SACRILEGE, group show,18 march 2010

AJILAL, reminiscence ( triptych )
photograph on archival paper | 50 X 71 cm X 3

AJILAL land of it’s own sky ( triptych )
photograph on archival paper | 50 X 71 cm X 3


DEEPAK WANKHADE, untitled
mixed media on paper | 26 X 32 cm


DEEPAK WANKHADE, untitled
mixed media on paper | 26 X 32 cm

JEEVAN.R, birdscape studies
mixed media on paper | 87 X 144 cm


JEEVAN.R, birdscape studies
mixed media on paper | 87 X 144 cm


NISHAD.M.P, false hypothesis
dry pastel on paper | 180 X 120 cm

NISHAD.M.P, untitled
dry pastel on paper | 86 X 66 cm

NISHAD.M.P, untitled
dry pastel on paper | 86 X 66 cm

RAJESH.P.S, occupied space, given by you
dry pastel on paper | 75 X 55 cm

RAJESH.P.S, untitled
dry pastel on paper | 75 X 55 cm

We can feel some kind of positive transformation happening roughly within our collective existence. Even if there were lot of probability in abundance existing to

sabotage it, as happened repeatedly in past, but such a hint itself is revitalizing.

This stimulation is very evident in art panorama and dalit focus. In the art vista

instead of depending absolutely upon art galleries, formation of many groups take place and in dalit issue, so many great studies and struggles take place. That is why we are incessantly partaking in such movements via our shows.

Assigning a show like sacrilege can by far be observed as a bit obstinate

linked with the anti theological/atheistic agenda. However it has no correlation

with such dogmas. But by means of that name ‘sacrilege’ what we propose is the

articulation of our notions allied with the art and politics. Each participant in this

show has their own unambiguous political thoughts which they endeavor to execute in their works. And above all, they all were trying to converse about the bigotry existing in the present societal subsistence. That society occupies the whole lot, in particular the art space and dalit space. Each time when we plan a show, we happen to be blamed on the corner of selection. What the demand is that it should be based on the so-called notions ‘pure’ and ‘good’. It is habitual that each one persuades to determine and ultimately declare the quality of art and divide it into two categories as ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Where from this tendency comes out? And other notion is about the ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ of art work.

Why the impure and pure? So these two ideas put forward an authority that has the supremacy to put judgments. Consequently such fabricated authoritative statements assert an alien body, which is burried but active in our thought process. As these terminologies are always connected with the conventional social analysis we should be keen about such usage.

This political alertness is very obvious in our intentions and observations. Ajilal’s

comment: “I am talking about my intentions. Not about the result of my art. On this show I took a divergence from my earlier art practices. I believe my works shouldbe more direct. Then there arise the chance of losing its aesthetic ‘something’. But Ibelieve that is a ‘must’ in our time………..” Rajesh observes: “What I try to articulate is the disparity between the huge male concrete formations and wiped out female existence…..the problem of the genuine and usual space occupied by reprehensible.” Nishad: “[……. for the growth of a plant there is no need of natural conditions.] As the religion tries to manipulate the body, capital formation also demands a comatose artificial society. It is a kind of plucking away or adding upon the inappropriate or creating upon inapt space/condition” .Deepak: “…..inner turmoil, sufferings that represents society…..” Jeevan: “presenting cart puller as a mover of history, piloting

history and attempting to carry the whole load above him and place it elsewhere in a safer abode, has a metaphor of moving “dwellings” related to mass migration with the idea of moving landscapes.” Hence our ‘society of works’. Each of this work cannot be considered as self determining one devoid of external relations. It exists simply in relation with others. A work of art is not an entity with an auto telling mechanism. But it should be envisaged as an evocative contemplation unambiguously related with so many other thoughts outside the currently discernible frame.

Interventions: “On Collectives”

Panel Discussion
curated by V.Divakar

19.06.2009
6.30 p.m.
Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore

In collaboration with Artflute.com and Goethe-Institute, Bangalore

All are welcome!

