Portraits of Everyday Life in the Indian State of Gujarat

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Photographs and Text by Michael Benanav

A man dressed as Vasudeva — the father of the god Krishna — carries the baby deity to safety in a re-enactment celebrating Krishna’s birth in a Janmashtami parade.

With around 10,000 cases reported daily, India ranks third in the world in new coronavirus infections, behind the United States and Brazil. The city of Ahmedabad — the largest metropolis in Gujarat, one of the country’s hardest-hit states — lags only Mumbai in the total number of Covid-related deaths. Though my first glimpses of India were in Delhi and Rajasthan, my experiences of the country were largely superficial until I got to Gujarat — the country’s westernmost state, which sticks like an elbow into the Arabian Sea. [More]

Chennai Art Students Recreate Classical Paintings While on Lockdown

THE HINDU
By Gowri S

HL Haldankar’s Woman with the Lamp recreated by Hitakshi Purohit

Sixteen-year-old art student, Serena Varshini, always felt a strong connection to Frida Kahlo’s paintings. “Her paintings are a reflection of her life, and I think it’s beautiful to paint one’s reality rather than fantasy,” says Serena. So, when an opportunity to recreate a masterpiece presented itself, she coaxed her cousin to model. She decided to recreate Kahlo’s Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr Eloesser. “I joined her eyebrows to resemble that of Frida’s and put her hair up in a braided bun. I used flowers from my garden for her hair as well. I used a jute rope for the thorn necklace and smeared some red eyeshadow on her neck,” she says. [More]

Logging On for Art During COVID-19

THE HINDU
By Georgina Maddox

With art becoming a predominantly online culture during the pandemic, podcasts, live streaming, how-to-paint videos and more abound Author Millard Meiss’ 1951 book, Paintings in Florence and Siena after the Black Death — which analysed art made in the wake of the devastating Bubonic plague in Europe — is still considered path breaking. Now, in another period ruled by a pandemic, it would be interesting to see how art is being explored. The difference: it is an online culture now, with everyone house-bound. So it is a time of art blogs and podcasts, live streaming and virtual exhibitions, how-to-paint videos and short films. In fact, all this may have actually made art more accessible. [More]

Online Art Project Celebrates Resilience and Creative Spirit of Hindu Artists During Lockdown

THE HINDU

The Spirit Remains Unlocked is an online project launched on March 25th, the first day of the three week lockdown, by Gurugram-based art consultant and curator Lubna Sen. The commercial project initially had just 10 artists, but today has 30 from across the country. “Art has always been a cultural documentation of the time that it was produced. Through The Spirit Remains Unlocked we aim to create a snapshot of history through the life and work of these artists,” says Sen, who founded The Art Route, a platform that connects emerging artists with buyers. Once the lockdown lifts, Sen will exhibit the work in a gallery in Delhi. [More]

Imagining Guru Nanak – Portraiture from Four Centuries

INDICA NEWS
By Sonia Dhami

Fig.6: Detail of Rumaala, Embroidery on Silk, 19th century, China, Bhalla Family Collection

Guru Nanak is not a prophet from ancient times. He is someone whose impact on world history is recent and whose message is fresh and contemporary. Today, 550 years after the birth of Guru Nanak, we sadly find that the Guru has become largely associated with Sikhs and their faith, to the extent that we somehow think Sikhs have an exclusive right on him. I recently visited Pakistan and was humbled to witness for myself the deep devotion that the Nanakpanthi (the Nanak Nam Leva community) has for Baba Nanak (“Baba” is a term used for older men). Its members constitute a large part of the Hindu community throughout Pakistan. It is they who have done years of seva (voluntary service) at the scores of gurudwaras (temples) left abandoned after the departure of the Khalsa Sikhs in 1947 when India and Pakistan were brutally sundered. [More]

NOMA Presents “Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon: Masterworks from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society”

