The London Art Fair (16-20th Jan,2008) turned out to be a mixed-event inspite of showcasing the best of contemporary and established modern British art says Jeff Ross, ArtVantage (UK)

My UK based colleague, Mr Jeff Ross, visited the London Art Fair last week and was somewhat disappointed by the trip. He commented – ‘…try to imagine a shopping mall for Art Dealers and Galleries, all that was missing was the Starbucks and the MacDonalds. Probably not surprising after 20 successful years, there was a lot to see and a lot of people milling around fairly aimlessly maybe it was just too much choice, or possibly too little? Over 100 galleries from across the UK turned up with a varied mixture of paintings in a variety of forms, and strong photographic displays, a few sculptures and art pottery to spice up the offering of modern, contemporary and established artists. In truth, there were some very interesting pictures on view, but also a lot, the vast majority, of fairly predictable wares that seemed to be selected by the Galleries with a strong eye on the market place of Loft Apartments and safe art, with selection by price tag and size, rather than imagination and challenge.  One wonders just how much the programme of talks and debates added to the event, and how much it provided the visitors with the opportunity to sit down. With a few notable exceptions, nearly all the paintings fell in to the same sort of price range and it was often quite difficult to tell one gallery stand from another. Well, the Gallery owners are in business to make money from Art and they can hardly be blamed for that and if you wanted to get a good snapshot of what the market place offers in the £1000 to £5000 (sterling) price band you would not be disappointed in that, no but you just might possibly be disappointed in the predictability and repetitiveness of much that was on show.’

For more info on the article, please contact Joy Roy Choudhury at artvantage.uk@gmail.com

ArtVantage (UK) has released a set of phenomenal Psyche-Centric artworks titled “Back to the Imaginary” done by emerging Indian artist Samij Datta based on seminal works of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan

Press Release

7th January, 2008, London: ArtVantage (UK) has released a set of phenomenal Psyche-Centric artworks titled “Back to the Imaginary” done by emerging Indian artist Samij Datta. Done in an expressionist mode, the artworks are based on seminal works of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan and will be exhibited in Paris later this year.

The recent series “Back to the Imaginary”- is in the form of a journey which the artist takes to reveal what the child sees and hears in a pre-Oedipal stage/pre-linguistic stage (Lacan’s Imaginary). “In ArtVantage, we support works of art that are unique and have a value in a system that supports cross-cultural studies and analytical discourse covering subjects ranging from psychoanalysis to anthropology. Art has to evolve in a harmonious way that encourages ‘humanism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘individualism’ and other Renaissance ideals to broaden our perspective in a new way. Going back to history will fetch us a new pre-condition for a much needed change in education- to measure knowledge and understanding”, says, Jeff Ross, Director, ArtVantage.

“Samij’s artworks follow the psycho-sexual development of a child. The visual linguistics of his work includes blotches of red, blue and black over large areas of yellow hue on paper in an asymmetrical splash of the brush. Since it’s development of a child recorded by Samij as he travels back and forth into the unconscious of his infancy and childhood, the series of artworks slowly feature birds, human faces etc as the child goes on learning the objects around him in terms of metaphors and metonymies”, says, Joy Roy Choudhury, Creative Consultant, ArtVantage. In the artwork “Entering Mirror Stage: Child Idealisations”, a figure of a woman in a blue hat appears- the child by now has a sense of his ego and sees his mother distinctly different from him and from his body which in the Imaginary stage was a dyadic relation of blurred identities. These dream-like states are best expressed beautifully in Samij’s art and every splash of colour is like what Lacan calls ‘jouissance’ quips Joy Roy Choudhury, ArtVantage.

 ArtVantage encourages art lovers, critics, educationists to send their views and comments on these projects. 

For more information on exhibition in Paris, please contact: Joy Roy Choudhury at artvantage.uk@gmail.com or e.aryans@gmail.com and at +91 9830067159 (India)/+44 75073806595   

“Originality, sincerity and commitment are the three facets that make the artists in Indian Art Industry sustain a long flourishing tradition dating back to the dancing girl of Mohenjo-daro (2600 BC)”, says Myna Kakar, Director, Verandah Art Gallery, Kolkata.

8^th Jan, 2008, Kolkata: Art evolved because seeing came before words and it is seeing that established our place in the surrounding world, gave us our social identity. If this is premise that constitutes the aesthetics involved with visual art/architecture/sculpture and other media channels that give us what the French semiotician, philosopher, Roland Barthes calls “plaisir” (pleasure), then one must appreciate the collection which is currently showcased at Verandah Art Gallery in Kolkata. It is a gallery with a difference because it is a home gallery in a SOHO environment where one can have a cup of Darjeeling tea and browse through the collections from Sanatan Dinda’s sculpturesque Yugpurush(1) on the Bamian Buddhas through to Kanchanmala Ghosh’s monochromatic contemplation of the female muse in With a Goldfish Around Her (Charcoal & Acrylic on paper, 2007) and in between all that talk about philosophy, history and artistic sensibility. Other works that adored the walls include paintings of some of the best in the industry: Suhas Roy, Bratin Khan, Jogen Chowdhury, Dilip Kumar Chaudhury and Prokash Karmakar among many others.

