'NEW ART from SOUTH ASIA': 2007

Friday, 26 October 2007

PROVISIONAL itinerary

2007
NOVEMBER
9th November: Fly to Kochi, Kerala, to see the KAVA 3 Art prize exhibition.
14th/15th November: to Bangalore to set up Total Design Project (Museographies) [see: totaldesignbangalore.blogspot.com].
15th-30th: Visit artist studios and meet KAVA 3 finalist, Mahesh Grubasava.
DECEMBER
Attend Art festival, Bangalore and
Degree show, Srishti College, Bangalore.
Give a talk at Alliance Française.
Visit 10th anniversary exhibition at KASHI, Kochi, Kerala
15th December: Fly/train to Mumbai.
To visit Art College, meet artists and ARTINDIA magazine.
Go to Boroda:
Meet artists, including Kava 3 finalist Puja Vaish.
22nd December: Fly to Lahore: to visit the National College of Art in Lahore:
To see the degree show, meet artists and staff and, more generally get a sense of place and discover a country I have never visited before.
It looks as if a pedagogic contribution to the programme may be part of the visit.
I also plan to visit the School of Visual Art, Beaconhouse National University, where a student from Bangalore is on a visiting scholarship.

Thursday, 11 October 2007

STRUCTURE, DE SIGN, PLAY

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Fine-tuning the blog

Gérard and I spend a few hours in the Herbert café fine-tuning the blog, to facilitate navigation, enhance clarity and legibility, and to consider how we may add sonic and video elements.
Our concern, here, is 'how to make a template flexible enough to provide a clear platform for communication?'.

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

On 28th September, I visit the buiding site to get a sense of what the exhibition will look like and to get a sense of scale...

The exhibition will occupy the top floor, as seen, from the University; with the old cathedral on the right:

and from within:

The area (above) correspond to the two Temporary Exhibitions sections: shown in purple on the plan.

MAHESH GURUBASAVA

MAHESH GURUBASAVA from Bangalore (see pictures: above and below), one of the unfortunate finalists on the KAVA 3 prize competition, whom I had contacted recently, and sent him a 'Call for participation', replies to express his interest. Higher resolution pictures are on their way, in preparation for a studio visit in Bangalore... in November 2007.

Vidha's description of a 'prayer room' in Lahore

Vidha, Art student from Srishti College, Bangalore—currently on on a scholarship in Lahore (until March)—proposes an alternative experience of a PRAYER ROOM mediated by a creative use of syntax, at vidhainpakistan.blogspot.com.
The result is a cinematic picture with words which presents us with a mosaic of impressions.

Saturday 6 October, MODERN ART, OXFORD

I meet artist IMRAN QURESHI, who is exhibiting four contemporary MINIATURES from his on-going a series entitled 'MODERATE ENLIGHTENMENT', and who is in conversation with Art Historian Virginia Whiles.

After hearing about the project, Imran offers to recommend a few artists for the exhibition.
I enquire about the possibility of visiting the National College of Art where he teaches, in Lahore.
It looks as if a visit to Lahore is on the cards...

Sunday, 7 October 2007

NEW ART FROM SOUTH ASIA

To coincide with the re-opening of its New Galleries, the Herbert, in Coventry, is preparing an exhibition, NEW ART FROM SOUTH ASIA, to be curated by Coventry-based artist & curator Gérard Mermoz.

The exhibition will run from 24th January to 19th April 2009.

During the Autumn-Winter 2007-2008 Gérard Mermoz will visit India and Pakistan for a period of three months, to meet artists, educators, gallerists, curators, etc., to select works and to develop a theme or themes for the exhibition.

This blog documents the EXHIBITION IN THE MAKING: research and preparation, encounters with artists, viewing and selecting works, discussions of issues, etc.

