After JJ we all went our ways and till the new mediums like smart phones and social media came to rule over lives,

This was 1979 to 1984; some of the most definitive years in modern Indian history. We were just recovering from the emergency and the eventual downfall of Janata Party. It was a period of great turmoil – the Mumbai mill workers strike, rise of Bhindranwale, Sanjay Gandhi’s death affecting his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Bhopal gas tragedy, the Bhagalpur blindings, operation Bluestar - the period finally culminating in Indira Gandhi’s violent killing by her bodyguards in 1984.

Artist : Uttam Ghosh 

We saw it all, together, Uttam and I. Since then, we have had very strong views on the world that we lived in. There were innumerable conversations – some even resulting in fights! But by-and-large we agreed with one another. 

While all this was happening, his art was taking a distinct form. Added to his very strong lines was his peculiar sense of humor, and then ofcourse the political thought! The cocktail was dynamite!!

The discourse in most of India’s art institutes, as was the case in JJ, was primarily around the craft of that particular stream – application of color, line, form, light and shade etc. The entire effort in those five years was to master technique and eventually get consumed by the lucrative advertising and design industry.

Both Uttam and I had a fundamental problem with this approach. For us, all the educational institutions, not just the art institutes, were part of a social reality, of a historical process. We couldn’t divorce the technique of art with the politics of our land. This bonded us strongly to each other and as a result our final year projects too turned out to be similar. While most students did advertising campaigns on some consumer product or on a service, mine was on bonded labour and Uttam’s was on child labour.

Vilas Ghogre the well known shahir of Maharashtra.

After JJ we all went our ways and till the new mediums like smart phones and social media came to rule over lives, we were mostly out of touch. There ofcourse was that occasional phone call and going for each others wedding etc.

A cartoonist has a critical role in a democracy. S/he takes a ringside view of the real action and then presents it to the general public in a way that not only strikes an immediate connect and makes them laugh but also jabs at the heart. A good cartoon makes you smile and yet see the tragedy at the same time. Uttam achieves this dichotomy so wonderfully in his work. His cartoons are distinctive and rich in content. One unique thing about his art is that he constantly shifts between styles. He doesn’t have a particular fixed style like most cartoonists do. The content defines his style and I find it very interesting how he juggles effortlessly between various kinds of styles.

His personal political affiliations apart, his is the voice of the oppressed, the underdog, and he states his views fearlessly. In college we used to call him The-Ghosh-Who-Walks. Today he is The-Ghosh-Who-Walks-the-Talk!

First up, I must thank Uttam and his mother for the strong liver that I have. When Uttam and I were together at J.J.Institute of Applied Art, he used to get karela (Bitter Gourd) everyday for lunch. There were other vegetables too but there always used to be karela as well. That was a constant and the reason behind this was his mother, who insisted upon it since it was good for the liver. Well, it used to be so yummy that we used to dive into it as soon as he opened his lunch box. So, eating karela for five long years must surely have helped in improving my liver! 

Soumitra Ranade 

 film maker & Writer 

DRAWINGTOON l Uttam Ghosh

Friday / 17th /1/2020
Preview at 6:00pm to 8pm as open
on display till 23rd / 1/2020
Time: 4pm to 7pm

30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers
Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001

RSVP
Tel: 022 49786119
nipponbombay@gmail.com
nippongallery/facebook

#UttamGhosh
#NIPPONGALLERY
#MUMBAIARTWEEKEND

PIN POSTER: NIPPON GALLERY MUMBAI _Solo show

Do come...

Friday / 17th /1/2020

Preview at 6:00pm to 8pm as open

on diplay till 23rd / 1/2020

Time: 4pm to 7pm

30/32, 2nd Floor, Deval Chambers

Nanabhai Lane, Flora Fountain, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001

RSVP

Tel: 022 49786119

nipponbombay@gmail.com

nippongallery/facebook

#UttamGhosh

#NIPPONGALLERY

#MUMBAIARTWEEKEND

Platinum Rating for CSMVS

The drive to contribute something precious to art and culture made the art collector in Rtn. Manoj Israni donate Rs 75 lakh towards an LEED platinum certification for Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and its façade lighting.

