SAJAforum

CONV: Tabla student plans documentary on Indian classical music

She is an outsider to the Indian culture and language, but there is something that connects Sandi Higgins to it — music.

Higgins, who studied film production at the New York University, is an avid admirer of Indian classical music, and currently is producing a documentary on the reception of classical Indian music in the West, especially New York.

“It’s not a music system, it’s a philosophy of life,” Higgins said.

 

ART: F N Souza's Painting Sets New Record

Setting a new auction record for an Indian work of art, Goa-born Francis Newton Souza's "Birth" sold for a record $2.5 million ($2,519,762 to be exact) at the Christie's International sale in London.

The piece was estimated to bring about $1.2- 1.6 million. According to the BBC, Souza is the only Indian artist to have a room dedicated to his paintings at Tate Britain.

In March 2008, M F Husain's "Battle of Ganga Jamuna" was sold for $1.6 million at Christie's auction in New York. In 2005, Mumbai-born Tyeb Mehta's "Mahishasura Mardini" made a record with a $1.54 million.

Do you know of other Indian (or South Asian) artists whose works have fetched this kind of money? 
Please post them below.

Earlier on SAJAForum:

• M F Husain's $1.6 million painting

ART: Obscenity charges against MF Husain dropped

India's most famous and beleaguered artist just got the backing of India's judiciary. Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Delhi High Court dismissed obscenity charges against 93-year-old MF Husain and gave a vigorous defense of artistic freedom. The complainants had argued that Husain's work offended Hindu sensibilities; they cited the painting to the right, "Bharatmata," which depicts India as a nude goddess. From IANS:

"A painter has his own perspective of looking at things and it cannot be the basis of initiating criminal proceedings against him," Kaul said in his 74-page judgement.

"In India, new puritanism is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and a host of ignorant people are vandalizing art and pushing us towards a pre-renaissance era," he observed.

The court said the question of obscenity was nowhere to be seen in his paintings, as it was his perspective of looking at things and one should not challenge that.

The court ended the judgement on the note that, "A painter at 90 deserves to be sitting in his home and painting his canvas."

Hindu groups have frequently protested against Husain, to the point that he now lives in Dubai and London. More from TOI on the ruling by the judge, who clearly relished the chance to put Husain's critics in their place:

THE ARTS: EnGendered 2008 Festival - a report

EnGendered 2008, a multi-disciplinary arts festival exploring the complex gender and sexual identities in South Asia was held recently at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. The three-day event presented by the Nayikas Dance Theater Company, was, in the words of founder Myna Mukherjee, “was a conversation between New Delhi and New York”. Through visual arts, performing arts, film and writing, EnGendered encouraged an open dialogue on gender identities and gender roles, the still taboo subject of sex, sexual choice and the intersections of all these with religion and ritual.

The visual arts exhibition Pardah, featuring artists from India, Pakistan, Germany and the US, opened the festival. The works exhibited included paintings, prints, photographs, digital art, installations and the works of the traditional art form Mithila painting.

The opening night titled Linga Sarita (Rivers of Gender) explored the possibilities of interpreting and constructing gender through neo-classical forms of dance, followed by a keynote plenary. The backdrop for the evening was the cityscape of Manhattan seen through the enormous glass wall of the Allen Room, and definitely a world apart from the usual dark curtains or panels printed with advertiser information, and at certain times of the year, a temple shikhara (dome).

ART: MF Husain's $1.6 million painting

Modern art has always been a front in the so-called Culture Wars, with religion as the main battleground. Works like Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ or Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin’s Ecce Homo are seen by some as significant interrogations of religion and freedom of expression, and by others as deeply insulting and to be eliminated either through force of law or through violence.

Last Thursday, a painting by Maqbool Fida Husain, India’s most controversial artist, sold for an astounding $1.6 million at a Christie’s auction in New York. Lot number 57 in the catalogue, Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” (panel 12 in the series of paintings based on the Mahabharata he painted in the early seventies), was snapped up by an anonymous bidder for more than twice its appraised value.

