Art & Deal

Monthly Art Magazine in India

Month: February 2015

Editorial

EDITORIAL

Arvind Kejriwal took oath as the CM of Delhi for a second time, post a historical victory in the assembly elections. A remarkable instance of democracy being exercised truly as it was meant to be. A change is in the…

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Ganga Spiritual Sojourn : Sidharth Uma Nair A SOLO SHOW BY SIDHARTH AT GALLERY ART KONSULT –INDIA ART FAIR 2015 CURATED BY UMA NAIR Uma Nair explores the spiritual, classical and the cotemporary elements that are juxtaposed skillfully by Sidharth…

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Paresh Maity: The Contemporary Genius Santanu Ganguly Santanu Ganguly strives to explore the journey of prolific artist Paresh Maity, his uncanny proficiency and love for water colour, tracing the beginnings, development, transitions and consistencies and his present inclination towards photography…

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Realizing the Removed Actions :Shridhar Iyer Johny ML Between painting or any other kind of creative act there are a few silent moments of performance that often go unnoticed when the final creative product is exhibited for a larger public….

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Such a long journey :Balbir Krishan Georgina Maddox Balbir Krishan’s incredible journey as an artist and individual is testimony of the triumph of the human spirit despite crushing odds. Sitting on the floor of his cozy studio in New Delhi’s…

Cover Story

COVER STORY

The Inner Circle : Wheel of Life and Other Works of Dako ji Devraj Dr. B. S. Rohini Iyengar Rohini Iyengar elaborates on the calescence of therianthropic imagery and mystical mythological forms and what they convey in the work of…

Cover Story

COVER STORY

Circle Uncircled : Challenge of Medium and Challenging the Medium of Ceramics Johny ml In Rahul Kumar’s ‘Circle Uncircled’ you come across a constricted galaxy of celestial objects, luminous, kinetic in an illusory way and the inaudible rhythm of rotations…

Obituary

OBITUARY

Mrinalini Mukherjee [1949- 2015] Art & Deal Mrinalini Mukherjee, one of India’s most acclaimed contemporary artists passed away on February 2, 2015. Daughter of artists Benode Behari , a pioneer of Bengali modernism and Leela Mukherjee, Mrinalini was born in…

Interview

INTERVIEW

Tao Art Gallery: The inspiring Art Space in Mumbai Rajendra Tao Art Gallery, one of the most reputed and influential galleries in Mumbai, is celebrating its 15th anniversary in February this year. The mega art gallery with more than 8000…

Interview

INTERVIEW

Shadow Play: The Mysterious World Of Ashish Kumar Das Sumati Gangopadhyay Sumati Gangopadhyay talks to prolific sculptor Ashish Kumar Das seeking to elucidate his learning experiences and to recognize the various influences that instigate his imperious, dramatic and surreal creations….

Report

REPORT

Revealing an Eerie Nostalgia- ‘A Yank ’s Memories of Calcutta’ Nandini Moitra Chowringhee Square, The Mohammedian Mosque, Jama Masjid is shown at the left. This is actually one of the quiet moments when GI trucks, taxis, bicycles and other modes…

Report

REPORT

Jaipur Art Summit Yasra Daud Khoker In the 16th and 17th century Europe, it was considered upscale to have a ‘Wunderkammern’; a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ or a ‘wonder chamber’ in your house. This cabinet was a room that displayed unique,…

Report

REPORT

The summit of art – intellectua ls : Artists’ Workshop at SSVAD Anirban Dhar “Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure…

Photo Feature

PHOTO FEATURE

Dev Kamal Dutta Farmers toil ceaselessly year after year in the verdant soil to cultivate food. Providing for the masses, their own struggle continues every single day, striving for a mere existence; battling with poverty. Their burdens only too evident…

Review

REVIEW

‘Rock the Void’ Josef Dabernig Retrospective Exhibition at MUMOK Preeti Kathuria [Vienna] “If simplicity were the one overriding goal of art, evenly stained canvases or perfect cubes would be the most desirable art objects” (Arnheim, 1974, p. 410). The work…

Editorial

EDITORIAL

Art & Deal, having completed 75 issues, looks back and brings to its readers some of the best of its earlier pieces of writing. We have tried to trace history chronologically to make an interesting, more coherent read. The present…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Deep Breathings : Sohan Qadri Keshav Malik It so happened, that even as I looked at Sohan’s present work, this very week, against a panorama of a large body of works by different hands, the coincidence only helped me, in…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Manjit Bawa Dr. Seema Bawa Manjit Bawa was a painter of great repute with a well-founded conviction in his own creative self and that is the reason that he excelled at other creative pursuits that brought him accolades and fame….

