India - Art
New Delhi
The colours
and the diversity of Indian contemporary art will come under international arc
lights at the St Moritz Art Masters 2014 in the picturesque Alpine valley of Engadine
in Switzerland — a municipality in the district
of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubunden. The highest summit in the Eastern
Alps — the Piz Bernina — lies a few kilometers south of the town.
The 9-day
festival of art from August 22-31 promises diverse artistic positions from the
contemporary Indian art scene — ranging from the young to established artists
presenting a diverse range of art works that will include site-specific
interventions to Indian classical modernism.
In addition
to a high-profile program of Indian, national and international contemporary
art, the St Moritz Arts Masters will host special curated shows and walks of
art a well that will connect various venues from Maloja to S-Chanf. The venues
are culturally eclectic touching public spaces, churches, private homes and
galleries of the Engadin.
A
spokesperson for the festival said the top international modern masters who
will showcase their works at the festival feature names like Pablo Bartholomew,
Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, Riddhibrata Burman, Pratul Dash, Smriti Dixit, Shilpa
Gupta, Subodh Gupta, M.F. Husain, Gigi Scaria,
Jitish Kallat, Reena Saini Kallat, Ranbir Kaleka, Nalini Malani, Manish Nai, Mithu
Sen, Hema Upadhyay and Soony Tarapoorwala.
The Indian
contemporary artists will address pressing questions of the times by linking
ritual, myth and everyday life in a creative expressions that will speak of the
country’s traditional artistic and cultural roots. The vibrant field of contemporary
Indian art reflects the nation's rapid change and contrasts, giving Indian
artists a unique voice within the international art scene.
This edition
of the “masters” will infuse the programme with the essence of cross cutting
streams in the art and culture scene— a phenomenon that has dictated the
artistic essence of the contemporary movements in post-colonial Indian art.
Indian art, despite being increasing global in its practice and mediums, has
retained its connection to the traditions of aesthetics that began in the caves
of hunter-gatherer and travelled down the Indus Valley settlements to the
temple walls and the artists’ contemporary canvas.
A soulful
portrayal of “Indian Megalopolis” is the theme that Paresh Maity explores in
his installation ‘Mystic Abode’. a monumental installation of 8,000 brass
bells, that signifies human desire and yearning for spiritual peace, a
universal need in today's time. Burman
will be presented at the St Moritz Masters’ by the Art Alive Gallery.
Artist Jayasri
Burman (presented by Art Alive) will exhibit ‘Dharitri’, (Goddess Earth), a
sculpture representing in the best sense tradition, reinterpreted, re-invented
and re-imagined for India of today. Another
major highlight of this year’s festival is a photography exhibition by a young
Indian fashion photographer Riddhibrata Burman, who has made a mark in a field
of innovative photography.
Having
worked with leading photographers like Mark Seliger and Steven Klein, his works
will showcase an interesting play of objects with light and shadow. Taking from
the basic realities of his surroundings, he simplifies his pictures and shoots
ideas and situations, creating intriguing stories. The exhibition will showcase
18 photographs from his four ongoing series. Riddhibrata will be represented by
Art Alive Gallery.
Over the
years, Indian contemporary art has been finding greater space globally with exchanges,
residencies, international expositions and growing international market for
Indian art which is not qualitatively diverse – but relatively affordable in
the international market. The arrival of concept and post-modern in the practices
and thought processes in the art scene has opened the two-way doors between
India and the world.
Critics and
art historians say the journey of Indian contemporary art to the west and even
the east began post-Independence with
the formation of the Bombay Progressive Group in 1947-1948 — a agglomeration of
leading contemporary Indian artists, most of whom studied art in Mumbai and
Maharashtra. These artists rejected the domination of European influences in
pre-Independence Indian art and developed an indigenous Indian language drawing
on folk genres and traditions. But in the process, these artists developed an
universal language of their own expressionism and abstraction as founders of
the movement like F.N. Souza, Tyeb Mehta, V.S.Gaitonde, S.H Raza, M.F. Husain and
several others were exposed to western art on the strength of their training
outside the country and their exhibitions abroad.
Indian art began
to travel abroad in the decades of the 1950s- and the momentum picked up in the
1980s and thereafter. India has been participating in art fairs around the
world since the 1970s –sporadically with selected gallery shows. Three years
ago, the country sent its first representation to Venice Biennale with an
official showcase and inaugurated its first biennale in Kochi in Kerala in 2012.
-Madhusree
Chatterjee
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