CONTEXT/ORIGIN OF THE EXHIBITION

'Following an artist residency at KASHI ART GALLERY (Kochi, Kerala, India), I am invited to sit on the jury of the KAVA 3 Art Prize, a competition open to new graduates from all around India [http://kashiartgallery.com/html/kava4.htm].
The three winners receive a substantial cash prize (Rupees 30.000), and an exhibition at the prestigious Kashi Art Gallery in Kochin, with a fully illustrated catalogue. The prize is in its third year, and can make a substantial difference in boosting an artist career.

Selecting three artists from a group of seven is not easy and makes me aware that I might unwittingly project my own Western preferences and assumptions when judging the works.

Still, it seems worth trying... for the challenges it offers. My Indian co-jurors will, no doubt, project their own assumptions as well.

At the terms of a process of ‘blind judging’, the six members of the jury only manage to single out twowinners:'

and

'Among those who sent work for competition, there is not doubt plenty of new talent emerging.

Could this justify setting up an exhibition of New Art from South Asia? Starting not from Art galleries in Dehli and Mumbai, but from the grass roots?

'Unlike the laureates of the 2007 ‘NEW CONTEMPORARIES’ exhibition, in Britain, some of these works seem to engage C.O.N.T.E.M.P.O.R.A.R.Y realities from a variety of perspectives we can learn from...

Some of these artists develop forms of non-literal realism which focus on contemporary REALITIES whilst maintaining a POETIC CRITICAL DISTANCE, which enables the artists to create a space for us to REFLECT and EXTRAPOLATE'.

Maesh G., Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 2006 (54’x40”)

Puja Vaish, One Dimensional World, Oil on canvas, 2006 (60”x20”)

'Upon returning from India, I approach the Herbert Art gallery with an exhibition proposal, and discuss it with Director Roger Vaughan and Curator Rosie Addenbrooke. We agree that the exhibition will concide with the inauguration of the new galleries, and agree a provisional date: from 24th January to 19th April 2009.

New Art from South Asia gratefully acknowledges the support of:

Reflections about South Asian Art

REFLECTIONS ABOUT CONTEMPORARY ART FROM SOUTH ASIA

Like Chinese Art, Contemporary Art from SOUTH ASIA is becoming ‘flavour of the month’ among Western curators and gallerists in search of new cultural commodities for the hungry international Art Market.
This marketability and comodification of Contemporary South Asian Art is reflected not solely in high prices fetched by some artist works at auctions, but also in the fact that an increasing number of artists are now in a position to make a living from their art.
In India, besides the wealthy urban centres of Dehli and Mumbai, this is evident in KERALA, among other states, where artist colonies are developing: with artists who have returned from Dehli, Mumbai and other cities where 'important' galleries are concentrated.
Kashi Art Gallery, who will be celebrating its tenth anniversary programme in December 2007, has played an important part in this shift, offering support to artists in the form of exhibitions, residencies and sales.
This professionalization of art is a positive sign, especially when anchored at local level.

It could, however, also become a curse if pressure to ‘make it’ with the 'big' galleries, biennales, and auction houses, pressurized artists to relinquish their own artistic, social and political agendas in favor of commercial ones.

The aim of this exhibition is to present the work of emerging artists—artists not yet subjected to the pressures of the international art market—and give them A FIRST OPPORTUITY TO SHOW THEIR WORK INTERNATIONALLY; without having to pander to international taste and fashions; by just being themselves.

In order to locate these works I plan to travel throughout INDIA and PAKISTAN to meet artists, teachers and gallerists.

The works I am looking for will show a CREATIVE EXPLORATION OF MEDIA AND ISSUES, and display a QUALITY OF THOUGHT not impaired by a concern to produce seductive commodities for the art market.
This, however, does not preclude the work being pleasurable and seductive in its materiality as well as conceptually stimulating.

The work selected for exhibition will be available for sale: to ordinary people not to millionaires. In this way, it will bring together artists and public before speculation drives them apart.

