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Lot Essay
The following artists are part of a larger Indian avant-garde. They choose to negotiate both the historical effects of economic growth and political change as well as the rapidly collapsing boundaries between India and the west. Utilizing the Post-modernistic devices of appropriation, irony and humor now found in all manifestations of contemporary art, the artists have invited every facet of human life onto the canvas as legitimate subject matter in their work. Through their innovation and provocative cultural commentary these seven artists are part of a burgeoning group which has attracted global attention, beginning a new chapter in South Asian art history.
Born in Suryapet, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, artist Ravinder Reddy (lot 161) references ancient Indian sculptural traditions in his massive polyester-resin heads. Contemporizing images of traditional Indian goddesses, Reddy plays on the American concept of "super-sizing", inflating these distinctly South Asian busts to gargantuan proportions. In spite of their imposing size and saturated colors, the artist cunningly imbues his sculptures with a sense of serenity and the brash faces remain docile and oddly domestic. In his transformation or re-appropriation of temple sculpture, Reddy is perhaps commenting on how India's religion and cultural history are affected by the racing bandwidth and relentless bombardment of internet and other mass media.
Subodh Gupta (lots 162-163) draws heavily from his autobiography in culling material for his art, casting traditional elements of Indian culture in contemporary media and contexts. Often playing upon the stark contrasts found between rural impoverished India, specifically Bihar, where he was raised and the relentless sprawling metropolis of Delhi where he now lives and works, the artists pits these two dissonant environments against each other using wit and meticulous execution to shape his works. Gupta has an uncanny ability to identify objects and icons of Indian culture which innately posses this tension between the traditional and modern. He uses clichés like the cow and its dung or the stainless steel utensils of a typical kitchen and well-known emblems of village life, to comment on larger social ills, such as discrimination, caste politics, globalization, industrialization and religious tensions. In these two lots, Gupta commandeers the stainless steel pail, using its form both in painting and as a Duchampian ready-made. Familiar to both the rural and urban echelons of Indian society, these steel vessels are often bestowed on newly married women as dowries. Gupta instills doubt into the gleaming exterior of his sculpture, OK Mili, a towering example of mass production and industrialization, by pairing it with a soundtrack of the vessels crashing to the ground. Perhaps the artist is equating the teetering column of newly minted commodities with India's recent movement towards a more capitalistic culture, presenting them as an attractive yet clever warning to those who too quickly embrace this western consumerism.
Baiju Parthan, T.V. Santhosh and Jagannath Panda (lots 164-166) show the extent to which Indian artists are pushing the boundaries of subject matter and style on canvas. Baiju Parthan paradoxically utilizes mechanical means to create original works of art by composing his paintings on a computer screen. He gathers and rearranges elements culled from the internet until he finds a harmonious balance which he then translates to the canvas. Like Parthan, T. V. Santhosh also relies on a collage of pictorial ready-mades to build his compositions, capitalizing on both the visual language of Pop art and the digitally enhanced look of new media to define his style. Choosing more traditional stylistic devices in his execution, Bhubaneswer-born artist Jagannath Panda plays with scale and perspective in his photo-realistic renditions of India's landscape and habitants.
Kerala-born artist Surendran Nair's mischievous canvases (lot 167) infuse allegorical subject matter with playful surrealism. Mythologies, both Eastern, Western, modern and classical, play an important role in shaping his paintings, which in spite of this formidable body of influence maintain their poignant simplicity. His delicate and meticulous handling of brushstroke and palette intentionally deny the pre-fabricated and digitized look of mass media, lending a dream-like ethereality to his works. In this series, entitled The Ostrich Play, Nair carefully weaves a narrative between each watercolor formally remarking on the shape of the ostrich and its egg, while humorously posing the question of which came first. The otherwise monotonous subject matter is transformed in the hands of Nair, as he creates an enigmatic and alternate world that refuses to be fully understood.
Much like his contemporary Baiju Parthan, the work of Jitish Kallat (lot 168) resurrects the strewn debris of mass media, piecing together old photographs, faxes and photocopies to create a visual collage from which he paints his canvases. Splashing words like truncated slogans across his paintings, Kallat exposes the idiosyncrasies of mechanical reproduction by revealing the grainy resolutions and cropped compositions of his news clippings and internet printouts. Following the aesthetic sensibilities of Pop Art, Kallat has collapsed the picture plane giving his viewer no refuge from his images of child laborers, urchins and street waifs. His subaltern subject matter, seen in this work entitled Musicians, flickers between the genial imagery of the everyday billboard and the violence of the agit-prop posters as it confronts its audience.
