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Essay

Philanthropy: Every Idea is a Seed in Time

By Feroze Gujral

Hope, funding, a dignity of livelihood and mentorship are core values for me and The Gujral Foundation, where we support the growth of intent and the future of ideas. My happy quotient lies in the expansion of giving and watching these idea seeds grow into much larger projects and careers. For instance, ‘Artdemic’: It was a project that began during the pandemic with a very small open call to fund young artists. We started with two to three micro grants per week and three years in, we continue to fund artists every month and are now looking to establish Artdemic as a much larger platform that really nourishes young artists’ futures in a very competitive and fast-growing art world.

Essay

A Life in Art

By Mortimer Chatterjee

The inherent internationalism with which Godrej imbued Cymroza insured its cultural relevance and allowed for young artistic talent to gain attention. Over time, she built up an impressive roster of artists who would exhibit regularly at the gallery: artists such as Rekha Rodwittya, Madhvi Subramanian, KG Subramanyan, Jai Zharotia, Haku Shah, Arpana Caur, and Akbar Padamsee. As Godrej makes clear, “we also paid attention that all this work was documented through our annual catalogues that encouraged contributions from art critics as well as art historians, that were then distributed to a wide community of visitors, collectors and art admirers.” Beyond the visual arts, she was equally committed to design practices, foregrounding crafts techniques from around the country.

Report

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.

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