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Art Assemblage at Hyatt Regency

 

K. G. Subramanyan

Navjot Altaf

K. P. Reji

Baiju Parthan

Sathyanand Mohan

G. R. Iranna

T. V. Santhosh

  14 - 16 February, 2014
   
  Art  Chennai 2014
  Art Project at Express Avenue
  T. V. Santhosh
  13 - 25 February, 2014

. WORKS . PRESS RELEASE  
   
 

K. G. SUBRAMANYAN 
Born 1924

Subramanyan has, like the traditional artists of the East who were keen observers of nature and yet never drew from nature, learned to supplant drawing from nature with astute looking, and to transform perception into a form of ocular reception that allows the world to inscribe itself onto the screen of his mind.

Most of these drawings are in the form of brush and ink images on cards. The motifs usually appear single and vivid against the whiteness of the paper. He does not attempt to render the atmosphere, but only to give a suggestion of space, invoked by the tone and movement of the brush strokes – which are always kept broad and few – and by the illusory volumes they create. Small, economical in rendering, the stillness of the image fused with the movement of the brush, and the starkness of the motif juxtaposed against the white void of the paper these are drawings as pithy as haikus. His coloured drawings, big or small, exhibit a dynamic tension between form and movement, compositional coherence and gestural animation. Some of them are marked by an overall animation and composed of a flurry of stokes or marks. ( Excerpt from the essay Regarding The Drawings of K. G. Subramanyan by R. Siva Kumar)

K.G. Subramanyan born in Kerala and educated in Santiniketan is a major presence on the Indian art scene. His flexibility of expression and richness of visual language evolve from the diverse materials he works with as painter, muralist, printmaker, relief-sculptor and designer. In his recent work Subramanyan uses many registers of language to slide from high seriousness to irony, celebration to subversion, descriptive rendering to lyrical evocation, fact to metaphor, and from real to surreal with the ingenuity of a consummate craftsman and the alertness of a nimble thinker. A man of multifaceted talents, Subramanyan demolished banners between artist and artisan. The artist gave the human figure a new dimension. Drawing upon the rich resources of myth, memory and tradition, Subramanyan tempers romanticism with wit and eroticism.

He has received the Kalidas Samman in 1981, the Padma Shree in 1975,  D. Litt. (Honoris Causa) from the Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta in 1992 and became a Fellow of Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi in 1993.


Navjot Altaf

On a surface level what strikes me most about New York is the distinctiveness of a man-made city filled with people/ immigrants from all around the globe and being there always gives me an ever-changing source of inspiration. This was my eighth visit with a longer duration of eight weeks for a residency programme –  the outcome was an interactive project ‘A Place in New York - New York ’, done shortly after I had exhibited ‘Bombay Shots’ in Mumbai in 2008 and this can be seen as an extension of that. Despite many political undercurrents, I find both the cities have people from diverse cultures and backgrounds making them vital cities, which I love. 

                 Apart from the visibility of the architecturally innovative and overpowering skyscrapers, the juxtapositions of old and new designs and the diversity which New York is generally known for; which I gradually started to keenly observe, and appreciate, is that nature is considered an integral part of plans and the development of the city. Open public spaces, playgrounds, riverside parks, botanical gardens, and waterfronts are accessible and lots of significant cultural events otherwise absolutely unaffordable for many take place in public spaces; my visits to such sites to shoot were extremely enjoyable as I could see a large number of people of all ages having access to them.

