Search results for: 'Mad I pa'

With ‘Indian Portraits: The Face of a People’, DAG uncovers the layers that have gone into the practice of portraiture in the country—a survey exhibition spanning two centuries of the genre in India. From British and Indian royalty to streetside portraiture, this is a quick overview of an India past and present. Learn More

This exhbition explored the evolution of the genre of portrait painting in India. Curated by Pramod Kumar KG, it was specially created for Drishyakala, a joint collaboration between DAG and the Archaeological Survey of India, at Red Fort, Delhi. Visitors came face to face with dazzling canvases, expressive watercolours and early prints of people known and unknown in this extraordinary exhibition.

Learn More

With the cultural calendar being packed till spring, join us as we travel through some of the most popular ongoing or upcoming art fairs and biennales. Take a close look at artists who bring modernist ideas to the contemporary art context. With some ubiquitous names from the twentieth century art world accompanied by a few of those that have been historically overlooked, discover how ideas around the Modern have evolved through these fairs and biennales, as we focus on notable artists from each art festival and delve into their practice.

Learn More

As a region that is home to many religions and cultures, South Asia has been a fertile ground for art that blends different styles, ideas, and influences. Conquest, migration, or friendly exchange of cultural ideas and values—be it in the visual arts, food, or politics—all played a part in shaping the region as a melting pot of civilisations. Explore artworks that showcase this syncretic legacy from DAG's museum collection—starting with the early encounters with European realism, the pan-Asian influences on the Bengal School, and beyond.

Learn More

Ghare Baire was a museum-exhibition showcasing over 200 years of art in Bengal. Presented by DAG in collaboration with the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Archaeological Survey of India, the exhibition was housed at the historic Currency Building, across twelve galleries featuring over 700 artworks. The exhibition was the largest showcase of Bengal Art, presenting a panoramic view of the evolution of art in a region that has been critical to the development of Indian modern art. The exhibition starts with the arrival of the travelling European artists at a time of exchange between Bengal and the world. This confluence of cultures stimulated new visual languages as we see in the Kalighat pat,  the Bengal School, and the subsequent emergence of artists who fearlessly and freely experimented with form and subject, reshaping the trajectory of art in India.

Learn More

One of the most distinguished families in Bengal, the Tagores exercised unparalleled influence over the cultural landscape of the region. The Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), and two of his nephews, Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) and Abanindranath Tagore (1871 - 1951) were recognised as India’s National Art Treasure artists. Sunayani Devi (1875 -1962), their sister, is regarded as one of modern India’s first women painters known by name. Her lyrical paintings and embroideries often looked inward to an imagined world of fables and myths. At the turn of the twentieth century, we see Abanindranath emerging as the founder of the Bengal School as he envisioned a new Indian art that was free of colonial influence, rooted in pan-Asianism. Gaganendranath, on the other hand, was a prolific satirist and cartoonist, who imagined new forms and perspectives inspired by Cubism. Together they formed the influential Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907, while Rabindranath’s school and university at Santiniketan would continue to shape modern art in Bengal for generations to come.

Learn More

What is the role of collectors and collections or archives in the world of art today? Does it simply allude to practices of producing a consumable past today or does it also aspire to question the ways in which history has been shaped by powerful interventions in the form of artworks, performances and installations?  In this series of conversations, we wanted to explore the idea of collecting recent or contemporary art—and how it inevitably takes us back to the moderns who influenced such practices heavily. 

Learn More

When the Met-Breuer opened in New York, its very first exhibition was a retrospective of Nasreen Mohamedi. Nasreen’s work is regarded as extremely important in the context of abstraction with delicate lines marking her compositions with a strength that is as remarkable as it is astounding, altering the way we see the world. The artist preferred drawing and sometimes photography, as a result her canvases are extremely rare to find. Sasha Altaf tells us more in this film about a canvas painted by her in Bahrain in 1969.

Learn More

Prabhakar Barwe’s Eighty-Five Safety Pins is a pioneering work that merges technology and traditional art. Created in 1991 using graphic design software on an Apple Macintosh, Barwe explored the concept of pixels, a hallmark of the digital era, while incorporating his signature enamel paint. This innovative approach reflects his curiosity about embracing the unknown future and reinterpreting it artistically. By abstracting the safety pin from its conventional form, Barwe invites viewers to reconsider its essence, offering an open-ended visual experience that challenges preconceived notions and encourages alternative perspectives. Art connoisseur Shireen Gandhy, a friend of the late artist, takes us behind the making of this extraordinary painting.

Learn More

S. H. Raza had begun to paint using oils, moving away from his impressionistic watercolours, on his way to winning the prestigious critics’ award in 1956. Just a year before, he completed a stunning painting of Parisian rooftops, revealing not a daylight scene but one of the night, only yellow lamplight from the streets dimly silhouetting the chimneys and sloping roofs. This period of Raza’s career is somewhat lesser known than his later, tantra-inspired works, as Ashok Vajpeyi and Aman Nath explain to us.

Learn More

Let us take a moment to appreciate this magnificent riverside scene that can be instantly recognised as a view of Benares by the distinctive steep steps, or ghats, running down to the Ganga. American artist and Orientalist Edwin Lord Weeks had a remarkable ability to create an impression of a real-time scene unfolding before viewers, enhanced by the subtle plays of light and colour. A prolific artist who created a visual diary of his travels through his paintings—of which his India works are arguably his finest with an appeal that has transcended time.

Learn More

England shaped Altaf’s political consciousness as well as his persona. He engaged in the anti-apartheid demonstration at Trafalgar Square held against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela; a peaceful protest at the American Embassy opposing the bombing in North Vietnam; the Aldermaston March against the nuclear bomb; the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; he became a member of the Youth Wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Young Communist League (YCL). Any examination of the theoretical aspect of Altaf’s work must start with the knowledge that the work in question exemplified an element of ‘existentialist’ thought. 

Learn More