Having assimilated and transformed Indian and European artistic and cultural traditions, Contemporary Artists working in India and South Asia, have to face the additional challenge of defining their identity as CITIZENS and as ARTISTS in a multi-cultural contexts fraught with conflicts of interests. Conflicts anchored in differences of religion, culture, castes and class offer a greater challenge than those faced by Western artists who have to negotiate their own identities on the monocultural ground of Western capitalist consumer society.
One challenge for young Asian artists, which adds interest to their work, is the opportunity left to define themselves as artists, without relinquishing their respective HISTORIES and ‘local’/specific cultural TRADITIONS in the moment of RE-INVENTING THE MODERN according to their needs and circumstances.

What I hope this exhibition will make clear are the strong links which remains between TRADITION and MODERNITY, AESTHETICS and ETHICS, and highlight the tensions between aspirations to globalization and the more or less explicit or implicit critiques and reservations towards it; a reserve based on respect for local traditions and humanistic values.

It is a measure of our ignorance and long-standing prejudices that in the West we perceive the cultural specificity of Indian Art and Culture as ‘exotic’ rather than as an expression of contemporaneity: as cultural diversity (on the periphery) rather than as part of global modernity, on a par with Britishness, Dutchness, Frenchness, Europeanness, Americanness, etc.
The exhibition will present India as an intrinsic part of ‘our’ world cultural heritage—wherever we live—based on a different specificity from that of Europe and America; not anchored in the past but caught in an evolving present.

Since the Nineteenth century, when Varma adopted the medium of oil painting and the Western conventions of Salon painting—which he hybridized with his own cultural tradition—the History of Modern Indian Art, has seen a number of phases; when artists have taken inspiration from, emulated and assimilated elements from the Modernists traditions of Europe; albeit with different emphases.

These borrowing enabled artists to open up the visual language which had been available to artists during previous centuries, when Art was at the service of the State, Religion and the ruling castes. What strikes me, today, is the capacity of Indian artists to avoid a slavish imitation of the West, and their confidence in combining Western Modernism with Indian elements in a productive dialogue; developing a new form of inter-culturalism which remains to be acknowledged by the History of Art, and points the way forward. For in spite of an increasing presence on the international Art Market, and given the Euro and Western bias from which the History of Art is written, contemporary Indian Art remains on the periphery of written Art History; more like a 'dialect' or a regional or exotic form of Artistic Discourse rather than as an equal partner in steering the course of World Art and Art History.
One aim of this exhibition is to challenge these assumptions and to provide an open ground to redefine the Contemporary on expanded cultural grounds, whilst highlighting the contribution of Art to understanding our place in a world of cultural diversity, in the wake of globalization.

At a time when aggressive forms of Western consumerism promote Global cultural values against local/regional ones—a high price to pay for individual freedom and modernization—the arts become a site where conflict of values and identities arising from the impact of GLOBALIZATION can be enacted and fought. Alongside artists trained in art schools, I plan to include other artistic voices—tribal voices—which are presently marginalized (in social, political, cultural and economic respects), but who can make a significant contribution to the identity of multi-cultural India, if given the respect and the rights they deserves.

However serious or tragic the subject-matter of the works, pleasure —the ‘Pleasure of the Text’, according to Barthes; arising from the form and materiality of the works—is an intrinsic part of the experience of engaging with art; whether as artist or as viewers.

Trusting that there are enough galleries and exhibition spaces to display established Asia artists, I have decided not to follow existing curatorial paths and not to adopt the ready-made agendas of curators and galleries in India, Pakistan and elsewhere [including galleries showing South Asia Art in the UK, Europe and America].

This does not mean that I dismiss their approach, nor that I wish to by-pass the current debates in art theory and art criticism; quite the opposite. My choice simply expresses the wish to explore parallel avenues and test hypotheses on the basis of my experience, research, personal reflexions and encounters, in DIALOGUE with artists...

GM Coventry 25.09.07

'NEW ART from SOUTH ASIA'