 Manoj Israni

Taking into consideration the climate change, the museum hopes to preserve the art collection against perpetual climate change by adopting a green museum of which the Environment Certification is a big step.

It gives us great pleasure to let you know that the Rotary Club of Bombay has succeeded in meeting the target date of December 31st, 2019 to attain the "Platinum" rating for CSMVS, as the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) conveyed its approval and recognition to CSMVS on December 30th.

It makes us all very proud that we have achieved the recognition in the very first attempt. The recognition inspires us to attain new heights in the field of environment management in the years ahead.

T R Doongaji, Trustee, CSMVS, has conveyed his sincerest gratitude to RCB for the financial and moral support extended by the Club for the implementation of the Green Building Certification Project.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, abbreviated CSMVS and formerly named the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, is the main museum in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

LEED certification is sought by museums undergoing renovation or new construction, for the environmental benefits derived from achieving it as well as the cachet it lends. The illumination of the façade and lawns will highlight the beautiful building in an energy-friendly way for the visitors. RCB is helping enhance the heritage structure and the museum is to be illuminated from sunset to midnight.

Source Text and image / facebook/

RIP :Akbar Padamsee.

Sad to hear the passing of one of the last great modernist Akbar Padamsee. One of the pioneers in Modern Indian painting along with S.H. Raza, F.N. Souza and M.F. Husain. Born: 12 April 1928, Mumbai Died: 6 January 2020

FOLLY MEASURES| VISHWA SHROFF PREVIEW: THURSDAY, 9TH JANUARY 2020 | 5:30 PM – 9:30 PM | MUMBAI GALLERY WEEKEND

About the Exhibition

The team at TARQ is delighted to present Folly Measures by Vishwa Shroff. In this exhibition, Shroff continues to journey through the everyday, focusing on the idea of transience and impermanence.  The catalogue is accompanied by an essay penned by Mumbai based independent curator, writer and researcher, Veeranganakumari Solanki. The show is both meditative and thought-provoking in the manner in which Vishwa’s drawings of architectural form uncoversman’s relationship with space over a period of time.

What most would overlook or consider mundane, Shroff is able to weave together highlighting engagement and exclusion through her medium of drawing. The audience is immediately placed into a curious yet contemplative mood by the detailed window panes, finely structured partisan walls (playfully named, Partywall) and speckled cracked floors.

Shroff’s precision and use of earthly tones is not merely a reflection of fashion trends, or time periods but access, encroachment and restrictions. Her work reaffirms that time does not stand still for architecture and the changes within these architectural structures become indicators of the lives lived within these spaces.

Solanki points out in her essay, “at a moment when history’s future is increasingly uncertain, visual colonial comforts and follies are pulled out in the perception and adaptation of architecture. Residues and ruins legitimise our current situation of being, both in the physical and mental state, thereby making us collective by-products of the past. The patterns and forms seen in the drawings are from inhabited spaces. We have all perhaps chanced upon spaces such as these in the city that is dominated by a British architectural identity. The familiarity of these foreign elements conflictingly embeds itself in a feeling of normalcy and home. The shared feeling of sentimental colonial amnesia is acknowledged through habitual mundane elements that visually play out in the spaces we occupy”.

About the Artist

Vishwa Shroff (b.1980) started her artist training at The Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda in 2002. She continued on to the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (UK) in 2003. Her career so far has seen six solo exhibitions –‘In Residence’ (2018) at Swiss Cottage Gallery, London (UK), ‘Drawn Space’ (2016) curated by Charlie Levine at TARQ, ‘Postulating Premises’ (2015) at TARQ, ‘One Eye! Two Eyes! Three Eyes!’( 2012)  at the Acme Project Space, London (UK), ‘Memories of a Known Place’ (2012), Birmingham (UK) and ‘Room: Collaborative Book Show’ (2011), Vadodara (India). The forthcoming exhibition at TARQ will be her seventh solo exhibition.

