PRELUDE
CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORIAL
CONTENTS
KALEIDOSCOPE
PROFILES
SHUKLA SAWANT
PARTHA ROY
SANDHYA BORDEWEKAR
GEETA DOCTOR
MARTA JAKIMOWICZ
SANDHINI PODDAR
KAELEN WILSON-GOLDIE
NIVEDITA MAGAR
ZEHRA JUMABHOY
INTERVIEW
MEERA MENEZES
LETTER FROM PAKISTAN
QUDDUS MIRZA
REVIEWS
ABHAY SARDESAI
SUBUHI JIWANI
SHILADITYA SARKAR
LATIKA GUPTA
VARSHA RESHAMWALA
REPORT
SUBUHI JIWANI
INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS
JASBIR K. PUAR
AKSHAYA TANKHA
SANDHYA BORDEWEKAR
INTERNATIONAL REPORTS
MEERA MENEZES
LISTINGS
PREVIOUS ISSUES
2012 / Volume XVI | Issue III | Quarter III

HOW DO ARTISTS (AND, OFTEN, CRITICS AND CURATORS) come together to explore the world and respond to its uneven aspects with a shared enthusiasm? How do art collectives gather steam even as they exert tactical pressure on the art practices of their members? How do they confirm startling community models that are loose and tight at the same time? How do they come apart, often at the seams? And how do some of them survive, in spite of the temptations? These are some of the questions we ask in the course of this issue. more>

2011 / Volume XVI | Issue I | Quarter I

M. F. HUSAIN’S DEATH SEEMS TO HAVE cast a pall of gloom and guilt over the art community in the country. What is the nature of this bereavement and why do we feel so diminished? In his death as in his life, Husainsahab managed to hold a mirror to the state of our society – the impulses, enthusiasms and processes that come together to enrich it or impoverish it. From being a torch-bearer of modernism from the 1940s to the 1980s to being a recorder of national transformations, from being a hoarding painter to being a filmmaker, from being a darling of the market to being a target of religious fundamentalists, from being a son of the soil to being an exile,>

2010 / Volume XV | Issue IV | Quarter III

Performance art is easily one of the most captivating and challenging art genres around. In India, over the last decade and a half, it has gained in popularity and has attracted committed practitioners. Artists have experimented with the body to disrupt the continuities of identity propositions, pushed the boundaries of the self and taken leaps into the unknown, contested unjust social formations and questioned the standard ways of sizing lived and expressive worlds, making it one of the most radical art forms. Which thematic threads does Performance Art pursue? How does it respond to the exigencies of the art market? And how does it reveal truths about transforming contexts as it facilitates a refreshingly vibrant contract between thought and action? We try and address these questions in the course of this issue.>

2010 / Volume XV | Issue III | Quarter II

The changing modes of adjustment between people and places reveal many remarkable clues about the new urban landscape. As contrasts between lived worlds deepen, new fault-lines appear. Is the city a sum total of only its built spaces? How do its differently-stationed denizens push its destiny? And what role does art play in reconceiving its future? In our issue this time, we initiate a discussion about art and the city, development and crisis. more >

 

2010 / Volume XV | Issue II | Quarter II

Ascending levels of Visual Literacy have fast become critical indicators of a person's capacity to interpret the world. Does rising visual literacy mean an increase in viewerly sophistication? Does this mean that the world of images has become more accessible and that it is easier to comprehend its conventions, unlock its codes? Not really. There is not enough textual proof; there aren't many magazines, tracts and books around that explore our transforming visual world and look at its mutating form and morphing content. more >

 

2010 / Volume XV | Issue I | Quarter I

A museum is one of the few institutional spaces where the triangular contest between the past, the present and the future gets conducted with great urgency. At the heart of this encounter between time-frames is the complex idea of heritage, of legacy. As repositories of expressive practices, many of them dynamic, do art museums lead us to appreciate the contemporary as part of our living inheritance? Or are they satisfied just pickling and preserving distant histories? Why do state-run art museums in India fail to catch up with the art produced around us? Is there a possibility of forging a more intimate network between galleries, archives and museums? more >

 

2010 / XIV | Issue IV | Quarter IV

What kind of symbolic value does M.F.Husain's act of acquiring Qatari citizenship possess? And how do we deserve to be blamed? To begin with, forcing him to become a painter-in-exile is not only disgraceful but it also challenges the grand ideals of justice and freedom of expression enshrined in our Constitution. It exposes the government's lack of will to protect soft targets like artists and poets; it also reveals how the so called guardians of morality almost always take recourse to vandalism and violence as modes of redressing popular 'hurt'. And how,unfortunately, they often succeed in spreading terror, at least for some time.more >

 

