- News (RSS)
- Podcast (RSS)
- Podcast (iTunes)
December 3, 2011
YOU NEED THREE THINGS to run an art gallery successfully—the knowledge of art, knowledge of the history of art and how to talk the talk,” I was told by Peter Nagy who
runs the Gallery Nature Morte in Delhi, Gurgaon and Berlin. Anyone who knows him even casually will agree he is not lacking in the third quality.
On a pleasant early-November Sunday evening, the gallery in Delhi was hosting an annual fundraiser for KHOJ—a nonprofit organisation that has been promoting alternative and experimental art, mostly in Delhi, since it was established, like Nature Morte, in 1997. The evening had just begun—the first guests were trickling in and finishing touches were still being put to the paintings, photos and sculptures on display that had been donated by the artists.The occasion was a little more special than a regular show opening for the gallery and there were additional flourishes—soothing ambient music filled the space as classical guitarist Shyamant Behal warmed up for his recital; and a very well-lit and large temporary bar sponsored by a fashionable gin brand, stood on the gallery’s back lawn.
Continue Reading
October 9, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE @ THE OBEROI, GURGAON
443, UDYOG VIHAR PHASE-V, GURGAON-122016 INDIA
GALLERY: (91) 124-4010443 OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596
info@naturemorte.com / nmoberoi@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
Aditya Pande: “Happy Birthday”
Opening on Sunday, October 9th, 2011.
Exhibition continues to Sunday, October 23rd, 2011.
Nature Morte is proud to announce the inauguration of their new gallery space located in the prestigious Luxury Retail Arcade at The Oberoi, Gurgaon, just next to Trident, Gurgaon. On display will be a group of new works by the New Delhi-based multi-media artist Aditya Pande, given the title “Happy Birthday” to convey a spirit of celebration and excitement.
Most of Aditya Pande’s works can only be described as oxymorons: elegantly grotesque; digital primitivism; controlled spontaneity; intricately ordered anarchy. In his works, Pande balances his every movement with its opposite. The works combine the skills of drawing and printmaking with the surfaces of both photography and painting.
Aditya Pande’s unique digital, mixed-media collages excite the eye with their explosion of colors, their intricacy of lines and complex compositions. His digital graphic designs are physically altered after printing to create a surface that blurs between two dimensions and three. Pande economically creates the impression of deep recesses with sparing collage elements. One must lean in for a closer look to be certain which elements lie flat and which come off the surface.
While Pande’s technique is au courant, his subject matter and style speaks to something more primitive. While the look of the works is most immediately referential to the abstract Surrealism of the Spanish master Joan Miró and the hyper-Expressionism of the Danish painter Asger Jorn, there is something much older hiding in Pande’s pictures. Somewhere in Pande’s mixed-media creations lurks the prehistoric cave art found in both Lascaux and Bhimbetka.
Born in Lucknow in 1976, raised in Chandigarh, living in New Delhi, Aditya Pande studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, where he received his degree in Graphic Design in 2001. He has participated in group shows at Nature Morte, New Delhi (2008 and 2010), Nature Morte Berlin (2009) and Bose Pacia, New York (2008 and 2009) as well as having solo shows at the Alexia Goethe Gallery, London in 2009 and at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai in 2008.
Nature Morte at The Oberoi, Gurgaon is open every day, from 11am to 9pm. For more information and press photographs please contact Gary Jacob at (0124) 4010443 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
August 6, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
Samit Das: “In Search of Frozen Music”
Opening on Saturday, August 6th, 2011.
Exhibition continues to Thursday, August 25th.
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by the New Delhi-based artist Samit Das. Continuing with his signature style of a hybrid mixture of painting, print-making, drawing, and collage, the exhibition is in honor of the 150th birth anniversary of the Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Himself a Bengali and a graduate of Santiniketan (the university established by Tagore and his associates), Samit Das has for many years been researching the architecture and interiors designed by Tagore himself (both for Santiniketan and his homes in Kolkata). Das has approached this archive of imagery as if a journey, mining and deciphering the clues found at an archeological site. Das combines the found photographic materials with his own handwork, creating works that are a synthesis of Tagore’s letters, poetry, painting, academic and social lives, and discovering relevancies between his architectural designs and contemporary practices in the field.
In addition, Samit Das’s unmanipulated photographs of Tagores’s architecture will be part of a large exhibition held at the Lalit Kala Akademie’s Rabindra Bhawan galleries in New Delhi from August 10th to 27th. Entitled “The Idea of Space and Rabindranath Tagore,” the exhibition will combine a wide variety of materials relating to Tagore, including some of his own art works, letters and ephemera. On display will be more than 100 of Das’s photographs of Tagore’s architecture and a major monograph on the subject, with a text by Samit Das, will be released afterwards to document the exhibition.
Samit Das was born in1970 in Jamshedpur, West Bengal. He holds BFA (1994) and MFA (1996) degrees in painting from the Khalbhavan, Visvabharati, Santiniketan and was a visiting fellow in the Book Arts Department of Camberwell College, London in 2000. His most recent solo exhibitions have been held at Gallery 88, Kolkata; Indigo Blue, Singapore; and Art Indus, New Delhi (all 2009), and the Anant Art Centre in Noida and Delaye Saltoun Gallery in London, both in 2008. He lives and works in New Delhi.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596
Continue Reading
July 15, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
"Collective Metamorphosis"
July 25th, 2011 – July 31st, 2011
Press Release
I am a collector but not a curator !
I start with this line as it reflects the philosophy behind this show. I am a collector, I love Indian Contemporary Art and believe it has enriched me in more ways than one. I am not a curator but deeply concerned with what is happening in the world of Indian Contemporary Art.
I believe we need to make art more accessible both in terms of price and ease of access. This will not only encourage artists but also attract many more individuals to engage and collect art.
This was one of the key reasons for establishing Bestcollegeart.com, an art initiative in which we gave an opportunity to every artist to load his best 5 works and sell to collectors. Today with over 700 works loaded and over 180 artists, Best collegeart.com is India's largest art initiative and has sold over 200 works in its 10 months since inception. All works expire in 6 months so the content is always fresh and you can buy online to have it delivered to your home.
Peter Nagy gave the initiative a head start last year when he curated the opening exhibition "The Present is Now" which opened to rave reviews.
"Collective Metamorphosis" was a title which took a long time for me to decide. Finally, I titled it so because I knew all the artists displaying in this show for over a year. We had spoken to each other, discussed the inspiration behind the works, their personal motivation, agreed and disagreed on many points in this journey. In this entire interaction, we contributed to each other's learning and enriched ourselves as artists and a collector. Collective Metamorphosis is our journey through the trials and tribulations of Indian Contemporary Art and our take on the art that you will see.
My only brief to all the artists was to do what they do best and not confine them with a theme, as a theme can sometimes restrict. I believe that when 5 distinct individuals with their own unique approach to art will present the works of passion that they have created, there will be a linkage which will then come through on its own.
Paribartana Mohanty was first seen in a major show at Bestcollegeart.com where his Oil on canvas works were picked up by collectors even before the show started. Paribartana picks up his characters from people around us and then presents his own interpretation of them. The characters come out from the canvas with hues of black and dark shades in the background. The oil on canvas works are powerful, well executed and haunting in their own way, never fading from your memory.
Deepjyoti Kalita epitomises the influence of Baroda school of art to me, challenging the boundaries and pushing the envelope with each work. He does wall mounted installations and kinetic works, so each work has significant movement and the effect on the viewer is much more than a static painting. His characters are generally caught up with a choice that they need to make in life. The works always create a disbelief when they are viewed by collectors as he tends to surprise with lighting and kinetics.
Kumar Kanti Sen quit a lucrative job heading the design function for a top company and followed his passion for art. He is one of the most passionate and committed artists I have seen and someone who experiments continuously with all the mediums. His paper works are vibrant, have a flaming intensity and draw you towards them. I have always felt a certain energy in his works and in parts I feel like the characters he draws so meticulously are on fire.
Gopal Samantray has a take on the rapid urbanisation where cities are now expanding beyond the boundaries and infringing on forests and living spaces of animals. In his works, the animals come into urban spaces as their natural habitats are eroded by urban spaces. He paints a satirical image of leopards and tigers coming out of the forests and into our homes for no fault of theirs.
Tauseef Khan has worked his way up, installing some of the best shows for some of the biggest names in the world of Indian Contemporary art and still not losing that fire within to paint a new landscape. He paints images of Delhi's monuments and gardens seen through a wine glass, a comment on how we view our culture and heritage. The approach to his works is refreshing and the paintings are distinctive.
I am just a collector and someone who appreciates the finer things in life which includes working for The Oberoi Group. I have learnt a lot in my journey through the world of Indian Contemporary Art and enjoyed putting this together.
I hope you enjoy viewing this show at Nature Morte or online at bestcollegeart.com
Kapil Chopra
Continue Reading
July 9, 2011
The Word of God(ess): Chitra Ganesh's Tales of Amnesia
July 9 - September 4, 2011
The Andy Warhol Museum
117 Sandusky Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5890
Continue Reading
June 15, 2011
NATURE MORTE / BOSE PACIA at ART BASEL 42 2011
16 JUNE – 20 JUNE
HALL 2.1 STAND P14
Nature Morte / Bose Pacia are pleased to announce their participation at Art Basel 42, featuring works by: Dayanita Singh, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro and Atul Dodiya.
DAYANITA SINGH and THUKRAL & TAGRA at the 54th VENICE BIENNALE
4 JUNE - 27 NOVEMBER
Dayanita Singh’s work "Dream Villa Slide Show" will be shown in the official exhibition ILLUMInations at the Arsenale, accompanied by a new body of work entitled "File Room", comprised of 40 black and white photographs.
In a collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennale, Thukral & Tagra's work will be shown in the exhibition "Future Pass - From Asia to the World" at Abbazia di San Gregorio, Dorsoduro 172, 30123 Venice.
PARIS–DELHI–BOMBAY...
CENTRE POMPIDOU, GALERIE 1, LEVEL 6
25 MAY - 19 SEPTEMBER
Works by Bharti Kher, Subodh Gupta, Dayanita Singh, Thukral & Tagra, Pushpamala N., Atul Dodiya, Hema Upadhyay, Raqs Media Collective, Jitish Kallat and Anita Dube are featured as part of a major exhibition that explores Indian society through Indian and French artists.
June 9, 2011
June 11 - July 30
OPENING: Friday, June 10, 6-9pm
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to present “The Strangling Power of Dust and Stars”, a solo exhibition by Chitra Ganesh featuring a large-scale multimedia installation created on-site in Berlin, new drawings, works on canvas and digital collages.
