New works by Chittrovanu Mazumdar | Indian Contemporary Artists

Babelsberg Film Orchestra with A.R.Rahman | Live in Bombay 22nd January

Reena Kallat | Labyrinth of Absences

Reena Saini Kallat: “Labyrinth of Absences”
Opening on Tuesday, March 8th from 6 to 8 pm.
The exhibition continues to Saturday, March 26th


PRESS RELEASE

Reena Saini Kallat: “Labyrinth of Absences”
Opening on Tuesday, March 8th from 6 to 8 pm.
The exhibition continues to Saturday, March 26th

Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Reena Saini Kallat, entitled “Labyrinth of Absences”, after a gap of six years since her last solo at the gallery.

Reena Kallat’s practice spans painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation, often incorporating multiple mediums into a single work. She frequently works with officially recorded or registered names of people, objects, and monuments that are lost or have disappeared without a trace, only to get listed as forgotten statistics. One of the recurrent motifs in her work is the rubber stamp, used both as an object and an imprint, signifying the bureaucratic apparatus which both confirms and obscures identities.

Among the works in the exhibition will be a set of new paintings that depict monument sites in Delhi. The surface of the paintings are marked with addresses of monuments listed as protected sites under the Archeological Survey of India, that have either disappeared or have been declared lost, swallowed up by the rapidly expanding urban fabric. The works on paper are constructed from the names of people who have been denied visas on the basis of class, nationality or religion. In most cases, her images are fractured and deconstructed, creating maze-like maps - or as in the case of Synonym, a series of portraits crafted as mosaics of rubber-stamps, holding the names of people who are officially registered as missing - appear pixelated and fragmented. Other works in the show include Crease/Crevice/Contour, a set of ten large-scale photographs tracing the fluctuating Line Of Control between India and Pakistan from October 1947 to December 1948.

Two video works will also be exhibited: Silt of Seasons-I, projects the names of people who have signed the peace petition in 2004. The names are projected on to sand and are gradually blown away, suggestive of the vulnerability of the peace process itself. In Preface, the artist projects the text of the Preamble of the Constitution of India translated into Braille on to the surface of a large, opened book.

BHARAT SIKKA | Matter

OPENS 24th FEB, 2011

Nature Morte, Delhi

Nature Morte | Thukral & Tagra

Thukral & Tagra

"Put it on, Again!"

Nature Morte
A-1 Neeti Bagh
New Delhi, India 110 049
T: 91 11 4174 0215
F: 91 11 2956 1596
info@naturemorte.com
www.naturemorte.com

Thukral & Tagra: “Put It On, Again!”

Opening on January 29th, 2011; exhibition continues to February 26th at A1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi.

Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the New Delhi artist duo Thukral & Tagra. The exhibition continues from their 2007 solo exhibition (“Put It On,” Bose Pacia, New York) with a body of work that addresses the themes of safe sex practices and increased sexual activity among Indian youth, against the backdrop of traditional perceptions of sexuality and the increased representation of sexualized bodies within the Indian media landscape. With their characteristic use of pop culture imagery, graphic pizzazz, seductive colors, sardonic wit and insightful juxtapositions, Thukral & Tagra will address deadly serious subjects through a humorous façade, employing paintings, consumer products and sculptural installations in the mix.

Jiten Thukral (born 1976, Jalandhar) and Sumir Tagra (born 1979, New Delhi) have been working collaboratively since 2002. Trained in both Fine Art and Design, their practice runs the range from paintings, sculptures and installations to product and interior design. This is their second solo exhibition with Nature Morte in New Delhi. Recent solo exhibitions of their works have been mounted at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, the Arario Gallery in Seoul and the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (all 2010). Upcoming projects include a solo show at the Tokyo Gallery in Japan (April) and participation in a large-scale exhibition of Indian contemporary art at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (May). More information, images of previous works and their full bio-data can be found on our website at: http://www.naturemorte.com/artists/thukral-and-tagra.

Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.

Shilpa Gupta | Half A Sky

SHILPA GUPTA | HALF A SKY
solo exhibition at
OK Center for Contemporary Art
Linz, Austria
26.11.2010 – 30.01.2011

A cross-section of Shilpa Gupta's works along with a new installation produced especially for the OK offer insights into the work of the young artist living in Mumbai. The new work "Skin Globe" is an interactive sound installation that visitors bring to life by touching it.

Shilpa Gupta was born in 1976 in Mumbai. In her work she uses interactive video, Internet, photography, object art, sound and performance to investigate themes like consumer culture, desire, religion, security, militarism and human rights, social injustice or power politics.

In this diversity of media Gupta blurs the boundaries between art and everyday culture, raising questions about how we think and who we are. She generates an interactive relationship with her audience, as it is the viewers who first complete the works with their reactions.

In the most recent edition of the art magazine “DU”, the renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist listed Shilpa Gupta among the twenty-nine most important artists of the 21st century – artists that he thinks will mark the next decade with their work, their thinking and their visions.

I want to fly,
High above in the sky

Don’t push me away

We shall all fly
High above in the sky

I want to fly high above
In your sky

Can you let it be
Only your power
And not your greed

A part of me will die
By your side
Taking you with me

High high above
in the sky

While you sleep I shall wake up and fly

---

SHILPA GUPTA at INDIA ART SUMMIT
Vadehra Art Gallery presents two major works of the artist at IAS 2011, January 20 - 23, at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Visit us at Hall 18, Booth A20 to view 'Singing Cloud' (Object built with thousands of microphones, multi-channel audio) and 'Untitled' (Motion Flap-Board).