She has taken part in residencies like Swiss Cottage Library, London, UK (2017); Paradise Air, Matsudo, Japan (2015) and Clarke Griffiths Levine, Birmingham, UK (2012).  Besides participating in artist residencies all over the world, Shroff has also been a part of group exhibitions such as ‘Bedroom Spaces’ (2019) at Hospital Club (UK),  ‘ Eating Bread and Honey’ (2018) at SqW: Lab project space, Mumbai (India), ‘Camden Draw’ (2017) at Swiss Cottage Library, London (UK),  ‘Reading Room’ (2016) at Saffron Art, New York, ‘Reading Room: Leaves, Threads and Traces’ (2015), The Winchester Gallery (UK) and ‘Momento Mori’ (2015) at TARQ.

TARQ

Art gallery in Mumbai, Maharashtra

Address: F35/36 Dhanraj Mahal, C.S.M. Marg, Apollo Bunder, Colaba, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001

Hours: 

Open ⋅ Closes 6:30PM

Phone: 022 6615 0424

Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai is proud to present ‘Judgement in the Trial of Akbar Padamsee’.

Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai is proud to present

‘Judgement in the Trial of Akbar Padamsee’.

Duration: 9th to 30th January 2020

Venue: Priyasri Art Gallery. Worli, Mumbai-400018

 About Akbar Padamsee

Akbar Padamsee was born in Mumbai in 1928. His ancestors hailed from Vāghnagar, a village in the Bhavnagar district of the erstwhile Kathiawar, now part of Gujarat state. Padamsee was still a student at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai at the time when the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) announced itself on the Indian art scene in 1947. Historically, this is considered to be one of the most influential groups of modern artists to emerge in early post-independent India. After his art education in Mumbai, Padamsee went to live and work in France in the year 1951. In 1952, he was awarded a prize by Andre Breton, known as the pope of surrealism, on behalf of the Journale d’art. His very first solo show was in Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1954, where these early works were shown.

In 1962, Padamsee was awarded a gold medal from the Lalit Kala Akademi, and in 1965 a fellowship from the J.D. Rockefeller Foundation. Subsequently, he was invited to be an artist-in-residence by Stout State University, Wisconsin. In 1967 a solo exhibition of his paintings was held at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, Canada, after which he returned to India. Akbar Padamsee’s artistic oeuvre is a formal exploration of a few chosen genres- prophets, heads, couples, still-life, grey works, metascapes, mirror -images and tertiaries, across a multitude of media – oil painting, plastic emulsion, watercolour, sculpture, printmaking, computer graphics, and photography.

In 1969-71, with the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship funds, he set up inter-art Vision Exchange Workshop (VIEW), where artists and filmmakers could freely experiment across various disciplines and practices. It is remembered to this day as a landmark initiative, providing the much needed creative stimulus to several young people who are now internationally well known. Padamsee himself made two short abstract films - Syzygy and Events in a Cloud Chamber, where he animated a set of geometric drawings.

In the year 1980, a retrospective of his work was organized by the Art Heritage Gallery, in Mumbai and New Delhi. Akbar Padamsee was awarded the prestigious Kalidas Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1997. Other awards include the Lalit Kala RatnaPuraskar in 2004, the Dayawati Modi Award in 2007,''Roopdhar" award by Bombay Art Society - 2008 and Kailash Lalit Kala award in the year 2010. In 2010, he was awarded the Padama Bhushan by the government of India.

About Priyasri Art Gallery

Founded in 2004, Priyasri Art Gallery has been extremely responsive to the evolving language of art and nurturing a gamut of artistic practices and expression. The gallery is dedicated to its role of exhibiting modern, contemporary and experimental artworks; besides focusing on showcasing young artists, we also represent more established artists like Akbar Padamsee and masters like Jogen Chaudhury. Priyasri Art Gallery also provides artists with a studio facility in the art hub of India – Baroda called AQ@Priyasri, the artist studio in Baroda has been providing studio space and housing for young artists since 2003 and has recently launched a separate printmaking practice.

In the bustling Mumbai midtown art space, Priyasri Art Gallery is a cozy 2500 sq. feet contemporary art gallery neatly nested on the seafront in Madhuli, Worli. Its 7x30 feet French windows look out onto a stunning view of the Arabian Sea that shapes the identity of the city.