Rewriting the landscape : India and China : Contemporary Art from China and India, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, curated by Choi Eunju and Kate Lim, Korea, 2013; Water: EuropaliaIndia Liege, Belgium, Germany, curated by Gayatri Sinha, 2013; Women In – Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012. Fukuoka Asia Art Museum, Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of fine Arts and Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Japan, curated by Raiji Kuroda, 2012/13.Lacuna in Testimony, Patricia and Phillip  Frost Art Museum, Florida, 2009; Public Places Private Spaces,  Newark Museum, New York and Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, curated by Gayatri Sinha and Paul Stern Berger, 2008; Tiger by the Tail: Women Artists Transforming Culture,  Brandies University / Museum  Boston and New Brunswick Rutgers University, Douglass Library, Newark,curated by Wendy Tarlow Kaplan, Elinor W.Gadon and Roobina Karode, 2008; INDIA NOW: Contemporary Indian Art between Continuity and Transition,  Provincia di Milano,Italy,  curated by Daniela Palazzoli, 2007. Navjot Altaf’s works have been shown in Yamuna.Elbe A public art project at the Yamuna in Delhi and the Elbe in Hamburg, curated by Ravi Agarwal (Delhi) and Till Krause (Hamburg), 2011; ‘IN CONTEXT: Public.Art. Ecology’, Project, Khoj International Artists Residency, New Delhi, 2010. Zones of Contact, 15th Biennale of Sydney Australia,  curated by Charles Merewether, 2006; ‘Groundworks : Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art’, Carnegie Mellon University, (RMG) Pittsburgh, curated by Grant Kester, 2005;  Another Passage To India, Theatre Saint-Gervais and Musee d’ Ethnographie, Geneva, Switzerland, curated by Pooja Sood, 2004; Zoom – Art in Contemporary India, Edificia Sede de  Caixo Garal de Depositos, Lisbon, curated by Luis Sepra and Nancy Adajania, 2004; Century City - Bombay/Mumbai: City Politics and Visual Culture in the 90’s, Tate Modern, London, curated by Geeta Kapur and Ashish Rajadhyaksha, 2001;  subTerrain:artworks in the cityfold, Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Berlin curated by Geeta Kapur, 2003; 8th Havana Biennale, Cuba, 2003; Liminal Zones, Apeejay Media Gallery, New Delhi, curated by Pooja Sood, 2003. Solo exhibitions include: ‘Horn in the Head’, Sculpture Installation with audio and video, Talwar Gallery, New Delhi, 2013; ‘Touch IV’, Video Installation, Talwar Gallery, New Delhi and The Guild, Mumbai, 2010;A Place in New York’ an interactive photo based project, The Guild, Mumbai, 2010; ‘Touch- Remembering Altaf’, Video and motor based sculpture Installation, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2008;Bombay Shots’, an interactive photo based project, The Guild, Mumbai, 2008; Junctions 1 2 3’, The Guild, Mumbai, 2006 and ‘Jagar’ Multimedia Installation, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2006; Water Weaving’, Video Installation, Talwar Gallery, New York, 2005, among others.


K. P. REJI

1972

“This work in many ways marks a continuation of my longstanding engagement with the politics and poetics of the everyday. At the same time my attempt is to engage with the ‘hidden’ dynamics of human action.  The performative acts in this work travel from the free play of children to the constitutive order of power.  They attempt to deconstruct the boundaries between the natural and the cultural (artificial), order and free play, and innocence and betrayal. At the same time, the work opens up the possibilities of co-existence of multiple worlds (a possible world in the dream of the sleeping kid vis-a-vis a betrayed world of togetherness). A world of wonder and surprise (the normative dream of / about childhood) is disfigured into the world of callousness by the act of hiding the frog in the lunch-box. Parallel to the actions in the foreground, there is a lateral in-activeness in the background through which the title of the painting Fishes under the Broken Bridge acquires resonance. What is common in the actions depicted in this work is the presence of certain deceitfulness - the very act of fishing, hiding the frog in the lunch-box, playing prank with the stringed cockroach and the sleeping boy and so on. In a broader sense, this work attempts to expose various technologies of power which constitute our notions regarding the self and the other.”- K. P. Reji.

K. P. Reji received his MFA from MSU Baroda. Reji was awarded the prestigious Sanskriti Award for the Young Artist-2007, Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi. He was invited for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India, 2012-13 and Jogja Biennale – ‘Shadow Lines’ curated by Suman Gopinath and Alia Swastika, 2011-12.   Reji’s selected group exhibitions include ‘Tolstoy Farm: Archive of  Utopia’, curated by Gayatri Sinha, New Delhi, 2011; ‘Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern & Contemporary Art from India’,  San Jose Museum of  Art, San Jose, 2011;  ‘Tough Love’, curated by Shaheen Merali, Plataforma  Revólver,  Lisbon, Portugal, 2010; ‘Snow’ curated by Ranjit Hoskote, The Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi in collaboration with Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2010; ‘Horn Please: Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art’, curated by Bernhard Fibicher and Suman Gopinath Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, 2007. His solo exhibitions being ‘With a Pinch of Salt’ at Nature Morte, New Delhi in collaboration with The Guild, 2009 and ‘Just Above My Head’, The Guild, Mumbai, 2006.