The auction demonstrated that contemporary Indian paintings are a hot commodity on the international art scene. Another lot, Ram Kumar’s “The Vagabond” (painted in 1952), sold for $1.1 million.

As the Times of India reported in 2003, Husain has been the driving force behind bringing Indian contemporary art to international attention. Chester Hirwitz, a man described by the New York Times as Husain’s “most avid collector in the United States” compares the artist to Andy Warhol.

But not everyone is pleased by Husain’s success. Christie’s was picketed by members of the Indian American Intellectual Forum (IAIF) and the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, who argue that Husain’s work is tantamount to hate speech. (Rediff interviewed several of the protesters.) The artist has angered some Hindus over the course of his more than half century long career with what they regard as “sacrilegious” representations of Hindu deities and characters from the Sanskrit epics.

ENVIRONMENT: Design for Social Change - a Wisconsin-India connection

Posters about pollution in Delhi, designed by students in Wisconsin. Click on each to magnify.

You may have heard of virtual volunteering but have you heard of virtual volunteering for an overseas client? An Indian professor of graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout recently initiated a collaborative design project with a nonprofit in Delhi. The purpose of the project was to facilitate an exchange where students created work to draw attention to India’s environmental concerns. The project was coordinated by Ambica Prakash of Stout and Vimlendu Jha of Swechha. Jha is also part of a CNN initiative called Be the Change. According to the official university news:

Prakash and Jha decided that UW-Stout's students would design awareness posters targeting India's youth for the resources section of Swechha's website which focuses on the seven resources of water, renewable energy, trees, energy, water, wildlife and global warming.

"The project has challenged students", Prakash said. "Students are designing for an international audience and for an unfamiliar culture. They must think along the lines of cultural aesthetics to produce a design that isn’t offensive and hits home."

The student posters that can be seen here resonate with Prakash's teaching philosophy. From her interview with the university press:

Q&A: Chris Murray, founder of the Govinda Gallery in DC

The Govinda Gallery of Georgetown, DC has been collecting and exhibiting iconic images of musicians for decades, among them The Beatles, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones (and The Who, pictured here by Art Kane). The gallery opened in 1975--it was named 'Govinda' because it connoted the “source of all pleasure,” in the words of Chris Murray, the founder-Director of the gallery. SAJAforum asked Murray a few questions about his roots in the 60s, and the influence of ISKCON.

So, just how did the name Govinda come about?

One day I was walking through this beautiful park in Washington and the thought 'Govinda Gallery' came to my mind. I had then - that was in 1975 - and I still have a deep love for Indian culture. I have been to India twelve different times for pleasure, both spiritual pleasure and tourist pleasure.

So I had Indian on my mind. I was into in yoga and meditation. I had graduated from university in Georgetown in 1969. And at that time there was a renaissance of sorts of interest in things Indian in America… Indian music through Ravi Shankar and the Beatles... so many stylistic things! Mary Mcfadden was collecting Indian art. There was so much interest in India because of its deep spiritual culture, because at that time many people in America were inquiring about spiritual life as opposed just to material life. So it was just the times!

So I thought the name Govinda Gallery and when people ask me what it means, I tell them a loose translation. I tell them it means it’s 'the source of all pleasure.'

We don’t show Indian art there, we never have. So it's not the mission statement for the gallery. The approach to exhibition is curatorial identities. It’s not wrapped up in the name Govinda, there’s no Indian art… or art of the Vedic culture. It’s what I personally enjoy and am wrapped up in. So for me it’s wonderful that it did become that name.

Since then I have published two books, that I have been the coauthor of with Kim Waters on The Butter Thief and Illuminations from the Bhagavad Gita. But in 1975, when I opened Govinda Gallery it was several years before the books would come out.

What was India like in the 70s? Have you been there since?

I went several times in the 80s, was also there in 2000.