Recent international exhibitions and a barrage of media coverage suggest a new and growing recognition for India and its artistic developments that is both well deserved and long in coming. With contemporary art from China, Japan, Pakistan and Korea turning heads as well, it seems as if the West, for the first time in decades, has begun to look eastward for a new frontier in art.
Born in Suryapet, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, artist Ravinder Reddy (lot 161) references ancient Indian sculptural traditions in his massive polyester-resin heads. Contemporizing images of traditional Indian goddesses, Reddy plays on the American concept of "super-sizing", inflating these distinctly South Asian busts to gargantuan proportions. In spite of their imposing size and saturated colors, the artist cunningly imbues his sculptures with a sense of serenity and the brash faces remain docile and oddly domestic. In his transformation or re-appropriation of temple sculpture, Reddy is perhaps commenting on how India's religion and cultural history are affected by the racing bandwidth and relentless bombardment of internet and other mass media.
Subodh Gupta (lots 162-163) draws heavily from his autobiography in culling material for his art, casting traditional elements of Indian culture in contemporary media and contexts. Often playing upon the stark contrasts found between rural impoverished India, specifically Bihar, where he was raised and the relentless sprawling metropolis of Delhi where he now lives and works, the artists pits these two dissonant environments against each other using wit and meticulous execution to shape his works. Gupta has an uncanny ability to identify objects and icons of Indian culture which innately posses this tension between the traditional and modern. He uses clichés like the cow and its dung or the stainless steel utensils of a typical kitchen and well-known emblems of village life, to comment on larger social ills, such as discrimination, caste politics, globalization, industrialization and religious tensions. In these two lots, Gupta commandeers the stainless steel pail, using its form both in painting and as a Duchampian ready-made. Familiar to both the rural and urban echelons of Indian society, these steel vessels are often bestowed on newly married women as dowries. Gupta instills doubt into the gleaming exterior of his sculpture, OK Mili, a towering example of mass production and industrialization, by pairing it with a soundtrack of the vessels crashing to the ground. Perhaps the artist is equating the teetering column of newly minted commodities with India's recent movement towards a more capitalistic culture, presenting them as an attractive yet clever warning to those who too quickly embrace this western consumerism.
Baiju Parthan, T.V. Santhosh and Jagannath Panda (lots 164-166) show the extent to which Indian artists are pushing the boundaries of subject matter and style on canvas. Baiju Parthan paradoxically utilizes mechanical means to create original works of art by composing his paintings on a computer screen. He gathers and rearranges elements culled from the internet until he finds a harmonious balance which he then translates to the canvas. Like Parthan, T. V. Santhosh also relies on a collage of pictorial ready-mades to build his compositions, capitalizing on both the visual language of Pop art and the digitally enhanced look of new media to define his style. Choosing more traditional stylistic devices in his execution, Bhubaneswer-born artist Jagannath Panda plays with scale and perspective in his photo-realistic renditions of India's landscape and habitants.
Kerala-born artist Surendran Nair's mischievous canvases (lot 167) infuse allegorical subject matter with playful surrealism. Mythologies, both Eastern, Western, modern and classical, play an important role in shaping his paintings, which in spite of this formidable body of influence maintain their poignant simplicity. His delicate and meticulous handling of brushstroke and palette intentionally deny the pre-fabricated and digitized look of mass media, lending a dream-like ethereality to his works. In this series, entitled The Ostrich Play, Nair carefully weaves a narrative between each watercolor formally remarking on the shape of the ostrich and its egg, while humorously posing the question of which came first. The otherwise monotonous subject matter is transformed in the hands of Nair, as he creates an enigmatic and alternate world that refuses to be fully understood.
Much like his contemporary Baiju Parthan, the work of Jitish Kallat (lot 168) resurrects the strewn debris of mass media, piecing together old photographs, faxes and photocopies to create a visual collage from which he paints his canvases. Splashing words like truncated slogans across his paintings, Kallat exposes the idiosyncrasies of mechanical reproduction by revealing the grainy resolutions and cropped compositions of his news clippings and internet printouts. Following the aesthetic sensibilities of Pop Art, Kallat has collapsed the picture plane giving his viewer no refuge from his images of child laborers, urchins and street waifs. His subaltern subject matter, seen in this work entitled Musicians, flickers between the genial imagery of the everyday billboard and the violence of the agit-prop posters as it confronts its audience.
Recent international exhibitions and a barrage of media coverage suggest a new and growing recognition for India and its artistic developments that is both well deserved and long in coming. With contemporary art from China, Japan, Pakistan and Korea turning heads as well, it seems as if the West, for the first time in decades, has begun to look eastward for a new frontier in art.