The short story art of Arpita Singh

Other Narratives/ Other Structures: Selected works by Arpita Singh, on view at the Lalit Kala Akademi, is well worth one visit, if not more. Hosted in collaboration with Vadehra Art Gallery and curated by Ella Dutta, the exhibition features works from private collections dating back to the 1970s. Opening with brief introductions of both the artist and the curator, a timeline of landmark moments guides the viewer through political events and personal happenings in Singh's life that visibly resonate in her work.

These and whatever she draws from miniature painting traditions, mythologies, textiles, folk art and art history make for a rather extensive art vocabulary that is well articulated in triptychs like The Lily Pond, From Time to Time and Whatever is Here. 

Born in the late 1930s, Arpita Singh has witnessed many events that affected her geopolitical surroundings, most profound of which were widespread human displacements. The theme of migration has been recurrent in her work, although she assigns this to her interest in ancient history and the transmission of languages, micro cultures, values and codes of conduct, whether filtered through generations or carried by those seeking new habitats.

What struck me upon entering the exhibition space were the sheer number of works and vibrancy of colour. Singh's art is recognisable for its strong emotional quotient, repetition of motifs, use of letters and numbers that are often stenciled, and incessant mappings. These and whatever she draws from miniature painting traditions, mythologies, textiles, folk art and art history make for a rather extensive art vocabulary that is well articulated in triptychs like The Lily Pond, From Time to Time and Whatever is Here. While the first, inspired by a newspaper headline rehashes Monet's charming lilies into an episode of turmoil as a way of resisting turning the world into Guantanamo Bay, Whatever is Here, inspired by the Mahabharata, is a chart of real and imagined landscapes, plotted with figures and loaded with suggestions of moral duty. Singh also strongly identifies with her feminine side and the domestic roles she performs thereof. This is particularly noticeable in works like Munna Apa's Garden, while others like Buy Two, Get Two Free is also a comment on the effects of growing consumerism.

Often described as being dream-like compositions, I see her works as multi-layered, in terms of both painted technique as well as subject material. The tact with which she handles her subjects reflects a universality that negates restrictions of temporality. Her watercolours are more poignant and sombre, her oils thick and harder-hitting, and her etchings and sketches lean toward abstraction. She is nevertheless, a narrative painter. If I were to read the titles of her works, I'd imagine them to be short stories — The Listeners, The Golden Deer, The Winter Walk or The Cornflower Bed. And strangely enough, each reads as though it were so.

The exhibition unfolds as a compilation of the artist's work through five decades with a few early pieces — still evolving into the art language we know as hers, and some others having never been publically displayed. It is a mélange of diverse elements, just as each of Arpita Singh's painted surfaces is, and is thus, a unique treat for the senses.



Source: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/the...

Moudled to perfection

I've always wondered why ceramic art has not been promoted, or at least viewed with more respect. Its inability to outgrow the label of simply being moulded and fired clay, and therefore humbler than other glitzy crafts, has in my opinion, encouraged an indifferent attitude resulting in people losing out on the subliminal beauty that the medium can represent. Having said this, who today dare contest a medium anyway, especially amongst all we brand as "contemporary art", for categories of new materials like those found, recycled or even virtual have only recently entered art vernacular.

Considering the earliest forms of art were etched in stone or made of clay, we of course, do not do the ceramist or his medium justice. So, I made my way to see the solo exhibition of Hyderabad-based ceramic artist P.R. Daroz at Art Alive Gallery that coincidentally followed Pondicherry-based Ray Meeker's recent exhibit at Nature Morte. Daroz's show comprises the artist's more recent body of work, executed over the last four years. At first, there were guardians to greet me; a series of block figures standing on pop coloured wooden pedestals in a grouping of three. With bodies of shaded ceramic that revealed markings in thin verticals and bold diagnals, their faces shone in a goldish hue. A similar palette was used for all other works with a progressive departure toward glossiness.

All Daroz's murals are executed as mosaics in grids, some with Buddha-like faces and others wholly abstract. He plays off the sheer materiality of the medium: texturing, layering, sculpting and colouring. Daroz is a prolific sculptor, who has been commissioned by commercial offices and hotel groups to adorn their walls with decorative ceramic murals. Perhaps this is because his work is not loaded with political commentary, nor is provocative. It is secular, pleasant and simple.

As I walk through the last room of the exhibit, the metallic foil-like glazes shine at me, revealing the artifice of the surface. The crude clay was transformed for the benefit of its viewer and patron into a glossy, admirable material. Yet, it reveals a primal quality, like that of an excavated fossil, a historical relic for whom time and contemporaneity are not significant. It exists as it always has, moulded, tempered, glazed or unglazed.

Source: http://www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/mou...

Beauty, Death and Games

Amitesh Grover is a theatre director, multi-media artist and more importantly, an interesting person. We met a few years ago over coffee and I remember us having an intriguing conversation that also involved my introduction to the concept of "social gaming". Grover wanted to explore the possibility of sharing thoughts and experiences, both personal and cultural, via digital media, with others located miles away. The interaction would be guided by an instruction-based game played by individuals who volunteered to participate in groups or otherwise. The outcome was unknown, often awkward, but sometimes intimate, as was intended by reality shows if not for their being scripted and sensationalised. Amitesh has since successfully organised many a game with collaborators in Australia, America and parts of Europe.

I decided to participate in this season's social game, Encounter 6134, part of the Schwindelfrei Theatre Festival, Mannheim, Germany and in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi. 6,134 kilometres marks the distance between the two locations of performative action. The broad topics of discussion were "Beauty", "Crisis", "Time and Death", of which I picked "Beauty" fearing the risk of being morbid with the others. Scheduled over three days, with 20 participants per session, the "Encounters" spanned 19-21 September 2014.

