Art Events, Kolkata
August - September 2010

'Conflicts Within'

Recent Works by Rima Kundu. Akar Prakar Gallery. 21 to 30 August.

Rima Kundu is a young artist who made her graduation from Rabindra-Bharati and Post-graduation from Baroda. In her works in the present exhibition she has built up a feminine identity through the technique of stitching and use of fabric collage to enter into and analyze the contemporary reality.

'Small Format Works'

Society of Contemporary Artists at their own gallery at 398 Rashbehari Avenue and Bypass connector. 12 to 23 August.

Society is passing through their golden jubilee year. Like every year they mounted an exhibition of small format paper works by all the 21 of their present members. Though small in format all the works were concentrated with deeper feelings of the artists. Participating artists were Aditya Basak, Amitabha Banerjee, Atanu Bhattacharjee, Atin Basak, BR Panesar, Bimal Kundu, Dipak Banerjee, Ganesh Haloi, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Mani Talukdar, Manoj Dutta, Manoj Mitra, Manu Parekh, Niranjan Pradhan, Partha Dasgupta, Pradip Maitra, Sadhan Chakraborty, Sanat Kar, Suhas Roy, Sunil Das, Sunil Kr. Das.

Kartick Chandra Pyne

At Chitrakoot Art Gallery. 16 August to 12 September.

Born in 1931 in an aristocratic gold merchant family of central Calcutta Kartick Chandra Pyne came to his own form during the decade of 1960-s. Through fantasy oriented figurative works he expresses the enigmatic existential dilemma of human life and nature. He is one of the major artists who could build up an indigenous identity of our modernity during the sixties. He is still spontaneously active despite physical frailty. Chitrakoot Gallery mounted a series of his paintings that were diverse in form and content and indicated the route of his journey through his artistic career.

 

'A Critics Eye' and 'Outside In'

An exhibition of photographs by Richard Bartholomew and Pablo Bartholomew
At Harrington Street Art Center. 16 August to 25 September.

Harrington Street Art center along with Chivas presented the show of the father and son photographers. Richard's works titled 'A Critics Eye' were executed during 1950-s to '70-s. Pablo's works on 'A Tale of 3 Cities' were done during 1970- and '80-s.

Still

An exhibition of photographs by Prarthana Modi
Seagull Art and Media Resource Center. 25 August to 8 September.

An exhibition of Photographs by Delhi based photographer Prarthana Modi Instead of digital photography Modi prefers black and white photography with hand controlled camera and film. She also prefers to deal with subject in movement and extract the silence out of his subject. The exhibition showcased such photographs of meditative inwardness.

'Different Facets of Life'

Paintings by Soma Das. Gallery Nakshatra. 16 to 30 August.

The young painter Soma Das was selected in Gen Next IV exhibition of Aakriti Gallery last year. She transforms her forms from the so-called Indian style of painting and tries to create an indigenous identity depicting the subjects from every day life and reality. The paintings in acrylic and gouache shown in the present exhibition show the expansion of this formal exercise

'Lyar- i-Danish'

Illustrated Lecture by Dr. TK Biswas at Birla Academy. 27 August 6-30 pm.

'Lyar-i-Danish' is an illustrated Mughal manuscript now held in the collection of Benaras Hindu University. Dr. Biswas spoke on the miniatures of this manuscript explaining their background and moving deeper into their form, content and aesthetic characteristics.

A Sculpture show by Tapan Kumar Das & Sunanda Das

Academy of Fine Arts. 2 to 8 September.

The sculptor couple Tapan and Sunanda work and exhibit together regularly. Tapan graduated from Govt. College of art in 1988, Sunanda completed her MFA from Visva-Bharati in 1991. Through their individual styles they have created identity of individual expressions, of which the present show is a testimony.

First solo show of Meenakshi Sengupta's paintings

At Society of Contemporary Artists' Gallery, 25 to 29 August.

Though still a student in Govt. College of Art, Kolkata, Meenakshi in this first solo shows a kind of uniqueness of expression and individual style. Though still a student in government art college Meenakshi's work, however is less syncretic than hybrid, where desparate components remain disjointed signifiers. She would also be a part of GenNext V at Aakriti Art Gallery in October.

'No Content Worries'

Aakriti Art Gallery. 2 to 18 September.

The 14 young artists, painters and sculptors, presented in this show posit a new sensibility generated out of contemporary global reality. Most of the works have grown out of the confrontation of the artists with the contemporary temporal conflicts and indicate how regional identity and traditional marks are withering away yielding to global norm. The artists presented were: Barun Chowdhury, Debashis Dutta, Ketan Amin, Mansoor Ali Makrani, Nantu Behari Das, Nobina Gupta, Pappu Bardhan, Partha Guin, Priyanka Lahiri, Sagar Bhowmik, Sandip Daptari, Saptarshi Naskar, Somit Gupta and Vivek Sharma.

'Besides Paris'

Birla Academy of Art & Culture. 3 September to 3 October.

Edited and curated by Shaheen Merali this show presents 18 Indian artists who have lived and worked in Paris. It shows how the essences of two civilizations merge to create a hybrid but transcendental form. The artists presented are Narayanan Akkitham, Sujata Bajaj, Madhu Mangal Basu, Maya Burman, Sakti Burman, Utpal Chakraborty, Anju Chowdhury, Rajendra Dhawan, Lakshmi Dutt, Debesh Goawami, Bhawani Katoch, Gadadhar Ojha, SH Raza, Sharmola Roy, Indrajeet Sahdev, Nitin Shroff, Jiwan Singh and Viswanathan Velu.

The Passion of Nikhil Biswas

Publication of a book written by Sandip Sarkar and published by Mapin & Prasant Tulsyan on 3 September at Palladian Lounge, Kolkata 700001.

Nikhil Biswas (1930 1966) was a very important artist of Kolkata whose paintings during 1950-s and 1960-s made great contribution in the modernist movement of sixties. He was the founder member of 'Society of Contemporary Artists', and 'Calcutta Painters'. Despite his premature demise at the age of 36 he left behind large body of works. The renowned art collector Prasant Tulsyan took this venture of publishing a complete book on the artist.

'Confabulations'

Paintings and Sculptures by Mahesh Bagalia at Gallery 88. 27August to 11 September.

Mahesh Bagalia is a young artist born 1982 in Karnatak. He did his BFA from Mysore and post diploma from Baroda. Confabulations means 'replacement of the gaps left by a disordered memory with imaginary happenings'. The artist has written about his works, 'The works that I am showing are the attraction of the unusual and fascination exerted by the unknown and unfamiliar'.