The Manganiyar Seduction | Sufi Seduction

The Manganiyar Seduction begins in almost complete darkness -- light bulbs faintly illuminate 36 human-sized rectangular boxes on a large four-tier set. Then the sound of a khamacha, an Indian stringed instrument, breaks the silence. Slowly, lights come up on one of the boxes to reveal the musician sitting cross-legged, dressed in white with an orange turban.

The Manganiyar Seduction are currently playing at the Lincoln Center, New York.

ANISH KAPOOR | Delhi & Bombay

PRESS RELEASE:

The first-ever exhibition of Anish Kapoor in India will be presented at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi from 28 November 2010 – 27 February 2011 and the Mehboob Film Studios, Mumbai from 30 November 2010 – 16 January 2011. The exhibition is presented by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and the National Gallery of Modern Art, together with the British Council and Lisson Gallery in association with Louis Vuitton.

Organised across two sites, each exhibition will focus on a different strand of the artist’s practice and together will form one of the largest and most ambitious exhibitions of the artist’s work ever to be shown. It will feature a selection of sculptures and installations spanning the breadth of his career, from early pigment-based works of the 1980s, to his most recent wax installations. Both exhibitions will feature works which were included in the recent, record-breaking exhibition of Kapoor’s work at the Royal Academy, London, which attracted over 275,000 visitors in less than three months and became the most successful exhibition of a living artist ever held in London.

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. He was born in 1954 in Bombay and moved to London in the early 1970s where he has lived and worked ever since. He studied art at Hornsey College of Art (1973-1977) and at Chelsea School of Art (1977-1978). He quickly gained international attention and acclaim for a series of solo exhibitions at museums and galleries across the world. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1990, where he was awarded the ‘Premio Duemila’.

He won the Turner Prize in 1991 and he received the prestigious Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in 2002, which he realised with the much-acclaimed work, Marsyas. Among his major permanent commissions is Cloud Gate (2004) for the Millennium Park in Chicago, considered to be the most popular public artwork in the world. He was recently awarded the commission with Cecil Balmond for a permanent artwork for the London 2012 Olympic Park, the ArcelorMittal Orbit.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi is one of the leading museums for modern and contemporary art in India. Recently re-furbished, the NGMA now includes three main exhibition buildings and the Anish Kapoor show will be the first major exhibition to be held in the gallery’s newly constructed Exhibition Hall.

The Mehboob Studios were founded by legendary filmmaker Mehboob Khan in 1954 to cater for the growing demand for quality film facilities in India. Situated on 20,000 square yards of seaside land in Bandra, in the heart of greater Mumbai, the studio soon became a favourite with some of the leading filmmakers of the time.

ANISH KAPOOR: Delhi / Mumbai
www.anishkapoorindia.com

Delhi
Opening 27 November
Exhibition runs 28 November - 27 February 2011
National Gallery of Modern Art
Jaipur House, India Gate, New Delhi 110 003
www.ngmaindia.gov.in
Open Tuesday - Sunday from 10am to 5pm, except Thursday until 8pm. Closed on Mondays and National Holidays
Entrance fees: Indian: Rs: 10 / Foreign National: Rs: 150 / Student/Child: Rs: 1

Mumbai
Opening 29 November
Exhibition runs 30 November - 16 January 2011
Mehboob Studios
100 Hill Road, Bandra (W), Mumbai 400 050
Opens daily from 9am to 9pm
FREE ENTRY although booking required

Booking information: +91 22 40203660/61/62/63

PRIX PICTET | Delhi

Earth in India

Religare Arts in New Delhi will host the exhibition of shortlisted work from the Prix Pictet 2009 , on the theme of ‘Earth’.

The exhibition opens on 30 November and will run until 19 December 2010. This is the first time a Prix Pictet exhibition has been shown in India and the exhibition in New Delhi marks the final stage of the Earth global tour which has visited twelve different cities around the world in the last twelve months. Plans are currently being made for the international tour that will follow on from the announcement of winner of the third Prix Pictet in March 2010. Locations are already confirmed in Dubai, Milan and Madrid. The full touring schedule will be announced in March.

Religare Arts Initiative, 7 Atmaram Mansion, Level 1, Scindia House, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi - 110001, 30 November – 19 December 2010

National Gallery of Modern Art New Delhi | नेशनल गैलरी ऑफ़ माडर्न आर्ट न्यू डेल्ही

View of Garet House from by James Baillie Fraser.

NEW DELHI।- The National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, presents "Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists", an exhibition of more than ninety paintings and drawings from the V&A 1790 – 1927, at National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House, New Delhi from October 27, 2009 to December 6, 2009.

The exhibition is a collection from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum which shows rare and interesting watercolors, sketches, aquatints, lithographs and engravings by European artists who visited India between the 18th- and 20th-centuries.

Says Prof Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA: “The first visual representations of India by western artists were of imaginary landscapes and settings. They were based on the written accounts of travelers to India from across Europe. It was only after professional European artists began to travel to India that they painted, for the first time, scenes based on direct observation. Their passionate interest in this new and exciting land led to the creation of a comprehensive pictorial record of India, in a visual style familiar to western audiences.”

India’s spectacular architecture, the immense natural beauty of her landscapes, and the great diversity of her people have inspired many artists world over. The exhibition is divided into four sections showcasing the works of various schools of art. The exhibit begins with a ‘Picturesque’ tour of India through dramatic pictures of splendid forts, temples, and palaces. The second section showcases works by amateur artists who were captivated by the landscape and architecture of India. Many of these amateurs were East India Company employees, who transferred to canvas their personal experiences. The third section is dedicated to the Romanticism of Indian art that depicts striking, decorative paintings entirely from the imagination. For instance, on view is a panoramic view of the Taj Mahal, paintings of busy street scenes, majestic princes, and doe-eyed nautch girls. The fourth section, based on realism, documents the social life and people engaged in various professions during that time.