Navjot Altaf

             

Born 1949 in Meerut (U.P), Navjot Altaf studied fine and applied arts at the Sir J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai and graphics at the Garhi Studios, New Delhi. Working across mediums, she has been using video since 1994, and is considered one of India's earliest video artists.

Oriented away from the individualistic, but towards collective endeavors, Navjot in much of her works has given prominence to people’s testimonies of social violence. Her work on projects with students and women has always been a part of a wider concern on social and educational issues, through which she has sought alternative art practices and communication outside the gallery space. The question of description haunt the reception of her work, as she has been associated with varied fields, being an Artist, a Researcher, an Anthropologist, a Social Worker and a Political Activist.

Since the early nineties, Navjot has been involved in interactive, co-operative and collaborative projects with Indian and International Artists, Classical Vocalists, Documentary Filmmakers, Activists, Craftsperson’s and Technicians. Since 1999, she has also been engaged with ongoing site-oriented art projects with tribal artists from Bastar, Chattisgarh in Central India.

“ Navjot has clearly re-tracked the familiar terrain of social injustice and violence, transmuting her concerns to the intimate, often hidden private lives of women. These works are clearly about the language of eroticism, of the male gaze that still relegates women to sexual object, of hollow, unfulfilled lives and of female sexuality as the site of as much pain as pleasure.

This in turn lends itself well to the pictorial convention of communicating the complex thinking and emotion inherent in the feminine predicament ­ the subject of carvings. And to testing the limits of making pathos manifest. In this balance struck between the work as empathic representation and as autonomous formal creation, lies the essence of its expression.” – Geeta Kapoor.  

Her Selected Solo Exhibitions include: 2005 / 2006 – ‘ Jagar ‘ Multimedia Installation, Sakshi Gallery Mumbai, India. 2005 –’ Water Weaving’, video Installation,Talwar Gallery, New York, U.S.A. 2004 – Video Installation,’ Mumbai Meri Jaan’ and ‘Lacuna in Testimony’, Sakshi  Gallery, Mumbai,India. 2003 - ‘In Response To’, sculpture installation with photographs by Ravi Agarwal, Talwar Gallery, New York, U.S.A.

Selected Group Shows: 2005 – ‘ Groundworks ‘Carnegie Mellon University, (RMG) Pittsburgh, U.S.A. 2004 -   ‘Another Passage To India‘, Theatre Saint Gervais and Musee d’ Ethnographie, Geneva. Switzerland 2004  -   ‘ZOOM –ART IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA’, Edificia Sede de  Caixo Garal de Depositos, Lisbon. 2004 - ‘along the axis’ digital art from India and Pakistan   Apeejay Media Gallery, Delhi.

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