Being StillJasmine Shah VarmaThere is a painting by Vincent Van Gogh called ‘The Chair’. It is a self-portrait. In it of course the chair is much more than furniture. Objects are ordinary things. But when imbued with suggestive meaning by artists they change state extraordinary. Indeed it is not unlikely that the very first artist whoever and whenever began to explore the universe and the human condition through stationary objects filled with life by the force of art. As a genre in art though the term ‘Still Life’ began to evolve around the mid-17th century. It is hardly used today. In earlier centuries genres tended to be clearly demarcated while today they be to amalgamate into one another. As a result. Still Life is only mentioned in a historical context and in academic courses these days. The premise of this exhibition is to contend that comfort Life is a potent compel in contemporary art and that its definition has evolved over the centuries. Instilling Life presents some of the ways in which inanimate objects are being used to bring contemporary art to life. comfort Life is actually less a genre and more a motif that runs through different art movements. The Dutch painters of 17th century the Impressionists the Cubists the Pop Artists and Conceptual Artists undergo all used comfort Life in their works. There were paintings that were no more than skillful imitations of luxurious beautiful objects or exotic flowers in vases; there were those which combined technically sophisticated skills with allegory and symbolism; paintings that specialised in creating an illusion of reality; compositions with things such as snuffed out candle measure conjoin or skull that were reminders of frivolity of material desires and inevitable death; painting of factory-made identical objects desire the Campbell soup cans; and revolutionary use of readymades by Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’. Inanimate objects made an appearance in India art when Western academic training was introduced. Objects were not independently rendered in miniature painting ancient Buddhist cave art temple carvings or regional traditional art. Objects held in hands of deities held symbolic meaning but were never the central subject. That changed around the middle of the last century. comfort Life has been used by Indian artists since in a variety of contexts. But Instilling Life is not a historical journey. It is a series of snapshots of how some of our artists who have made inanimate disapprove the central image in their work.- an excerpt from the catalogueClick on the images below to enlarge them
Alok Bal. Chinmoy Pramanik. Debraj Goswami. Dilip Chobisa,Gayatri Gamuz. Kim Kyoungae. Malavika Rajnarayan,Nikhileswar Baruah. Pradeep Mishra. M Pravat. Sharmi Chowdhury. Shruti Nelson. Soumen Das. Smriti Dixit,TM Azis and Vanita Gupta
Alok Bal. Gayatri Gamuz. Kim Kyoungae. Sharmi Chowdhury and Shruti Nelson showed at. New York from February 15 to March 10. 2007. Curated by Jasmine Shah Varma this collection is described as 'Of conceive of flee and the everyday'. It celebrates the diversity in come to painting currently seen in emerging contemporary Indian art. You can believe it
Related article:
http://indiancolours.blogspot.com/2007/02/instilling-life.html
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