Bangalore Launch: 'Intelligent Field' by Surendra Kumar Sagar

'Intelligent Field' 

a new book by Surendra Kumar Sagar

'Intelligent Field` is Surendra Kumar Sagar's second book on science and philosophy with a similar objective as his first book 'SIX WORDS'  which aims to establish a model of philosophy that can lead towards convergence of religion with science to end conflicts and wars.

In Silence the Secret Speaks by Seema Kohli

The Golden Web

By 

Anjana Chandak

Anjana Chandak responds evocatively to the narrative performance by artist Seema Kohli, held recently at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Bengaluru.

Poetry is not when you find a word rhyming with a word but poetry is created when you can find a word rhyming exactly with your feeling…And this is what artist Seema Kohli, who donned the cap of poetess made me feel, performing her poetic narration, ‘In Silence the Secret Speaks...’

The mirror pool at the NGMA provided the perfect womb to nurture the spirit of the artist who merged with the art through her own reflection. She transcended her paintings into verbal form through her palette of myriad emotions, painting it line by line; creating and narrating.

Reasons To Visit The 2017 Venice Biennale

Reasons To Visit The 2017 Venice Biennale

by 

Shraddha Rathi

Contemporary artist, Shraddha Rathi shares her experience from her recent visit to the Venice Biennale and discovers how this international art exhibition combines the performing and visual arts in an ideation lab to create an ambience that involves all the senses.

La Biennale de Venezia, the 57th international art exhibition titled ‘Viva Arte Viva’ curated by Christine Macel celebrates art, artists and the process of creation. Although, contemporary art documents and captures today's reality, the world itself is transforming and evolving with every passing moment. At this exhibition too, at times the exhibits reflect facts and reality, or give voice to a purpose, while at other moments it just celebrates the present.

This Biennale is mostly about an idea, where the material is a powerful medium of expression. The inventive use of materials to express an idea while playing with its strengths creates expansive, ingenious and successful forms of communication. In a cornucopia of materials, you experience a vast variety ranging from glass, bone, concrete, metal, wood, coffee and a whole lot of textile based works, apart from paintings, photographs and videos.

Art and the Question of Authorship and Ownership in the Internet Era

 Art and the Question of Authorship and Ownership in the Internet Era

by  

Narendra Raghunath

In this article, Narendra Raghunath, visual artist and faculty, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore draws on personal experience and discusses the complexities of authenticity, authorship and ownership rights of art and the 'image' in the contemporary art world.

A couple of years ago, I received an odd request from an unknown person in New York, to authenticate two works of mine. The work looked like mine, except it had some colour fading. It also had my name on the left bottom part in English, as I often write. The only problem was I had no Idea of such a sale or transfer. On further inquiry, I learnt that he sourced the work from a struggling Indian art student. During those days, if anyone would image search my work, Google strangely enough, showed a popular Hollywood actress’s name! This Indian student smartly used that opportunity and somehow managed to convince this poor chap that this actress was a big collector of my work.

During that period, I also had a website where I occasionally published some of my explorations with the caption that ‘none of the works are for sale’. This smart student utilized all these to his advantage to fleece this investor – for a cool $4,800 - for the downloaded prints. But, once the collector began to have doubts about the signature in the authentication letter, he contacted me for verification. The entire episode filled me with mirth. I informed the buyer that there was a colour issue with the print and offered to send him a new set of prints of the same works with my pencil signature (courier costs to be borne by the collector). He happily agreed, and as I did not want the Indian student to get caught in a serious crime in the US, I left it that.

This entire episode provoked me into a deep philosophical question of authenticity of authorship and ownership of an artwork. History of art is filled with stories where the artists and their families died in poverty while their work, later on, made many others billionaires.

Art News: Bangalore Art Scene

'The Unity of Opposites' by Tanya Mehta at Gallery Sumukha

 A nationally and internationally exhibiting artist, Tanya Mehta works with photography and New Mixed Media to realise her vision through technology. She explores the gaps between our different constructions of knowledge – philosophy, art, science, the metaphysical – and finds, in those gaps, bridges. She hopes to take the audience over those bridges to move to the singular reality or truth that exists for all of us. The key is the imagination.

‘Unity of Opposites’ aims to explore the differences between human perception and reality through an understanding of non-dual opposites. Using portals, circular imagery and various looping mediums to depict the infinity of the universe around us, we explore the narrowness of human perception through what we define as opposites but are, in reality, unified.

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NGMA Bangalore in collaboration with BFS invites you to the screening of the films Child as an idea and image in cinema from 25th June 2017 @ 5.00 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART BENGALURU

(Ministry of Culture, Government of India)

in collaboration with

Bangalore Film Society

invites you for

CHILD

as an idea and image in CINEMA

June 2017 screening of films 

All the films will start @5 pm. Entry is Free on first come first serve basis. All are invited!

Children are everywhere in films – the child as a figure, an idea, image, narrative - a contested site of symbolism, romanticisation and controversy. The child is an ambivalent figure flitting between endurance and despair, vulnerability and violence. 

The films in this series examine the world from the child’s perspective. Here we see children who are dealing with serious situation like death, poverty, war and oppression. The films offer unique insights into these tiny minds who are witnessing and at the receiving end of harsh realities of life.  

