The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is coming up with a new exhibition of images of Mahatma Gandhi and Mao Zedong taken by Swiss photographer Walter Bosshard.
Seventy years after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, the photographs of Swiss photographer Walter Bosshard (1892–1975), sheds new light on the Independence movement, the salt march to Dandi in 1930 and the personality of its leader. Bosshard preceded the illustrious photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Margaret Bourke-White, who came to India in the late 1940s to photograph the Mahatma, by documenting this first vital gesture of the Civil Disobedience movement.
This exhibition at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is co-produced by Fotostiftung Schweiz (Winterthur) and Critical Collective (Delhi), and brings together 51 of Bosshard’s iconic portrayal of Gandhi and Mao. The original negatives have been digitised in Switzerland in order to produce high quality exhibition prints in India. Exhibition also includes a 1921 silent film on Mao shot by Bosshard.
In a dream assignment by the Münchner Illustrierte Presse, Bosshard was sent to India to report on the growing unrest and the Independence movement. In March 1930 he started on an eight-month journey of Asia; he crossed 20,000 km by car, to numerous cities and countries, and came into contact with over 5,000 people of various backgrounds.
The highlight of his assignment appeared on May 18, 1930 when the Münchner Illustrierte published Walter Bosshard’s story on Mahatma Gandhi. The cover of the magazine showed Gandhi deeply immersed in reading, his head leaning on his hand. Inside the magazine, the viewer encountered the Mahatma in intimate situations – while he had onion soup, while he shaved, and even while he slept.
The photographs challenged Gandhi’s own ambivalent attitude to photography, as Bosshard noticed. When asked for permission to take photographs, the camera-shy Mahatma replied: “I have sworn never to ‘pose’ for a photographer! Try your luck, perhaps it might even turn out well.”
The impressions of his journey through India were published by Bosshard in his book Indien Kämpft!
in 1931. A few years later, Bosshard travelled to China to document Mao Zedong and the Red Army training in the caves of Yan’an. He had visited China in 1921 and made the first silent film on Mao Zedong, the emergent revolutionary. Living and working in China between 1933 and 1939, Bosshard photographed daily life, the bombing of Hankon and China’s nomadic communities. Most importantly he photographed Mao Zedong in the caves of Yan’an, the training of the Red Army, Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling.
Bosshard occupies a singular place in 20th century photographic history. Today nearly 90 years later, his photographs offer a compelling comparison between two dominant figures of Asia, Gandhi and Mao as viewed from a single lens. Photographs of the Dandi March and the training of the Red Army, the message of nationalism and the symbols of resistance that these leaders adopted, reveal salient aspects of Asia’s history.
Bosshard was a pioneer in the field of photojournalism. A master of both the word and the camera, he made a name for himself as a bridge builder between Asia and Europe, reporting on key political events and daily life in Asia in the 1930s. Today, his photographs and films are a rich source of information for understanding global history. Bosshard’s archive is preserved by the Swiss Foundation for Photography in Winterthur (Zurich), a national institution founded in 1971, tasked with caring for the photographic heritage of Switzerland.
Writer: Team Viva
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Celebrated fashion designer Ritu Beri recently unveiled her all-new Khadi collection.
Coarse, utilitarian, rough, fabric of freedom – words that the Khadi fabric had been associated for long. Till some designers came along and turned the descriptions over their head. All-weather fabric, natural, modern, comfortable and stylish is what Khadi looks like, increasingly. Today, the silhouettes that can be made with the fabric have been reinvented. The straight kurtas and pajamas have been replaced with imaginative asymmetrical and modern silhouettes.
The fabric, popularised prior to Independence by Mahatma Gandhi, was once a symbol of self-reliance of the Indian people as opposed to depending on British products. But now there are persistent efforts to revive the pride associated with it. One such effort was when fashion designer Ritu Beri became associated with Khadi India in 2016. In her latest collection, the Khadi couture show at a fashion week in Delhi she presented floral motifs, gold and bronze embroidery on white, purples, reds, yellows and more.
The show began with a young child dressed like the Mahatma walking down the ramp while the screens behind showed the original icon with the Charkha, which was popularly used to make the fabric.
The ramp soon saw a series in white followed by colourful kurtas and dhoti pants, which then progressed from pret to couture and had something for everyone as it covered a wide range. The collection focussed on women and children rather than men.
Beri said, “This collection shows Khadi can be couture as well. These clothes can be worn during festivals and weddings. It is an all-weather fabric, keeps us warm in winters and cool in summers.”
Young children also walked the ramp in her colourful creations of ruffled jackets, long jackets, lehengas and dresses. One model walking with two children showed a family dressed in Khadi – as an example of its everydayness.
Contemporary Western silhouettes could be seen along with the traditional Indian. There were long jackets with embroidered patches, images of sneakers in sequins and of Frida Kahlo with floor length kurtas that gave a modern twist to the traditional attire.
In a modern take on the lehenga-choli, the latter was bunched up in pleats below the bustier on one side while the rest of the midriff was bare. Three backless gowns in red and black took Khadi to another level of innovation.