2009 / Volume XIV | Issue III | Quarter III

Thanks to Path-breaking improvements in communication technologies and the continuous traffic of people, ideas and goods between different countries, the world appears to be shrinking. Does this mean that communities across different nations are coming together? Or that national or regional borders have become irrelevant? Not really. In many cases, older fault-lines between cultures have deepened and newer cracks have developed. more >

 

 

2009 / Volume XIV | Issue II | Quarter II
As an important actor enabling and supporting the production of art, the collector holds a key position in facilitating the growth of the art market. In the absence of significant public collections of modern and contemporary art, private collections and galleries in India perform the function of showcasing different genres of art. more >

 

 

 

2009 / Volume XIV | Issue I | Quarter I

How do south asian diaspora artists belong to multiple geo-cultural contexts - the countries they were born in and the countries where they work, the countries they have migrated from and the countries they have settled in? The constant and continuous give-and-take between identity propositions; the various social, political and cultural influences dynamising ideas of the self; and the critical acts of negotiation between the home and the world have energized South Asian Diaspora art in extraordinary ways. more >

 

 

2008-09 / Volume XIIII | Issue III + IV

With the recession and the terrorist attacks, India has lurched from disaster to disaster. We may be forgiven for thinking that we have been at the receiving end of outrageous misfortune for quite some time. The much-needed correction in the prices of art works has finally set in but at the cost of the morale of the art community. Hopefully, this will lead to some critical soul-searching amongst art marketeers and artists; and possibly, those who were in the game only to make a fast buck will move on to other pastures. more >

 

 

2008 / Volume XIII | Issue II | Quarter II

How does an artist locate himself in relation to a landscape? What kind of a spell does a landscape cast on an artist? And what kind of a spin does an artist put on a landscape? Where does a landscape begin and where does it end?

From effecting a popular art genre that many feel has exhausted its possibilities to inspiring cutting-edge, site-specific art initiatives, the landscape has provoked a variety of extreme responses. more >

 

 

2008 / Volume XIII | Issue I | Quarter I

The market is a strange animal. Hydra-Headed, Bullish and bearish in turns, it grows at a shifting pace: it helps the active promotion of art initiatives, gives artists the will to aspire, cuts short the life of one genre and revives the fortunes of another. Over the last five years, as the prices of artworks have zoomed, new galleries have sprung up, the number of art marketeers has increased and the collector profile has altered. How has this affected artists, critics, gallerists, dealers and viewers? Is critical art being produced to match the change in fortunes? How does the market boom threaten to transform our understanding and appreciation of art in contrary ways? In this issue of ART India, we try and assess some of these extraordinary developments. more >

 

2007 / Volume XII | Issue IV | Quarter IV

You find a combination of art and science in the discipline   and practice of architecture. The idea of a total built form takes into account not only the materiality of buildings but also the sociality of spaces and places. Architectural interventions are therefore cultural interventions that contribute to the creation of formal and informal environments that affect us in a variety of ways. In our issue this time, we have an array of voices addressing important trans-disciplinary themes. more >

 

 

2007 / Volume XII | Issue III | Quarter III

If censorship, as a complex of disciplinary acts and practices, is a 'necessary evil' in a democracy, then, it is one that needs to be relentlessly resisted and interrogated. The idea of censorship is squarely in need of some rehabilitation - instead of banning books, denying information, putting curbs on artistic initiatives that contest sedimented propositions about morality and re-interpret expressive traditions, the state needs to use its energies to protect voices that go against the grain, challenge accepted truths, and offer multiple opinions. Artists and writers also need to come together to create a vibrant public sphere where debate and discussion allow viewers and readers the opportunity to decide the merits and demerits of art works that politicians and vigilantes hope to manipulate with impunity. Shall we prove equal to this task? This is a question we ask ourselves even as we wonder whether the state will take on one of the biggest challenges it faces - will it protect our right to offend bourgeois sensibilities and offer dissent with as much commitment as it protects their right to take offence? more >

 

2007 / Volume XII | Issue II | Quarter II

In 1927, Edward Steichen, a prominent photographer, purchased a sculpture from the Romanian modernist sculptor, Constantin Brancusi. He then attempted to have the work, Bird in Space, shipped to the United States. While the Customs Law exempted the imposition of customs duty on works of art, the customs officer, Kracke, was not convinced that this ‘bird’ was a work of art and instead chose to classify it as an industrial item consisting of raw materials (metal and stone) and placed a duty of $ 4000 on its import. One of the reasons was the fact that this bird had ‘neither head, feet nor feathers’. Brancusi appealed in a court, which held that it was indeed a work of art by reason of its symmetrical shape, artistic outlines, and beauty of finish. more >