CONTEMPORARY ONE WORD SEVERAL WORLDS

mercredi 28 décembre 2016

Demonetisation hits Kerala tourism, ‘God’s own country’ now eyes Kochi-Muziris Biennale to get visitors back


Source The Financial Express by Rajesh Ravi
Kerala is pinning its hope on the contemporary art festival, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), to revive the fortunes of its tourism sector which seems to have been hit hard by the Centre’s demonetisation drive. India’s first contemporary art biennale, KMB, is on its third edition and will extend till March 29. Officials of the Biennale expect more than half a million visitors at the 12 venues where 97 artistes from 31 countries are displaying their creative work. In addition to its successful branding as ‘God’s Own Country’, Kerala will now also be promoted as the ‘Land of the Biennale’, Kerala tourism director UV Jose said. While the state is known for distinctive offerings such as its ayurveda therapies and houseboats, the Biennale will now be added to that list of iconic Kerala products, Jose said.
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Raza's death, rising global interest in Indian art mark 2016

Source Business Standard
As the Indian art world faced a huge void with the death of iconic painter Syed Haider Raza, fellow artists, both veteran and emerging, took India to newer heights in 2016 with greater representation in national and international art fairs and biennales. An era of modern art came to an end on July 23, 2016, as Raza, the last surviving founder of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group Movement, breathed his last at the age of 94, leaving behind towering legacy of contemporary art. "In the past 20 years or so the market for Indian art has flourished. As major institutions including the Guggenheim, Tate and Pompidou have staged substantial exhibitions of Indian artists, market interest has grown. We continue to see the market thrive," Tahmina Ghaffar from Bonhams told.
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mardi 27 décembre 2016

Art aficionado Abhishek Poddar to ‘MAP’ a new art space in Bengaluru

Source Deccan Chronicle by Darshana Ramdev
Art aficionado Abhishek Poddar is giving back to the city in the only way he knows how - donating the whopping Rs 35 crores he raised when he auctioned priceless pieces by India's best known artists at the iconic Christie's India Sale auction in Mumbai this week, to fund the art project close to his heart. Poddar, who has had a 30-year-long tryst with art, conceived MAP, the Museum of Art and Photography, an admirable project, that was at the heart of the art hub he wanted to create in this IT capital.
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dimanche 25 décembre 2016

Recapturing lost history: Key moments in the journey of the graphic image in India


Source Scroll.In by Ranjit Hoskote
Terra Cognita? Three Moments in Printmaking: India 1556-2016 draws on the holdings of three remarkable collections: the SWARAJ Art Archive, Delhi Capital Region; the Jamshyd & Pheroza Godrej Collection, Bombay; and the Kalakriti Archives, Hyderabad. It also includes a memorable photographic installation by the Kerala-born and Goa-educated artist Baiju Parthan, who lives and works in Bombay and cyberspace. Terra Cognita? courses over the itineraries of the printer’s art and the printmaker’s art in India.
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samedi 24 décembre 2016

Indian art prices dip on fear of Modi, Trump and Brexit


Source Europe Newsweek by John Elliott
Christie’s high profile annual art auctions in Mumbai just managed on December 18 to overcome growing concern about the direction of the Indian economy. They yielded a respectable but unexciting sales total of $10.79 million that acted as more of a warning than encouragement about future prospects. In an evening auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art, 53 lots were sold out of 73 (72 percent) producing a total of $10 million. That was far below Christie’s record sale last December of $14.7 million, the highest for any auction held in India, and the previous record of Rs96.5 crore that it achieved at its first Indian sale three years ago.
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mardi 20 décembre 2016

'Once respect came from fighting wars. Now it's about your cellphone': Konyak headhunters look back


Source Scroll'In by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri
“I was the last man to cut our enemy’s head off and bring it back,” said Chinkhum, an 82-year-old Konyak warrior from Mon district in Nagaland. Chinkhum sat inside his hut in the picturesque village of Longwa. “I am the last head hunter,” he told photographer Fanil Pandya. The last beheading, he said, had been over a land dispute. Another tribesman, Panhpa claimed to have beheaded five men in his lifetime. “I have no regrets about it,” said the 80-year-old. Until the 1940s, the Konyak tribe’s defining characteristic was the practice of headhunting to acquire land and power. The last incident was reported in the 1970s.
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Yarn bombing: Why two Indian men are wrapping everyday objects with colourful string