Italian ambassador to India Lorenzo Angeloni, MLA Meenakshi Lekhi, politician Najma Heptullah also walked the ramp in clothes designed by Beri.
Writer: Asmita Sarkar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Author Mukul Kumar’s book, Seduction by Truth, is an entertaining piece that talks about how marriage often threatens individual identity. Naturally given to offering his readers slice-of-life tales, bureaucrat-author Mukul Kumar seems to be on a quest to solve possibly mankind’s oldest puzzle — marriage. The result is his second novel, Seduction by Truth, which will be released by Bloomsbury, India just before Dussehra in October.
Belonging to the Indian Railway Traffic Service, Mukul is a civil servant of the 1997 batch. In his successful career of 20 years, Kumar distinguished himself from others with his dedication to service in the Indian Railways. He has been honoured with the National Award for outstanding performance by the Ministry of Railways. The officer takes pride in and draws immense satisfaction from his service. He fondly shares, “Individual efforts, even the small ones, that are aimed at keeping the wheel moving, and helping the huge population reach their destinations fill me with a thrilling sense of service.” Kumar holds a senior and an important position in Northern Railway, Delhi.
Passion and love for literature is something that he has inherited from his father, a professor of English Literature. He would often talk to Kumar about accomplished authors and introduce him to their worlds of imagination when he was enjoying his early school days in Bihar. Poetry came naturally to this little author, then. He started composing poems as early as when he was in Class VIII. His creative sensibilities were first embodied in an anthology of English poems — The Irrepressible Echoes, which was published in 2012 at Nagpur. Kumar had lots of stories to share with the world — stories of young minds, old people, and couples in love. Now, he shares stories of couples struggling with dwindling passion in marriage. Kumar has a penchant for going into the seemingly inaccessible recesses of human psyche, reading the human behaviour and crafting lifelike characters that readers can instantly relate to. His writings show the conflict between individual and society. Philosophy, mythology and poetic style complete the package of Kumar’s writing.
Seduction by Truth is a bold and unorthodox take on marriage. It deals with the dip in passion when the initial gloss of attraction between the spouses dries up after a few years of marriage. It spins a story about what happens after that. Can desire be renewed or is overstepping the bounds of marriage the only panacea for passion? Daringly yet honestly, Kumar has captured the sensitive truths about marriage, adultery, society, and tradition, which many couples grapple with in the modern world.
Dark realities like marital rape and deprivation of sex have been portrayed in a subtle and sensitive manner in this narrative. The author has very diligently tried to study the matrix of sex, love and trust in marriage through the protagonist’s extramarital relations with many women. While writing about adultery, the author adds complexity to the narrative as ideas about revenge, religion, and gender roles also creep into the account. Shiva, the protagonist, calls his journey an act of “intellectual masculinity” even as he struggles with handling the complex emotions emerging in the course. It’s a unique journey which has to do with Shiva’s attempts at ‘winning’ against his adulterous wife and at fulfilling the void of sex in his life. It also deals with Shiva’s need to study the behaviour of other couples in order to understand marriage as a social institution. Eventually, Shiva’s journey takes a spiritual turn when he begins to seek redemption. The novel tries to understand the complexities of marriage, studying the bond between a husband and a wife as distinct individuals. It rethinks accepted ideas and analyses adultery in fresh light. Since the setting of the story involves many countries, the readers get a peep into Hindu, Islamic, and Christian traditions and beliefs about marriage and sex. The narrative travels through the posh suburbs of Delhi, the land of Baku in Azerbaijan, and then through the Renaissance country, Italy.
Through this novel, Kumar has tried to distinguish the woman from a wife, a man from the husband, the extraordinary from the tradition, and the absolute truth from deduced truth. He concludes that there is no absolute truth. Seduction by Truth gives the woman the centre stage. It argues that she can unapologetically choose to be a woman first, and a wife later.
Writer: The Pioneer
Source: The Pioneer
Theatre actress and director Jalabala Vaidya recreated the legendary detective Hercule Poirot to commemorate Agatha Christie’s 128th birth anniversary.
Writer Agatha Christie once said, “I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” Through her works and words, Christie is still alive in people’s hearts. They’d still vouch that her famous and legendary detective Hercule Poirot can still crack any modern day mystery.
To commemorate the legend’s 128th birth anniversary, with the same enthusiasm and vigour, actress-director Jalabala Vaidya, co-founder of the Akshara National Classical Theatre, recreates one of her most-loved murder mysteries, TheMystery of Three Quarters, as a play.
As the play is all set to be enacted tomorrow at the Akshara Theatre, Vaidya reveals why she chose a Christie legend, “We were in fact asked to enact this story and bring back the legendary Belgian private detective. We have done a lot of dramatised plays in the past which were very successful. Since it was a very well-known mystery, we thought it would be a good idea to pick up one of her stories.”
She adds, “Agatha Christie is practically a publishing juggernaut second only to the Holy Bible. People know her everywhere. She has written a number of detective novels which have interesting twists and turns. Everyone loves a murder mystery. The only problem was that we had very little time to prepare everything since it had to be performed on September 16 to mark the birth anniversary of the writer.”
