Eklavya

`Eklavya` `Daphne` `Sculptures and Drawing` Gieve Patel 5th - 11th March, 2007 11.00 am to 7.00 pm at The Museum Gallery Kalaghoda, Mumbai 400 023 12th - 25th March 2007, the show continues at The Guild 10.00 am to 6.30 pm Click on the picture for details.












Gieve Patel depicts the epic tragedy of Eklavya by representing a thumbless hand. The sculpture gives us a visual shock because this hand is defenseless, and mutely uncomplaining. But its very quietness gives it eloquence. "Look", it seems to say, "at what has been done to me!" This ever fascinating story from the Mahabharata is too complex for us to interpret it only as an example of caste oppression, though that aspect of it surely is important. It is also, among other things, a story about the treacherous pitfalls that exist in a profound teacher-disciple relationship. With Daphne, Gieve Patel turns to classical Greek mythology, giving us the beautiful wood-nymph who is saved from Apollo's rape by being transformed into a tree. This ambiguous "gift" from the gods to whom she prays for help, allows the sculptor to explore the physical and emotional trauma of metamorphosis. What is the price to be paid for changing bodily form? When flesh-and-blood become vegetation is it a moment of liberation, or is it just another trap of existence? In twenty-five sculptures on these two eternal themes, Gieve Patel expresses amazing plastic dexterity. The works look as though they are being moulded right before our eyes, with disarming simplicity and directness. As a painter, Gieve Patel needs no introduction to art audiences in this country. Now, with his first venture into sculpture, he surprises and delights us with these brave creations. *************************

BIO - DATA
1940 Born List of Exhibitions 2006 ‘The Startling View from the Studio’ - Recent Paintings by Gieve patel and Sudhir Patwardhan, Bose Pacia, New York 2004 Gieve Patel - Paintings, Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi 2003 Gieve Patel - Paintings, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai Crossing Generations: Diverge 40 years of Gallery Chemould , curated by Geeta Kapur and Chaitanya Sambrani 2000 Gieve Patel - Paintings 1997-2000, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai 1996 Looking into a Well, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai Contemporary Indian Painting from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection Part II, Sotheby's Auction, New York 1995 Contemporary Indian paintings from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection Part I, Sotheby's Auction, New York Indian Contemporary paintings’, Christie’s Auction, London 1989 The Times of India Auction of Timeless Art, by Sotheby's, Mumbai 1987 Coups de Coeur, at Halle de I’lle, Geneva 1985-86Contemporary Indian Art, Grey Art Gallery and Study Centre, New York University Contemporary Art of India: The Herwitz Collection, Worcester, Massachusetts 1985 Thirty Indian Artists in the Collection of Richardson Hindustan, Jehangir Art Gallery 1982 India: Myth and Reality -- Aspects of Modern Indian Art, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK ‘Contemporary Indian Art’, Royal Academy of Art, London 1981 Inaugural Exhibition: Roopankar Museum of Fine Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal 1980-79 Art Heritage, New Delhi 1979 Focus: 4 Painters 4 Directions, Gallery Chemould (Artists included: Bhupen Khakhar, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee, Gieve Patel) curated by Geeta Kapur 1978 Six who Declined to show at the Trienalle, Kumar Gallery,New Delhi New Contemporaries, curated by Gulammohamed Sheikh for Marg, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai 1977 Pictorial Space , curated by Geeta Kapur for Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi 1976 Menton Bienalle, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France 1975 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai 1973 Kunika Chemould, New Delhi 1972 Group Travelling Exhibition to Yugoslavia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belgium, Italy 1972 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai 1967 Sridharani Gallery, New Delhi 1966 Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai (first show) Essays on Art - To Pick up a Brush, Contemporary Indian Art from the Chester and Davida Family Collection , Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, 1985 - Contemporary Indian Painting - Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fall 1989 - The Human Presence in Painting - Fifty Years of Indian Art, Mohile-Parikh Centre for the Visual Arts, International Conference in Mumbai, 1997 Fellowships and Awards - Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, The Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 1984 - Rockerfeller Fellowship, University of Chicago, 1992 - C. R. Parekh Writer in Residence, Nirman Foundation Grant, University of Pennsylvania, 2003 Gieve Patel has published three books of verse. He has written three plays, which have been performed in Mumbai. His collected plays are published by Seagull Books, Calcutta.