Continue Reading
April 4, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
L.N. Tallur: “Chromatophobia: The Fear of Money”
April 4th to 30th, 2011
Exhibition opens on Sunday, April 3rd from 6 to 8pm.
Nature Morte is pleased to present an exhibition of new sculptures by L.N. Tallur. The title ironically situates the artist’s practice within the intersections of desire, value, pedigree and psychology. Known for his kinetic sculptures which often comment on society and politics, the work of L.N. Tallur combines a sharp wit along with a prodigious use of materials.
Many of the works in the exhibition use the classical sculpture of India as their starting points. These “found objects” are then combined and manipulated, confounding the established categorizations with which we usually interpret art: figuration and abstraction, traditional and contemporary, decorative and functional, creative and destructive, religious and secular. It is as if each work is both and neither at the same time. Tallur’s works may appear quintessentially “Indian” at first, but they certainly participate in the most advanced dialogues surrounding sculpture today and reveal themselves to be both cosmopolitan and historically astute.
L.N. Tallur was born in 1971 in the south Indian state of Karnataka. He received a BFA degree in painting from the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts in Mysore in 1996, an MFA degree in museology from the MS University in Baroda in 1998, and an MA in Fine Art from the Metropolitan University in Leeds, UK, in 2002. Solo shows of his works have been mounted at Arario Gallery, Beijing (2010); Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai (2009); Arario Gallery, New York (2008); Arario Gallery, Seoul (2007); Bose Pacia, New York (2000); and Chemould Gallery, Mumbai (1999). In addition to receiving the Sanskriti Award from the Sanskriti Foundation of New Delhi in 2003 and having his works included in many group exhibitions around the world, Tallur’s large-scale installation entitled “Souvenir Maker” was recently exhibited at the Devi Foundation in Gurgaon and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Singapore. The artist currently divides his time between India and South Korea.
On the following page are two texts supplied by the artist to function as sardonic explanations for his works and the exhibition.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or visit our website at www.naturemorte.com.
Continue Reading
March 8, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
PRESS RELEASE
Reena Saini Kallat: “Labyrinth of Absences”
Opening on Tuesday, March 8th from 6 to 8 pm.
The exhibition continues to Saturday, March 26th
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Reena Saini Kallat, entitled “Labyrinth of Absences”, after a gap of six years since her last solo at the gallery.
Reena Kallat’s practice spans painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation, often incorporating multiple mediums into a single work. She frequently works with officially recorded or registered names of people, objects, and monuments that are lost or have disappeared without a trace, only to get listed as forgotten statistics. One of the recurrent motifs in her work is the rubber stamp, used both as an object and an imprint, signifying the bureaucratic apparatus which both confirms and obscures identities.
Among the works in the exhibition will be a set of new paintings that depict monument sites in Delhi. The surface of the paintings are marked with addresses of monuments listed as protected sites under the Archeological Survey of India, that have either disappeared or have been declared lost, swallowed up by the rapidly expanding urban fabric. The works on paper are constructed from the names of people who have been denied visas on the basis of class, nationality or religion. In most cases, her images are fractured and deconstructed, creating maze-like maps - or as in the case of Synonym, a series of portraits crafted as mosaics of rubber-stamps, holding the names of people who are officially registered as missing - appear pixelated and fragmented. Other works in the show include Crease/Crevice/Contour, a set of ten large-scale photographs tracing the fluctuating Line Of Control between India and Pakistan from October 1947 to December 1948.
Two video works will also be exhibited: Silt of Seasons-I, projects the names of people who have signed the peace petition in 2004. The names are projected on to sand and are gradually blown away, suggestive of the vulnerability of the peace process itself. In Preface, the artist projects the text of the Preamble of the Constitution of India translated into Braille on to the surface of a large, opened book.
Reena Saini Kallat (b. Delhi 1973) graduated from the Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1996 with a BFA in painting. An artist of international recognition, Ms. Kallat has participated in a number of group exhibitions including Maximum India at The Kennedy Centre in Washington DC; Samtidigt at Kulturhuset, Stockholm and the Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; The Empire Strikes Back Saatchi Gallery, London; The Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale 2010; Urban Manners- 2 at SESC Pompeia, Sao Paulo, Brazil; View Points and Viewing points - 2009 Asian Art Biennale, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo that travelled to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul and the Essl Museum, Vienna among others. Ms. Kallat’s most recent solo exhibition was at the Primo Marella Gallery, Milan in 2009 and her last solo show in India was presented at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai in 2008. She has had ten solo exhibitions in India and abroad and participated in a number of workshops and residencies all over the world. She lives and works in Mumbai.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information or press photographs, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215. The artist’s complete CV and images of all works and the installation can be found on our website at www.naturemorte.com.
Continue Reading
February 24, 2011
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Bharat Sikka: “MATTER”
24. Februar- 19. März 2011
Vernissage: 24. Februar 18-21 Uhr
--For English text please scroll down--
Nature Morte freut sich eine Reihe neuer Werke des Fotografen Bharat Sikka mit dem Titel “Matter” anzukündigen.
“Matter” umfasst eine Serie von Bildern in verschiedenen Formaten, die Studio-, Straßen-, Landschafts- und Portraitfotografie miteinander verschmelzen und dadurch ein Porträt des „neuen“ Indiens kreieren, dass durch den Zusammenstoß einer antiken Kultur mit kontemporären Realitäten gekennzeichnet ist. Stark beeinflusst durch einen rapiden, von der Globalisierung und einer halsbrecherischen Entwicklung hervorgerufenen Wandel, sucht Indien nach seiner Identität – legt sich neue zu, hält mit Unbehagen an seinen traditionellen fest und legt alte ab wie Masken. Sikkas Bilder erforschen diese sprunghafte Identität von seiner ganz persönlichen Perspektive: urban, gebildet, mittelständisch und selbstreflektiert. Die Farbskala von „Matter“ ist extrem reduziert; Sikka arbeitet ausschließlich mit Schwarz-, Grau-, Weiß- und Silbertönen und vermeidet dadurch die klischeehaft bunten Farben Indiens.
Sikka scheut sich nicht jeden Aspekt von Indiens ungleichmäßiger visueller Topographie darzustellen. Die wunderschön komponierten Fotografien zeigen Momente des Grübelns und der Entfremdung, Momente purer Energie, Momente jugendlicher Respektlosigkeit und Momente makaberer Faszination. Sikka vermischt Höhen und Tiefen und spielt zudem das Natürliche gegen das Künstliche aus; die Spitzen des Himalayas finden sich in den Falten einer Plastikdecke wieder, während das beunruhigende Schimmern einer Plastikmaske tragenden Figur sich mit den sinnlichen Porträts junger Männer und Frauen kontrastiert. Eine Webseite www.mattershow.com wird die Bildersammlung das nächste Jahr über dokumentieren und aktualisieren.
In den Serien „Indian Men“ und „Space-In-Between“ hat Sikka bereits zuvor die sichtbaren Widersprüche seines sich ständig wandelnden Heimatlandes enthüllt und porträtierte die Gesichter der Männer sowie die Grenzlandschaften Indiens mit einer ähnlichen Ästhetik der Ungewissheit.
Sikka hat folgendes über sein neues Werk zu sagen: „ `Matter` ist eine visuelle Aufzeichnung der vielen Dinge die meinen Weg kreuzen. Egal ob ich das Alltägliche, die Toten oder die Lebendigen fotografiere, diese Bilder stellen Dinge dar, die eine impulsive Emotion in mir hervorrufen. Sie bestimmen nicht nur meinen Gemütszustand sondern stellen auch in Frage, wie ich meine Umgebung wahrnehme. Jedes dieser Bilder hat seine eigene Geschichte oder vielleicht sogar gar keine. Von einer raschen Entscheidung ein Wort niederzuschreiben bis zum Hochheben meiner Kamera und der Aufnahme des Bildes, schreibe ich und mache mir Notizen während ich Bilder kreiere.“
Bharat Sikka, 1973 geboren, absolvierte 2002 einen BFA an der Parsons School of Design in New York. Seine Arbeiten wurden bereits in Neu Delhi, Mumbai, Paris, Milan und New York ausgestellt. Sikka ist häufig auf Reisen, weit entfernt von seiner Heimat in Neu Delhi, und arbeitet als Fotograf für Publikationen und Projekte, wie die New York Times, GQ, Vogue India, Vogue Hommes International, I-D Magazine, Time Magazine, den New Yorker und die Incredible India campaign.
-------------------------------
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Bharat Sikka: “MATTER”
February 24 - March 19, 2011
Opening: February 24th, 6-9pm
Nature Morte is pleased to announce “Matter,” a series of new works by photographer Bharat Sikka.
“Matter” features a series of images in a variety of formats that blend studio, street, landscape and portrait photography into a portrait of the “new” India, an ancient culture slamming up against contemporary realities. The site of rapid change brought on by globalization and breakneck development, India is searching for its identity – trying on new ones, uneasily inhabiting traditional ones, and shedding old ones like masks. Sikka’s images explore this mercurial identity from his own very personal perspective: urban, educated, middle-class and self-conscious. The palette of “Matter” is doggedly reductive; eschewing India’s clichéd bright hues, Sikka works only in blacks, greys, whites and silvers.
Sikka does not shy away from exposing every side of India’s uneven visual topography. All beautifully composed, the photographs show moments of brooding and alienation, moments of sheer energy, moments of teenage irreverence and moments of macabre allure. Mixing high and low, Sikka also pits the natural against the artificial: the peaks of the Himalayas are echoed in the folds and creases of a plastic sheet, while the unsettling gleam of a plastic-masked figure contrasts with the sensuous portraits of young men and women. A website www.mattershow.com will document and update the corpus of images for the next year.
Sikka has revealed the ambiguities visible in his transforming home country before. The series’ “Indian Men” and “Space In-Between” portrayed the faces of the men and the liminal landscapes of India with a similar aesthetic of uncertainty.
Sikka himself has this to say about this new body of work: " ‘Matter’ is a visual record of the many things that come my way. From photographing the ordinary, to the dead and the alive, these images constitute things that evoke an impulsive emotion in me. They do not only merely determine the state of my mind, but also challenge the way I perceive my surroundings. Each of these images has their own story or perhaps none at all. From an impetuous decision of jotting a word down, to rather lifting my camera and making that picture, I am writing and making notes while also making images.”