T. V. SATHOSH
1968  

T.V. Santhosh’s associations are humanist and metaphysically oriented without being detached from reality. They act as conceptualist devices intended to break down the simple binaries through which we perceive our complex and multi-layered milieu. Through this lens he examines the distortion of science and technology into vehicles of terror. T.V. Santhosh’s work deals with the overarching presence of the notion of violence in contemporary societal life. His works talk of socio-political and environmental dilemmas in a global context. The outcome of his engagement with the images of ongoing and changing nature of war, memory and perception. His works employ the linguistic devices of color codes, positive negative image inversions and are subsequently a mapping of social unrest and its political implications through the constructions of multiple layers of metaphors that investigate the evolving histories of the nature of war, human rights and citizenship.

Born in Kerala, T.V. Santhosh obtained his graduate degree in painting from Santiniketan and Masters degree in Sculpture from M. S. University, Vadodara. Santhosh’s works have been shown widely in Museums and Biennales. Some of the museum shows include: Making History, Colombo Art Biennale, 2014; Heritage Transport Museum, curated by Priya Pall, New Delhi, 2013; WAR ZONE – Indian Contemporary Art, Artemons Contemporary,  Das Kunstmuseum, Austria, 2012; Critical Mass: Contemporary Art from India, curated by Tami Katz-Freiman and  Rotem Ruff, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, 2012; 11th Havanna Biennial, 2012;  INDIA- LADO A LADO, curated by Tereza de Arruda, SESC  Belenzinho Sao Paulo, Brazil 2012;  India, curated by Pieter Tjabbes and Tereza de Arruda, Centro Cultural Banco do  Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2011; Rewriting Worlds, 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art,  curated by Peter Weibel, 2011;  In Transition New Art from India, Surrey Museum of Art, Canada, 2011; Collectors Stage: Asian Contemporary Art from Private Collections, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2011;  Crossroads: India Escalate, Prague Biennale 5, 2011;  Empire Strikes Back, The Saatchi Gallery, London, 2010;  The Silk Road, New Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern Art from The Saatchi Gallery at Tri Postal, Lille, France, 2010; Vancouver Biennale curated by Barry Mowatt, 2010;  Dark Materials, curated by David Thorp, G S K Contemporary show, at Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2009; India Xianzai, MOCA, Shanghai, China, 2009;  Passage to India, Part II: New Indian Art from the Frank Cohen Collection, at Initial Access, Wolverhampton, UK, 2009;  Aftershock, Conflict, Violence and Resolution in Contemporary Art,  Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA Norwich, 2007;  Continuity and Transformation’, Museum show promoted by Provincia di Milano, Italy, 2007.

His select solo shows include The Land, Nature Morte, Berlin 2011, Burning Flags, Aicon Gallery, London 2010, Blood and Spit, Jackshainman Gallery 2009, Living with a Wound, Grosvenor Vadehra, London 2009, A Room to Pray at Avanthay Contemporary, Zurich 2008, Countdown, Nature Morte, Delhi 2008 in collaboration with The Guild, Mumbai; Countdown, The Guild, Mumbai 2008.


G. R. IRANNA
1970

“Whether using his trademark "splotched surfaces" to offer an entry point beyond the spatio-temporal manifestation of images on the canvas, or his characteristically absent backgrounds, or his palimpsest layering of trace outlines, such as tree roots and branches or schematized cityscapes and human figures, Iranna's visual language turns on the creation of what philosopher Michel Foucault called "heterotopias"—the "intersections between real and virtual spaces" that function as interstitial vectors allowing us to see ourselves in the "unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface." Iconically resembling a mirror, bridge, or boat, a heterotopic space "is a floating piece of space, a place without a place" that is contained within itself. Subsisting on the margins of society in a self-contained, ritualistic space constituted by shared notions of birth, death, life and transcendence, the Buddhist monk is a self-peripheralized being— a quintessential heterotopic subject.” —Maya Kóvskaya, PhD

