language, I firmly believe that it does get modified depending on the time/era it is used in. If I speak of it today it sums up in the term Contemporary Art, that is seen everywhere these days. Whether you talk of Italy, Canada, China, Japan, India or any other place the most common thread/color/medium all the artist come up to is Contemporary Art.

I belong to a creative field where we believe anything & everything is to be expressed & it can be expressed. I have seen the society changing from “Women come below Men” to “Gender Equality where men also are seen supporting Feminism” globally. Every transition in the society comes up like a trauma for the people witnessing this transition. This is what the artists try to portray through their work.

As our Indian society slowly started westernizing now & also while it was forced to change during the British rule, artists had very less freedom & were criticized for all they made too. This continues even today. Contemporary artists are aware of it & yet are increasing day by day. While our western counterparts have learned from their mistakes & now there are quite a number of people who really appreciate Contemporary Art & respect the artists even more. Personally speaking, Contemporary art is an ice-breaker for those aspects of the society that I conveniently shut my eyes to.

The artists with their artwork create amazing sensory alarms that force all my senses to wake up in full attention.

Example: James Turrell’s work installed in Guggenheim (2013)

Their artworks actually embed meaning in materials directly or indirectly, that since my childhood were taught as non-living things, things that basically mean nothing & make no difference. But, their use in various artworks means differently & is often the most important ingredient as well.

Example: Kara Walker’s Sugar Sphinx in Domino sugar factory in Brooklyn (2014)

The work of Eric Gregory Powell called Tomorrow (The collection of Ullen’s Center for Contemporary Art, 2013) is what I call, an amazing slap right across the face of those who preach that one has to be under control at all times & need to lead a life that is acceptable to the society. But, what about tomorrow? Will you see it? What about your dreams? Who will fulfill them, when & how?

Example: Eric Gregory Powell called Tomorrow (2014)

The universal fact about being human is never ridiculing someone for their flaws. Whether the Indian or Western Contemporary Artists both know that their respective society, culture or belief system is absolutely blind to some specific points. That is why they bring that under spotlight & end up being criticized for it the most. India is known for its diversity & thus it becomes more difficult for artists here. If a certain artwork is welcomed with open arms by one culture, it is equally or at times even hated by another. The virtues & beliefs of each culture/religion in India are very different though they all teach the same values. Thus it becomes difficult for Contemporary Artists to actually come up with something the entire loves. 

I conclude by saying that Indian or Western whichever route you choose to view Contemporary Art, it is most important to remember that first comes YOU-The Viewer. If you as a person understand, disagree, like or dislike it, society eventually will do the same. 

You are the society & the society is by you.

Vidhi Joshi 

Art Writer Team

2019 @Art Blogazine 

(PS: This article is not written for commercial use.)

Arario Gallery @India art fair

POSTER : NGMA MUMBAI

Inside the Empty Box
Presented by: National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Ministry of Culture,
Govt. of India in collaboration with Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation 

Opening on Friday, 08th February, 2019 at 5:30 PM at NGMA, Mumbai 

Date: Open for Public from 09th February, 2019 to 08th March, 2019 
Timing: 11:00 am to 6:00 pm Closed on Mondays & National Holidays

PIN POSTER : ART GATE GALLERY

Pratap Morey’s second solo exhibition at TARQ and our exhibition for Mumbai Gallery Weekend 2019.

It is with great pleasure that I write to you about our next exhibition Concrete Ciphers—Pratap Morey’s second solo exhibition at TARQ and our exhibition for Mumbai Gallery Weekend 2019. 

In this exhibition, Pratap continues to explore his preoccupations with the constantly morphing artificial geography of urban spaces. He consciously moves away from the digital image, to work only with lines, be it in the form of drawings, relief sculpture and painting. His imagery focuses on industrial development, specifically the constant unorganized bombardment of cities in the name of redevelopment, which rapidly engulfs the neutral and vacant spaces available.

Please find attached the press release and invite for the show. It would be wonderful to have you join us for the preview which will be at TARQ on Wednesday, January 16, 6.30 pm onward. 

A few select works that will be part of the exhibition can be viewed by clicking here. If you do want particular images in High resolution, let me know, and I will send them across as soon as possible.

In case you need further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. Looking forward to hearing from you soon, and if you're in town, I hope to see you at the preview!

Pisurwo Jitendra Suralkar is a character. A character that is defined by a stubborn triumph in art.

PISURWO 

SOLO exhibition 

Jehangir art gallery 

1st jan to 7th Jan 2019

ANAMIKA अनामिका 

The name Anamika (female) comes from the Sanskrit word which means, "nameless." Sanskrit word which means, "person without name  ring finger (finger between middle finger and little finger) is called anamika in sanskrit." Sanskrit word which means, "a beautiful lady having no name.." Hindi word which means, "nameless or without description."

Also suggested is name an Indian word which means, "the ring finger." Hindi word which means, "ring finger." Sanskrit word which means, "The Powerful Ring Finger,The nameless finger. Many cultures  avoided the true name of a powerful entity, and called it indirectly or called it nameless.."