In the 70s it was extraordinary. Swami Bhaktivedanta was there on my first trip. I went to hear his lecture in Vrindavan and Mayapur in West Bengal. I had the good fortune to hear him speak at least twice a day, see him on the morning walk, I had the fortune to be there. Period. In the seventies I was very much a student and learning so much. In the eighties Swami Bhaktivedanta was no longer with us, I started going more regularly. In fact, I went five winters in a row, from 1982-87 I was there in February. I went there to take a break, I learnt so much when I was there. I like traveling like that where you are learning and enjoying.

ART: "India: Public Places, Private Spaces" exhibit at Newark Museum

Long-time SAJA member and Indian arts expert Zette Emmons sent me an alert this morning. She is the Newark Museum's manager of traveling exhibitions and served as the project manager for an important exhibition that ends its New Jersey run today, January 6.

The fantastic review by the New York Times' Holland Cotter of the "India: Public Places, Private Spaces" came out on Friday in the middle of the "Art in Review" section. Today is the last day of the show! If you post it maybe a few people will catch it, otherwise they will have to wait until October 2008 in Minneapolis (where it's going next).

Here's part of what Cotter, the chief art critic of the Times, had to say:

Chinese contemporary art, glinting and posturing, continues to hold the limelight, but for my money the work being made in India these days is the real deal, deep and rich. This is partly because it is less intent on promoting itself to an international market. It is inwardly probing rather than outwardly ingratiating. “India: Public Places/Private Spaces” at the Newark Museum bears out this impression.

Read the rest of the review here. From the official description:

This exhibition, the first one of its kind in North America, will change your view of India.  Devoted to contemporary photography and video art in India, this show is comprised of over 100 works that vividly reflect the interior and exterior realities of today's India.

Come view the works of 28 photographers and video artists, including Raghu Rai and the late Raghubir Singh, and emerging talents such as Tejal Shah and Shilpa Gupta.  Each artist has used his or her medium to provide rich insights into the dynamics shaping the contemporary Indian psyche.

This unexpected and revealing exhibition demonstrates the artistic vitality arising from extreme economic and political shifts, the pervasive influence of the media, and cultural traditions competing with globalization.

Directions to the museum, by car and public transportation, are here.

All right, Minneapolis, mark your calendars for October 2008.

DESI SPOTTING: Anil Gupta, Star Tattooist

 

That's a pretty good drawing of Albert Einstein, but you should be really impressed because it's not ink on paper. It's ink on skin. Yes, that's a tattoo. See it among the crowded canvas o' tattoos on this gent. Almost all of the tattoos are the work of Anil Gupta, who was recently named by New York magazine as one of New York City's top tattoo artists. They called him "the Zen-calm master of precise reproduction."

If you are intrigued, don't just show up at his Lower East Side studio: He has a six-month waiting list for new clients.

Check out  AnilGupta.com to see his amazing portfolio, which includes a wide range of celebs - tennis star John McEnroe, actor Christian Slater and others.

His philosophy, according to his site:

Anil firmly believes that with an open mind and a vivid imagination, it is possible to turn the tattoo of your dreams into a reality. Whether it's a miniature reproduction of an Old Master's painting or a Gupta original, he's proven time and again that no tattoo is impossible — a concept which is helping to challenge and redefine the contemporary standards of tattoo artistry.

Anil's work has received attention from the media on an international scale, including several tattoo magazines, the "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" television series, and many other forthcoming projects. His tattoos win awards at tattoo conventions all over the globe. Quite a few celebrities also flock to New York just to get inked by Anil.

What do you think? Post your comments below.

[Note: An earlier version of this post guessed the Richie above is Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi. But it's not. Anyone know who that is?]

DESI AMERICA: SAALT Report on Challenges Facing South Asian Orgs

A new 30-page report from South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) highlights the needs and challenges facing South Asian community organizations. From the press release below:

"Building Community Strength" provides information gleaned from 31 South Asian organizations such as social service providers, women’s rights and youth-focused groups, and worker collectives who serve the most vulnerable members of the South Asian community.

“Often, South Asian organizations are the initial points of contact and resource providers for new immigrants and individuals in need,” says Deepa Iyer, SAALT’s Executive Director.  “The report, Building Community Strength, indicates that groups are doing very important work, but with limited financial and human resources.  Nearly three-quarters of the groups participating in this project were established only after 1990, and the majority of groups are operating on budgets of less than $500,000.”