Recreating the most loved of Christie’s detectives, Hercule Poirot, who is unsurpassed in his intelligence and understanding of the criminal mind, was certainly a task for Vaidya. Actor Suneet Tandon plays the role of the world-renowned Belgian private detective, who is respected and admired by police forces and heads of state across the globe and has been one of the greatest legends of all time, whose character despite his fictional existence is as real as any living being.
Vaidya recreated her own version of the mastermind, who is physically very different from Christie’s. She says, “Poirot is supposed to be a short, rather plump, man, who is five-feet-four inches and wears a moustache. However, Suneet Tandon doesn’t look like that at all. He is tall, not at all plump, doesn’t have a moustache nor does he wear a hat. But I would say that his great acting skills carried him through. This is what made him perfect for the role.”
As the story, set in the early 1930s’ London, unveils, four people are found accused of an old person’s murder although they do not seem to be closely connected to him. They all receive a letter that is apparently signed by Hercule Poirot but which in reality is fraudulent since the detective didn’t put his signature on it. So several questions pop up including why it was sent to the four people? Why was it signed in the name of Hercule Poirot? Who sent it? But that is for the readers, the audience would naturally be curious about how did the cast and crew recreate the old setting on the stage as well as enact these scenes?
Vaidya narrates how designing a stage and dialogues set in the early 1930s was challenging. “First, it is about picking up costumes which were in keeping with the fashion trends of that era. Second, the setting up of certain locations on the stage itself could be a challenging task. We have to make it look like a dramatisation. It’s like a set where actually people act. There is a dressing room, a cafe, lawyers office and so on. There is a bigger room where eventually Poirot announces how he found the murderer and solved the case. And then most excitingly is a bathtub where the older man drowned.”
So what goes into adapting a written story into a stage performance? Vaidya answers, “A great deal of work. While using the existing text, it is the dialogues between the characters that are the most important. What has been described in the book has to be dramatically visualised. The facts have to be spoken out aloud by the characters for them to reach the audience. The minutest details in the book need to be mentioned when you are watching the play. The dialogues need to be spoken in such a way that the story unfolds. These need to be logical enough for the audience who doesn’t know the story at all. You have to create a mystery on the stage, design the right costumes, background, furniture, prompts and sets. If the story is set in the early 1930s, you need to find such stuff that was prevalent in that era.”
So are there any particular plays or literary playwrights that influence her direction? Vaidya believes that “being in theatre has helped me get better and better day by day. It is not because of films or following any other playwrights religiously. I do like them, but experience is the biggest teacher.”
Vaidya, who is widely known for her one-woman role in Gopal Sharman’s The Ramayana, the play which toured around the world, finds her inspiration from the same concept and in the oneness of being. She says, “In The Ramayana, in which I performed, I realised that there was an understanding of a human as one’s own position in the entire cosmos and the manifestation; everything which you can see till infinity. The epic has a number of characters and I enacted each role from Sita, to Raavan, Ram, Laxman and even Mandodari. I felt that it is important to find the truth and beauty in the relationship with oneself. You could explore yourself to such an extent that there is not limit. Amidst joy and fear, the infinite universe or divinity is supposed to be joyous and awesome as well as frightening. This is where I find my biggest inspirations.”
Writer: Chahak Mittal
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Ayushi Sharma talks about the beauty in artist Manisha Gawade’s art-furniture, and how it is worth passing on.
Why should something that we have to live with day in and day out be in boring brown colours? Why should our furniture be functional and not creative? Why should art be restricted to only the walls? It was with these thoughts in mind that Manisha Gawade started drawing various unconventional designs that could be easily embedded into tables, chairs, bars, wall units and cupboards.
Keepsakes, a first-of-its-kind exhibition of art-furniture along with paintings, explores the idea. It took Manisha three years of experimentation and tireless work to conceptualise the design and paint these pieces that are created to energise living spaces.
And if you thought that the art-furniture was designed merely by putting a painting on top of an existing furniture, look again. For the furniture was designed from scratch and then the painting was made on it. These are heirloom pieces that anybody would love to own and pass on to the next generation. The show is experimental, modern and yet contemporary expression of art, experimented with various surfaces, methodology, finishes, art materials and their application to ensure that the final product stands the test of time.
Manisha had a definite idea behind the name of the exhibition and said, “We want the art pieces to be passed on from one generation to the other. We have also insured the quality so that they last.”
High-grade materials are used including wood, fittings, polishes. The artist herself told us how she had packed up several layers for their protection. “We have used the best quality wood and experimented with different chemicals so that we can make it water-resistant. That is why it has taken three years to come up with something this unique. There are 15-18 layers depending upon the art piece, so that the art on the pieces doesn’t get ruined and can be passed on.”
However, it was hard for Manisha to decide upon her favourite piece and she said with a laugh, “It’s like asking about who is your favourite child when you love each one. There are few very impactful pieces but my favourite would have been the eight feet cloth peg one and only piece which shares its name with the exhibition title. It’s a long and beautiful sculpture. It is all about keeping memories alive forever.”
