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KOLKATA CITY LAB: City as an Archive Open to the Field of Experiments

By Manan Shah

In recent times, the discipline of arts and art institutions has been working to address the lack of critical spaces for discourse and deliberation. When a city like Kolkata, with its deep, penetrating roots—nurturing a dense forest of diverse artistic and aesthetic voices—is considered, how can one overlook its presence in the contemporary art-making scene? KAEE Kolkata City Lab (KKCL) by KAEE Contemporary in Kolkata, established by Ambica Beri, is one such promising residency programme, conceived and curated by Premjish Achari. The residency excavates the multiple layers of Kolkata to explore both the tangible and intangible salient features of the city. Curators, writers, architects, designers, and scientists have collaborated to investigate the city’s cultural heritage.

Review

A Transformative River and Embedded Dialectics: Reflections on a river of unrest …a delta of dreams by Paula Sengupta

By Rajarshi Sengupta

In many ways, Sengupta’s project is situated between “a river of unrest” and “a delta of dreams.” It is the silent space that occupies the void between evidences, oral narratives, sensory experiences, memory and creative reconstructions. Calcutta and its colonial history have been addressed in her art projects the last two decades offering an unique perspective to assess and apprecitate the city’s entanglement of past and the present. In this recent project, Matiaburj (in which mati indicates clay/mud, and burj implies tower) in south west of Calcutta by the river remains a key site where authoritarian and local histories juxtapose, where fiction-like facts makes way for Sengupta’s ambitious creative reimaginations. With a mindful selection of historically informed materials, that include inherited and constructed textiles, jute fibre, paper pulp and graphic prints, archival history is brought in a dialogue with sensorial experiences.

Interview

Acts of Sharing Art: Conversation with Kiran Nadar

By Georgina Maddox

An interview with Kiran Nadar Chairperson, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) and Trustee, Shiv Nadar Foundation. Nadar has profoundly shaped and inspired the Indian art world, becoming a pivotal force in the country's cultural landscape, with an influential vision that has increased the visibility of Indian modern and contemporary art worldwide. Nadar is on the cusp of setting up the third art museum near the International Airport in the Capital designed by Adjaye Associates. This comes after an inclusive space at Saket Select City Walk which is still one of the most visited museums in the country with a healthy footfall, interactive AI projects and a solid collection of Modern and Contemporary Art. After premiering an AI project at the Venice Biennale featuring the maverick M F Husain, Nadar tells us that one must pay attention to the fine print of working with AI and keep sight of the larger picture. She is excited about the upcoming shows, the India Art Fair and several outreach art programmes and activities designed for children and adults. Georgina Maddox caught up with Kiran Nadar and discussed being one of India’s premium Art Philanthropists; with her, outlining its joys, challenges and plans for the future.

Review

A Primordial Roar

By Zahra Jewanjee

‘Can You Hear Me?’ is a triggered, and triggering, response to a shocking incident of recent history. It drives Nalini Malani’s narrative into an animation where the central protagonist is an 8-year-old girl, whose soul eventually metamorphoses into that of a bird. The show is composed of a sprawling nine- channel video installation, featuring over 88 iPad- drawn animations created between 2018 and 2020, reorganized into a form of an ‘Animation Chamber’. It refers to this poor child’s violent assault and eventual murder by seven men, inflaming already stretched age-old religious tensions and sparking a debate on communal hatred that became a national and international news story, that unfortunately continues to gain notoriety due to shockingly similar and regular reoccurrences. The imagery is loose, and the text is interlaced and juxtaposed, its treatment is playful yet compelling, hiding its dissolute and bleak reality in light-hearted colour changes and buoyant edits.

Review

The Propitious Garden of Rekha Rodwittiya

By Indrapramit Roy

“We are meant to survive… beyond our stories " was a selected overview which showcased the Godrej collection of Rekha Rodwittiya’ work of four decades. After completing her Bachelor studies from Baroda she was the first recipient in the field of fine arts of the prestigious Inlaks scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art, London. Upon her return to India Rekha claimed a space for her unequivocally feminist ideology and established herself as an important and powerful voice that questioned the status quo of the art establishment and carved a niche for herself in less than a decade from the start of her career in 1985. “We are meant to survive…” covered the whole gamut of her oeuvre from her student days in Baroda and RCA to her latest offerings from the 2020s. One might be tempted to call the show a mini retrospective although not designated as such officially.

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