Take on Art, Author at Take Art Magazine

Review

THE REBEL AND THE RECLUSE: GOBARDHAN ASH (1929-1969)

By Epsita Halder

Navigating through the gallery space of the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), Kolkata, was overwhelming for visitors as around 100 odd artworks of Gobardhan Ash (1907-1996) emerged slowly as visceral experiences around them. The Gobardhan Ash Retrospective Exhibition (1929-1969), archived and documented by Princeps, curated by Brijeswari Kumari Gohil and Harsharan Baksh and housed by the KCC, displayed Ash’s artworks that came out of the most creative four decades of the artist’s life. The artworks were supported by a well-organised timeline (across an entire wall) to help the viewer understand Ash’s growth as an art practitioner as he journeyed across forms, locales and institutions.

Review

Experiencing Gulammohammed Sheikh’s “Kaarwaan and Other Works”

By Archana Hebbar Colquhoun

The boat in the painting, Kaarwaan, is not merely a vessel in which people are transported to a destination but it is a self-contained watercraft that also accommodates a large land mass of breathtaking landscapes with buildings, as if luring the people crowded together at the back of the boat to choose the boat itself as their final destination, in a way trapping their souls on the earthly plane of history – history written, and created by humans – although there are the angels and farishtas hovering just above the surface of the water and around the boat ready and waiting to take the souls on their onward journey to liberation.

Review

Preserving Identities: Exploring Nepal’s Personal Histories in ‘The Importance of Loss: Migration, Memory and Continuity’

By Saloni

In a world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), when we negotiate with our identities on an everyday basis creating digital beings and landscapes coded by inputs from uncountable sources, it is pertinent to ponder upon our history and tradition as tools of archive making and representation of contemporary life. The artists Hitesh Vaidya, Jagdish Moktan, Nabina Sunuwar, Pooja Duwal and Tashi Lama of Aakrit Collective mentored by Sujan Chitrakar seem to employ the very tools in the exhibition The Importance of Loss: Migration, Memory and Continuity to navigate through the cultural and socio-political landscape of Nepal marked by displacement that informs the everyday lives of the contemporary citizens. Curated by Georgina Maddox, the exhibition is presented by Unnati Cultural Village, Nepal, that endeavours to preserve and promote its cultural heritage through multidisciplinarity in the arts.

Review

Weaving Identity: Reclamation of Craft

By Premjish Achari

The press release and curatorial essay for Seema Kohli's latest exhibition follows a predictable path, connecting the dots between her work and conventional themes. However, such a narrow interpretation only skims the surface of her boundless conceptual potential, hindering the opportunity for profound exploration. In her solo show, Kohli delves into the cosmic energy of femininity and the mystical world of medieval bhakti saints, while also inviting introspection through her intricate blend of images, materials, textures, and labor. These elements not only raise pertinent questions about the creation of value in a commodified society, but also shed light on the persisting caste hierarchies within artisanal practices. Her exhibition also illuminates the complex dynamics that emerge when craft practices intersect with contemporary art.

Review

ANALOGOUS RELATION OF ARTS AND OBJECTS

By Manan Shah

Humans and objects share a very close and intimate relationship. Humans identify objects and establish a correlation which further is associated with time, while being recognised by human memory. Objects become a source to initiate pre-established relations of humans with time. Once identified, they add evidential value to time and space. The notion of time and space becomes an important part of the curatorial intervention in the exhibition Things are Vanishing Before Us by Gallery Dotwalk. It is through this that the viewer constructs and establishes the correlation between past and the present, and what posterity holds. The centrifugal force of the art work opens the room for a visitor to revisit the relationship with the past in the present, and how it serves as an opportune moment to shape the future. This, in the exhibition is achieved with the viewer’s familiarity with objects.

Review

The Omnipresent Self

By Sibdas Sengupta

The river flowing through me…’ is an autobiographical landscape that is, at once, psychological, environmental, metaphysical and historical. - KP Pradeep Kumar The exhibition features Pradeep’s most recent body of works, which talks about artistic subjectivity as the internal self, and the constitution of the self in relation to the exterior ‘others’, to challenge the separations of eco-diversity of our times.

Review

Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now

By Mala Yamey

The exhibition Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now examines the traditions and legacies of South Asian miniature painting through major examples of miniatures from as early as the mid-16th century right up to the present day, with the re-engagement of modern and contemporary artists with the form. The exhibition brings together 180 works from private and public collections across the UK and internationally. This is the first time that many of the early miniature paintings from the Royal Collection, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the British Museum have been on public display. The exhibition is a chance to chart the trajectories and encounters between the traditional early miniatures, and modern and contemporary reinterpretations.

Review

SUDARSHAN SHETTY: BETWEEN RUIN AND RECOVERY

By Zahra Jewanjee

The exhibition Only Life, Myriad Places attempts to create a transformational space, emulating the labyrinthian mind. Toying with existence in its many forms, succumbing to death and subsequent new or renewed beginnings after the course of its journey, leaving behind stories retold through the stillness of assorted totems, the idea of the perpetual process of rebirth and its continuum can perhaps be measured by the pace, evolution, and number of works and mediums presented.

Review

Chemould@60: From Framing to Futuring the Art of the City and the City of Art

By Ankita Ghosh

In 1963, a young couple invested in Bombay’s cultural heritage chose to support the arts in the city that was so beloved to them. Sixty years from then, the city has come to be known for its vibrant arts ecosystem, and the couple’s attempt in building a contemporary art space has often been referred to as a breeding ground for fearlessness when it comes to artistic expressions. From having played a crucial role in supporting the Bombay Progressives, to making space for dissent within the white cube space, from fostering what we know as Indian contemporary art to expanding these boundaries, the beloved Chemould of Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhy has seen itself evolve over the decades from a noun to a verb. Bringing this vision to a celebratory exhibition, the curator Shaleen Wadhwana shifts focus to the burgeoning archival material that speaks to the legacy that began with Kekoo Gandhy’s keen interest in the visual arts in the 1960s.

Review

Stories of Light and Song: Contemporary Practices in Asia

By Rituparna Roy

Step into Stories of Light and Song: Contemporary Practices in Asia (henceforth, SoLS) -- exhibited at the Sarala Birla Gallery, Terrace and Lawn of BAAC. SoLS is a group show featuring the works of Baaran Ijlal, Gidree Bawree Foundation of Arts, Ranbir Kaleka and Sudharak Olwe. It comprises a travelling sound archive; a site-specific, collaborative bamboo installation by craftsmen from West Bengal and Bangladesh; video-art; and photography.

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