Manisha shared how affordable and reasonable the prices are, “They start around Rs 2.10 lakh, go up to Rs 4 lakh and for the art-furniture, prices start at Rs 1.25 lakh going up to around Rs 4.5 lakh. No piece exceeds Rs 4.5 lakh.”
The artist shared her journey to this exhibition, “My journey started 14 years ago when I learnt to work on wood in Dubai with an artist from Southeast Asia. I have never been shy of trying various materials in my work and have tried to experiment with many surfaces, including glass, textile, paper, wood, metal, cloth, fibre glass among other things.”
Writer: Ayushi Sharma
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Vicky Kaushal and Taapsee Pannu get candid with Asmita Sarkar about how India needs fresher content to take the cinema forward with grace.
Love has been explored repeatedly in films across the world because of how deep and universal the emotion is. Every human reacts differently to making stories more interesting and novel. In search of novelty, director Anurag Kashyap, known for dark films, has taken a page out of Anand L Rai’s book and made a foray into the romantic genre with actors like Vicky Kaushal, Taapsee Pannu and Abhishek Bachchan in a love triangle, Manmarziyan.
“The emotion of love is constant through the ages. There was a time when holding hands with a partner on the streets was a taboo but today it’s not. Nobody will judge or stare. This old couple in my building one day told me how he met his wife. She was his good friend’s sister. ‘When I saw her for the first time I sent a letter to her dad asking permission to marry her,’ he told me. Back then, you would seek the legit route like or meet chori chupe. My parents, for instance, met only once before the wedding. And my 25-year-old mother moved to Mumbai from a small village in Punjab. We might think that the emotion of love has changed but it hasn’t. Be it in the 1950s or now, you get the butterflies when you fall in love. You feel like doing something extra. Not just first love but every time love happens. It is only the identity of love that changes,” said Kaushal, who plays a brash and demonstrative lover in the film.
Pannu, on the other hand, believes that we’re getting closer to reality in terms of portrayals of man-woman relationships.
Both are director’s actors, but one seeks a thread of connection to the character she would play while the other seeks out the uncertain and the uncharted. As Pannu told us, “We have to connect to a part of the character. I’m not a trained actor who can brilliantly just become a different person altogether. I will become a different person but I need one common thread between me and the character. Once I find that, I build the character over that. That one thread I will find, be it as Shabana, Meenal or Aarti. In Manmarziyan, I connected to the character because she doesn’t believe in log kya kahenge. She has no inhibition whom she’s answerable to. There’s this line in the film, which I believe in as well, ‘joh log zyada sharm karte hain woh aage jaake suicide kar lete hain.’ She believes that there is one life and it’s short. I can live for myself or for others during it. But others aren’t living for her, so why should she? She takes decisions with what she’s happy without bothering about who’s looking or thinking what, which is quite close to how I am in real life.”
She said that playing the average Indian girl is her USP and she plays on it. “I need to understand what will my audience relate to. We have been making aspirational movies since generations. There are enough of them. Now, we make some relatable content. I’m not saying that the women playing divas on screen are in anyway lesser but that’s their forte, this is mine. I’m an average Indian girl, I represent an average Indian girl and I use that as my biggest strength and weapon, that I can be the voice of an average Indian girl. For me, they are the audience and they buy the tickets for my films. I choose to be relatable to them than be aspirational,” she added. To do a film, where she’s unsure, the director needs to be a Midas. Nothing short of it would convince her to take it on otherwise. “I’m a director’s actor. They have to bring out something from me which even I didn’t know existed,” she added.
However, Kaushal’s take on how he chooses his characters is wildly different. He calls himself a “greedy actor” who wants to explore and scare himself to the fullest. “I want to jump into territories in which I feel I can’t do this. I want to be unsure of the fact that I can do this,” he said, adding that the audience wants to be surprised and see different work, conceptually, by treatment or character while 15-20 years ago they preferred seeing actors in set roles.
His hardest role so far has been for Raman Raghav but he surrendered to the director’s vision without having doubts. “It’s like scuba diving, I am scared of deep water bodies. If I’m scared of a character, let me just dive in without doubt. The director will take me there. Raman Raghav was a character to which I couldn’t relate at all. I felt that character was emotionally, mentally very far away from me. He was edgy, had a drug problem, he had an unprotected and unsecured upbringing. No shade of that was applicable to me. We were shooting nonstop, the space of that character was claustrophobic,” he said.
Ask him about how he is in real life and pat comes the reply that he’s both Clark Kent and Superman. “As a person, I am diametrically opposite, I am very close to Deepak in Masaan and Vicky in Manmarziyan. Deepak is close to the guy you’re talking to and Manmarziyan is close to my alter ego. That character is flamboyant, eccentric and impulsive. You play Punjabi songs he can dance all day. He doesn’t think of consequences, he’s earnest and lives his emotions to the fullest. If he’s happy, angry, jealous or sad, he won’t bind it. He’ll cry like a baby. There’s red and then there’s yellow and no range between that. He doesn’t understand responsibilities and is terrified of commitment. There’s two sides of me, there’s a Clark Kent and a Superman. I’m both. Vicky Sandhu is the Superman, the one you’re talking to right now is Clark Kent,” he said.