Bharat Sikka, born in 1973, completed a BFA at Parson’s School of Design in New York In 2002. He has exhibited his works in New Delhi, Mumbai, Paris, Milan and New York. Sikka travels widely from his home in New Delhi, working as a photographer for publications and projects such as The New York Times, GQ, Vogue India, Vogue Hommes International, I-D Magazine, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, and the Incredible India campaign.
Continue Reading
January 29, 2011
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215 OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
PRESS RELEASE
Thukral & Tagra: “Put It On, Again!”
Opening on January 29th, 2011; exhibition continues to February 26th at A1 Neeti Bagh.
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the New Delhi artist duo Thukral & Tagra. The exhibition continues from their 2007 solo exhibition (“Put It On,” Bose Pacia, New York) with a body of work that addresses the themes of safe sex practices and increased sexual activity among Indian youth, against the backdrop of traditional perceptions of sexuality and the increased representation of sexualized bodies within the Indian media landscape. With their characteristic use of pop culture imagery, graphic pizzazz, seductive colors, sardonic wit and insightful juxtapositions, Thukral & Tagra will address deadly serious subjects through a humorous façade, employing paintings, consumer products and sculptural installations in the mix.
As part of the exhibition, Thukral & Tagra will present the installation work “The Beautiful Game,” first created for the India Art Summit. Acknowledging the competitiveness and sense of sport that lie at the heart of courtship and romance, a simplified game of billiards will invite couples to test their skill and luck to win T&T merchandise. While this merchandise will educate about safe sex practices, the form of the billiards game itself will act as a metaphor for both the anxiety associated with sexual awakening and the thrill of amorous adventures. By creating the atmosphere of a gaming hall in the context of an art gallery, Thukral & Tagra lure the public into a dialogue about a subject they may usually do everything to avoid.
The Foundation Thukral & Tagra, founded in 2009, aims to spread awareness about the transmission of HIV and to dispel misinformation about AIDS. By employing the multi-disciplinary creativity, playfulness and humor that are hallmarks of their art practice, Thukral & Tagra explore new avenues of communication and education to bring the issues of HIV and AIDS to the public. Their efforts are predominantly targeted towards the urban, middle-class youth, as this demographic group now enjoys leisure time, a measure of privacy and a disposable income, all of which contribute to increased sexual activity at an earlier age. The goal is to break through the ingrained embarrassment associated with talking about sexual activity so that the subject of safe sex practices can be introduced. By positioning their imagery and products at a variety of points in the consumer society (in upscale malls and low-income street markets, on wearable items and printed give-aways) and collaborating with health care NGOs who are already working in the field, Thukral & Tagra hope to create situations where parents and children, flirtatious teens, and inexperienced peer groups are coaxed into addressing the subject and are educated so that they can make responsible choices.
Jiten Thukral (born 1976, Jalandhar) and Sumir Tagra (born 1979, New Delhi) have been working collaboratively since 2002. Trained in both Fine Art and Design, their practice runs the range from paintings, sculptures and installations to product and interior design. This is their second solo exhibition with Nature Morte in New Delhi. Recent solo exhibitions of their works have been mounted at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, the Arario Gallery in Seoul and the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (all 2010). Upcoming projects include a solo show at the Tokyo Gallery in Japan (April) and participation in a large-scale exhibition of Indian contemporary art at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (May). More information, images of previous works and their full bio-data can be found on our website at: http://www.naturemorte.com/artists/thukral-and-tagra.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
January 15, 2011
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to present their new group exhibition "What Rules? (after FIRST SHOWING)".
What Rules? (after FIRST SHOWING) Akshay Raj Singh Rathore, Aneesh Kalode Rajan, Asim Waqif, Khalil Chishtee, Kumaresan Selvaraj, Malik Sajad, Pritika Chowdhry, Rohini Devasher, Saravanan Parasuraman, Sonia Mehra Chawla, Suchitra Gahlot
Opening: 15th of January, 2011, 18:00 to 21:00
The exhibition will continue till February 15.
December 9, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
Subodh Gupta: “Oil on Canvas”
Opening on Thursday, December 9th from 6 to 8 pm.
Exhibition continues to Sunday, January 23rd.
Nature Morte is pleased to present its fourth solo show in New Delhi with new works by Subodh Gupta. In December 2003, Nature Morte opened its Neeti Bagh space with a solo show of Subodh’s works (this was the second solo, the first being at the Lokayata space in Haus Khas Village in October 2000). This, Subodh’s third show in our Neeti Bagh gallery, also inaugurates our eighth year there.
Subodh’s title for this exhibition is ironic, as the show will be composed entirely of new sculptures, with no paintings at all. (Nature Morte will exhibit a group of new paintings by the artist in our booth at the Indian Art Summit, January 20-23, 2011.) On display will be a range of new sculptures, in a wide variety of forms and materials. Stainless steel, the artist’s signature medium, will be in evidence, but also works in bronze, marble, brass and wood. All of the works continue the artist’s dialogue with found and manipulated objects, focusing on specific objects of a mundane nature that encapsulate multiple meanings and reflect on the circumstances of contemporary India.
Born in Khagaul, Bihar, in 1964, in the past ten years Subodh Gupta has become the most celebrated artist from India on the international scene. His works have been exhibited in prestigious museums, art fairs and biennial exhibitions throughout the world and he has held solo exhibitions in some of the world’s most important contemporary art galleries, including Hauser & Wirth (London and Zurich), Arario (Seoul and Beijing), Pinchuk Art Centre (Kiev), and Galeria Continua (San Gimignano, Italy). His complete CV can be found on our website at www.naturemorte.com, along with images of the exhibition and works.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
The gallery will be closed on December 25th and January 1st. The gallery will be open from 10am to 10pm during the Indian Art Summit (January 20th, 21st, and 22nd) and open on Sunday, January 23rd from 10am to 6pm. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
November 20, 2010
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to announce a solo show by the American photographer Diana Michener.
Opening: 20th of November, 2010, 18:00-21:00
The exhibition will continue until January 8
Continue Reading
October 30, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Mona Rai: “VERK”
Opening on Saturday, October 30th from 6 to 9 pm.
Exhibition continues to Wednesday, November 24th.
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by the New Delhi artist Mona Rai. In a cultural context known predominantly for figurative art, Mona Rai has remained steadfastly committed to abstraction throughout her long career as a painter (her first solo show was in Delhi in 1974). "Verk" declares the foundation for this suite of new works that are ambitious in scale, materials, and approach. A grid of metallic leafs (gold, silver or copper) acts as the structure for each of these large paintings, then manipulated by the artist to arrive at multiple destinations. With the addition of paint, mirrors, fabrics, and strings, Rai crafts elaborately detailed surfaces that resemble exotic textiles, kaleidoscopic vistas, ancient mosaics and antique veneers. In works composed of multiple panels, they recall Japanese screens and city lights; in single-canvas works the references include carpets, tapestries and even gardens. The works seem to glow from within and Rai's touch is both delicate and assured, resulting in astonishing levels of variety and subtlety in the works. In the end, geometry battles an organic fecundity and painting becomes something both architectural and commemorative.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj or Vandana Saluja at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
October 5, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
“The Gamut”
Paintings by Nidhi Agarwal, Ramakrishna Behera and Basist Kumar
Opening on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Exhibition continues to Saturday, October 23rd
On display at Nature Morte in October will be a show of paintings by three artists which explores the diverse strains of imagery in painting today. A “gamut” is the complete range or spectrum of possibilities. Landscapes, portraiture and abstraction come together in the works of these three young artists.
New Delhi-based Nidhi Agarwal paints aggressive, muscular abstractions that harbor figurative passages and landscape tendencies. Violently expressionistic, her color palette is both complex and acrid and her subject matter often perverse. Her paintings are almost anti-decorative and a suite of works on paper update the nihilistic heads of F.N. Souza with collage techniques and advertising images. Born in 1972, Agarwal studied painting at the College of Art, New Delhi and has had solo shows of her work at Art Konsult Gallery (1999) and Dhoomimal Gallery (2009), both in New Delhi.
The paintings of Ramakrishna Behera are most certainly landscapes and are inspired by real places: the caves of Ajanta, the mountains and monasteries of Ladakh, the countryside and temples of Orissa, even the interior of the artist’s home. Yet the works employ distorted perspectives and fold in images of outer space to become something more like psychological maps or hallucinatory visions. While their palette of colors is realistic, their spaces certainly are not. The surfaces of his paintings are buttery and their details are seemingly coaxed spontaneously from their making. Behera, a self-taught painter, was born in Orissa in 1977 and lives and works in Barauni in Bihar. He has held solo shows of his works at Bose Pacia in both Kolkata and New York and at Seven Art Ltd. in New Delhi.
Trained in Santiniketan, where he continues to live and work, Basist Kumar fuses singular portraits with iconic landscapes, resulting in paintings that are indebted to both Science Fiction and Symbolism. He pairs individuals in confrontational poses with boulders, trees, sea-scapes, or architecture to create diptych paintings that are both balanced and dynamic. Born in 1984, the artist earned a BFA degree from the College of Art, Delhi University and an MFA from Vishwa-Bharati University in Santiniketan. Kumar has exhibited his paintings in the past few years at both Bose Pacia Gallery in Calcutta and the Davide Gallo Gallery in Berlin.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays.
For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj or Vandana Saluja at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
September 11, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
“Tract”: a solo show of new works by Arunkumar H.G.
Opening on Saturday, September 11th, 2010
Exhibition continues to Saturday, October 1st.
Nature Morte is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by the Delhi-based artist Arunkumar H.G. Continuing with many of the themes first explored in his previous solo show with Nature Morte (“Feed” 2006), the show is primarily composed of sculptures in a variety of forms and materials, with the addition of some photographic work and wall reliefs.
The works explore the concept of Land and all that it entails and elaborates upon: metaphors for the human and social bodies; questions of ownership and usage; the migration of rural populations to urban centers; environmental consciousness and abuse; the production and distribution of food and the resulting consequences of health, markets, real estate and waste management.
As stated by the independent curator and cultural activist Himanshu Desai in his essay which accompanies the exhibition:
“The word Tract is pertinent to many of Arun’s concerns including environment, land and body. Dictionary definitions of the word stand proof:
Tract (trăkt)
1. Geography: An expanse of land or water (pertinent to Arun’s upbringing in agricultural environs that make him question the very nature of land or water ownership).
2. Anatomy: A system of organs and tissues that together perform a specialized function: e.g. the alimentary tract, or a bundle of nerve fibers having a common origin, termination, and function (suggestive of Arun’s interest in the effects of consumerism on nutrition, health and environment).
3. Liturgy: An anthem consisting of verses of Scripture (analogous to Arun’s lament on the loss of ancient agrarian wisdom in the face of capitalism).
