In the News

Gothenburg: Three Indian fashion designers Wendell Rodricks, Neelanjana Ghose and Rahul Mishra showed their works at Elite Park Hotel in Gothenburg on 8th May. They were the first Indian fashion designers to showcase their works in Sweden. Prasad Bidappa ,one of India's best choreographers was on the spot to give the show an Indian touch and glamour to the occasion. Oscar Aschan, director of Aschan & Co - produced the show - Indian fashion, explains his choice of the designers- " First of all I wanted three different styles: classical Indian style, a mix and a European-Indian style. I think Neelanjana, Rahul Mishra and Wendell Rodricks fit these three positions perfectly. I wanted a star designer ( Wendell Rodricks)that everyone knows and emerging talent in ( Rahul Mishra & Neelanjana Ghose) both have great potential of becoming a star.” Wendell Rodricks showcased his 'Eco Goa line' of garments dyed to natural plant extract. Neelanjana Ghose collections Spring Colours in India, comprised of Kantha work on both Indian and western wear. Rahul Mishra - his collections sent out strong message about issues relating to Earth. Oscar Aschan is also in charge of the Indo-Sweden cultural exchange programme along with Vikram Bachhawat. This project is supported by the Swedish Embassy in Delhi and its main partners in India are- Emami Chisel Art & Aakriti Art Gallery. Head sponsors of the fashion show were the City of Gothenburg, Västra Götalands Regionen, Volvo cars and buses. Director of Aakriti Art Gallery and Emami ChiselArt, Mr. Vikram Bachhawat says “This is our first endeavour in starting a cultural exchange programme between India & Sweden. We will follow this with a large exhibition of Indian art in Sweden in August and Swedish art in India in December.”

Paul Cesar - Helleu

London: The London International Fine Art Fair at Olympia starts from 3rd June and continues till 13th June, 2010. The fair features more than 150 exhibitors from London, the UK and abroad.

LIFAF is a comprehensive fair designed to appeal to the broadest spectrum of designers, collectors and connoisseurs. There will be artwork in all price ranges. Artwork will range in period from old masters to modern and contemporary. Decorative art of all periods will be exhibited at the fair. Lectures, seminars, daily tours, free expert advice and book signings will also enhance each visitor's experience.

Jignesh Panchal		Haribabu Natesan
Pradip Sengupta

New Delhi: Bajaj Capital Art House (BCAH) has launched two new ventures Gallery Art Positive, a unit of BCAH and an art book café. The exhibitions at the gallery would focus on hosting curated solo and group exhibitions in diverse mediums and genres by young and established artists from across the country. The art book café would offer a reading space for art collectors, art practitioners, art connoisseurs, educationists and will hold book launches, discussions, workshops and presentations.

There will also be the inauguration of 'Art Spotting' a group exhibition by new generation of young artists from across India who have been handpicked by an eminent curatorial panel at BCAH. The group exhibition will be on till June 30, 2010.

Bhajju Shyam		V.R. Singh
Jangarh Singh

WELLESLEY, Mass: Davis Museum and Cultural Center is hosting a show of contemporary Pardhan Gond art from India titled Painted Songs & Stories till June 6, 2010. The show features the works of eight contemporary artists belonging to a tribal race of central India, the Pardhan Gonds, who traditionally served as minstral bards. Starting in the early 1980s, certain talented Pardhan Gonds (Jangarh Singh Shyam and his successors) began converting their ritual performing arts into a new custom of figurative and narrative visual art. Using a variety of media (including acrylic paintings on canvas, ink drawings on paper, silkscreen prints and animated film),the Pardhan Gonds have created unique portrayals of their natural and mythological worlds, traditional songs and oral histories, thus inventing a new, hybrid visual art combining tribal subject matter with modern media and non-tribal benefaction. Painted Songs & Stories features works from the private collection of art historian John H. Bowles and is organized by the Wellesley College South Asia Studies Program.

Raja Ravi Varma

Wellesley, MA: The Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College presents an exhibition of late 19th- and early 20th- century color prints of Hindu gods and goddesses, from June 6, 2010. The works exhibited are from the collection of Mark Baron and Elise Boisanté. The exhibition will outline the history of the widely distributed devotional lithographs, including important examples of 19th-century prints produced in Germany for export to India. These images were produced in large editions and became pervasive in commercial and domestic spaces across India. Mark Baron and Elise Boisanté first visited India in 2000. They were instantly enthralled by the god prints, and travelled throughout the villages of south India and Rajasthan, as well as in the cities of Kolkata (Calcutta), Delhi and Mumbai, collecting images of Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, Durga, Ram, Lakshmi, Krishna, Ganesh and many other gods.

Liverpool: Tate Liverpool presents a show named Picasso: Peace and Freedom from 21 May to 30 August, 2010. The show will have 150 works of Picasso from across the world. The works reveal an enthralling insight in the artist's life as a diligent political activist and supporter for peace. The show brings into light the artist's works during the Cold War period. The way the world knows Picasso as a gregarious person is not at all reflected in this exhibition. The violence and the political unrest of war had its cast on the genius and his reactions to that is visible in all his works of this exhibition.