Talk to both about stardom and they seem incredulous about it. While Pannu doesn’t take it seriously, Kaushal is very grateful to the love he’s been receiving.
“Thank god Abhishek is not sitting next to me. He hates this fact that I don’t take it seriously because I still don’t feel that I am a star. For me the definition of a star is someone in whose name a movie would sell. The audience buys tickets just because my name is on the poster and think that it’s worth spending my hard earned money and three hours which will never come back. When my audience has that mentality, then I will be a star. Then I will shout at the top of my voice that I am a star. But until then, I have to work for it,” she said.
For Kaushal, it still hasn’t sunk in. “One day somebody called from the trade and said you know everybody says you’re an A- lister now. I said, you’re saying this I don’t know.” He says he’s been working non-stop for two years which is why his movies are coming in like an avalanche and he’s grateful that they are well-loved. “The process of filmmaking is temporary but the reaction isn’t. It makes us immortal as a character and that’s the best thing,” he said.
Ask them about the pressures of being on social media and they seem unfazed. Unlike older actors who have a difficult relationship with showing a glimpse of their personal selves to the world, the younger lot takes it in their stride. “I handle my account myself. There is no agency handling it for me. I think I’m quite frequent updater of my profile and I visit it frequently. I don’t believe in what others would think. It’s my profile, if I don’t tell people what to post you can’t tell me either. So, I let myself free which is why I can come up with something fun to post in the first place. I post about what I am truly. Otherwise, it would be a dead profile,” said Pannu. While Kaushal says, it’s all subjective. “Sometimes I’ll just make a video out of my bedroom and post it, if I feel that’s right and making sense. I don’t think a lot about it,” he said.
Pannu will be seen romancing both, Abhishek and Vicky. So, when asked who’s the more fun co-actor among the two, she said both are “boring” and “Ramji types.” “Abhishek is a conventional prankster. I love his sense of humour. Vicky is the perfect good boy you want to take home to meet your mom. Nobody is buzzing with crazy energy or doing some crazy stuff. Both have a good sense of humour but they’re not naughty or bad boys. They’re not edgy,” she said. Asked if she’s a prankster too, she added, “I’m not a prankster, I’m a little bit of a bully. That’s what I did to Anurag, shamelessly, every day on the set. I do it even now.”
Writer: Asmita Sarkar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
For the master of many mediums, the female form was an important subject of his artistic inquiry. His drawings show a decade-wise evolution of the woman Subramanyan drew.
KG Subramanyan, who left for the hereafter in 2016 at the age of 92, was an artist working with multiple media, besides being a scholar, teacher and intellectual who also wrote verse, sometimes reflecting a deep angst and, more often, with his tongue in his cheek and wit — sometimes acerbic — on his sleeve. His fame, as is widely known, rests on his art which constituted a massive, varied and evolving corpus — drawings, paintings, terracotta sculptures — reflecting his deep insights into the human condition under an overarching moral universe marked by an eternal conflict between benevolent and malevolent forces, which also raged within individuals.
His art mirrored not only the states of vulnerability, helplessness, submission and defeat — as well as those of strength, rebelliousness, determination and triumph — into which the conflict led human beings, but the latter’s search for pleasure, joy and happiness distilled from events of quotidian life. In sharp contrast to the puritanical abhorrence of the human body, he depicted it in its diverse manifestations from the beautiful to the ugly as well as its many postures induced by emotions within, which were also reflected in facial countenances, particularly the expression in the eyes.
One sees all this in his artwork featuring in the exhibition titled “Women Seen and Remembered: Drawings by KG Subramanyan (1953-2016)” staged by Art Heritage and spread out in two spaces — Shridharani Gallery and Art Heritage — at the Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi. Curated and designed by Amal Allana, director of Art Heritage, the exhibition comprises approximately 250 works from the Seagull Foundation for the Arts and The Alkazi Collection of Art. Of these, the ones from the former will go back to it at the end of the show.
The exhibition has a special significance in terms of Subramanian’s work as women seemed to have been the main focus of his creativity, accounting for more than 50 per cent of his drawings and sketches. Understandably, his perception and representation of them have been evolving, a phenomenon clearly discernible in the chronologically-arranged exhibits spread over roughly six decades — which also depict the dynamics of their changing relationship with their male-dominated environment. Thus, from the pliant, submissive and domesticated beings depicted through the slumped and drooping postures of their bodies in the 1950s, they are transformed in the 1970s into an unabashedly flirtatious individuals aware of themselves and proudly displaying their blossoming sensuality with scarcely-concealed sexual undertones.
One sees another change in the 1980s and 1990s when women appear wearing, or preparing to wear, masks. One wonders whether it was to meet on even terms men who are also seen wearing masks. Or were these meant to be devices to show to different people the aspects of one’s self that one wanted to show them? The tendency is global and extends to the deeper exercise of changing one’s face itself. It will be interesting to recall here the following lines from TS Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrok: “There will be time, there will be time/ To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;/ There will be time to murder and create,/ And time for all the works and days of hands/ That lift and drop a question on your plate..”