Source Scroll'In by Rhema Mukti Baxter
Rahul Chaudhary grew up admiring his grandmother knit. During winter vacations, he would watch with concentration as one needle overlapped the other. When he first held yarn in his hands, his fingers automatically seemed to imitate the needles. In November, the subconscious lessons came in handy. Chaudhary, 37, a self-taught artist whose repertoire includes figurative paintings that reflect distorted versions of reality, and fellow artist Pankaj Saroj, also 37, parked themselves between two rickshaws in Kolkata. And with the help of the rickshaw pullers, the two started covering the carts with colourful yarn.
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Demonetisation-Generated Worries Curb Bids at Christie’s Auction


Source The Wire by John Elliot
Christie’s high profile annual art auctions in Mumbai just managed yesterday to overcome growing concern about the direction of the Indian economy. They yielded a respectable but unexciting sales total of Rs 72.17 crore that acted as more of a warning than encouragement about future prospects. In an evening auction of South Asian modern and contemporary art, 53 lots were sold out of 73 (72%) producing a total of Rs 68.01 crore. That was far below Christie’s record sale last December of Rs 97.7 crore, the highest for any auction held in India, and the previous record of Rs 96.5 crore that it achieved at its first Indian sale three years ago. An afternoon sale of classical Indian art produced dismal results with just 38 lots sold out of 71 (53%), including 50 miniature paintings of which only 42% found buyers. The total was Rs 4.13 million. That is not the sort of result that Indian art’s leading international auction house expects to achieve, though it was the first time Christie’s has held a dedicated classical sale in the country.
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lundi 19 décembre 2016

Gaitonde goes for Rs15.63cr at Christie’s art auction in city


Source Hindustan Times by Riddhi Doshi and Anesha George
“Out of all our four auctions here, this one was the hardest,” said William Robinson, international head of Christie’s. “While the modern and contemporary sale was better as it invites international bidders as well, the classical art and antiquity sale was more uneven as the response from local bidders is not at par compared to last year’s.” The overall energy and enthusiasm seems to be down, added participating collector Aakash Belsare. “I guess it’s the demonetization.”
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samedi 17 décembre 2016

India’s leading Kochi-Muziris Biennale overcomes country’s ‘demonetisation’ crisis


Source The Art Newspaper by Tim Cornwell
Organisers of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the flagship art gathering in India founded and organised by some of country’s leading contemporary artists, struggled through India’s “demonetisation” crisis to make poetry and performance the beating heart of the exhibition, which opened this week (until 29 March 2017). Organised this year by the artist-curator Sudarshan Shetty, whose work has been shown in the Tate and the Guggenheim, the biennial includes an increased number of international artists among nearly 100 on show.
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vendredi 16 décembre 2016

‘My highlight of 2016’ — Calder’s sculptures from India


Source Christies
In 1954, a young architect named Gira Sarabhai wrote to Alexander Calder inviting him to her family home in Ahmedabad, India. In the three weeks that the artist spent at the Sarabhai compound between January and February 1955 he produced a group of sculptures that rank among his finest works. Largely unseen by the public since their creation, a selection of these works was brought to auction for the very first time in May. ‘Entitled Calder’s Voyage to India, the collection not only told the story of the artist’s relationship with the Sarabhai family, but also of a new country asserting its independence through culture,’ explains Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art for Europe.
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mardi 13 décembre 2016

Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 opens


Source E-flux
Yesterday, India’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), opened to a crowd of thousands, marking the start of three months of contemporary art, culture and design in the city of Kochi. Titled Forming in the pupil of an eye, the third edition of the Biennale will run for 108 days until March 29, 2017, with works by 97 artists displayed in heritage properties, public spaces, and galleries across Fort Kochi and Ernakulam.
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vendredi 2 décembre 2016

Abhishek Poddar: From teenage collector to a titan of Indian art


Source Christies
‘I don’t know why I collect, but I enjoy doing it,’ says Abhishek Poddar who, with his wife Radhika, has become one of the world’s most important patrons and collectors of modern and contemporary Indian art and crafts. ‘Often, I look at a piece and feel that if I don’t have it, there would be something missing in my life.’ Thirty years ago, when Abhishek Poddar began buying art, collecting in India was easier said than done. There were very few galleries in Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata and artists rarely had representation, meaning that they had to be tracked down to their studios across all points of the subcontinent. Now, in order to take their collection of Indian visual culture and design in exciting new directions, the couple has decided to sell 41 works collected over many years, all of which will be offered as a highlight of The India Sale on 18 December at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai.
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