Tract has no single message and is in fact intended to offer multiple layers of speculation and discovery to the viewer, and although this manner of storytelling may induce a degree of ambiguity and unease, the very intention is simply to coax speculation and keep any or all sermonising at bay.”
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215
or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
August 7, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
Office: (91) 11- 2956-1596 Gallery: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
"Spiral Jetty'
with works by
Anita Dube, Abhishek Hazra, Pushpamala N., Josh P.S., Jeffrey Schiff, Mithu Sen, Seher Shah
Opening on Saturday, August 7th from 6 to 8pm.
The exhibition will continue to September 7th.
"Spiral Jetty" refers to the famous earthwork by the American sculptor Robert Smithson (1938-1973). Constructed in 1970, the work consisted of hundreds of boulders arranged in the shallow waters of the Great Salt Lake in the western American state of Utah. The title also refers to the form of the spiral, that which turns inward, reflecting upon itself. The exhibition will address the subject of derivation in contemporary art. Usually used in a pejorative sense, "derivative" is, in fact, a condition of all human endeavor, as all aspects of culture and science build on what has come before. For the aware and progressive artist working today, derivation is a condition to be both acknowledged and confronted, certainly not denied or disregarded.
Much contemporary art today is both highly self-conscious of its antecedents and refers directly to its own patrimony or influences in its making. "Spiral Jetty" brings together the work of seven artists who work in a diverse array of mediums (including painting, sculpture, print-making, photography, video and installation). In all cases, the artists refer to pre-existing forms or images, recycling these into new creations. In some cases, the source materials that have been recycled are obvious, as in the paintings of Josh P.S., which re-create in an epic scale small sepia-toned photographs from the colonial era, and the prints of Seher Shah, which combine both found architectural photographs with her own reconfigured drawings. In other examples, the artists consciously evoke entire art movements or schools of thought in a more abstracted manner. Examples of this are the sculptures of Anita Dube and Jeffrey Schiff, both of which employ natural forms and materials so as to refer to the Italian trend known as Arte Povera but also to philosophical and linguistic systems. Other works, such as those by Abhishek Hazra and Mithu Sen, directly appropriate images from other works of art (from Yves Klein and Egon Schiele, respectively) to create entirely new works that comment on the relationship between these historical artists and our current context. In the "travelogue" photographs of Pushpamala N. the artist dons traditional costumes from other cultures for her portraits shot in photo-studios in cities around the world. By pairing her own travel experiences with the preconceived vestiges we come to expect from international travel, she comments on the continuing desire for "authenticity" in spite of an increasingly globalised mass-culture.
In all cases, the artists do not attempt to hide their sources and references, do not pretend that their works are entirely original. In fact, the derivation is very much part of the process of the work itself, acknowledging the self-conscious construction of culture building upon inherited cultures.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Please note: there are no art works by Robert Smithson included in the exhibition.
For information regarding Robert Smithson, contact: smithsonestate@jamescohangallery.com
Continue Reading
July 5, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
On view at Nature Morte for the month of July will be the work of three artists who explore divergent paths of the painted image.
Jaya Ganguly (born 1958) lives and works in Calcutta. She is one of the pre-eminent woman painters working in India today and has developed her own very personalized and independent style. Her canvases hover on the border between abstraction and figuration and explore expressionistic and even grotesque subjects. Her palette is reductive and refined (here, in three works, working only with browns, white and black), which brings a tribal affinity to her mask-like images and distorted forms.
Dileep Sharma (born 1974) lives and works in Mumbai. His paintings are large-scale works on paper, bold tones of watercolors that inhabit precise pen-and-ink outlines. On view will be works from his most recent series which takes as its subject matter action figures from the world of sports. Men and women, single and in teams, leap across the picture plane, twisting through space and energized by vivid colors. Sharma's works contemporize the traditional Indian miniature and update Pop Art for today's media-saturated landscape.
Jayanta Roy (born 1973) lives and works in Calcutta. His graphic equations are rendered in paint on canvas, combining iconic images into puzzles which conflate signs, representations and implied meanings. With a light touch and a sense of humour, the artist comments on the commodification of art objects, the manipulation of the artist's identity, the media's infatuation with celebrities, and the increasing similarities between politics and show business.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
June 26, 2010
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to present the new exhibition Treacherous Path, an exhibition featuring a site-specific project by Julia Staszak, and installations by Raqs Media Collective and Radhika Khimji.
Opening: 26th of June, 2010, 18:00-21:00.
The exhibition will continue until September 18, after a summer pause from August 1st until September 1st.
Continue Reading
June 5, 2010
NATURE MORTE / BOSE PACIA are pleased to announce their participation at ART BASEL 2010
Featuring: Atul Dodiya, Gauri Gill, Suhasini Kejriwal, Aditya Pande, TV Santosh, Seher Shah, Schandra Singh, and Thukral & Tagra
16 June – 20 June
Messe Basel, Messeplatz, Hall 2.1 Stand P13
April 17, 2010
Nature Morte Berlin is delighted to announce that the exhibition Probir Gupta: DESERT SCRAP has been extended until April 17th 2010.
Nature Morte Berlin freut sich, die Ausstellung Probir Gupta: DESERT SCRAP bis zum 17 April 2010 zu verlängern.
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91
Berlin 10117
Tel +49 (0) 30 206 548 77
Tuesday to Saturday, 11am - 6pm
Email: naturemorte.berlin@googlemail.com
March 27, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Gauri Gill: "Notes from the Desert: 1999-2010"
Opening Saturday, March 27th.
Exhibition continues to Saturday, April 24th.
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of photographs by Gauri Gill. Based in New Delhi, Gill has previously exhibited series of works depicting urban scenes shot at night and the Indian diaspora living in the United States. All the while, Gill has been returning regularly to spend substantial amounts of time with nomadic and migrant rural communities in Western Rajasthan. "Notes from the Desert" will be the first exhibition of the works produced there over a ten-year period, on display will be more than forty photographs, edited from a corpus of hundreds.
The exhibition is primarily structured around portraits, some candid and spontaneous, many posed in collaboration with their subjects. The results are humorous, shocking, playful, and heart-breaking. The daily lives and intimate relationships of these families are revealed, as are their struggles with the unrelenting landscape, dire poverty and ancient traditions. Both joy and suffering flow through this body of work; Gill's camera documents the succession of experiences from birth to death, both her sympathies and her surprises.
Gauri Gill was born in Chandigarh in 1970 and lives in New Delhi. She received a BFA in Applied Arts from Delhi College of Art in 1992 and a second BFA in Photography from the Parsons School of Design in New York in 1994. She received her MFA in Photography from Stanford University in California. Her first solo exhibition "The Americans" has been exhibited at Bose Pacia Kolkata, Nature Morte in New Delhi, Matthieu Foss Gallery in Mumbai, the Thomas Welton Art Gallery at Stanford University, The Chicago Cultural Centre and Bose Pacia New York (2008-2009) and a catalog is available. Her works have been included in important group exhibitions of photography including "Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh" (Whitechapel Gallery, London and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland); "The Self and the Other: Portraiture in Contemporary Indian Photography" (Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona; and "Shifting Shapes: Unstable Signs" (Yale Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven).
The works in the exhibition are primarily silver gelatin prints, with also some archival digital prints and C-type color prints. All works are for sale, framed, and produced in an edition of 7.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at
(011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
February 20, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
ad infinitum
including works by:
Shilpa Chavan, Alice Cicolini, Hitesh Natalwala, Aditya Pande and Samaraendra Raj Singh
Opening Saturday, February 20th.
Exhibition continues to Saturday, March 20th.
On display at Nature Morte will be a group show entitled "ad infinitum" (which in Latin means "without limits"). The exhibition explores the inter-relationships between works of diverse mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation. It also willfully crosses boundaries between art, design, craft and fashion while exploring a collaborative exhibition design that intentionally mixes artists' works together and erodes the perceived distinctions between individual artistic languages.
Shilpa Chavan (born 1974, aka Little Shilpa, based in Mumbai) is a stylist and designer who works with a wide variety of materials to create images and accessories with a subversive wit. She recycles found objects and discarded materials into extravagant millenary and wearable art. In India, she has collaborated with the fashion designers Manish Arora, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Tarun Tahiliani, Varun Bahl and Malini Ramani and in 2009 she was invited by the celebrated milliner Stephen Jones to participate in the Headonistic Festival in London.
Alice Cicolini (born 1973, based in London) creates contemporary jewelry using the traditional techniques and materials of Jaipur. Her works reference the sacred architectural forms of India as well as the cultural patterns of the ancient Silk Route. Combining carved ebony, precious gem stones, gold and the multi-colored Jaipuri enamel, these miniature sculptures to display on the body defy pre-existing definitions of standard jewelry forms.
Hitesh Natalwala (born 1964, based in Perth) crafts self-portraits of his own hybridized identity using a complex process of collage. He starts with images culled from pop culture sources (album covers, movie posters) and inserts himself as the central protagonist, performing as a diverse array of characters linked to the role models of his formative years. His works comment on stereotypes associated with the Indian diaspora while not exactly being paintings, photos or drawings.
Aditya Pande (born 1976, based in New Delhi) synthesizes computer-based drawings with collage, painting, and photography. A group of new works realized at a recent Khoj Residency explore the after-life of an abstract installation via its documentation by video. In addition, the artist's works of cartoon-like characters inhabiting shape-shifting spaces of saturated colors will also be on view. Pande's calligraphic wall-drawings will also be an integral component in the exhibition design.
Samaraendra Raj Singh (born 1967, based in New Delhi) fuses art historical imagery with decorative arts motifs from a wide variety of cultures and portraiture of contemporary subjects. His paintings employ metallic foil grounds to approximate jeweled surfaces. Dizzying in their complexity and references, Singh's works equate traditional Asian arts with more contemporary visual trends such as Psychedelia and Op Art.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
January 15, 2010
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Dayanita Singh: Dream Villa
Opening Friday, January 15th, 2010
Exhibition continues to Saturday, February 13th.
Nature Morte is proud to host an exhibition of new color photographs by the prominent photographer Dayanita Singh. Premiered at the Frith Street Gallery in London in November 2008, the body of work is entitled "Dream Villa." The color photographs explore how the night transforms what seems ordinary by day into something mysterious and magical. These lush images are saturated with intense color and present a landscape which exists as much in the artist's imagination as in the real world. Ms. Singh travels to many different cities to find her images, never knowing where Dream Villa or its inhabitants will present themselves. The empty streets, the arrangements of neon lights and the silent façades have an unsettling and at times sinister atmosphere, this is a place where nothing is quite as it seems – it comes into being at night, when all is lit by artificial light and the moon is just ornamentation.
