Tag: medha kulkarni

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A rubber stamp existence

Reena Kallat’s ongoing exhibition at the Bhau Daji Lad museum has literally stamped its authority all over the building’s façade.
by Medha Kulkarni

An off-the-beaten-track thing to do this Sunday – if you haven’t already planned a movie/outing with family and friends/a booze party/ all of these would be to head to a museum. Not just any museum; specifically, the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Byculla.

Why? Because it’s hosting a stunning exhibition by artist Reena Kallat. Titled ‘Untitled (Cobwebs/Crossings)’, the exhibition is a part of ZegnArt Public/India, an international project created by Ermenegildo Zeg

What it’s about

‘Untitled’ is an impressive work that captures the attention of the viewer with its sheer presence. Several rows of rubber stamps are strung together to create a cobweb that covers the entire façade of the museum (see featured pic). The work seeks to invoke ideas of bureaucracy and the passage of time; thus each rubber stamp actually has the name of a street (in the city) that has since been renamed.

According to Kallat, the work is “a visual representation of the cobwebs of the past and of memories that clutter our spaces and will eventually fade away with time.” The project was chosen out of a group of seven artist proposals (by artists like Gigi Scaria, Sakshi Gupta, etc.) by the museum and ZegnArt Public. A separate gallery space is devoted to the other artists’ ideas and works, for the benefit of the viewer.

ZegnArt Public believes that the public space can be inhabited in several ways to facilitate negotiation and exchange and encourage critical thinking and dialogue and thus aims to explore this possibility within diverse contexts. India has been selected as the first country for this intervention and thus ZegnArt has partnered with the museum to put to test this notion of public space vis-à-vis the urban fabric of India’s most dynamic city,Mumbai.

On view till April 14, the museum also organises curated walks every Sunday that seek to create a dialogue between art and the viewer. Kallat has referenced old street names and forgotten histories as nodal points in her exhibition, and these are used as a starting point for the walk. The walk covers the length and breadth of the exhibition and then continues on through the Museum’s permanent collections that highlight the faded memories and the constantly changing identity of the city.

The best part about the walk is it is organised in English and Hindi/Marathi and the price is included in the Museum entry fee. Walk timings are 11.30 am for the English walk, and 30 minutes past noon for the Hindi/ Marathi one.

(Picture courtesy blog.saffronart.com)

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Watch

A great idea takes Root

The Root Reel, an initiative to bring good documentary films and discourses on them to the public, turns one today.
by Medha Kulkarni

It started off as a simple idea born out of sheer love for good documentary films and after 12 months, incredible documentaries, critical engagements, passionate debates and discussions, The Root Reel celebrates its first anniversary today.

Part of The Root, which was conceived as a platform to facilitate discourses and expression on social and environmental issues through workshops, music, film (whether animation, documentary or short film), and other cultural avenues, The Root Reel deals specifically with films. In the course of the last year, The Root has set up various forums that saw the exchange of ideas and thoughts and encouraged a critical engagement with the issue at hand.

The Root Reel has been organising documentary film screenings once a week at the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, either in collaboration with another organisation or by themselves. This weekend’s film screening is extra special as it marks a milestone in the life of The Root Reel and has been organised in conjunction with the Indian Documentary Foundation (IDF). The film being showcased is Whores’ Glory and it is being shown on a first-come-first-seated basis.

Prior to this, The Root Reel has showcased such films as Megacities, Between The Lines, NEXT: A Primer On Urban Painting and Blood In The Mobile.

Those of you that can get out of work by 6 pm today, head to the Alliance Francaise Auditorium, Theosophy Hall, near Nirmala Niketan, Churchgate, to watch this film and stay back for a bit and participate in the discussion thereafter. The film is directed by Michael Glawogger and is 90 minutes long. Entry is free.

About Whores’ Glory:

Whores’ Glory is a cinematic triptych on prostitution: three locations, three languages, three religions. Paradise, the world and the hereafter merge in prostitution to create an image of the relationship between men and women. In Thailand, women wait for men behind glass panes, staring at reflections of themselves. In Bangladesh, men go to a ghetto of love to satisfy their unfulfilled desires on trapped girls. And in Mexico, women pray to a female death so as not to see and feel their own reality. Where the most intimate becomes a commodity, the product is expensive and fiercely contested.

Look for more details on The Root and their events here.

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Event

Like a thousand words on Mumbai

A review of the FOCUS Festival that has its eyes on Mumbai without being confined to one theme or genre.
by Medha Kulkarni

Last Sunday, I decided to spend my day checking out the FOCUS Festival that’s currently on in the city. Armed with a basic understanding of what the festival was about, I checked the schedule for Sunday and headed off to town, not really knowing what to expect. However, from the minute I stepped into the Gallerie Max Mueller (my first stop) I knew that this was going to be one amazing fest!

A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography, from 1840 to 1900 is an exhibition curated by Susan Hapgood. It’s a visual treat for anyone who loves this city. The grainy black and white images hark back to a time when Mumbai was Bombay, and provide a stunning juxtaposition to the city as it is now. Each and every single photograph is an original.

My next stop was the other pivotal focus for the festival titled A Photograph is Not an Opinion – Contemporary Photography by Women, which is on display at the Jehangir Art Gallery. I think it is truly commendable that the organisers of the festival recognised the need for a separate discourse on gender and art, and thus organised such an exhibition. With works ranging across diverse themes by women photographers from around the world, this exhibition lived up to its name. Instead of pronouncing judgement, it offers people a point from where they can build on.