The idea of preparing a face or wearing a mask to meet faces and masks indicates an autonomy of intent and signifies a certain coming of age, a certain desire and ability to negotiate with the world on one’s own terms. Post-2000, the woman is depicted as a shaper of event, destinies and discourse. She is Durga the goddess with 10 arms, each holding a weapon, who slays Mahishasura, the Buffalo Demon. Durga, is also a manifestation of Parvati, wife of Lord Siva, who also appears in other forms such as Uma, Gauri, Bhairavi, Ambika and Kali, the latter an awe-inspiring presence in black in the Hindu pantheon who rules over Time, Change, Power and Destruction.
Subramanyan showed women as having the same strengths and attributes as goddesses by depicting them in close proximity of the latter. Viewing the progressive unfolding of his presentation of women and their growing self-awareness, assertiveness and consciousness of their sensuality, one wonders whether this was a result of his encounter with the movement for gender justice and women’s bodily integrity that emerged and grew in strength over the same period. This writer has not encountered any writing on the subject. He must, however, have been familiar at least with its broad contours — given his focus on women and responsiveness to the social and political currents of his time. The latter aspect of his concerns was manifest in the display of his political works in the exhibition “Seeking a Poetry of the Real” (also curated by Amal Allana) by Art Heritage in collaboration with The Seagull Foundation for the Arts” in 2017, the 40th anniversary year of the founding of Art Heritage in Delhi in 1977 by Ebrahim and Roshen Alkazi.
Taken together, the two exhibitions provide an informed and enlightening view of the works of a master creator whose passing has left a void that will continue to be deeply felt.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
On the occasion of Krishna Janmastami Vidhushi Veena C Seshadri Presents “Krishna Leela” A Solo Bharatanatyam performance Invoking and glorifying Lord Krishna’s acts and words that preaches supreme to sublime love, wisdom, and intellect to humanity.
When: September 4 Time: 7 pm Venue: Stein Auditorium, IHC, Lodhi Road.
Akshara Theatre presents Alice and Krishna in Wonderland, a funny, quirky take on Lewis Carroll’s eccentric tales Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and some Krishna stories. The play will be presented by Vidya Parthasarathy as Alice and Arham Agarwal as Krishna, among others. Proceeds from the shows will be donated to Kerala Flood Relief efforts. When: September 1 and 8 Time: 5 pm Venue: Akshara Theatre, Baba Kharag Singh Marg.
To satisfy and pacify the gopis, Krishna started the Maharaas dance which is a spiritual experience. With his supreme powers, he multiplied his form so that each gopi felt that Krishna was at her side and dancing with her alone. Nritya Abhinaya (Kathak) celebrates Janamashtmi with the disciples of the Bhartiya Sangeet Sadan, Uma Sharma School of Dance and Music, which will feature Dr Uma Sharma’s Abhinaya based on Meera Bhajan, Vaari – Vaari Shyam Hoon Vaari. She will present a unique dance form that combines the traditional Raas of Brindaban with classical Kathak. Uma’s senior disciple, Radhika Shah also presents dances by Krishna with the milkmaid by Brindaban Kunjan Racho Raas Aali – Aali Ban Mali, Nirtat Sab Sakhi De Taali. When: Monday, September 3 Time: 6.30 pm Venue: India International Centre (IIC), Main Auditorium.
Writer: Team Viva
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Renowned women gallerists come under one roof at the second edition of the Contemporary Art Week in Delhi.
With women empowerment being the talk of the town in every sphere, the Delhi Contemporary Art Week is for the first time bringing together prominent women gallerists under one roof, namely Blueprint 12, Vadehra Art Gallery, Exhibit 320, Shrine Empire, Latitude 28, Gallery Espace and Nature Morte. Needless to say that they have brought their unique sensibilities to curate a larger voice from the south Asian neighbourhood, including countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, and thread together a thematic commonality.
The paintings depict changing civilisations, politics, contrasting emotions of love and separation, economy, ecology, landscape, history, movements, borders, lives, disasters and even tragic stories, in short subjects that have been experienced by everybody. As we enter the Visual Arts gallery, we meet Roshini and Parul Vadehra. “We have got a large range of senior and junior contemporary artists and have kept the canvases at an affordable Rs 10,000,” says Roshini. “We have a salon of paintings, which has been made possible by small-scale painters and artists. But there are a few standout pieces as well; there is this award-winning artist from Kochi, Kerala. Madhusudan’s Lightbox is an original interpretation about colonialism and water trade. There’s Jagannath Panda’s acrylic and fabric on canvas, artists from Patiala, Punjab and Ranbir Kaleka’s presentation of Raja Ravi Verma in the house of Levi.” The Vadehra Art Gallery has surely tried an innovative way of promoting themes.