NEW ORLEANS.COM

NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon: Masterworks from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society, on view March 13 through June 7. Presenting nearly seventy of the finest examples of Asian art in the United States, Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon showcases the broad range of bronzes, ceramics, and metalwork assembled by John D. Rockefeller 3rd (1906–1978) and his wife Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (1909–1992) between the 1940s and the 1970s. With highlights including Chinese vases, Indian Chola bronzes, and Southeast Asian sculptures, the collection reveals great achievements in Asian art spanning more than two millennia. [More]

Rediscovering India’s Forgotten Masterpieces in London

BBC | CULTURE
By Rahul Verma

Family of Gulam Khan, Six Recruits, Fraser Album, c. 1815, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institute). Ghulam Ali Khan was a the court painter for Mughal emperors Akbar II and Bahadur Shah II

They were simply labelled ‘Company Painting’ and ‘Company School’; but some artworks assigned to a niche bureaucratic category are now being recognised as masterpieces. Paintings commissioned by patrons of the East India Company during the late 18th and early 19th Centuries are currently on show in an exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London. Forgotten Masters – Indian Painting for the East India Company focuses on artists who were previously neglected. According to its curator, historian William Dalrymple, they should be celebrated as “major artists of the greatest capabilities”. [More]

Salma Arastu Aims to Remake the Art of Islamic Calligraphy

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Kimberley Winston

Salma Arastu, who incorporates Islamic calligraphy in her painting, photographed in her Berkeley studio.(Jana Asenbrennerova)

BERKELEY — Given her family history, Salma Arastu may be one of the last people you’d expect to be helping to modernize Islamic calligraphy. Her Hindu parents fled their home in Pakistan, resettling in India during the nightmare of mob violence between Muslims and Hindus when the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947. Arastu was born in India a few years later. But unable to cope with what had happened, her father, a doctor, died soon after of a heart attack that his family attributes to the stress of the move. So Arastu’s journey to becoming a Muslim holds special weight. After graduating from art school in India, she overcame her family’s resistance and converted to Islam when she married her husband, an architect. [More]

Police Removed a Work From the India Art Fair on the Suspicion That It Referenced Ongoing Political Protests in Delhi

ARTNET NEWS
By Sarah Cascone

The Italian Embassy Culture Centre's booth at the India Art Fair. Photo by Aparna Jain, via Twitter.

Political tensions rising across Delhi bubbled to the surface on the last day of the India Art Fair on Sunday, as police shut down a live community artwork installed that afternoon at the booth of the Italian Embassy Culture Centre by Post-Art Project, an art studio founded by Gargi Chandola and Yaman Navlakha. The censored piece contained no overt references to the porposed Citizen Amendment Act, according to the artists. “It was about celebrating the power of women in India,” Chandola told Artnet News in an Instagram message, noting that it featured the work of roughly a dozen artists representing differing backgrounds, including the Hindu and Muslim faiths, as well as the LGTBQ community. [More]

India's Entrepreneurs Milk Hindu Love of All Things Bovine

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
By Kamala Thiagarajan

Ganeshan Palsamy turned to cow dung art after a bitter harvest when he’d been forced to sell 300kg of a vegetable for 10 rupees in profits. Photo: Kamala Thiagarajan

Ganeshan Palsamy lays out his wares on a white sheet on the red cement floor of his two-room home in the southern Indian city of Madurai. Spread out in front of him is a year’s worth of his handiwork. There’s a Buddha’s face, with clearly defined features; a Hindu temple pyramid, a wall hanging of ducks floating on a pond, a giant hand with thumb and forefinger pressed together and Hindu religious symbols.As far as artists go, Palsamy is unusual. Though Palsamy has no political leanings, he is one of a growing number of organic farmers across the country who are benefiting from government handouts targeting India’s growing bovine businesses. [More]

How the Indian Icon Nataraja Danced His Way From Ancient History to Modern Physics

QUARTZ INDIA

By Harish Pullanoor

Breathing life into existence.