Pisurwo Jitendra Suralkar is a character.  A character that is defined by a stubborn triumph in art.  He incarnates practices not as inspiration or technical sycophancy but rather as ideological exercises in conversation with the artists Hussain & Picasso.  Art History and its tango with Indian contemporary artists suffers a bias of duality.  One that arises from its own lethargy to remain accessible from its occidental perch ,  serious attempts to include history of art from India began in the last decade of the 20th century and has being ongoing in the 21st century once India's promised the world the possibility of it being an economic power house.  Syllabuses at art schools in India have a disdain to catching up and thus artists disregard art history as an engagement not worthy of vocation fearing its inaccessibility.  Translations are extremely rare and thus many pedagogical exercises in state funded redundant.  Pisurwo does not come from the Sir JJ School of Art,  he studied on the plateau above the Ajanta Caves at the Khiroda College of Arts,  Gulzar Gawali , surrealist painter was his teacher.  Shifting to Bombay in the year 2000 as a painter he pursued his practice beginning with the pavement art gallery at Kala Ghoda to mystical meetings with MF Hussain.  A practice that is marked by his mastery of stroke and an intelligence with colour.  At the Gufa Gallery Pisurwo confronts the artist to whom he is compared but not the one he sees himself ape, rather he affirms an incarnation in attitude ,  ideology and stroke.  Pisurwo is a living legend and among the subaltern rebels to art history and the ways of its gathering.  

Sumesh Sharma 

Bombay,  2018 

TO LIVE TO PAINT TO LIVE

Looking at Pisurwo’s work, the first thing we notice is the omnipresence of the human face. The more naturalistic works and the portraits, practiced by the artist since the beginning of his career until now - and probably forever - give us the entering point in his world. 

His way of engaging with the portrait, which could be wrongfully read as a classical attitude, is very much influenced by the years passed as a street portraitist, by all the constraints and the context of the job: the drawing has to be fast, the result must be resembling and satisfying for the subject/buyer. There is no study of the psychology of the character, no gaze through his mind and soul, just his blank appearance - just Pisurwo’s swift and secure lines. Nothing but pure drawing. And when this manner is freed by those constrains, it becomes the medium for the real content of his portraits and naturalistic sketches: his relationship with the characters. His wife, his children, his family, the professors that helped him, the painters that inspired him, everyone is there in a familiar and intimate universe held by Pisurwo’s care and will to honour them. His numerous sketchbooks are filled to the brim with drawings, faces, bodies, and always his signature, that he marks on the paper as a real creative act, along with the date and, strangely enough, the time at which the sketch was taken. This seemingly irrelevant detail demonstrates that for Pisurwo drawing is more then the simple registration of world around him, it is the immediate translation of that world, the almost instantaneous transcription of forms. Simply put, sketching has become one with the act of seeing, his own way of perceiving reality. 

In his studio near the Ajanta caves, portraits are not the only Pisurwo’s occupation. Next to this mystical site, Pisurwo seems to be visited be all sorts of images, or even, of spirits. Yakshinis and yakshas, kings and queens and mythological figures invade his canvases in a dreamlike state that echoes cubist aesthetics and M.F.Hussein work. An immense cosmogony unravels before us as we witness the spirits suffer, rejoice, engage in dialogue or in sexual acts; we see them merge and overcome duality. As an obsessively repeated facial pattern, they saturate the page or the canvas, leaving nothing except their presence for us to see. From the smallest drawing to the largest canvas, this horror vacui could come from his relation and incessant observation of the Ajanta cave paintings themselves, evolved and transformed through Pisurwo’s sensibility. This overflowing of signs, lines, marks and gestures is profoundly characteristic of his work. Plates, family photos, house walls, insignificant objects, leafs, stones and even a dead cockroach, nothing is spared, everything is a suitable support for his magmatic creativity: an all-over that could cover hills, mountains, us all and the entire world. 

A personal quest for meaning that, by engulfing everything around him, engages us in a journey beyond reality itself.

Painting as breathing,

drawing as living,

art as a way of being.

- Text by Niccolò Moscatelli (Paris France)

PISURWO 

SOLO exhibition 

Jehangir art gallery 

1st jan to 7th Jan 2019

ANAMIKA अनामिका 

The First Death Anniversary Pankaja JK

1972 + 2017

Pankaja JK
( Founder of Art Blogazine.com & Art Writer)




from
Tathi Premchand

Tusher Jog (1966-2018)

Image source  fb: Chemould Prescott Road

Tushar Joag was born in Mumbai in 1966. He graduated in Sculpture from Sir J. J. School of Arts in 1988, which was followed by a Masters in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. U Baroda(1988-1990), a Fellowship at the

Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad, and an artist-residency at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (1998-2000). Joag was one of the co-founders of the Bombay-based artist- collective, Open Circle that sought to engage with contemporary socio-political issues via integration of theory and practice. He has convened/curated international events, screenings and exhibitions

individually and in collaboration. He has also participated in many prominent national as well as international shows. Currently, he is founding

faculty and Associate Professor, Department of Art Design and Performing Arts, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University.

He currently lives and works in Delhi.

text : https://www.mojarto.com/

PIN POSTER MUMBAI :Shine Shivan

Shine Shivan will open 5 th solo show at Sakshi Art gallery for Mumbai Gallery Weekend 2019.

PIN POSTER : NGMA MUMBAI

With great pleasure, the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Ministry of Culture, Government of India in collaboration with The Guild Art Gallery, cordially invites you to the inauguration of the exhibition  "The Earth's Heart, Torn Out' Navjot Altaf: A Life in Art". This Retrospective has been curated by Ms.Nancy Adajania. It will be jointly inaugurated by Shri Adwaita Charan Garanayak, Director General, National Gallery of Modern Art and Ms. Roshan Shahani, Art Critic on Tuesday, 11th December, 2018 at 5:30 PM.