Iranna obtained M.F.A. from Delhi College of Art. He has had several solo shows like Thought of the Day, Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi limnig Heterotopias, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2012; Scaffolding the Absent, The Guild, Mumbai, 2011;  Ribbed Routes, The Guild, Mumbai, 2010 and Birth of Blindness, The Stainless Gallery, New Delhi and Aicon Gallery, London and New York in 2008. Iranna is a recipient of National Academy award in 1997 and the M.F.Husain and Ram Kumar award. G.R Iranna has been nominated from India for the ABPF Signature Art Prize 08, Singapore Museum. He has widely participated in many significant group exhibitions and workshops in India and abroad, including Heritage Transport Museum, curated by Priya Pall, New Delhi, 2013, Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern & Contemporary Art from India, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose , 2011; Time Unfolded, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, 2011; Finding India: Art for the New century, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, by Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2010; Go See India,  curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay and Oscar Aschan, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2010; Cultura Popular India and Beyond, curated by Shaheen Merali,  Alcalá 31, Madrid, 2009 and Arad Biennale, Romania, 2005  among others.

 

Sathyanand Mohan
1975

His works are private metaphors wherein he tries to evoke various aspects of the self and attempts to work it out at the level of the visual in a playful and ironic manner. Play and Irony are employed in his paintings to draw attention to the language and its materiality. If we are at present living under the sing of 'realism', then his works could be said to be trying to obscure that notion by bringing into play different registers of language(s) culled form different contexts and sources which are like the uses of collage employed by the Surrealists are stuck together in the work by some notion of the 'real'. The fantastic subject matter of works allows him to suspend the gravity of the real, and permits him the liberty of engaging in a play of his own.

Born in Kerala, Sathyanand received his BFA in Painting from The Government College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum, 1994-1998. MFA in Printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University Baroda, 1998-2000. He has been a part of Singapore Art Fair 2011, Dubai Art Fair 2011, India Art Summit 2011, KIAF 09, India Art Summit 09, 'Armory Show' 09, New York and  'ART HK 09', Hongkong  represented by The Guild, Mumbai. His solo shows include ‘Mirage’ in 2012 and ‘Reliquary’, in 2009 held at The Guild, Mumbai. Some of his group exhibitions include ‘The Secret life of plants’, curated by Maya Kovskaya, Exhibit 320, New Delhi; ‘Alternate to Another’, The Guild Art USA Inc., New York; ‘A New Vanguard: Trends in Contemporary Indian Art’, Saffronart, New York; The Guild, New York; ‘Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on the Self-Portrait’, The Guild, Mumbai.
 

BAIJU PARTHAN
 

'Psuedopds' is a series of mixed media works about shifting  theoretical frameworks or knowledge systems (epistemes) that rearrange our perception, but in the process bring forth ontogical conundrums.

In simple. terms these works depict situations where nascent knowledge annihilates familiar and comfortable ideas about ourselves and the world.

Pseudopods or pseudopodia are temporary projections or protoplasmic  appendages produced  by unicellular amoeboids for locomotion and for managing their environment.

Baiju Parthan has an eclectic academic background. Along with degrees in Painting, Botany, Philosophy, and a Post-grad diploma in Comparative mythology, he has done studies in computer game level design at the Pratt Institute Manhattan USA. Some of his selected group shows include ‘India’, curated by Pieter Tjabbes and Tereza de Arruda, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;  'Constructed Realities', curated by Gayatri Sinha at The Guild, Mumbai, 2010; 'Go See India', part of India-Sweden Cultural Exchange Program; presented by Emami Chisel, Kolkata at Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkatta, Vasa Konsthal and Gallery-Scandinavia,Gothenburg; 'The Intuitive: Logic Revisted', from the Osians Collection at The World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland; 'Looking Glass: The Existence of Difference', Twenty Indian Contemporary Artists presented by Religare Arts Initiative, New Delhi in collaboration with American Centre, British Council, Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi; 'The 11th Hour: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art from India / Diaspora', Tang Contemporary, Beijing. Parthan’s recent new media installations include Arpeggio for Abbe Faria,- Photography Installation, Benedictine Museum, Fecamp, France; ‘Liquid memory’ new media Installation- Galerie Christian Hosp, Nassereith, Austria.His recent solo shows are 'Dislocation: Milljunction Part 2', Aicon Gallery, London; 'Milljunction: Paintings and Photo-Works by Baiju Parthan', Aicon Gallery, New York; Liquid memory + Rant - Inter-media show Vadehra Gallery New Delhi

 

 

 

   
 

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