Lots of good background material here, folks, and story ideas. See the press release below and the full report at SAALT.org.  Post your comments below.

ART: Kolkata Museum of Modern Art Comes to Sotheby's NYC

Tuesday, July 17, 2007: At an auction of modern and contemporary Indian works of art on behalf of the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (KMOMA), Kolkata, India, at Sotheby's in NYC. From left, Rakhi Sarkar, managing trustee of KMOMA; Indian artist M.F. Husain (he's 92+); and Zara Porter Hill, head of the Indian and Southeast Asian Art department at Sotheby's. The auction fetched $1.5 million. PHOTO: Jay Manday/On Assignment.

EARLIER ON SAJAforum.org:

• ART: NPR on M.F. Husain Situation and Censorship
• ART: Painter M.F. Husain to Lose Mumbai Home

ART: NPR on M.F. Husain's Situation & Censorship

A guest post from Aseem Chhabra, entertainment writer and SAJA Board member [send us your guest posts and tips, too at arunvenu[at]gmail.com]

On May 30, National Public Radio broadcast a report about the controversy in India surrounding M.F. Hussain's art.  The interview featured Ram Rahman of SAHMAT; Rajeev Dhavan, a lawyer; and other artists including Shubha Mudgal and Anjolie Ela Menon [many SAJAers met Menon at a SAJA event in NYC in 2004].

The piece says that Hussain, 92, may not be able to return to India, unless the government provides him with adequate protection.

Artists in India say they're being subjected to the worst campaign of politically inspired censorship in years.                         

They say that what they term a "moral police of cultural vigilantes" have targeted art, literature and films. The issue has thrown the focus back to the case of one man, believed by many to be the father of modern Indian art: M.F. Husain.

You can listen to the entire piece and read a text version here.

EARLIER ON SAJAforum:

• ART: Painter M.F. Husain to Lose Mumbai Home

ART: Painter M.F. Husain to Lose Mumbai Home

Reuters reports that M.F. Husain, India's best-known painter, is to lose his home over a new controversy.

Leading painter Maqbool Fida Husain is losing his home and other properties after failing to appear before a court trying him for hurting religious sentiments by painting "Mother India" as a naked woman.

Husain's paintings have often depicted revered Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude, sparking criticism from nationalist parties and activists. A decade ago, radicals even attacked his Mumbai home.

The painting at issue in the latest controversy shows a naked woman in front of a wheel resembling the one used in the national flag. The names of some of India's states are written across her body.

A similar composition of a sari-clad woman with a wheel -- a Buddhist symbol known in Hindi as the dharma chakra -- in the background is used to portray "Mother India" in many patriotic publications.

Husain's work drew protests and several court cases were filed against the 91-year-old painter who lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai and London.

PHOTO: M.F. Husain seen here in 2006 in Manhattan, carrying the large clean paintbrush he always has with him. [Photo by Jay Mandal/On Assignment - jay[at]jaymandal.com - he has more like this.]

Reax? Post in the comments section below.

ART: Bollywood Posters - Then and Now

Tamarind Art in New York launched a new exhibition just yesterday, called Bollywood Posters - Then and Now. The show is timed to coincide with the India Now series of films at the Museum of Modern Art. The posters in this show are originals, dating from the 1960s through the 80s. Personally, my fondest memories of movie posters in India involve watching cows lick the glue off the back of them, as they curled off some decrepit wall, but I have no reason to believe these particular posters possess such lowly provenance.

According to the press release for this show: "The poster for the first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra (D.G. Phalke, 1913) was a simple picture-less print. The poster of the film Kalyan Khajina (Baburao Painter, 1924) is perhaps one of the earliest posters with images to have survived. These posters were usually hand painted on canvas and then used as the design source for printing on paper. Initially overlooked as an art form because of its direct relationship to commercial networks of publicity, today the gradual disappearance of traditional posters from the streets and public places where it has traditionally found its home has made it a collectible."