Anahita Taneja and Shefali Somani draw attention with Bangladeshi artist Tayeba Begum Lipi, who has etched her work with razor blades, a metaphor for why we need to look at society with razor-sharp eyes. “Razor blades were an inspiring medium for her as it takes her back to her childhood. Tayeba was the oldest of 12 siblings and had seen blades used for delivery of babies. She also has seen them being used as tools of domestic violence. A simple everyday object becomes such a powerful metaphor,” shares Anahita. She shows us models by Colombo-born artist Anoli Perera, whose ship-like structure brings in the idea of pilgrimage, movement, history, geography and religious beliefs, and links the two ancient cities of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and Varanasi in India. Then there is a city skyline with legs of people dangling from the precipice, a reference to how we are stifling ourselves with the monstrosity of our own creations. Zoya Siddique’s photographs show two different realities with rearview mirrors. “One is the exteriors of a home and the other which is behind the home,” says Anahita.
Mandira Lamba and Ridhi Bhalla, who launched Blueprint-12 in 2012, have put together urban constructs and imagery. They’ve got in Nepali artist Youdhisthir Mahajan whose An Unquiet Mind is a canvas of cut and halved letters. “Youdhisthir cuts each and every text of the book by hand and sticks all the letters below. The process of repeating the same act, cutting and pasting, is to give a meaning and language to the cycle of life and death. It reflects how humans keep repeating the same cycle. While doing this, he goes into a meditative state, which is how he works,” says Mandira.
As the gallerist duo presents a conversation between artists, Ridhi explains how they choose artists who manage to blur boundaries. She points out towards the paintings of Pakistani artist Mehreen Murtaza, whose labour-intensive collages showcase a virtual world that fuses the natural with the mechanical, where technology challenges superstition and myth and Sufi tradition intertwines with pop culture.
We like Sounds from Nowhere by Mahbabur Rahman, another artist from Bangladesh whose work profoundly depicts emotions of pain and separation with references to historical events and man-made disasters like demolition of the Rana plaza. The work shows a number of stainless surgical scissors interlocked in a way that they resemble a guitar box. The sounds of violence, emanating from the vicious grip of scissors, are drowning the music of the guitar as it were. Scissors in his works also evoke the scars of Partition and what Bangladesh had been through during the two wars of 1947 and 1971.
Renu Modi of Gallery Espace has got us Manjunath Kamath’s work that has empty spaces. “The artist talks about history and the empty gaps that are left in the history of evolution,” she tells us.
Revived in New Delhi in 1997, Nature Morte art gallery comes with an international exposure to art that champions conceptual and lens-based artworks. Director Aparajita Jain singles out the works of Anita Dube, Raqs media collective, Jitesh Killat, Asim Waqif, and Tom White. The illustrations represent artificial intelligence, modern civilisations, marital relationships through Franz Kafka’s short stories and modernity that is hurting the environment.
This year the show will be an attempt to streamline the conversation and establish a new paradigm, shaped by a generation of artists who have exhibited around the world by means of residency circuits, biennales and art fairs, which is mature, sustained and part of the global aesthetic. Also presented will be masters of Indian contemporary, who paved the way for the rest with innovative artistic production that has remained future-proof. DCAW will further include outreach initiatives for children, art professionals, and others who are interested in art with panel discussions on art of collecting, maintaining collections and handling of artworks.
Writer: Chahak Mittal
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The 2018 Lakme Fashion Week showcases different styles, including inter-woven material of cane along with metal and fabric, a marriage of digital technologies and textiles, and a fusion sari.
Young blood
Young fashion designers innovated on fabrics at the fashion week. Kanika Goyal’s look was all about adventure in fashion. Her fabrics were a mélange of various options as polyester cotton, viscose, 100 percent viscose, cotton silk, linen, poplin, rayon, bonded, acrylic, wool, cotton knit, silk organza, glass nylon, Dutch satin and PVC — all came seamlessly together with faux fur and leather.
Showstopper Soha Ali Khan looked stellar in a black sleeveless vest from Kanika Goyal, a sheer top from Poochki and a brocade pencil skirt from Shanti as a reinterpretation of floating clouds. A beautiful amalgamation of the texture, colours and shapes that resonated with nature. Making an impact on the runway was the printed navy and white floral cotton satin as well as Dutch satin mini with white silk organza over shirt.
When it came to garments that offer diversity contrast textures and construction then the Poochki label by Ishanee Mukherjee and Anirudh Chawla hit the high notes. Focussing on the style and cuts all the silhouettes were hand painted and block printed, to create a perfect combination of style, elegance and glamour. With a visually stunning story, black and electric blue were fused together with the signature binding, to cause a sensation on the ramp and crushed garments were used to depict volume. Belts were extensively used and tied into bows to give a very feminine appeal to each silhouette. With comfort being of primary preference, all the outfits were fluid and at the same time made a statement.
The designing pair Sakshi Shah and Swasti Shah’s label Shanti was a fashionable blend of hand woven pure silk and linen. The latter was beautifully indigo-dyed for a line of wearable creations. The stark line of the belted jackets was a perfect complement to the cropped pants. The angular single-button jacket with round-notched lapels gave the ankle length trousers a stylish twist. Giving the sari a 21st century appeal, the designing duo teamed it with calf length pants, a bustier and bolero. To match the theme Inspired by Clouds, the pair ensured that the handloom linen was indigo-dyed to create the textures of clouds. Goyal, Sakshi and Swasti of Shanti, Mukherjee and Chawla of Poochki, won The Platform award and showcased their collections based on smartwater’s core theme Inspired by Clouds.