Steidl, the renowned German publisher of photography books, will publish the book of "Dream Villa."
Born in New Delhi in 1961, Dayanita Singh studied Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and later Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. She has held solo exhibitions of her work at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum in Boston, Recontres Arles in France, the Ikon Gallery of Birmingham, Gallery Nature Morte in New Delhi, Frith Street Gallery in London, Studio Guenzani in Milan, Gallery Chemould and Gallery Mirchandani + Steinruecke in Bombay. In addition, her works have been included in group exhibitions in such prestigious venues as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, London's Tate Modern, the Asia Society in New York, the Kunsthalle in Vienna and the Asian Arts Museum of San Francisco.
In 2008, Ms. Singh was awarded a Robert Gardner Fellowship from the Harvard University Art Museums and also received the prestigious Prince Claus Award "for the outstanding quality of her images, for providing a complex and well-articulated view of contemporary India, and for introducing a new aesthetic into Indian photography".
A major retrospective of Ms. Singh's photographs will open at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid on January 19th, 2010, accompanied by a book to be co-published with Penguin India
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
December 8, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Seher Shah: "Paper to Monument"
December 8th 2009 to January 9th, 2010
Seher Shah's work navigates the many permutations of personal and historical collective spatial memory through powerful graphic constructions. Trained as an architect, she starts with her own detailed drawings and then combines these with found imagery, both diagrammatic and photographic. Shah's black and white prints and drawings explore the dimensions and incarnations of various iconographies: architectural, historical, personal, and political. The exhibition is comprised of large-scale drawings as well as digital prints in a variety of sizes and formats. The impetus of her artistic exploration is the space of memory, this begins with her personal recollections and retracing of iconic architectural spaces and forms, as well as the official and clandestine histories of the various cultures she has lived in during her life.
Shah's mise en scène is a complex construction of icons, symbols, spaces and historical eras. Through her thoughtful and innovative draftsmanship and compositional style, Shah presents the viewer with dynamic landscapes of imagined recollections and possible scenarios for the future. Using the aesthetics of power from pagan symbology to elements of Imperial authority, Shah's work portrays the organic amalgam of recreating the historical and the personal by synthesizing location and sentiment into a kinetic alternate space of memory; memory which makes no distinction between public and private happenings.
Born in 1975 in Karachi, Pakistan, Seher Shah grew up in Belgium, the U.K, and New York City. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture Degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998. Over the past years her work has appeared in several international exhibitions including "Zeichnungen" at Gisele Linder Gallery, Basel; "Generation 1.5" at The Queens Museum of Art; "21: Twenty-First Century Artists" at The Brooklyn Museum; FIAC at the Cour Caree, Louvre in Paris; "The Jameel Prize" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and "Drawing Space" at Green Cardamom, London.
Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art Asia Pacific, Bidoun, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, and Frieze Magazine, amongst others. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum and The Queens Museum in New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Schauffhausen, Switzerland; Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt; the Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation, Vienna, amongst others.
Seher Shah currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
November 12, 2009
Relax the Brain opens at Nature Morte Berlin.
November 12th, 2009 - January 16th 2010
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91
Berlin 10117
Tel +49 (0) 30 206 548 77
Tuesday to Saturday, 11am - 6pm
Email: naturemorte.berlin@googlemail.com
Continue Reading
October 24, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Bharat Sikka: "The Road to Salvador do Mundo"
October 24th to November 28th, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new color photographs by Bharat Sikka. "The Road to Salvador do Mundo" is the title the photographer has given to a wide range of images, all shot in or near the small Goan village of the same name.
The images span a wide range of genres: landscapes, portraits, interiors and still lifes. What links all of the photographs together is both a mood and a perspective. The photographer presents the atmosphere and the inhabitants of this hamlet as characters in an on-going drama, multiple narratives are suggested but never revealed, connections are implied but always cryptic. The colors of the photographs are richly seductive, communicating the lush vegetation of the tropics but also an elaborated psychological foreboding.
Bharat Sikka was born in 1973, is based in New Delhi and holds a BFA degree from the Parsons School of Design in New York City. His photographs have appeared in a wide number of international publications including The New Yorker, Details, Time, I.D., Marie Claire (Italy) and Vogue India.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.
Concurrent with this exhibition will be a showing of Bharat Sikka's fashion photography at the offices of the advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy. Bharat Sikka's fashion photographs have been published in magazines all over the world and he is a frequent editorial contributor to Vogue India. His style is both humorous and dramatic, often using unconventional locations and unexpected points of view. The exhibition will be open from Monday, November 2nd to Saturday, November 28th. Gallery hours are 10am to 7pm daily, except Sunday.
Wieden+Kennedy
B10 Triveni Complex, Shaik Sarai Phase 1, New Delhi
Tel: (011) 4600 9595 / Contact: Shankar Arora - 9873 44 13 20
Wieden+Kennedy, founded in Portland, Oregon, is one of the largest independently owned advertising agencies, with offices in Amsterdam, Beijing, Delhi, London, New York, Portland, Shanghai and Tokyo. A full-service, creatively-led communications company, Wieden+Kennedy has helped build some of the strongest global brands, including Nike, ESPN, Starbucks, Honda, Electronic Arts, P&G and Coca-Cola. Launched in 2008, W+K Delhi is helping to define a new approach to branding in India. W+K Delhi's clients include Incredible !ndia (global campaign), Nokia, Royal Enfield Motorcycles and IndiGo Airlines.
With their exhibition space, W+K EXP, Wieden + Kennedy hope to create a context where contemporary culture in a wide variety of forms can be made more accessible to the general public.
September 11, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Manisha Parekh: "Spinning Secrets"
September 11th to October 16th, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present New Delhi artist Manisha Parekh's fifth solo show with the gallery and her second in our Neeti Bagh space. Continuing with her signature style of abstraction, Manish Parekh straddles painting, collage and drawing to create works that incorporate both the geometric and the organic. Her most recognized works are created by layering shapes cut from handmade papers into dense fields of pattern and energy, sometimes perforating the surface and adding other materials. New sculptural works will expand this vocabulary into three dimensions, exploring the qualities of man-made fabrics. Also on view will be gouache paintings, in which images evolve through the logic of a pre-determined set of works, and wall reliefs made from jute ropes that approximate a calligraphic symbology.
The artist's newest direction for her work is in a suite of graphite drawings. While taking off from her established language of bio-morphic abstraction, she introduces references to both landscapes and astronomical diagrams. While among the most minimal works the artist has created in years, they are perhaps the most pregnant with references. Manisha Parekh is one of the few artists working in India today who continues to explore an exclusively abstract language. It could be said that her works are indebted to the ethereal abstractions of Gaitonde and the geometric draftsmanship of Nasreen Mohammedi (who was one of her teachers in Baroda), as well as the more gestural ink drawings of Jeram Patel. She has developed an artistic practice which also pays reference to the craft and textiles traditions of her native land.
Manisha Parekh was born in Gujarat in 1964 and raised in New Delhi. She holds an M.A. in painting from both the Royal College of Art in London (1991-93) and the M.S. University in Baroda (1983-1990). She has held fourteen solo exhibitions of her works since 1991, in venues such as BodhiArt, New York (2008), Berkeley Square Gallery, London (2006), Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (2006 & 1999), the British Council in New Delhi (2002) and the Foundation for Indian Art in Amsterdam (1999). The artist lives and works in New Delhi.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
September 4, 2009
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to announce a group show featuring the works of four artists who explore a variety of different media.
Combining painting, collage, photography and sculpture, Hema Upadhyay (born in India in 1972, now based in Mumbai) inserts her self-portraits into elaborate works that reference both the decorative arts and the urban fabric of India. Synthesized into single works are both the splendor and destitution of an Indian megalopolis.
Primarily a sculptor, Anita Dube (born in India in 1958, now based in New Delhi) works in a wide variety of media and materials. On view will be three recent works that further elaborate on the qualities of velvet, a material, which has been one of her signatures for a number of years. All three works combine the physical attributes of the material with superimposed linguistic elements to create dense configurations of textures and meaning.
Seher Shah (born in Pakistan in 1975, now based in New York) studied architecture and her graphic works combine her own drafting skills with appropriated imagery of historical constructions. Her almost psychedelic compositions are mediations on the history of Islamic cultures, the West's encounters with the East, and the construction of cosmopolitan identities.
June Glasson (born in the US in 1979, now based in both Brooklyn and Berlin) will be represented by her series of small-scale ink paintings on paper entitled "The Foulest of Shapes." Inspired by 19th Century Police Gazette reports, the artist presents a portrait of liberated women participating in all the vices and criminal behavior usually attributed to men. The artist will also be showing a series of aesthetically similar landscapes.
September 1, 2009
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to announce its participation in this year's abc (art berlin contemporary) at the Akademie der Künste. Raqs Media Collective will present ' Please do not touch the work of art' an ironic monument to the persuasive powers of art, carved in stone for posterity and printed as postcards for disposable distribution.
August 14, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Jagannath Panda: "The Action of Nowhere"
August 14th to September 5th, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by the New Delhi-based artist Jagannath Panda. This will be Panda's second solo exhibition in Nature Morte's Neeti Bagh space (the first was in October 2005) and his first solo show in India since an exhibition with Chemould Gallery in Mumbai in April/May 2007.
Jagannath Panda continues to explore the diversity of expressions and symbolisms possible through animal images and forms. His works explore many of our most fundamental dichotomies: Nature/Culture, Urban/Rural, Traditional/Contemporary and Figuration/Abstraction. He pictures animals at odds with the burgeoning urban environment, while their skins are partly articulated with brocade textiles, something that has become a signature material for the artist. The newest paintings envision the scenes of car crashes as they begin to revert to a natural state, tree branches crackling with the violence of the impact. Overall, Panda conveys a universe where the distinctions of Animal, Vegetable and Mineral seem increasingly irrelevant.
Jagannath Panda was born in Bhubaneswar, Orissa in 1970. He received a BFA from the BK College of Art & Crafts in Bhubaneswar (1991) and then an MFA at the MS University in Baroda (1994), as well as an MA degree from the Royal College of Art in London (2002). His paintings and sculptures have recently been featured in "Chalo! India," a group exhibition of new art from India organized by the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (Nov 2008-March 2009) and travels to the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea (April-June, 2009) and the Essl Museum in Vienna, Austria (Sept-Dec 2009).
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays.
