Reversed Perspective, Gliterarti Festival, Wonderland and more

NEWS

Reversed Perspective: 3 Conjunctions

(Installation work by Sanchayan Ghosh )

Experimenter, Kolkata presents, ‘Reversed Perspective: 3 Conjunctions’, artist Sanchayan Ghosh’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Encompassing performance, public workshops, site specific work and multi-media installations, Ghosh works with the architecture of the gallery, distorting its visual-scape by reversing the perspective of viewing as an extension of his ongoing projects on understanding land in Birbhum, West Bengal, its economic and cultural politics and the landscape that this translates into.

Sanchayan Ghosh, has over the last 10 years been working through workshop-based models, with communities of marginalized land all over the country, including some of the strife ridden states in the North Eastern part of India, Jammu & Kashmir and the Adivasi belts in Birbhum around Santiniketan, where Ghosh is an associate professor at the faculty of Visual Arts, Visva Bharati University.

Sanchayan Ghosh is currently an associate professor at the department of painting in Kalabhavana, Santiniketan, from where he earned his own MVA in 1997 and has since been initiating public & community-led art projects. 

The show is on view till 8th February 2014.

Gliterarti: Art and Literary Festival

DLF Cyber hub, Gurgaon hosts a Times of India presentation ‘Gliterarti’, an art and literary festival that celebrates Gurgaon as a creative and artistic city. This two-day extravaganza aims to highlight the fine things in life that the educated and cosmopolitan population of the city values.

Gliterarti will feature multiple art displays, interactive workshops, cultural performances, chat sessions with authors, book launches and forum and panel discussions on topics ranging from leadership, real estate and travel to entertainment, food and women empowerment. There will be five different zones where a number of activities will go on side by side. Besides the main venue, there will be simultaneous activities at Rapid metro stations in Gurgaon.

With the presence of intellectuals, thinkers, artists, writers and top management professionals, Gliterarti is expected to be an exceptional event and the perfect getaway for art and literature enthusiasts of Delhi and Gurgaon.

The festival is on till 14th December 2013.

Manipur in Chennai

( work on display)

Dakshina Chitra, Chennai is a centre for the living traditions of art, folk performing arts, craft and architecture of India with an emphasis on the traditions of South India. It is an attempt to preserve some of the traditional south Indian ways of life by constructing a 'living' village containing some of the various traditional homes of south India. 

In view of their national annual day, they will be dedicating two weeks to the state of Manipur by displaying their arts and crafts and having traditional musicians and dance performers show their talent. The second half of December will see a lot of tourism traffic to the centre as it gears up to welcome Manipur into Tamil Nadu.

The festival is on till 22nd December 2013.

Wonderland

( work by Simrin Mehra Agarwal)

The Flying Elephant, Chennai is hosting a group art exhibition, ‘Wonderland’ that transports the art enthusiasts to a world of artistic beauty. This exhibition has displayed art works of contemporary artists in the country today. 

The participants are Chila Burman, Monali Meher, Smriti Dixit, Medha Prabhakar, Priti Kahar, Nidhi Agarwal, Benita Perciyal,  Anjali Srinivasan, Parvathi Nayar and Simrin Mehra Agarwal.

This exhibition is a chance to enjoy the wonderful creations by some talented contemporary artists.

The show is on view till 31st December 2013.

( News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

The City of Rasa

Be it celluloid or canvas, Varanasi is in vogue. Now an artist is planning to paint all over the city

(Called ‘City Decorative Project (CDR)’, Nair says the art will reflect the essence of the city, which has been attracting travellers for several thousand years.)

Change is in the air. There is a clamour for newer ideas and a stress on renewed vision. And it isn’t just restricted to politics, this urgent need for transformation is emergent in various walks of life. Suresh K. Nair would have been satisfied with his teaching job at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) — he teaches in the mural section of the department of painting — only if he hadn’t stopped ideating. A curator and artist, Nair has come up with an interesting prospect of decorating the holy city with art. He, along with his entourage of nearly 100 students, plans to paint the walls of significant places in the city — airport, railway stations, bus stands, schools, universities, street walls and cantonment area etc.

Called ‘City Decorative Project (CDR)’, Nair says the art will reflect the essence of the city, which has been attracting travellers for several thousand years. “People have been coming and going to Banaras from the beginning. Fascinated by the city, travellers, monks, scholars like Al-Beruni, Huen Tsang, Ralph Fitch and Fa-Hien visited it and it continues to receive tourists. I think, the murals won’t only beautify the city but also become a great source of information to the travellers. It’s a mass communication project which will enable a greater understanding and appreciation of the city,” explains Nair.

Like with every mural, the technique and the material will be determined by the surface but what will run commonly through each work is the portrayal of the present day Varanasi with its rich past. “Using a range of mediums like mixed media, cement relief, terracotta, metal enamelling, we will paint the city’s journey. We will draw from the popular rituals, customs practiced by the residents of the city and we will also include traditional arts of the region. We intend to get on board a few mural artists of the Sankat Mochan temple. The murals there are in such a bad shape and we hope to restore them,” says Nair, who trained in mural art in Santiniketan.

Calligraphy, texts in different languages, portraits will also be an integral part of the visual vocabulary employed in the project. Subject matter will also depend on the area. “In the cantonment area, we are talking to the Air Force officials. They want us to do something very contemporary on the evolution of aircrafts. They have even given us some text to be used in the work.” The work on around four to five walls measuring 200 feet each will begin soon.

An itinerant artist, Nair feels he has contacts in different countries from where too artists can be invited to contribute to the project. Holding international mural camps in Varanasi will be another way of adding to the project.

While CDR is still in its initial stages, as a pilot, Nair and his students have created art works around an art gallery and a hotel in the city. “Collaborations, funds and permissions are issues yet to be handled. I am certain about BHU extending support but I would need lot of cooperation from the State government. I plan to paint the entire city and even if I paint 20-25 spaces every year, the project won’t finish before 2036,” says Nair.

(To get more details on the project, write to sureshnair71@rediffmail.com or call 09839357915)

(Report by Shailaja Tripathi for The Hindu)