Search results for: '19th and 20'

Diana Campbell is the Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation, now in its 10th year, and chief curator of the prestigious Dhaka Art Summit, whose sixth edition starts on February 3, 2023. She spoke with the DAG Journal’s editorial team to discuss her own curatorial process and how she makes room for experimentation, and unpacks the intriguing thematic of this new edition: ‘flood’, or bonna.

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This is the first-ever retrospective of the Indian modern artist Avinash Chandra who lived most of his life in the West, in London and New York. The artist, who had trained in New Delhi, left soon after for London, and most of his practice was limited to London and New York, the two cities he called his home till his unfortunately early death in 1991. In the roughly three-and-a-half decades of his career, Avinash’s work changed amazingly, reflecting his environment and milieu as he grew and adapted to cities vastly different from their Indian counterparts, with their own sub-cultures. That this happily coincided with a discovery of India, however superfluously, as a land of spirituality and sexuality, seemed to serve him well as his muse.

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A workshop on typography and the art of font-making, facilitated by Diptanshu Roy, Creative Director (Wunderman Thompson) and Musician, inspired by the poster art of early 20th century.

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Gogi Saroj Pal, seen often as one of the first ‘feminist’ women painters in modern Indian art, has consistently explored the condition and inner life of women. Women’s lives, their desires and compulsions, and the complex and magical world of the feminine have been Gogi’s frequent subjects. In her work, Gogi explores and responds to the vast reserve of myths, fables and lore that abound in India, interested in excavating, in particular, its religious and literary traditions. She traces and frequently creates new mythical/celestial female beings of great strength and potency, such as the Hathyogini-Kali—skilled yoga practitioner and potent female force—who assert themselves in a modern landscape where women are frequently denied agency.

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Calcutta, flourishing with commerce and maritime trade during the nineteenth century, was regarded as the ‘second city’ of the British Empire. People thronged there in large numbers to make a livelihood, or in holy pilgrimage, seeking blessings at the Kali temple at Kalighat that had been re-built in 1809. Annada Prasad Bagchi Bamapada Banerjee B. C. Law C. W. Lawrie Kshetradas Chitrakar Panchanan Karmakar Madhav Chandra Das Ramadhan Swarnakar Ganganarayan Ghosh Nritya Lal Datta Press Kristohurry Das Chorebagan Art Studio Kansaripara Art Studio Calcutta Jubilee Art Studio Bat-tala

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For Shanti Dave, creativity is a consistent and persistent exploration of the word or akshara—a term defined in the Natyashastra as a stroke in musical notes—which he perceives as the source of all creation. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script.

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How did the multiple trajectories of visual arts develop in the subcontinent? Where did they originate and how did their paths converge? Drishyakala offers a sweeping journey into the heterogenous histories of visual arts in India, from the first European travelling artists who drew landscapes to popular prints of the earliest woodcuts and lithographs evolving into the thriving advertising visuals of the 20th century. The exhibition is broadly divided into four categories, each exploring an unique area of development—the art of portraiture through photography and painting, oriental sceneries drawn by European travelling artists, popular prints from the late eighteenth century to post-independence and artworks of the nine National Treasure Artists. Together, these sections give brief glimpses into the dizzying variety of forms, styles and languages of South Asian art.

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The India International Centre at New Delhi, in collaboration with the Amar Nath Sahgal Trust, presented a large suite of works by Amar Nath Sahgal (1922—2007), one of post-independent India’s foremost sculptors, in order to celebrate his centenary year in March 2023. 

 

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Group 1890 remains unique in the journey of modern Indian art for various reasons, the most important being J. Swaminathan as the force behind the short-lived collective that held only one exhibition in its lifetime, in 1963. In 2016, DAG organized a ‘second’ exhibition of the group, featuring works by all its founder members. Learn More

As with its history, trade, and culture, so with its art, India has always stood at the crossroads of assimilation, adaptation, change, and experimentation. Ancient and medieval art practices have informed her artists in the 20th century—a point when European and Asian movements found acceptance before being turned into a vibrant lexicon that has remained central to the pursuit of art in the subcontinent. Singapore

AVINASH CHANDRA BIRESWAR SEN F. N. SOUZA G. R. SANTOSH GOGI SAROJ PAL GOPAL GHOSE J. SULTAN ALI LAXMAN PAI M. F. HUSAIN MADHVI PAREKH NATVAR BHAVSAR S. H. RAZA SHANTI DAVE SHOBHA BROOTA SOHAN QADRI Learn More

The DAG booth at the India Art Fair has gained iconic status for its selection and display of the finest works of Indian modern art. Over past editions, DAG had introduced pre-modern masters at its booth, and in 2022, it presented exemplary works by eighteenth and nineteenth century Indian and European artists at the fair. This was in addition to high quality works by the twentieth century masters.

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DAG invited leading historians of Delhi, Swapna Liddle and Rana Safvi, to explore our archives collection. The items they found there include numerous photographs of the three durbars, taken by prominent photographers of the day. They also include many other objects relating to the durbars, from portraits and medals, to maps and official guidebooks, and to tickets and programmes. Historians in the past have analysed the ideology of the Delhi durbars, but never before has such a collection of the material culture of these events been brought together for display.

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