“The relation between aesthetic and historical is neither one between ‘levels’ within the text, nor between the work as aesthetic fact and its encircling historical conditions; it is rather that those historical conditions, in the form of the ideological, become the very determinant structure of that process of textual self-production which is in its entirety, ‘aesthetic’,”
- Terry Eagleton (Criticism and Ideology)

The Art and Activism seminar organised by the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, M.S.University, Baroda in 2004, was a significant attempt to bring together activists from various disciplines pertaining to the arts to debate upon issues regarding activism in resisting elitist tendencies and other inconsistencies within the practice of art making.

Interventions, the present curation of a series of lectures/discussions takes its references from this seminar and attempts to work as an alternative space in order to critically engage with the works of few artists who have intervened in the cultural milieu through their artistic practices. So also, this initiative attempts to draw insights from the critics who have been vocal in articulating their concerns regarding the aspects of the social and the political in cultural practices. The intention is to engage in a serious dialogue where both disciplines of art writing and art making can necessarily share identical areas of concern for action. Interventions then is aiming at a gathering of artists and writers who would share with students, cultural practitioners, art lovers and concerned public their respective experiences regarding their practice.

The peculiarities/specificities of each strategy the artists/writers have employed would enable the younger generation of art practitioners and writers to widen the possibilities of approaching their own practices with a more nuanced understanding of society in general. In this regard the first Interventions panel discussion was held at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in February 2009 with participation from Alex Mathew, Hyderabad and art critic Santhosh Sadanand from Baroda.

In continuation of the series, the second Interventions will be structured around the theme “On Collectives”.

The participants include:
Professor Shivaji K. Panikkar
Archana Prasad
Raghavendra Rao K.V.
Sunil G.
Professor Suresh Jayaram

Related links:
Goethe-Institute, Bangalore

Multitudes - A Group Exhibition

Venue: Goethe Institute/ Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore
19 - 27 June, 2009, 09:00 a.m. - 06:30 p.m.

In collaboration with Artflute.com and Goethe-Institute, Bangalore


“a fragment still signals to a lost or promised totality…”

- Jacques Derrida

This exhibition is an effort to bring together multiple concerns with regard to the field of cultural production onto a single platform. If anything is traceable as common in this exhibition, it would be the social commitment of the participating artists and its organizers. This exhibition is not an attempt to provide a singular answer to all pertinent questions with regards to cultural practice in general, but rather an initiative to think about newer frameworks which will enable us to deal with these questions from multiple subject positions. As the title indicates, this show foresees a possibility of heterogeneous being and becoming with its distinctness and difference and thereby imagines difference and the right to differ as the quality of the world. The participants of this exhibition and their varying subjective locations and concerns themselves make this show a defender of the right to differ. The political concerns of the participating artists range from engaging with broader questions of gender, sexuality, caste, religion, community and class to the specific questions of violence in the public sphere and everyday life, and systemic marginalizations at large. This is not to state that these are the only concerns of the participating artists or that one can bracket each artist into a singular category. On the contrary, many works in this exhibition engage with multiple issues and are also concerned with the linguistic as well as formal aspects of visual idioms. Like in multitudes, these works generate, re-generate and de-generate meanings through active collaborations, contestations and resistances.


Participating artists: Alok Bal, Ashutosh Bharadwaj, Benoy P.J, Chinnan Vinod, Deepak Wankade, Joseph Mathew, Justin Ponmany, Jyotikumar, K.K. Muhamed, K.P. Pradeepkumar, Kabita Mukhopadyay, Kanak Shashi, Lokesh Kodke, Mohandas N.N, Naniah Chettira, Nishad M.P, Prabhakaran K, Prakakta Potnis, Pramod Prakash, Puja Vaish, Raju Patel, Rashmi Mala, Reji K.P, Riyas Komu, Rollie Mukherjee, Sathyanand Mohan, Saumya Ananthakrishna, Savi Sawarkar, A.K. Shivadas, Shefalee Jain, Sreedevi T.R, Sreeja .P, Sunil A.P., T.V Santhosh, Vasudevan Akkitham, Venu R.


For more details, view:

Zen Studio Gallery
Goethe-Institute, Bangalore
Artflute.com