The gallery will remain open until 10pm on Friday, August 21st for the India Art Summit.
For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
May 14, 2009
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91 Berlin 10117
www.naturemorte.com / berlin@naturemorte.com
Rini Tandon: Waves
Opening: May 14, 6pm to 9pm
Exhibition runs to July 15, 2009
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to present Rini Tandon's first solo show in Berlin. Born in Raipur, India, Rini Tandon has been based in Vienna since 1978 where she teaches at the University of Applied Arts. Her education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree from Delhi University (1973-76), studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda University (1976-78), and studies at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (1978-1982).
Her work crosses a wide range of media to include installation, drawing, sculpture, photography and video. Through her work, she examines themes such as materiality, space, energy and structure. She has expanded upon and elaborated the language of Minimalism by introducing content from other disciplines, such as quantum physics, making her interest in cosmological issues evident. Topology, the field of mathematics which examines space through perceived boundaries, may be closest to her artistic practice, as she investigates the boundaries not only between objects and the spaces they occupy but also those between the viewer and his or her perceptions and ultimate cognizance of the artwork.
Rini Tandon's work has attracted international attention and has been exhibited at venues such as Kunsthalle Oslo (1986), the Venice Biennial (1988), the Sezession in Vienna (1990), Mindy Oh Gallery, Chicago (1993), the British Council Gallery, New Delhi (1997), Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz (2000) and the Museum of Modern Art, Linz (2006).
April 11, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Ranbir Kaleka: "Reading Man"
April 11-18, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Ranbir Kaleka entitled "Reading Man." This is the artist's first solo exhibition in New Delhi, where he lives and works, since his exhibition at the Art Today gallery in 1995. The artist has continued with his characteristic style of figurative painting which verges on the fantastical, the narrative and the commemorative. The paintings are large, densely complicated and uncommonly colored, depicting figures in the midst of dream-like landscapes and psychological spaces.
The largest work in the show is a multi-canvas installation entitled "Reading Man" that also incorporates sculptures and found objects. With this work, Kaleka brings painting into the realm of theatre, creating both the backdrop and the actors, synthesizing a number of artistic languages into a cohesive scenographic composition.
Ranbir Kaleka was born in 1953, raised in the Punjabi city of Patiala and studied at the College of Art in Chandigarh (1970-75) and received a Masters Degree in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 1987. He has held solo exhibitions of his works at Bose Pacia in New York (2005 & 2007) and Art Today in New Delhi (1995). His works have been included in most of the museum shows of Indian contemporary art that have been mounted around the world in the past decade, including: "Chalo! India" at the Mori Museum in Tokyo (2008); "India Moderna" at the Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, Spain (2008); "New Narratives" at the Chicago Cultural Institute (2007); "Horn Please" at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2007); "Edge of Desire" at the Asia Society in New York (2005); "iCon: India Contemporary" at the Venice Biennale (2005); and "body.city" at the House of World Cultures in Berlin (2003). In 2007 he was commissioned to create a permanent video installation for the new Spertus Museum in Chicago and in 2008 his work was included in the Sydney Biennale.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm, and closed on Sundays. For more information and press photographs please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596.
Continue Reading
March 28, 2009
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91 Berlin 10117
www.naturemorte.com / naturemorte.berlin@googlemail.com
"Speaking in Tongues" March 28th to May 2nd, 2009
Nature Morte Berlin is pleased to present a group show of five artists entitled "Speaking in Tongues." The exhibition will begin on Saturday, March 28th and continue to Friday, May 2nd.
On view will be a range of works that use the tools of language, graphics and styles to put forth both individual identities and address larger issues. In each case, the artist employs symbols and images that are inherently hybridized, confused from the start and often loaded with contradictory meanings. This may reflect the subjective viewpoints of the artists but also their personal histories of traveling between and through a variety of cultures and traditions.
Nature Morte Berlin is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 6pm. For press images or more information, please call Julie Engelmeier at +49 (0)30 206 548 77.
Continue Reading
March 26, 2009
NATURE MORTE ANNEX
A9 SHIVALIK, NEW DELHI 110017
TEL: (011) 4655-7472 / 2956-1596
www.naturemorte.com / info@naturemorte.com
Aishwarya Laxmi: "Cacophony"
Opening on Thursday, March 26th from 6 to 8 pm.
Exhibition continues to Saturday, April 11th.
Nature Morte is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of works by Aishwarya Laxmi. Born in Tamil Nadu in 1981, the artist has studied both art and theatre in the United States. Her paintings combine a wide array of images into synthetic constructions of color and motion. Starting with digital imagery, the final works hover somewhere between painting and photography, seemingly defying any sense of gravity and going through perpetual transformations. A number of large-scale works on canvas created in the last two years will be on view.
Nature Morte Annex is open daily, Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For directions, please call Monica Singh at (011) 4655-7472. For press images or more information please call Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596
Continue Reading
March 5, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A-1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
ALEXIS KERSEY: "Cartographics"
Opening on Saturday, March 14th from 6 to 8 pm.
Exhibition continues to Saturday, April 4th, 2009.
Nature More is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by the Mysore-based artist Alexis Kersey. Entitled "Cartographics," the works explore a range of graphic possibilities in a variety of medias. Trained as a sign-painter in Chennai, Kersey explores craft techniques in both marquetry inlaid work and as high-relief wall sculptures. His iconographic images (punks, saints, and demons; calligraphy, maps and textile patterns), refined for years as paintings, now glisten and pulse with the added lure of semi-precious materials: mother-of-pearl, rare woods, gilded glass and metals.
The works oscillate between abstraction and representation, beauty and horror, decoration and narrative. The largest work in the show, entitled "Come the Revolution," presents a cast of characters cavorting across a map of the world, playing out epic tragedies against a backdrop that is both ancient and contemporary, culled from a variety of cultural sources. Other works start with Indian regional languages to make large graffiti signs, while others are mock shrines housing the gods of teenage popular culture. All together, the works add up to a level of sumptuousness that topples into the grotesque, Kersey's sardonic wit evident throughout.
Alexis Kersey was born in Mysore in 1972. He has held solo exhibitions of his works at the British Library in London, the Apparao Galleries in Chennai, the British Council and the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Nature Morte is located in central South Delhi near Siri Fort Auditorium and is open daily from 10am to 6pm, closed on Sundays. For more information or press photographs, please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
February 26, 2009
Archana Hande: All is Fair in Magic White
Nature Morte Annex: February 26 - March 21, 2009
Opening on Thursday, February 26th, from 6 to 8pm
Nature Morte will present new works by the Mumbai-based artist Archana Hande. Entitled "All is Fair in Magic White," the exhibition is primarily pictures made by the traditional method of block-printing on fabric with a twist. The artist has carved various characters, symbols, icons and scenographic elements from wooden blocks and combines them into rebus-like pictures. These are both self-contained pictures and long, narrative scrolls, both of which feed into an animated video which will be on view. The works employ traditional Indian picture-making and decorative techniques while the subject matter is wholly contemporary, speaking of the dual strains of urbanisation and globalization taking place throughout India today.
Archana Hande studied at the Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan and the Faculty of Fine Arts at M.S. University, Baroda and currently lives in Mumbai. She has had solo shows at Gallery Chemould and Lakeeren in Mumbai and Gallery Sumukha in Bangalore. Her works have also been included in important group shows such as the Guangzhou Triennale in China, the Yokohama Triennale in Japan, "India Express" at the Helsinki City Art Museum, "Horn Please" at the Kunstmuseum of Bern, and "The Edge of Desire" at the Asia Society in New York. This is her first show with Nature Morte and a parallel exhibition of works entitled "Relics of Grey" will be held at the School of Art and Aesthetics, Jawahar Nehru University in New Delhi from the 7th to the 30th of March;
Nature Morte Annex is located at A-9, Shivalik Main Road, New Delhi-110017.
For more information and press photographs, please contact the Gallery Manager, Geeta Bajaj, at (011) 41740215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 29561596. For Gallery direction call contact Monica Singh at (011) 46557472. or email at: info@naturemorte.com.
Continue Reading
February 9, 2009
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Dayanita Singh: "Blue Book"
February 7th to March 7th, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present a new body of work by the well-known photographer Dayanita Singh. Based in New Delhi, Ms. Singh has developed an international reputation as one of the most accomplished and astute photographers of her generation. This, her third solo exhibition with Nature Morte in New Delhi, is the first show in India of her color photographs.
Entitled "Blue Book," this body of work presents images of industrial landscapes shot across India. The photographer explores the color blue as it is found during different times of day, investigating the possibilities of color film in the traditional sense, without the aid of digital photography or computer manipulations.
We are also very proud to announce that Dayanita Singh has been awarded the Prince Claus award for 2008 by the government of The Netherlands. "Dayanita Singh is awarded for the outstanding quality of her images, for providing a complex and well-articulated view of contemporary India, and for introducing a new aesthetic into Indian photography."
http://www.princeclausfund.org/nl/what_we_do/awards/PrinceClausAwardDayanitaSingh.shtml
Dayanita's "Sent a Letter," published by Steidl, has been judged one of the ten best photobooks of 2008 by Photoeye and its jury of photo-world luminaries. The set of seven books in a slip case is available at Nature Morte for Rs 3000.
http://www/photoeye.com/magazine/bestof2008/2/
"Let You Go," Dayanita's exhibition which inaugurated Nature Morte's new space in Berlin on November 20th, 2008 has been judged one of the ten best shows of 2008 by Art Asia Pacific's Almanac for 2009.
http://www.aapmag.com
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
January 10, 2009
NATURE MORTE BERLIN is proud to announce the first exhibition in Germany of Indian artists Thukral & Tagra. Based in New Delhi, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra work collaboratively in a wide variety of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, graphic and product design, websites, music and fashion. Thukral & Tagra blur the lines between Fine Art and Popular Culture, product placement and exhibition design, artistic inspiration and media hype.
For their Berlin exhibition, T&T have produced a suite of works entitled "Nouveau Riche." The focus is on the postmodern architectural style that can be found throughout India and is commonly referred to as "Punjabi Baroque." Vulgar and ostentatious, confused and desperately misguided, the style has been propagated by builders without the assistance of architects, reflecting the jumble of sensibilities that come together to create the new exploding middle-class of India. T&T pump up the volume to turn these suburban homes into surrealist castles, sugar coated and floating on clouds of flowers. In paintings and sculptures, they explore this aesthetic of the proudly bastardized, the boisterous Mamma's boys who pretend to be gangsters, the teenage farmers who dream of making it big in Bollywood.