Dancing before a corpse wasn’t a new idea to me. Discovering a god in it is what left me stunned. Decades of watching movies in multiple south Indian languages had not prepared me for it. Neither had tripping on koothu, the dance form popular among cinema-lovers in that part of the country. Yet, here I was one September day in 2018, searching for hints of lord Nataraja, the fountainhead of most Indian dance forms, in this most unruly of performances, Saavukoothu—“death dance.” A street dance practiced by some Tamils when they accompany the departed to the final resting place, Saavukoothu doesn’t demand any of the refinement of the more evolved classical traditions like Bharatanatyam or Kathak. There is only one rule: Let go completely. [More]

In Chelsea, a Collector’s Little Piece of Prerevolutionary Iran

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Show Us Your Walls
By Shivani Vora

Jojo Anavim in his loft, with, left, Dana Nehdaran’s “Three Materials at the Same Time” (2018), and, right, Allison Zuckerman’s “To Turn a Phrase” (2019). Joel Barhamand for The New York Times

Jojo Anavim may be a contemporary pop artist himself, but he says that his personal art collection is informed mostly by his Persian-Jewish roots. Mr. Anavim, 34, grew up there [In Iran] amid a tight-knit Persian community, and the art on the walls of the loft where he lives and works in Chelsea are reflections of the cultures that imbued his childhood. Over the last several years, Mr. Anavim has acquired pieces by the Iranian contemporary artists Dana Nehdaran, Maryam Khosrovani and Zahra Nazari, all of whom live in New York; the Jewish painter Allison Zuckerman, from Brooklyn; and the Los Angeles graffiti artist RETNA. [More]

Explore India In Francesco Clemente’s Cross-Cultural Journey Through ‘Contradictory Reality’

FORBES MAGAZINE
By Natasha Gural

Francesco Clemente: "India” (2019) at Vito Schnabel Projects in New York City through January 2020

Profoundly inspired by the culture and traditions of India since his first visit to the South Asian country 48 years ago, Italian-born, New York-based artist Francesco Clemente’s newest paintings and frescoes lead the viewer on an enchanting voyage. Flowers resembling marigolds form the ancient diamond-shaped outline of a map of India, which marries with a background of dozens of skulls gazing at the map, all awash in soft pink. Marigolds, or Calendula officinalis, are prevalent throughout India, where they are used to craft garlands that are offered to Hindu gods and goddesses. Skulls are prominent in Hindu and Buddhist artwork depicting deities, their relevance in eastern symbology dating back to the dawn of the Hindu civilization more than 5,000 years ago. [More]

Sotheby’s "Boundless India" Sale is November 15 at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

SOTHEBY'S

Maqbool Fida Husain's "Blue Boy on Tree Top" (1969); Estimate $112,080 - $168,120 USD

Following on from the success of the inaugural auction in Mumbai, Sotheby’s is delighted to reaffirm its commitment to South Asia by holding a second 'Boundless: India' sale on 15 November 2019 at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. The sale comprises an exciting array of art sourced from collections across the Indian subcontinent and globally by an international team of specialists. ‘Boundless: India’ presents an opportunity for young and seasoned collectors to acquire museum-quality works from a variety of categories such as Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art, Photography, Prints, and Design. The sale is led by a luminous masterwork by Vasudeo S. Gaitonde from the collection of actor and society doyenne, Sabira Merchant. [More]

A Rich Imagination: Madhvi Parekh, An Artist For Today

ARTDAILY

Fantasy (Under Sea), 1979, oil on canvas, 42.0 x 36.0 in._106.7x91.4 cm.