Kolkata: Ritendra Roy's solo painting show 'Progress of Non-Abstract Geometry' was unveiled at Aakriti Art Gallery on 18th May, 2010. The guests present on the occasion included artists like Jogen Chowdhury, Tapas Konar, Chhatrapati Dutta, Bimal Kundu, Atin Basak, Aditya Basak, Manoj Dutta and others, art critique Pranabranjan Ray, Mrinal Ghosh, Prasanta Daw and art aficionados. Several works were sold on the opening day which gave hope of the market getting stable again.

Delhi: Eminent artist Satish Gujral had been conferred with an award for contribution to Punjabi Culture by Chief Minister of Delhi-Smt. Sheila Dixit. The award had been given to the veteran artist by Punjabi Academy, Delhi (Govt. of N.C.T of Delhi). This award is generally given in the fields of theatre, music and literature, but this is the first time that an exception had been made by giving this award to an artist.

Pablo Picasso Paris: Five art works of legendary painters Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Amadeo Modigliani have been stolen from Musee d'Art Moderne de la ville in Paris on 19th May, 2010. The paintings that were stolen include 'Dove with Green Peas' by Pablo Picasso (painted in 1911); 'Pastoral' by Henri Matisse (1906); 'Olive Tree near l'Estaque' by Georges Braque (1906); 'Woman with Fan' by Amedeo Modigliani (1919); and 'Still Life with Candlestick' by Fernand Leger (1922). The employees of the museum noticed the theft the next morning when they came to the office. The museum authority declared that the value of the art works stolen would amount to 500 million euros. The Mayor of Paris has said in a statement that one of the alarms of the museum was not working and it was supposed to be repaired when the theft took place.		a Georges Braque a
		Henri Matisse
Amedeo Modigliani	According to news published by BBC, another theft took place at Marseille when five works, including a lithograph by Picasso, were stolen from the home of a private collector in southern France on 20th May. The owner was beaten up during the robbery at his Marseille home.		Fernand Leger

Santiniketan: As the year 2010 marks the 150th birth anniversary or Sardha Swata Borsho of Rabindranath Tagore, the central government, along with Visva Bharati has made arrangements for a yearlong celebration of this fêted figure of our country. Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh has taken the initiative of publishing a book named 'Chitravali', an exhaustive collection and study of Tagore's paintings. The four volume collection will have 1,600 paintings, currently with Rabindra Bhavan and Kala Bhavana, along with an additional (approximately) 200 paintings collected from the Academy of Fine Arts, Rabindra Bharati University and the National Gallery of Modern Art. In total the book will contain 1,800 paintings, sketches and texts by Tagore.

Dr. Manmohan Singh inaugurated a curetted exhibition, 'The Master's Strokes: Art of Rabindranath Tagore' at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Jaipur House. The exhibition will be on view till 6th June.

India and Bangladesh will also celebrate this occasion with a month long programme in May, 2011.

The PM said "We agreed that the Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh would oversee the joint celebrations of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore in 2011 in a manner befitting his vision and spirit. The Committee will have to consider how we could fulfill this commitment and how to associate Tagore's many followers in Bangladesh in the commemoration events."

Meanwhile, a special train from India named 'Sanskriti Express' launched to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, will travel across Bangladesh in August.

It has five coaches with each one showcasing the life and works of Tagore in the field of literature, music, dance and art. During the fortnight-long tour in Bangladesh, the train will go through important cities.

Surjo Prakash inaugurating the show with Richa Agarwal.

Dakshin-Paschim, the show curated by Dr. Archana Roy for Emami Chisel Art was slated to showcase some of the best works from principally the Southern and Western parts of the country; fortunately however, the turn-out at the opening of this show, was not limited to these parts alone, becoming a happy 'national' mélange of sorts! Calcutta, the host-city, of course, shimmered at its very best!

Bose Krishnamachari addresses after the inauguration.

What with so many artistic luminaries assembled under one roof, there was hardly any need for 'one' special guest; so that all these artists, beginning with veterans like Surya Prakash, Palaniyappan and Alphonso Arul Doss, to more contemporary artists like Bose Krishnamachari took their turns in inaugurating the show, by the formal act of lighting the 'diya', in the presence of ECA directors Richa Agarwal and Vikram Bachhawat. Following a mellifluous shloka by Dr. Sakti Roychowdhury, the artists and other visitors surveyed the show, before the scene of the dinner-party shifted to Tollygunge Club.

Britain: Tate Museum presents a show of the works of legendary Henri Moore till 8 August, 2010. Fundamental, experimental and avant garde, Henry Moore (1898-1986) was one of Britain's greatest artists. This exhibition re-affirms his position at the vanguard of progressive twentieth-century sculpture. The show presents over 150 significant works including stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings.

Henry Moore first emerged as an artist in the wake of the First World War, in which he served on the Western Front. This exhibition emphasises the impact on Moore's work of its historical and rational contexts - the ordeal of war, the arrival of psychoanalysis and new ideas of sexuality, and the influence of primitive art and surrealism.