“During winter months, the preview of an art exhibition takes place in the garden adjacent to the gallery verandah before it is shifted to Birla Academy for a full show”, says Mrs Kakar. In fact, she is an artist by herself who has a distinct passion in art and culture and was collecting art for four years before she took the decisive step to lay the foundation of the gallery in 2000. Her next exhibition will take place on 15^th Feb, 2008 at Birla Academy comprising various artists in a group show. One must not miss out!

For more info please contact Joy Roy Choudhury at e.aryans@gmail.com or call at +44 75073806595 or +91 9830067159

     

Genesis gallery steals the show with Gautam Mukherjee’s beautiful rendition of a 19th century Bengali life reminiscent of the Joranshako Thakur Bari

7^th January, 2008, Kolkata: The exhibition of Gautam Mukherjee’s paintings at Genesis Gallery titled “Nostalgia” draws sharp parallels with life in 19^th century Bengal and also with Satyajit Ray’s iconic film “Charulata” based on adaptation of Tagore’s “Nasta Nir”. It is interesting to find that even the paintings by the artist has frames as in a film with an image of a rickshaw appearing almost as an archetype alongside a domestic setting of a lonely wife engrossed in either reading or embroidery. Done in acrylics, the high-point of Gautam’s work lies in the detail portrayal of the characters, their costumes and props that include cats, parrots, books, and items of home décor as part of a quintessentially Bengali middle-class during the Raj era. The style of his work is very interesting- the artist has incorporated elements of Victorian architecture, film, photography and stage props into a synthetic collage that is both modern and contemporary. The depiction of the women, men and children in his works heavily reminds us of the style of Jamini Roy and Kalighat pot painters.

A quick conversation with Gautam Mukherjee revealed that he was very much inspired by Picasso’s cubist works as with works of Ganesh Pyne and Bikash Bhattacharjee. Isha Mody, Gallery Manager, Genesis Art Gallery said: “Gautam’s works will be auctioned very soon in New Delhi. We are helping emerging artists to make a place in the art industry both nationally and internationally. Along with other projects, we are organizing a charity art auction comprising artists from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan at Hotel Oberoi in New Delhi on 19^th Jan, 2008”. It all looks promising for the Indian art market as works exhibited like these not only will set the cash register ringing but also will give chance to look back in retrospect at a Bengali culture that reached the dizzy heights in the 19^th century at Joranshako Thakur Bari. It was also the time when the women of Joranshakho Thakur Bari broke conventions by publishing Bengali periodicals like Balok, Tatta Bodhini etc. The artist has craftily depicted this setting by making his women read books in one of his paintings amidst a classic fin-de-sicle backdrop of elegance and languidness.

 

For more info, please contact Joy Roy Choudhury at e.aryans@gmail.com or call + 44 75073806595/ +91 9830067159 

A collection of Badri Narayan’s watercolour paintings exhibited at Mon Art Gallery, Calcutta, shows that man’s primal interest lies in narration of stories of his common folk.

6th January, 08,Calcutta. If you wonder what has happened to the tradition of folk painting in India, you should take a look at Badri Narayan’s watercolours on paper- they belong to the cultural history of a tribe which is slowly getting buried as technology renders cheap reproductions of the same in every part of the world. As an art historian, one must take the trip of going back to the cultural unconscious of the folklore that  Badri Narayan’s works so clear evoke. There is no sense of mystification in his art which one encounters normally with big sized oil or acrylic paintings. The simplicity and detail in each painting much comes from a distinct choice of the medium and subject- its also important to see the collections from a different perspective- it is the “acts of enunciation” of a story on a 12’’ x 16’’ paper that appeal us more than the actual content or theme. By choosing watercolour as the medium, the artist journeys back in time and space into the world of the greatest love poet of Bengal, Chandi Das and his ritual partner, Rami; kinnoras and kinnoris. The traditional pot painters of Murshidabad, Raghu Rajpur, Rajashthan also use natural dyes in a similar way the artist has used watercolour and pen on paper.

A painting that shows two ascetic man and woman dressed in saffron robes walking by the riverside carrying a pot of flowers in their hand, is both charming, lucid and mystical. There is an empty boat on the left side of the painting that creates a sense of a much awaited mystical journey across the waters. It is also placing of characters and arrangement of objects in a painting that much constitutes its aesthetic appeal- its seducing quality. Here, in the above painting, the man and the woman carrying a pot of flowers for a ritual offering is not the main focus but a secondary leitmotif that prepares us for the main focus-the sight of the boat on the extreme left. The boat is the one that ferries across the two shores of the river knitting a tie between the narrator (the artist) and the observer (the viewer); between this painting and other paintings; between the subject of painting and the act of painting.

After all, it was a priviledge to attend the exhibition of one of India’s higly respected and eminent artist, Sri Badri Narayan. Born in 1929, he is a self-taught artist who has explored several mediums such as painting, mosaic, ceramic tiles and printmakings in woodcut and engravings. He received the National Award in 1965 and was awarded the Padma Shri in 1987. The collection on display of Badri Narayan’s painting is what MS Manju Sethia, Director, Mon Art Gallerie has with her for the last four years. It is a treasure trove for all art lovers and art historians.

 

For any info on this article, please contact Joy Roy Choudhury at e.aryans@gmail.com or call at : +44 75073806595 & +91 9830067159

 

 

 

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