 

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P R I Y A S R I  A R T G A L L E R Y
42 Madhuli
4th Floor
Shiv Sagar Estate
Next to Poonam Chamber
Dr Annie Besant Road
Worli
Mumbai 400018
Tel/Fax 022 24947673
+91 9769904802
priyasriartgallery@gmail.com,artgallery42@gmail.com,www.priyasriartgallery.in

AQ@Priyasri-The Artist Studio
10th Floor, Ramakrishna Chambers,
Productivity Road, Alkapuri. Vadodara 390007. Tel 0265 2333587 ; 2320053

03 : Note from Studio Shantiniketan, Bolpur./ Artist : Kalpana Vishwas

Basic concept of my art practice is based on “Transforming Nature’’ where I give much importance to ‘Time’ and ‘Space’. Recently while working on leaf I have formed a cut out shape which gave a different view of an image and different concept to think on. The cutting method visualizes the concept of nature’s linearity which is transformed with an industrial’s sharp straight line after the use of an industrial tool. My basic idea through the leaf’s cut out method is to show that in the same space we can show two different time period. In present days the natural scenario of society is changing devastatingly by means of ramification, urbanization and industrialization. The impact of these changes on nature and livelihood of human civilization are transforming society into a forest of concrete. 

I emphasize on maps, cartography and natural elements in my art practice. Because it’s related to everyone and everything, Map reflects political, social, economical, religious and historical events. The value and function of maps are inspirable to daily life for human and animals. In my work the idea of mapping came from my surrounding.  I want to show through my works how every day the landscape is being destructed by us. Which is not happening just because of its own but due to human interpretation there are lots of changes and also the political issues have a profound impact on the geographical map.

by

Art Blogazine Team

Bombay

02 : Note from Studio Shantiniketan, Bolpur./ Artist : Ramu Das

The concept and the subjects of my works, with the treatment, talk all about the vocabulary of my works. While the basic concept is to depict the conflicting characters of human life, the subjects range from personal sexuality to a broader ground of socio-political problems. On one hand my works are imaginary, dramatic and distinctive; on the other hand they are strongly Surrealist in character and bear other specific art historical references. The basic concept of my works depends on my observation of the world, molded through my imagination. In other words, my works may be called solely individualistic. 

Artist : Ramu Das

Human figures in various actions and gestures are the main element in my paintings. Often, relating to the subject the figures are given very specific expressions. Also the figures are rendered to be very unattractive and grotesque in appearance. Most of the characters (both male and female) are imperfectly huge and muscular. They have thick lips, large puffy eyes and often bear peculiar expressions. I avoid the perfect rendering of the human bodies which automatically creates a distraction from a sexual provocation. I like to leave it to the beholders to think over it and feel the absence of the perfect beauty so that their urge for the perfect beauty move their minds. This is my intention to play with the beholders’ psychology. A supposed smooth and palpable skin of a nude woman is being replaced by a rough textured snake-like surface. All these somewhere disturbs the erotic fantasy and contradicts the viewers’ urge to see the perfect beauty. 

While growing as an artist, it is quite natural for the art works to go through an evolution in terms of both concept and content. There are lots of pictorial elements that have been added or deducted from my paintings in the course of changing time. Experiences of moving to different places have highly inspired me to shape up the body of my works. Nature and natural elements have been an integral part of my works throughout. Human figures, mostly grotesque and distorted, are placed within the natural space. Conch, cowry shells and recently beehives have become major symbolic features of my works. These are the elements that build up the body of my works and changes occur through the continous journey of my life. Apart from that there are many reflections of some of my very personal thoughts that come from my daily observations. I often come up with a scene, revealing some story about an individual or a group of people, stating them in an environment. I like to unveil the story quite dramatically with an expressive rendering of colour-play, finishing and appearances/expressions of the characters. Apart from that there are many reflections of some of my very personal thoughts that come from my daily observations. I often come up with a scene, revealing some story about an individual or a group of people, stating them in an environment. I like to unveil the story quite dramatically with an expressive rendering of colour-play, finishing and appearances/expressions of the characters.