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Nasreen Mohamedi Mortimer Chatterjee Nasreen Mohamedi remains an enigma to much of the Indian and international art world: this despite being regarded by some as one of the most important artists of her generation and acknowledged as such in Documenta…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Bhupen Khakhar: The “Gay ” Politics And Artistry Shivaji K. Panikkar “Queer” Exposures: The artist Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003), eventually “came out of the closet” by gathering his strength for a gradual disclosure from the inter-national gay liberation movement, especially its…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Explorations in Art and Style : N. S. Bendre Rajesh Singh A comprehensive account of the artistic explorations of a painter forms an important part of the art critical enterprise, which must necessarily employ an objective and analytical approach to…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Space , Colour and the Cabalistic Ciphers : Jagdish Swaminathan Pranamita Borgohain Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Experiences of Grace , States of Illumination : The Paintings of Jehangir Sabavala Ranjit Hoskote A portfolio is, literally, a collection of leaves that you can carry with you. The word is veined with the pleasures of selecting a favourite…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

The Thinking Eye Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat ‘A painter of the quiet reaches of the imagination.’ Richard Bartholomew INTRODUCTION From the early 1920s, the impact of European Modernism had been felt on Indian art, evident in the cubist works of…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Tyeb Mehta : Legacy Extraordinaire Shabari Choudhury His was a quiet revolution. At a time when the ‘progressives’ of India’s art world were clamouring to claim a language of their own, the contained, silent voice of Tyeb Mehta splintered the…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Francis Newton Souza : An Artist With A Tormented Soul Dr. Ashrafi S. Bhagat “The man who exposes himself is always alone” Geeta Kapur. Francis Newton Souza a prolific painter is a household name within the artistic milieu of the…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Color s conforming to a spiritual vibration Pranamita Borgohain Syed Haider Raza is one of the senior most live artists of today. He started his journey as the Moderns leading the Progressive Artist Group in 1945 being one of the…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Relevance Of Husain K.Bikram Singh When time accelerates not only future events hurtle towards us faster, even the events of recent past disappear into oblivion more rapidly. It was only on June 9 last year that Maqbool Fida Husain died…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

The Awaiting Shabhari*: Cholamandal Artists’ Village (or , expectations for theoretical specifications ) H.A. Anil Kumar It is (beyond) a high time that the centenary celebration of artist/tutor K.C.S. Panikkar (1911-1976), the founder spirit behind Cholamanadal art village, is overdue….

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

The “Calcutta Group” (1943-1953) Dr. Sanjay Mallik ….. In the West, kings have long been dethroned and the reins of the State have passed into the hands of the common man. Today the artists no longer decorate the baroque palaces…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

A Many Splendoured Personality : Prodosh Dasgupta Ajit Kumar Dutta An artist essentially, yet by other counts Pradosh Dasgupta (1912- 1991) was many things rolled into one. A sculptor reputed for skill and pioneering zeal, he proved himself an inspiring…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

A Romantic Visionary : Gopal Ghose Sandip Sarkar Gopal Ghose died two days before Ramkinkar Baij, on 20 July 1980. Ghose was Baij’s younger contemporary and shared Baij’s attitude to life. Their patterns of living were different. The older artist…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of -75

Sunil Janah : Chronicling Life Shabari Choudhury The transformation of a photograph into an iconic image often takes place in retrospect. A photograph derives meaning as much from what is absent or left out as from what is present or…

The Best Of-75

The Best Of – 75

Verve and Intensity of Experience in the works of Zainul Abedin, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya and Somnath Hore Preeti Kathuria A few young artists felt the exigency to react to the appalling reality of human suffering in Bengal in the 1940s. Zainul…