My residency has ended, but I still have updates to share as I work on the final text. These two months have offered me the time, space and resources to unpack a set of research questions. They’ve also offered me valuable insights on how I write. This blog serves two distinct purposes: it is an account of how I have written, and also a reminder to myself as I ease back into this final stretch of writing.
Read MoreThe 101 years old Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai, home to historical artefacts that tell stories about India’s past, hosted unusual visitors – contemporary art installations. Fourteen Indian artists were invited to create artworks for an exhibition Rhizome – Tracing Ecocultural Identities, curated by Jesal Thacker, amidst the museum’s vast collection. The display of the artworks is spread across the museum’s two levels and in thematically different sections. As a visitor to this exhibition, you need a map in hand to spot the works, which are not easy to locate or noticeable in the museum’s stellar collection.
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In the past decade and a half, significant art has been produced on the subject of Partition, its aftermath and afterlives – with focus on geographical sites of ancestry, the border, migration and displacement, refugee colonies and inherited memories. Arpita is the youngest of the artists who have made this theme their own, to varying degrees. But what really distinguishes her oeuvre is that it is entirely predicated upon ‘familial postmemory’.
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Fatima Mahdi Karan speaks to Dinesh Vazirani about what the art world in India needs right now, as well as the sometimes painful messaging that emerges from auctions.
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Saddened by his passing, Emilia Terracciano remembers Indian contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram. He summoned up all his energies from his great reservoir of wisdom and experience. He was an unstoppable creator, who never gave up, no matter how dark the situation. He reminded me that optimism is something one must purposefully marshal, a form of discipline one ought to cultivate, against all internal and external threats of dejection and hopelessness. That optimism is another word for political action.
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India Art Fair founder and fair director Neha Kirpal describes the myriad challenges and rewards of the India Art Fair on the eve of its 7th edition.
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Director of the Gujral Foundation and Outset India, Feroze Gujral has supported prodigal talent in recent years, espousing unexpected causes in the Indian art world. In a rare, first such interview, she speaks with Mayank Mansingh Kaul on her vision for the arts in India, ideas that preoccupy her voraciously, and directions for future projects.
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A discussion with art market analyst Anders Petterson on the business of art. Bhavna Kakar and Shivani Chandra caught up with Petterson on email and phone to discuss his impressions of the South Asia art scene, what happened to the Indian art market in 2009, and what it will take for Indian investors to become more savvy collectors of art.
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Art critic Bharti Lalwani catches up with Jaffer for a brief conversation on his early years, his role at Christie’s and his personal aesthetic inclinations.
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Most artists’ careers are made at the overlapping point of various subject positions - of critics, curators, dealers, historians, collectors, enthusiasts and media houses. And steering these subjectivities, profitably or non-profitably has become the business of art. This issue hopes to somewhat loosen this knot of various strands, and observe if there indeed is a method to the madness of the art world.
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