Febryary 2011

Noted Art Personality Dinkar Kowshik passes away

Santiniketan Prof Dinkar Kowshik (1918  2011) the noted art historian, painter and art teacher  passed away in Santiniketan on 13th of February after a prolonged illness.

Born in Dharwar on 15th of June, 1918 Dinkar Kowshik graduated from Bombay University and came to Santiniketan in 1940. From 1941 to 1946 he was a student at Kala Bhavana with the towering figures like Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij as his mentors.

He taught at Delhi Art College from 1949 to 1964. In between he went to Rome to study at Accademia di Belle Arti, Roma from 1955 to 56. He left Delhi in 1964 and became the Principal of Lucknow Art College for next three years.

Along with Bhavesh Sannyal he was one of the Founder Members of 'Delhi Shilpi Chakra'. Apart from the innumerable articles published in various journals, Age and Image, Nandalal Bose, Blossoms of Light, Okakura, Kaal aur kala (Hindi), Shilper Galpo (Bangla), are some his published books which have received critical acclaim. Dinkar Kowshik received official honours like 'Aban-Gagan Award' from Visva Bharati, Honourary Doctor of Letters from Rabindra Bharati University, 'Kalaratnakar' from Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, Golden Medal from Asiatic Society, Kolkata, and Special Honour from West Bengal State Academy  to name a few. He officially retired from Kala Bhavana in 1978.

He spent more than last fifty years of his life in Santiniketan. He is survived by his wife, Pushpa Terway, and their three children.

Titian's two eminent paintings on their first U S tour

Houston: From May 22, 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston will present its visitors with two of Titian's greatest masterpieces in a touring show. Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, painted in the late 1550s and usually lodged in Edinburgh, Scotland, are making their first U S appearance.

The show which will display 13 paintings and 12 drawings will also include works by Tintoretto, Lorenzo Lotto and Jacopo Bassano.

Among the big art stories of 2009 was the British government's eagerness to kick in about half the nearly $80 million it took to buy Diana and Actaeon from its private owner, the Duke of Sutherland, and keep it away from the auction block. But the future of Diana and Callisto remains uncertain, the duke having given British authorities until 2012 to make a comparable deal to avert its sale.

Jaipur in Chicago

New Delhi: The Art Institute of Chicago (ARTIC) is beginning a monumental exhibition on the royal art from Jaipur in Chicago in the year 2013. ARTIC is one of the largest museums in America where Swami Vivekananda had delivered his historic address in 1896, President and Director, ARTIC, James Cuno told that in August 2010, Princess Diya Kumari and Maharani Padmini Devi of Jaipur visited the site of the prospective exhibition and signed an official letter of intent.

Curated by Madhuvanti Ghose, the exhibition will comprise paintings, textiles, jewellery, sculpture, photographs, costumes and other relics of the Jaipur royalty sourced from various places. One of the attractions of the expected exhibition would be the displaying of all the 36 paintings of the Jaipur Rangmala. At the moment ARTIC exhibits nine paintings at one time over four rotations in a year.

Benton Museum displays captivating political art

UConn Storrs : The posters and cartoons of politics can be stark and propagandistic in style and refined, amusing and disturbing aswell. But they are, nevertheless, art. And at UConn Storrs, the Benton Museum will exhibit a careful assortment of Soviet-era examples through March 20, 2011.

UConn Storrs' Eve Perry who served as assistant curator of the exhibition for The Benton said "choosing which pieces to hang was challenging - there are so many in the private collection." The works come from a vast and anonymous collection and the exhibition will continue touring the country after leaving Storrs.

Chosen images range from the Russian "lubki", or clean, elegant black and white block prints that street peddlers sold from the 17th through the 20th century, to watercolor studies for large format 1920s ROSTA window posters, to the spare but evocative pen and ink caricatures of Hermann Goering and Adolf Hitler - each with generous showings of blood, to Ukrainian and Czech lithograph posters from the '60s and '70s commenting on capitalism and human rights.

Irrespective of a visitor's knowledge or interest in Russian history, this exhibit suggests that the power and style of public art, even political art, continues to be protean and captivating through the decades.

Art Dubai 2011 to Begin in March

Dubai: The Art Dubai Projects, which begins on 16th March and continues till 19th March, 2011 will feature a programme on films, talks, radio dispatches and performances. More than 75 artists will be commissioned to create interactive works.

The new MARKER section of Art Dubai starts from 2011. Art Dubai has commissioned curator Nav Haq to invite experimental commercial and non-commercial art spaces from across Asia and the Middle East. MARKER will feature Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), Alexandria; Grey Noise, Lahore; Liu Ding's Store, Beijing; Makan, Amman; and Ruangrupa, Jakarta. These five dynamic project stands, or 'concept stands,' dotted through the gallery halls, will showcase work by budding artists who are creating new work especially for the fair.

The peripatetic Bidoun Library will also be featured in the Art Dubai Bidoun Projects will present a live mural, painted and repainted each day throughout the fair by a group of eminent artists  Dubai-based Rokni Haerizadeh being one of them.

Artists and scientists together at Clipperton island

London: Later this year a group of 7 international scientists and 7 international artists will come, for a 3-week expedition to the Clipperton island, a deserted island which is located about 800 miles west of Acapulco. The participants will create works based on the history of the atoll and its ecological, geological and human history in order to craft a cross-cultural portrayal of this unique place. The works created will then be shown at scientific and cultural institutions across Europe and the Americas, including Glasgow Sculpture Studios (Glasgow, Scotland), Universum (Mexico City, Mexico) and Institute of the Americas (London, England).

The proposal of an international arts science expedition came about as offering a way to explore areas such as global warming and environmental concerns through cross cultural dialogue.  The Clipperton Project will find the artists and scientists not only bring their exceptional perspectives to issues of significance to contemporary society, but also facilitate some fascinating dialogues to be set up between the two fields. It will expectantly break down the apparent barriers between art and science.