My colour palette is quite strong. I use brilliant range of colours and juxtapose them to create vibrancy corresponding to the subjects of my paintings. I always want to create a certain contrast between contradictory elements and I do it by combining strong colours. My palette appears very strident and it may often resemble to be quite expressionistic yet the final rendering surely has reference of the Renaissance paintings. The smooth finishing, delicacy of the draperies, use of chiaroscuro and subtle highlights on the human figures are derived from by understanding of the classical painting, resulting as my own spontaneous interpretation.

I like to work in a way evaded from directness. There are more than a few layers in my works in terms of subject and concept. My main intention is to criticize and highlight various nuances of our society. I have extensively painted subjects like sexual biases, class struggle, and terrorism etc. I handle these concepts with a very political or sometime with a spiritual angle. I use various metaphors and symbols to convey my thought while articulation. The metaphors I use are created with my personal vision and interpretation from various experiences of life. Dealing with concepts like ‘Man and woman relationship’ I have used various metaphoric elements like snails, cowry shells and conch symbolizing the female sexuality and elements like tiger as male. There are references in my work criticizing the male dominance over females by showing a tiger, sharply gazing towards a woman. Tree has become a symbol of femininity as its process of creation resembles to the women’s’ power of giving birth.  Side pillow, another object of the interior has been shown repeatedly as a phallic symbol. There are a few subjects that I have dealt with a spiritual angle, using religious symbols (swastika symbol or a man seated like Buddha) against terrifying objects to generate good hope and positivity against fear. Apart from this, I have been capturing changing personality or mood of different people by showing characters with multiple heads. Dramatic combination of different expressions of joy and dismay of those multiple faces upon a single body, suggests the journey of that person throughout different phase of his life. My works are highly metaphoric and constantly connote a conflict between different aspects of human life. Contrasts and contradictions between different things like sexuality and gender biases, war and peace, brutalities of urbanization are symbolically depicted in my works.

by

Art Blogazine Team

Bombay

Tathi Premchand

01: Note from Studio Shantiniketan, Bolpur. / Artist : Ghanashyam Latua

Mainly my art practice is based on physical environment and its conflict with the artificial environment. The physical environment consists with the living and non-living components. Unfortunately, the natural environment has been under tremendous threat due to never ending human greed. The lands are mindlessly being excoriated by us through agonizing mechanical process. The poignant saga regarding the issues of land acquisition, environmental and migrant crisis and modern age slavery comes into my mind as myself being a locale from a suburban area.

Artist : Ghanashyam Latua

I am currently working with a long and time consuming method of creating layers like formation of a land for many years. It continues then by pecking and skinning the paper with a sharp tool, which defines the violence towards it due to human interference to acquire resources for industrial and ‘developmental’ purposes.

The skin of the paper is the metaphor of the land to me and the method of pecking represents the human rapacity in form of the encroaching land. Before pecking, I use to do some treatment on the paper. It might be an application of water colour tint, soft pastel, charcoal, pen strokes or might be left the paper un-treated as it is. 

I have been constantly encountering the changing features of these landscapes from my childhood at my ancestral village near Kharagpur, Jhargram and during my student life at Shantiniketan, Bolpur. I have explored the spiritual affinity and relationship between the man and nature through my works. It questions the burning social issues like encroaching and land grabbing, which changes the whole ecology of a landscape and the people depending upon it. The endless human greed has lead towards a socio-political disharmony due to misinterpretations of modernism.

In that sense my works are empathic reaction towards these issues as we are constantly being enslaved by our own greed and ecstasy of power in a capitalist society. By getting divorced from the nature day by day, we have murdered our own divine and spiritual self.

......

by

Art Blogazine Team

Bombay

Tathi Premchand

Pin Poster : Kolkata Ink

Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) is the capital of India's West Bengal state. Founded as an East India Company trading post, it was India's capital under the British Raj from 1773–1911. Today it’s known for its grand colonial architecture, art galleries and cultural festivals. It’s also home to Mother House, headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, whose tomb is on site.