Sunday 25th June 2017 

Pather Panchali / Satyajit Ray / 1955 / Bengali / 112 minutes

Pather Panchali is an adaptation of a 1929 novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. It was the first part in what became known as the Apu Trilogy, charting the life journey of a young boy in rural Bengal. Lyrical and sensitively observed, Pather Panchali documents the hardships of peasant life and the sadnesses of time passing, but doesn’t stint on the wonders and excitement of youthful discovery.

Tuesday 27th June 2017 

Ivan’s Childhood / Andrei Tarkovsky / 1962 / Russian / 95 minutes

The debut feature by Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood is a poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth. Moving back and forth between the traumatic realities of World War II and serene moments of family life before the conflict began, Tarkovsky’s film remains one of the most jarring and unforgettable depictions of the impact of war on children.

Wednesday 28th June 2017 

The Spirit of the Beehive / Víctor Erice / 1973 / Spanish / 97 minutes

The protagonist Ana lives in a small village that is showing Frankenstein for the first time. While Ana wonders endlessly about the monster’s intentions, she stumbles upon a wounded revolutionary soldier who is hiding in a barn. The soldier’s death at the hands of the Francoist police, and Ana’s father’s anger over the situation lead to a strange hallucination in which Ana meets Frankenstein’s monster in the woods. Erice’s film is not only a subtle examination of Franco’s power, but it also introduces us to Ana, a dark-eyed child whose powerful gaze represented both an inquisitive youth and a rebellious spirit. Ana examines the world through an escapist fantasy, which takes her away from the realities of war. She represents the innocent generation of Spain that was unaware of Franco’s power and oppression.

Thursday 29th June 2017 

The Apple / Samira Makhmalbaf / 1998 / Persian and Azerbaijani / 86 minutes

The story of twelve-year-old sisters who have been kept confined in their home by their strict religious father and blind mother, who believe exposing their daughters to the outside world will lead to their corruption. It’s a film perched on the line between fact and fiction. Not only is the situation described a real one, but each of the characters in the ‘story’ is played by their real-life counterparts. When social workers force the parents to allow their daughters out into the street, the film documents the two sisters’ tentative first impressions of an outside world that’s so long been denied to them. Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf at the age of only 17, this astonishingly mature first feature combines a swipe at an oppressive society with a joyous ode to awakening senses.

Friday 30th June 2017 

Kutty Japanin Kuzhandaigal (Children of Mini Japan) / Chalam Bennurakar /1990 / Tamil / 60 minutes 

This documentary is set in Sivakasi, a small town in Southern Tamil Nadu. It is from here and the surrounding villages that 70% of the requirements of the match box industry and 90% of the fireworks industry are produced. The owners of the match box and fireworks factories proudly refer to their town as “Mini Japan”, a self-employed town. This town also prints millions of garish calendars and election posters which are used all over India. Sivakasi has another dubious distinction. It is the single largest concentration of child labour in the world. Nearly 10,000 children, mostly girl children, are employed in Sivakasi to meet the demands of production. It is these children aged between 4 and 16 who are the protagonists of the film. The film is an attempt to portray their everyday lives, the production process and the complex socio-political reasons that contribute to such a large employment of children in this area.

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Ananya Drishya I Presentation by Amshu Chukki | 30th June 2017, Friday @ 6.00 pm | Venkatappa Art Gallery

Amshu Chukki's practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video and sculpture. In his ongoing engagements with the notion of fictionalized spaces and narratives of dystopias, he is interested in the manner in which the boundaries between the real and illusory can fold into one another, keeping in mind an understanding of the filmic and in particular, the tropes of film noir. Further, questioning the ideas of the 'site', 'site specificity' and 'site informativity', his work tries to invite and involve audiences to speculate on the meaning and nature of the fictionalized worlds brought to life.

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RELOOK [35] : Lectures on Indian Art

Curated by Pushpamala N.

The "People without History": Forms of Cultural Memory and the Post-Colonial Archivea lecture by
Indira Chowdhury
Scholar and Archivist, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore

On Sunday 2 July 2017 at 6.30 pm
at 1.Shanthi Road Studio/ Gallery, First Floor,
Shanthinagar, Bangalore 560027

About the Talk

This presentation draws on my attempts over the last decade and a half to create archives of different institutions and organisations and the insights gained from these attempts into the practice of archiving. Echoing the title of Eric Wolf’s 1982 book, Europe and the People Without History (1983) and drawing on the conceptual framework of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979), this presentation looks back at the colonial collections of archives and material culture in India and asks in what ways is it possible to put together an archive within a postcolonial context? If colonial discourse defined Indians as being steeped in backward traditions and lacking in history, what conceptual problems do we encounter when trying to assemble an archive of a formerly colonised people? Beginning with my visit to a settlement of snake charmers near Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh, who claimed they knew nothing about snakes, I go on to look at the collection of botanical paintings at Lalbagh, and the subsequent setting up of the institutional archives of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, The Economic and Political Weekly and the Indian Museum. What does the process of archiving tell us about our relationship to the past? In what ways did institutions that originated in the colonial period reinvent their identities post-1947? How do the colonial foundations of academic disciplines shape the way our museums relate to the past? What roles do state interventions and notions of national identity play in the evolving sense of self? Do conceptualisations of education, development and progress erase forms of cultural memory and oral traditions and create reinvented identities? This presentation will attempt to show how we might re-understand the idea of collecting an archive and the critical ways in which we might interpret them.