NEW YORK, NY.- Madhvi Parekh’s art embodies an intuition of significance that is wholly relevant to a world in the grip of a global ecological crisis. She is an artist for our times. Susanne Langer, whose path-breaking work on aesthetics is again enjoying currency, thought that in a successful work of art "symbolic form, symbolic function, and symbolized import are all telescoped into one experience, a perception of beauty and an intuition of significance." Look at Parekh’s paintings. You will see, possibly in a flash, that they exemplify Langer’s great insight. Madhvi Parekh was born and grew up in Sanjaya, a village in the Indian state of Gujarat. [More]

Hindu Jain temple Will Burn a Demon Effigy to Celebrate Dussehra

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE

Artist Mahendra Shah paints a 10-headed Raven figure for the annual Dussehra celebration

PITTSBURGH---Dussehra, a joyous festival in the Hindu calendar, will be celebrated Sunday with the burning of a 15-foot-tall effigy of the demon king Ravan at the Hindu Jain Temple in Monroeville. The pyrotechnical destruction of the fireworks-strapped figure represents the triumph of good over evil. “All of the Hindu community comes here to celebrate,” said temple president Hitesh Mehta. The public also is invited to share in the experience, which will include Indian food. Those planning to do so should make a reservation at 724-325-2054 or hindujaintemple.org. [More]

Celebrating His 150th Birthday: Artists Show The Many Faces of Gandhi

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By XXX

Vivek Vilasini’s “Vernacular Chants II.”

In October 1939, about a decade before he was assassinated, Mohandas K. Gandhi issued a warning to his admirers. “These are days of dissension and discord, I should feel deeply humiliated if my name became in any way an occasion for accentuating them. Avoidance of such opportunities is a real service to the country and to me.” Yet of the many things that India’s independence leader achieved, curbing the proliferation of his likeness wasn’t one of them. Two new shows at Aicon Contemporary in the East Village not only coincide with Gandhi’s 150th birthday this month, but also provide insights into how Indian artists are trying to poke fun at his ubiquity and reflect upon the country of his birth. [More]

The Art of Blending with Shivan & Narresh

THE HINDU 
By Susanna Myrtle Lazarus

An installation by Shivan & Narresh at Chivas Studio in Bengaluru

An evening of art, design, fashion and whiskey await the city today, as Chivas Studio comes to Chennai with their flagship event, The Blend. This immersive experience, that’s taking place at Park Hyatt, has been curated by designer duo Shivan Bhatia and Narresh Kukreja. Guests can indulge at four unique zones, featuring bars, cocktails, and performances that bring alive the prominent notes of Chivas. The designers talk to Weekend about what to expect at the event and future plans. As a luxury holiday brand, travel and art lie at the heart of all our inspirations. [More]

Madhvi Parekh Defies Categorisation in New York Retrospective

OCULA
By Sherry Paik

Madhvi Parekh, Sea God (1971). Courtesy the artist.

According to Kishore Singh, the curator of The Curious Seeker at DAG New York (13 September–27 October 2019), the artist Madhvi Parekh 'defies categorisation'. Parekh's oeuvre—from drawings and paintings to serigraphs and reverse paintings—fluidly draws from multiple sources, including European modernist works, Indian folk art, religious iconography, and personal memories. THindu fables are frequently referenced throughout Parekh's vivid paintings. The oil on canvas Sea God (1971) depicts a three-legged figure with bulbous limbs, surrounded by mythical creatures floating in bodies of blue and green. [More]

5 Artists Using Glitter to Create Dazzling and Complex Artworks

ARTSY

By Alina Cohen

Chitra Ganesh, Power Girl, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco Chitra Ganesh.

 As an art material, glitter offers easy seduction. Basic biology mandates that sparkling surfaces lure even the most sophisticated viewer’s eye. As a child, Chitra Ganesh began using glitter for costumes and celebrations. As a young artist, she said the material took on “a queer sensibility, as a way to perform, mark, or alter gender expressions.” Ganesh’s figurative compositions still evidence a youthful approach. Power Girl (2015), for example, plays on superhero tropes to transform a young, non-white woman with a sparkling nose ring into a potent and formidable character—a Powerpuff Girl, but edgier. Ganesh’s oeuvre, as a whole, maintains this cartoonish, feminist edge. [More]