A bit reticent of participating, I hurriedly entered the Max Mueller library on the designated date and time and picked a seat at random, before anyone attempted to speak with me. In front of each person lay a set of headphones and a stack of cards on which were printed photographs and notes on the subject of beauty, along with a list of instructions on how to play. Once the connection to Mannheim was made, I was introduced to my partner for the evening — a young Lebanese performance artist who was in Germany for the duration of the Theatre festival. Nervously, we briefly introduced ourselves and went on to pick up the cards, each of which would be discussed and unanimously accepted or rejected. Quotes from Donna Hannaway, Roland Barthes, Hegel and Karl Marx along with other theories and social categorisations confronted our comprehension of beauty. I was surprised at how much our cultures shared, yet how much we differed as individuals, and midway, found it a strain to continue a serious conversation. I was reminded of my school days when we hid behind anonymity and allegedly cool aliases in social chat rooms, typing for hours and never knowing who we were really talking to. Then there were moments when the card demanded my complete attention and I forgot that I ever felt instrumentalised into sharing my thoughts with a stranger. However, the few breaks in connection snapped me back to reality, subjecting the game to the judgments of my mind, and leaving me feeling silly. From being the player, I was the one being played.

But then again the conversation picked up and my polite friend in Germany and I continued to make sense of the strange topics in front of us. Before we both knew it, the line went dead halfway through a sentence; our designated hour was up. This was the end of the game. I barely realised how time flew!

What was the purpose of our "Encounter"? Why did we not have a chance to conclude our conversation? If this is how I felt, how did she feel about talking to me? This episode of dramaturgy was about audience behaviour, part of a genre called interactive or immersive theatre. The stage is replaced by the virtual interface where gesture and body language is marginalised, leaving room only for spontaneity and honesty in thought and speech. It is about sharing. It is an experiential performance. Through the hour, both real and virtual space is shared yet one does not pay heed to the real. Needless to say, I grappled with deconstructing the encounter-experience, and imagined what Amitesh may have expected from its concept and design. To me, herein lay the "beauty".

Wherever I lay my hat, is that what I call home?

Home: Residence/ Dwelling/ Safe house/ Place of love and warmth, of duties and responsibilities. How far do we stray from home and do we ever come back?

Veteran photographer Sunil Gupta's new curatorial project titled Home & Away brings together the work of nine Indian and international photographers, including his own. The selection of photographs reflects each artist's personal vision of home, or their memory of it. The introductory text ends such — "Without a deliberate bias, it's interesting that the women are looking inwards to a domestic environment and the men are on the outside; either away or strangers in their own homes." This strain runs through my head as I view the photographs, consciously taking note of the gender of the photographer behind each image and this for me, sets the tone of the show.

The exhibition opens with the work of Portuguese Pedro Maçãs. His black and white photographs of dissolute construction sites are from the series "The storm that bends the birch trees", drawn from a poem by Bertolt Brecht on violence that metaphorically exposes many of the half-way abandoned housing projects in an economically struggling Portugal. On the opposite wall, equally large and imposing are images taken on the streets of New Delhi and New York titled Catskills, by Rishi Singhal, who charts the awkward relationship between natural and built environments. Both artists are preoccupied with documenting the changing urban landscape yet while Maçãs looks inside its architecture, Singhal explores the fringes outside. Placed on a table in the corner is a box of cards called Querencias by Dinesh Abiram, a medley of text and image that hold personal memories reflecting the manner in which a person affects his habitat.

An adjacent room is devoted to Gupta's fourteen prints from Stockwell, 2014. The series responds to the frequently asked question as to where Gupta comes from; to which he replies, "I am from India, but now live on Stockwell". The photographs are a narrative of his musings, of everyday observations of life in Stockwell — the corner of a building, a ramshackle garage door, a neon road sign or a decorated window display. 

Without a deliberate bias, it’s interesting that the women are looking inwards to a domestic environment and the men are on the outside; either away or strangers in their own homes.

Anusha Yadav's Home, An Irrevocable Condition poetically expresses how the home is a reflection of the woman who resides in it. Each image is accompanied by a biographical note of the woman photographed in the "comfort of her own home". Along a similar thread of domesticity are Deborah Lorraine Grant's more emotionally charged 28 Days, 28 Dinners. Suffering from chronic pain, the work documents each of the 28 dinners she cooked for her husband, accompanied here too with autobiographical entries on how and what was cooked, why she decided to order take-out or sometimes never eat at all. 

Charan Singh’s Not At Home series questions male stereotypes

Continuing on the first floor is Charan Singh's Not at Home that alternatively questions male domesticity amidst social stereotypes of masculinity and heroism. He chooses to photograph himself within familial settings in the landscape of his home, ironically telling of what comes across as obviously awkward and forced. There could not have been a more apt title!

A further renewal of family album photography is invigorated in the accordion styled book of memories, Native Place by Aditi Thekkuveettil, who belongs to parents of mixed parentage and wondered which she was more of. Beside this, is a series of ugly close-ups of a communal home in Northern London where Anna Fox grew up. A stained wall, a chipped marble counter, a child's drawing, an assemblage of junk food and candy wrappers — relics of those who lived in 40 Hewit Road (1996-99), each a document of memory, each wanting to be forgotten.

The sequence in which Gupta has chosen to exhibit each artist's work echoes a sense of "being led" from the outside to the inside, from a landscape to a mindscape and thereby, to a deeper understanding of emotions and relationships. By ending with the work of Fox, Gupta cleverly provokes the viewer to question the idea of home and wherein it lies! The exhibition is amongst the better I've seen in Delhi over the past few months and well worth the visit.