We asked Deepanjana Klein, the Director of Tamarind Art, a few questions about this genre.

SAJAforum: Tell us about the market for Bollywood posters - is it growing?

The market for vintage Bollywood posters is definitely growing as more and more collectors are getting interested in them in the last 5-7 years. There is a developing awareness among collectors and art lovers that the Bollywood posters as we used to know them and take for granted are gradually vanishing with the development of technology. It should be noted these posters had rarely been viewed as an art form because of its direct relation to publicity and advertising.  However, these posters are very important aspects of the Indian culture and unless conserved and aggressively preserved they would soon be lost.

DESI SPOTTING: NY Observer on "India Inc," New York's Newest Creative Class

March 18's New York Observer has a front-page story by Nicholas Boston that caught my eye: "India Inc: A Bollypolitan elite is the newest creative class to kick into New York with art, fashion, literature."

In 2000, the Indian-American Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with The Interpreter of Maladies, making her the first South Asian—and, at 33, among the youngest of any ethnicity—to be named in that category. She appeared on The Charlie Rose Show, wearing crimson, her hair gelled back into a chignon.

Ever since then, twenty- and thirtysomethings of South Asian descent—that would be Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan—have emerged in a very public way on New York’s cultural stage, and we’re not talkin’ Kaavya Viswanathan. Art centers have been chartered, dance ensembles formed, fashion companies founded—and many more books, both fiction and nonfiction, written and published. Herewith, some names to learn.

Here are excerpts from the folks profiled.

Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan:

At 26, she is working on her master’s thesis at the journalism school while refining the text of her first novel, Love Marriage, an intergenerational saga about a Sri Lankan family, slated for release in spring 2008. The novel is Ms. Ganeshananthan’s first delivery on a plum two-book deal she signed with Random House in September 2006.

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh:

Last week, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot was holding pride of place on Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh’s desk in Fayerweather Hall of Columbia University. The 40-year-old professor of sociology and African-American Studies, filmmaker and chapter subject of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s runaway best-seller Freakonomics, has much to celebrate. In October 2006, he released his most recent book, Off the Books, a fresh take on underground economies. He also just completed a new manuscript, a kind of memoir of the years he spent as a doctoral researcher from the University of Chicago embedded in a blighted South Side Chicago neighborhood interacting with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, pastors and ordinary residents.

Roopal Patel:

Roopal Patel called from her hotel in Paris, the tony Lancaster in the Eighth Arrondissement. Paris Fashion Week was over, but for Ms. Patel, who last January was promoted to senior women’s fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman, there were yet another two days of atelier visits and meetings in the French capital. As a consultant on stylish women’s wardrobes all across Manhattan and beyond, Ms. Patel makes the trek to Europe at least four times a year, for the twice-yearly fashion seasons and their pre-collection showings. In Manhattan, the 33-year-old’s fresh face is a familiar sight on the social circuit: She’s a very photogenic captive on PatrickMcMullan.com and Style.com, for which she once worked as market editor. “I don’t consider myself a socialite,” she said. “Being out and about in New York to see what the ordinary woman on the street is wearing is part of my job. It’s important to be on the pulse.”

Czerina Patel:

ART: New exhibit on Mewar Kingdom at SF's Asian Art Museum

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is hosting a new exhibition, "Princes, Places, and Passion: The Art of India's Mewar Kingdom." Feb. 2 through April 29, 2007.

From the press release (in full below): "For centuries travelers to northern India told tales of a fabled city, “airy, unreal, and fantastic as a dream.” That city was Udaipur, capital of Mewar, the most illustrious of the kingdoms of Rajasthan (the “Land of Kings”). Now, for the first time outside India, an exhibition of 74 rare artworks conveys the brilliant artistic traditions of this legendary kingdom."

This is the exhibitions only U.S. venue. Tell your SF folks.

You can learn more and sign up for ASIANotes, the museum's monthly e-newsletter at http://www.asianart.org

If you see it, or have thoughts on the exhibition,  let us know in the comments section below.