I decided to take a break from viewing the exhibitions and took a sneak peek at Children’s Digital Photography Workshop with Himanshu Seth. I arrived when it was nearing its end and reached in time to see excited children, who were armed with their digicams, busy planning their next photography exhibition. I spoke to some of the parents present there and asked them what they thought about the workshop. “It’s a wonderful idea. Kids these days are surrounded by technology and know much more than their parents. Such events help us channel this interest and knowledge of theirs in a healthy manner” said Anubha Chati, whose son and daughter attended the workshop.

With no other events lined up for that afternoon, I headed to the next exhibition and stopped by at The Guild, which has mounted a group exhibition featuring the works of Baiju Parthan, Gigi Scaria, Mithu Sen and Pooja Iranna. What I loved about this exhibition was that they brought four established and very different artists working in the same medium, but each having their own style, together. Gigi Scaria’s photographs of buildings arranged in a Tetris-reminiscent manner were perhaps the most engaging works on display.

I headed out towards Art Musings in Colaba next, where I viewed another group exhibition. Titled ‘37 Indian still lifes’, which is a collaboration between the gallery and Tasveer, the exhibition is a fabulous photographic documentation of Indian still life and an exploration of the narrative within it. “Sheer variety!” was the reaction of Shraddha Kulkarni, a viewer I met at this exhibition, when I asked her what she liked best about the exhibition. I had the opportunity to speak with a lot of exhibition goers and they all more or less reiterated what Shraddha said. The best thing about FOCUS, as far the masses of the city go, was the ease of accessibility to works and also the wide variety of works exhibited. No single theme or genre dominates the exhibition.

The FOCUS Festival is will be on for over two weeks from now. Look for event details here. 

                                       (Picture courtesy Goethe Institut, Mumbai)

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France says ‘Hello!’

Bonjour India, currently underway, will travel to 16 Indian cities all this month to strengthen ties between the two countries.
by Medha Kulkarni

Have you always loved French culture, and wanted to experience it firsthand? Well, lucky you. As part of the efforts to strengthen diplomatic ties between the France and India, Bonjour India,the Festival of France, is here and will travel to 16 different cities this year.

1985 saw the first Year of India in France, and it was replete with elephants ambling across the Trocadero in Paris to the Eiffel Tower. This year’s Indo-French cultural relationships celebrations comprise of a wide variety of wonderful cultural events. The beauty of this programme is that it has been designed such that it encompasses the entire realm of person-to-person exchange between India and France, whether in art, literature, cinema, fashion, performing arts or sports.

The first edition of Bonjour India was in 2009-2010, and it was so successful that it encouraged the Institut Français en Inde and the French Embassy in India, in association with the Alliance Française India network and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to engineer this one, the second edition which started in January and will go on till April 2013.

Here’s a quick round up of what’s on offer in Mumbai:

March 12-18, Photography, Lost Highway – Part of the FOCUS festival, an exhibition of photographs by Chantal Stoman, at Studio X

March 18, Cinema, An Evening With Short Films, at Prithvi Theatre

March 20, Gastronomy, The Floating Buffet, at Novotel

March 26, Music, Amarallis Ensemble – Pain and Pleasure at the Court of Versailles, at the Experimental Theatre, NCPA.

Look for more details and schedules for other cities here.

(Picture courtesy bonjour-india.in. In the picture is the Amarallis Ensemble)

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How about an art attack?

Art Night Thursday, an ongoing art show initiative, makes art more accessible and time-friendly to the general public in Mumbai.
by Medha Kulkarni

On every second Thursday of the month, a handful of some of the art galleries at Colaba and Fort stay open till 9:30 pm to hold Art Night Thursday. Chatterjee & Lal, Chemould Prescott Road, Gallery Maskara, Gallery Beyond, Volte Gallery, Sakshi Gallery, The Guild, Lakeeren and Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke are amongst the participating galleries.

It’s a fabulous initiative that started a little over a year ago and has been instrumental in making art more accessible to the general public. Most galleries tend to be closed on weekends and shut by around 7 pm on weekdays. This makes it difficult for the regular office-going crowd, students etc. to ever go catch a show. Thus, keeping the galleries open on a weeknight till late has provided such people with the wonderful opportunity to be able to catch their favourite art shows without missing work.

Art Thursday this month is tomorrow, March 14, and you can get more information on the Mumbai Art Map here.

This month, Art Night Thursday highlights those galleries that are a part of the FOCUS Festival Mumbai, the first festival in the city dedicated solely to the work of young and promising photographers from all over the world.

I suggest picking up an art map from one of the outlets mentioned in the link above, and hit the art trail in the following order:

– Chemould Prescott Road : “Parsis” by Sooni Taraporevala, March 06 – April 06, 2013

– Art Musings : “37 Still Lifes”, March 14 – April 13, 2013

– Goethe-Institut Mumbai : “A Fantastic Legacy: Early Bombay Photography from 1840 to 1900”, March 13-27, 2013

– The Guild: Group exhibition March 13-27, 2013

– The Hermes Mumbai Store: “The Inhabited Space” by Sean Rocha, March 13-27

– Project 88 : “A Village in Bengal” by Chirodeep Chaudhuri, March 14-26, 2013

– Sakshi Gallery: “Poseurs”, March 14-24, 2013

– Studio-X: “Lost Highway” by Chantal Stoman, March 12-18, 2013

Medha Kulkarni, 25, lives in Mumbai and is a curator at Volte Gallery. Her hobbies include reading, travelling and writing.

(Picture courtesy mumbailocal.net)

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