Sustainable fashion
The designers showcased their Winter Festive collection on day 4 of Lakme Fashion Week. The collection, titled Raas was heavily inspired by Gujarat. In particular the signature prints like bandhani, patola and leheriya prints were reinterpreted and used in modern global silhouettes.
The designers were also inspired by the Kotwalia tribe of South Gujarat whose livelihood lies within cane basket weaving. They had inter-woven cane material with their signature thread work and metal strips to create an interesting surface texture. The fabrics used were mostly cotton silks, drill and flat chiffon. The chiffon and cotton silks were a reflective of the feminine side of the collection and the stiffer drill fabrics was a reflection of the sharper masculine side. Showstopper Shruti Hassan looked stunning in a beautiful soft and layered number in a nude palette.
Sari trouser
Label RmKV along with designer Sunita Shanker presented their latest collection Re-crafting Traditional Silks, for which Sushmita Sen was the showstopper. She wore a beautiful fusion-styled sari. The fuchsia sari was worn over a sleek pants that was matched with a sleeveless, corset blouse. Her make-up was neutral with red lips and thickly-lined eyes.
Sushmita Sen said in a press release, “RmKV epitomises my thoughts and the way I have lived my life. The collection showcases an exuberance in design, while maintaining a hold to values which I have been able to associate with all my life. With a sharp focus on sourcing sustainable material and incorporating it into their products, they constantly manage to show how they are changing the world of handloom silk. I am glad to be a part of a brand that encapsulates my thoughts and vision into theirs too.
Bringing fashion and tech together
Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) collaborated with three fashion designers who shared their concepts with the weavers who, in turn, translated them on to the warp and weft. They has been working for a decade to make underserved rural communities have access to equitable information. Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with various government bodies and CSR groups has initiated Digital Cluster Development Programme (DCDP), which primarily involves inclusive and decentralised use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and other digital tools in critical aspects of handloom cluster development, especially improving and scaling up weaving skills, designs, marketing and entrepreneurship, besides creating sustainable livelihood options for the youth in the clusters.
The cotton weavers of Barabanki’s Project Baank-e-Loom runs from a 150-year old haveli in Saidanpur village that was constructed in the typical Awadhi style, surrounded by many traces of Nawabi culture. The village is home to around 50,000 weavers who make cotton gamchas. Arabi rumaal and stoles and are known for zari embroidery.
Another project, Digikala, started as a love of Ikat handlooms of Odisha. The project envisaged a marriage of hand woven textiles and digital technologies to enhance and expand the appeal of handloom products. The intention was to preserve the age-old tradition of Ikat weaving and empowering handloom weavers to sustain themselves in the competitive market. Ikat weaving is defined by the age-old tradition of intricate designs, tie-dye, and deep colours. While Barpali uses cotton, Naupatna uses Mulberry, Malda and Tussar silk.
Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer
The word used for the latest exhibition of photographer Sara Wadhwa, Lehgato, signifies connection, and therefore, the collections is a set of picture that the photographer captured during her trip to Leh-Ladakh. The exhibition is going to be showcased at the Indian Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road Delhi, on August 29th to 31st. Timing: 10:30 am to 8:00 pm.
Kathak dancer Astha Dixit will be performing In Search of Love, a dance based musical production. She has studied the art form of Kathak from her gurus Harish Gangani and Malti Shyam. Astha’s delicate art of abhinaya and natural expression on Sufi kalaams has made her a regular performer at Jahan-e-Khusrau every year for Muzaffar Ali. When: September 7 time: 7 pm onwards Where: Kamani Auditorium
>Sham-e-Ghazal, a ghazal concert by Shakeel Ahmed, brings to you a lyrical landscape of deeply expressive emotions and unforgettable ghazals. Enjoy his melodious rendering and original compositions. Time: 6.30 pm when: September 1 Where: Urdu Ghar, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg.
Keepsakes, a solo exhibition of a first-of-its-kind art furniture and paintings, is designed and painted by internationally acclaimed artist Manisha Gawade. The show is presented by Anju Choudhary, founder and director of Wild Ochre and curated by Dr Alka Raghuvanshi. It has taken the artists many years of experimentation and tireless working to design these furniture pieces. time: 11 am to 7 pm When: September 5 to 11 where: Alliance Francaise, Art Gallery, Lodhi Estate.
Panorama-12, meaning unbroken view of a subject, an art exhibition curated by Priyanka Banerjee, celebrates new talent, bringing over 20 artists who will showcase a range of interpretations of contemporary issues of social relevance such as feminism, treatment of animals, spiritual harmony, nature, global warming and so on. When: September 1 to 6 time: 11 am to 7 pm where: Open Palm Court Gallery, IHC, Lodhi Road.
Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer
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