Jiten Thukral was born in 1976 in Jalandhar, Punjab. He received a BFA from Chandigarh College of Art and his MFA from the Delhi College of Art. Sumir Tagra was born in 1979 in New Delhi. He received a BFA from the Delhi College of Art and later studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Thukral & Tagra have worked together since 2003 and have held solo exhibitions of their works at Nature Morte in New Delhi (2005 & 2007), Chatterjee & Lal in Mumbai (2008), Bose Pacia, New York (2007) and the Barry Keldoulis Gallery in Sydney (2008). In 2007, Nature Morte and Bose Pacia presented their solo installation entitled "Adolescere-Domus" in the Art Statements section of Art Basel. They are currently included in a large exhibition of contemporary art from India at the Mori Museum in Tokyo, which will travel to the Essl Museum in Vienna in the spring of 2009. Upcoming exhibitions include major presentations at the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale and the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia.
The exhibition will open on Saturday, January 10th from 6 to 8 pm and continue to Saturday, February 14th. Nature Morte is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 am to 6pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact the gallery director Ms. Julie Engelmeier at (email) je.nmberlin@googlemail.com or (telephone) +49-171-422-7711.
Continue Reading
January 8, 2009
AJI V.N. NEW WORKS
January 8 – 31, 2009
A-1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi-110049
Reception for the artist: Thursday, January 8, 6 – 8 pm
Nature Morte, in collaboration with Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke of Bombay, is pleased to announce the first solo show in New Delhi of works by Aji V.N. Born in Kerala in 1968 and educated in Trivandrum (BFA) and New Delhi (MFA), the artist now lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
While most artists of his generation are turning somersaults to create ever-more-complicated installations, Aji V.N. creates an amazing range of works using the most economical of means. With only black charcoal on colored paper, Aji crafts images that range from the figurative to the abstract, through landscapes and crowd scenes to portraits and seascapes. Medium-sized, his images strike a verisimilitude that hovers between photography and scientific notation. Astonishing in their details, the works challenge the eye to decipher that which the hand has created, confound the brain with the pure magic of retinal opticality. To call these works simply "drawings" does not account for the luminescence and uncanny touch the artist imparts upon his medium.
A full color catalog of the exhibition will be published along with essays by Grant Watson and Wilma Sütö. The exhibition will be seen in its entirety at Mirchandani + Steinruecke in Bombay after it closes at Nature Morte.
For more information or press photographs, please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011)4174-0215 or geeta@naturemorte.com.
Continue Reading
January 3, 2009
NATURE MORTE ANNEX
A9 Shivalik (Malviya Nagar) New Delhi 110017
Tel: (011) 4655-7472 & 4174-0215
Radhika Khimji: "B-Sides"
Opening on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 from 6 to 8pm.
Exhibition continues to January 24th.
Nature Morte is pleased to present in our Annex space a show of works by Radhika Khimji. Straddling the practices of painting, drawing, collage and sculpture, Khimji's works fuse figurative supports with abstract brushwork and exploit patterning to create both tensions and surprises. In a variety of forms, her images overlap with one another, often bleeding through paper (and displayed on hinged frames so that both sides are visible) or mixed with photographic grounds. The results are works that are visually arresting but also physically involving, the practice of painting grappled and wrestled with to produce strange, new hybrids.
Radhika Khimji was born in Oman in 1979 and received an MA in Art History from the University College of London in 2007. She also studied Fine Arts at the Royal Academy (2002-2005) and the Slade School (1998-2002), both in London. She has held two previous solo exhibitions of her works (XVA Gallery, Dubai 2007 and Atrium Gallery, London 2006) and her works have been included in a wide variety of group shows throughout Europe and the Middle East. This is her first exhibition in India.
Nature Morte Annex is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215 or Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596. For directions to the gallery, please contact Monica Singh at (011) 4655-7472.
Continue Reading
December 6, 2008
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
"Yours Sincerely": new paintings and sculpture by HEMA UPADHYAY
December 6, 2008 to January 3, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present new works by the Mumbai-based artist Hema Upadhyay. The exhibition is entitled "Yours Sincerely," as are all of the works, and the artist's approach seems to incorporate both honesty and sarcasm. Continuing with her trademark style of inserting photographic self-portraits into painted backgrounds, Hema pictures herself in multiple forms, moving through a densely decorative field that may signify traditional Indian culture or the megalopolis of Mumbai. Portents of doom intrude onto these beautiful scenographies in the forms of disfigured mannequins (often in piles) and dark clouds which stain and disfigure the pleasing colors. All the while, the artist is present as silent observer, puppeteer, helpless victim, or omnipotent seer.
The centerpiece of the exhibition, in our downstairs gallery, is a large sculptural model of a decidedly down-market urban scenario. Hema's metropolitan tableaux is both innocent and ominous, playful and threatening. Through the materials she uses she equates consumerist waste with urban planning (or lack thereof) and manipulates scale to imply a psychological tension as well as a personal detachment from life.
Hema Upadhyay was born in Baroda, Gujarat in 1972 and studied both painting and printmaking in the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University there. She has held solo exhibitions of her work at Mumbai's Chemould Gallery, the Tyler Print Institute and Bodhi Art in Singapore, Grosvernor Vadhera Gallery in London, Art Space in Sydney and the Instiute of Modern Art in Brisbane. She has been in most of the international museum exhibitions of Indian contemporary art that have been organized in the past decade and her work is currently included in "Chalo! India" at the Mori Museum in Tokyo and the major survey of one hundred years of Indian art at the IVAM in Valencia, Spain.
For more information or press reproductions, please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215. Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and is closed on Sundays.
The gallery will be closed on Christmas Day (December 25th) and New Year's Day (January 1st).
Continue Reading
November 20, 2008
NATURE MORTE BERLIN
Zimmerstrasse 90-91 Berlin 10117
www.naturemorte.com / info@naturemorte.com
Gallery Nature Morte of New Delhi is happy to announce the opening of its new gallery space in Berlin.
Dayanita Singh: Opening on November 20th from 6 to 9 pm.
The exhibition continues to January 3rd, 2009.
The opening exhibition will be a solo show of the well-known Indian photographer Dayanita Singh. On display will be three different series of works, all of which focus on communities that exist outside the mainstream in India.
"I Am As I Am" (1999) is the title of Ms. Singh's portfolio of images shot within the Anandamayi Ashram in the city of Varanasi (Benares) which she visited as a child and where her father wanted her to study. Returning as an adult, Ms. Singh questions how her life would have been different had she spent her childhood living there. In these portraits of the girls who are sequestered within this environment emerges a study of the tensions found in India today, played out on the fragile psychologies of its nascent women.
"Myself Mona Ahmed" (1989-2001) is Ms. Singh's portrait of her long-time friend who is a "hjira" (or "trans-gendered" in Western parlance). This suite of photographs is both revealing and taciturn, deeply personal and collaborative. The third series is called "Mira Datar" (1989) and shows the activities at a site in the western-Indian state of Gujarat where the mentally and physically ill hope to be cured. Drawn to the site due to her own condition of epilepsy at the time, in these early works the photographer established a dialog between the self and the other which continues today.
Also on display will be "Sent A Letter" (2008), Ms. Singh's set of seven small books that has been published by Steidl. Each book (Calcutta, Bombay, Allahabad, Padmanabhapuram, Varanasi, Devigarh, Nony Singh) is dedicated to a journey shared with a friend and features small photographs printed on a long, accordion-folded page. Each book is its own self-contained mini-exhibition and displayed on long shelves they provide insight into Ms. Singh's serial practice and editing style. The complete set of seven books in a slip case will be available for sale during the exhibition.
Born in New Delhi in 1961 and now dividing her time between New Delhi, Calcutta and Goa, Dayanita Singh is a graduate of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad (Visual Communications, 1980-86) and studied photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York (1987-88). Since completing her studies, she has exhibited in a wide variety of venues all over the world including solo exhibitions at Nature Morte in New Delhi (2009, 2006, 1998), Gallery Chemould in Mumbai (2007, 2002), Frith Street Gallery, London (2008, 2005, 2001) Ikon Gallery in Birmingham (2000), the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, Boston (2005), Scalo, Zurich (2002, 1997), and the Arles Photo Festival in France (2007, 2004). Ms. Singh's only previous exhibitions in Berlin were solo shows held at the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof and the Museum fur Indische Kunst simultaneously in 2003. Her works have been included in group shows at museums including Tate Modern, London; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne; the Asia Society, New York; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Kunsthalle, Vienna; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; among many others.
Her published works include Myself Mona Ahmed (Scalo 2001); Privacy (Steidl 2003); Chairs (Steidl 2005); Go Away Closer (Steidl 2007); and Sent a Letter (Steidl 2008).
The exhibition will open on Thursday, November 20th and continue to Saturday, January 3rd. Nature Morte is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 am to 6pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact the gallery director Ms. Julie Engelmeier at (email) je.nmberlin@googlemail.com or (telephone) +49-171-422-7711.
Continue Reading
November 9, 2008
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
info@naturemorte.com / www.naturemorte.com
Ray Meeker: "All the King's Horses…"
November 9th to 29th, 2008
In his third solo exhibition with Nature Morte, Pondicherry-based ceramic artist Ray Meeker continues to pursue the environmental theme that he first took up in 1969. "All the King's Horses…" which, apparently without irony, Meeker calls a work in progress, opens at Nature Morte on Sunday, November 9th from 5 to 7 pm and will continue through Saturday, November 29th.
In a series of large globe-like jars, modeled on early funerary urns from Tamil Nadu (500 B.C. to 500 A.D.), Meeker takes a dim view of a future in which India and China parrot the unbridled—and clearly unsustainable—consumption patterns of the USA.
"The American Lifestyle is not Up for Negotiation"
George H. W. Bush
The Earth Summit
Rio de Janeiro, 1992
The works in the show are large ceramic sculptures, each with a commanding presence. In works such as Double Helix and Ozymandias, Meeker explores a formal language that is both mechanical and organic, implying a fusion of the two into something like an archeological relic. A very large work of this type is permanently installed in the courtyard of the Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Other works, such as Untitled I and II (Black and Splash) use the sculpted ceramic form as a canvas for abstract brushwork, creating a tension between spontaneous gestures and the more solid and pierced three-dimensional support.
Ray Meeker was born in New York in1944 and raised in Southern California. He has lived in Pondicherry since 1971 and with his wife Debra Smith founded and runs the ceramic studio Golden Bridge Pottery. Meeker has also trained more than two generations of Indian studio potters and his aesthetic influence can be felt in the works of a number of protégés, including Kristine Michael, Vineet Kacker, Manisha Bhattacharya and Anjani Khanna. His works have been exhibited extensively throughout India for the past twelve years. His impressive roster of projects include a commissioned temple for Protima Bedi's Nrityagram outside of Bangalore and experimental architecture that turned mud brick kilns into stabilized structures for low-cost housing.
Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 6pm and closed on Sundays. For more information, contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215.
Continue Reading
October 31, 2008
Nature Morte is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by the New Delhi based artist Kirann Telkar.
In a suite of large-scale paintings and sculptures, Kirann Telkar addresses issues of conservation, consumerism and environmental degradation. He uses the image of the disposable soft drink bottle as an icon representing both Western and capitalist influence on India but also as a benign signifier found in all cultures throughout the world, operating everywhere but strangely homeless. It is precisely the passivity of this icon that appeals to the artist and allows him to use it in a wide variety of applications, mixed with many other symbols and images for multiple effects.
Kirann Telkar was born in Mumbai in 1968 and is self-taught as an artist. He has had a solo exhibition of his works at the Sakshi Gallery in Mumbai in 2002 and at Bose Pacia Kolkata in April 2007. His works have been included in a wide number of group exhibitions in Mumbai, Delhi and internationally.
For more information and press photographs, please contact the gallery manager, Geeta Bajaj at (11) 41740215. She can be contacted on email at: info@naturemorte.com.
Continue Reading
July 18, 2008
"The Experience of Transition"
New works from the Mumbai studio of Rajiv Saini.
July 18th to Aug 29th 2008
Nature Morte, New Delhi is pleased to present in association with Project 88 a show of new works by the Mumbai-based designer Rajiv Saini. Known for his distinctive use of materials in contemporizing traditional Indian forms and motifs, Rajiv Saini's residential and commercial interiors are sumptuous yet restrained, highly tactile and seductively visual. At Nature Morte, the designer will present a suite of eight new works which both redefine what we think of as "furniture" and challenge what we choose to think of as "sculpture."
Tables, desks, bookcases, stools, plinths, and columns seem to be the forms Rajiv Saini starts with for this collection. Then he brings in surfboards, boomerangs, whirligigs, diving-boards, light aircraft, turbine engines, and references both historical and urban. The result are large forms that imply utilitarian functions while commanding space. The materials are diverse: inlaid wood with bronze, lacquered fiberglass, steel that is either modeled as if liquid or articulated as both weight and mass. The collection is richly eclectic and refined, ambitious and surprising: quintessentially the style Rajiv Saini has become widely known for.
The collection has been shown at the Otto Zoo gallery in Milan, Italy to coincide with Salone de Mobile (April 16-21), the influential design fair which takes places annually across the city of Milan. This show at Nature Morte opens on Friday, the 18th of July and runs through the 29th August 2008. For further details contact Geeta Bajaj- 011-41740215.
March 24, 2008
Pushpamala N.: "Paris Autumn"
March 24th to April 19th, 2008
For her second solo exhibition with Nature Morte, Pushpamala N. will present a new body of works entitled "Paris Autumn." The centerpiece of the show is a 35-minute black-and-white film which has been constructed entirely from still photographs. The film will run continuously throughout the day at the gallery and will be accompanied by framed photographs, posters and an installation which elaborate on the film and its imagery. Diverging from the artist's previous work which examined Indian pictorial conventions and models, this body of work is derived from European film noir and comic books, while utilizing presentation techniques of Indian cinema houses. The preliminary form of the exhibition took place at the Galerie Zurcher in Paris in 2006 and the film has been previously screened at the Bellagio Study Centre of the Rockfeller Foundation in Italy, and the Bose Pacia Gallery, Columbia University and New York University, all in New York City.
Notes on the film:
Paris Autumn is a work of fiction in the style of a gothic thriller. The idea for the work came to Pushpamala during a stay in Paris in 2006, where she was invited on a three- month artist residency. While she rented a room in one of the oldest streets in the Marais district, strange happenings began to occur. It was then she realised she was living in the out-houses of the mansion that had once belonged to Gabrielle d'Estrées, King Henri IV's favourite mistress, who died, poisoned no doubt, at the age of twenty-six just as she was about to marry the king.
From that moment on, Pushpamala had to find out about this woman who had come to such a tragic end. Pushpamala's quest began at the Louvre museum, opposite Caravaggio's famous painting The Fortune Teller, and continued to the kitsch atmosphere of the Chapelle des Petits-Augustine, filled with copies of monumental statuary. The action takes place at various points throughout Paris that Pushpamala, stroller and detective graced with the gift of ubiquity, assembles into a strange map: with extenuated perspectives, where the Eiffel Tower and cafés follow images of urban violence. "Pushpamala seems to read the world like a complex and stratified, open and enigmatic literary work that she makes up as she weaves her way through a mysterious urban territory where, right down to the flow of the images, we find the halting nature of the City according to Waler Benjamin, like a succession of paintings put together with brushstrokes." (Bernard Zürcher)
Credits: Producer: Pushpamala N.; Script and Direction: Pushpamala N.; Photography: Cedric Sartore,
Pushpamala N.; Editing and Sound Design: Sankalp Meshram
Cast: Protagonist: Pushpamala N.; Ghost: Gabrielle Soyer; Cedric: Cedric Vincent;
Friends: Bernard and Gwenolee Zurcher; Computer friend: Cedric Sartore
Biography
Pushpamala N. studied sculpture at the MS University in Baroda, India. Since the mid 1990s she has been mainly working in photo performance and video, exhibiting widely all over India and internationally. She uses women's stories and women's material as a device to explore history, memory and contemporary society. She lives and works in Bangalore.
March 15, 2008
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
B-17 Chirag Enclave, New Delhi 110019
Tel: (011) 4174-0215 & 2956-1596
www.naturemorte.com / info@naturemorte.com
Gauri Gill: "The Americans"
Opening on Saturday, March 15th from 6 to 8 pm.
Exhibition continues to March 29th.
Gallery Hours 11 am - 7 pm. Closed Sundays.
Please note: the exhibition will be at a special venue (see address above) and not at the usual gallery space of A1 Neeti Bagh. A full-color catalog will be available.
Gallery Nature Morte is proud to present the exhibition of Gauri Gill's photo-documentary project "The Americans." Shot across the United States from 2000 to 2007, Gill's project documents the Indian diaspora as it has settled across the country in rural areas, small towns and big cities, both retaining its traditional signifiers of Indian identity and merging within a larger American plurality. The resulting color photographs are simultaneously humorous, poignant, ironic, and beguiling. Gill's portrayal of her subjects and their lives emerges through her strict attention to detail and sympathetic juxtapositions.
From the forthcoming catalog essay by critic and curator Gayatri Sinha:
"Nearly five decades after [American photographer] Robert Frank, Gauri Gill takes a series of solitary journeys through America traveling extensively from New York and New Jersey to California to the Midwest and five Southern states. She moves outward, from the nucleus of family and friends to their networks, through a map lined with the material and psychological presence of migrants. The resultant body of photographs. "The Americans," emerges as a palimpsest that pays homage to Frank as much as it documents the new Americans – Indian immigrants. That Gill addresses her subjects with the transnational gaze of the traveling photographer brings her subject within the potent discourse of migration and diaspora, post-coloniality and the new world. Set in the chromatic intimacy of the candid photograph, it is inscribed by the material residue of two cultures, of the glittering flecks of Bollywood and Hollywood, the Indian and the American dream."
The exhibition has already been on view at Bose Pacia Kolkata (February 16 – March 8) and will travel the Matthieu Foss Gallery, Mumbai (April 10-24); Thomas Welton Art Gallery, Stanford University (July 8 – August 17); Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (October 4 – December 28); and Bose Pacia Gallery, New York (January 9 – February 14, 2009).
Gauri Gill was born in Chandigarh in 1970. She received her first BFA degree (1992) from Delhi College of Art and her second BFA (1994) from Parsons School of Design in New York. In 2002 she received an MFA in Photography from Stanford University in California. Her works have been exhibited in New Delhi at the Vadhera, Espace and Anant Art Galleries and the India International Centre. Most recently, in 2007 her photographs were included in group exhibitions at the both the Musee Quai Branly in Paris and the Newark Museum in New Jersey. Gauri Gill lives and works in New Delhi.
For more information or press photographs, contact Rajeev Dhawan at (011) 2956-1596 or at info@naturemorte.com.
February 23, 2008
GALLERY NATURE MORTE
A1 NEETI BAGH, NEW DELHI 110 049 INDIA
OFFICE: (91) 11- 2956-1596 GALLERY: (91) 11-4174-0215
naturemorte@hotmail.com / www.naturemorte.com
Press Release
New works by Alexis Kersey, Aditya Pande and Dileep Sharma.
February 23 – March 15, 2008
Nature Morte is pleased to present new works by three young artists the gallery has not exhibited before. All share a penchant for imagery culled from popular culture and explore the diversity of possibilities available to painters today.
Alexis Kersey is the senior member of this group, born in 1972 in Mysore. He studied with sign painters in south India to develop a style of painting that could be called Indian Pop. His first exhibition, at the British Council galleries in New Delhi in 2004, combined Indian vernacular languages and images into comical signs. He next developed a style of figurative painting that combined traditional religious iconographies with rock'n'roll subcultures. These works were featured in solo exhibitions mounted by Apparao Galleries in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and London. Kersey's newest works, on display at Nature Morte, combine oil paintings with inlaid wooden panels and mirrors to create densely layered portraits and icons, swirling with both energy and menace.
Aditya Pande, born in Lucknow in 1974 and living in New Delhi, passed out from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad in 2001. His work mixes computer graphics with painting, drawing and collage, blurring the lines between techniques and imagery. Scribbled animals are rendered in a high-tech computer language and juxtaposed against buoyant forms and colors. Pande is also a partner in Tota Design, which specializes in product and graphic design, and his painterly work owes its freshness to his unorthodox approach and frame of references.
Dileep Sharma was born in Rajasthan in 1974 and graduated from the JJ School of Art in Mumbai in 1998, having studied both painting and print-making. His large scale watercolors feature larger-than-life figures populated by miniatures figures and detailing. The palette is unrealistic while his line-work is precisely representational. Strong, flat colors contrast with the white fields in which the figures float, updating traditional Rajasthani miniature painting. To date, Dileep Sharma has held solo shows of his works in Mumbai, London and Seoul, Korea.
For more information or press reproductions, please contact Geeta Bajaj at (011) 4174-0215. Nature Morte is open Monday through Saturday, from 11am to 7pm and is closed on Sundays.
Continue Reading
