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PRESS RELEASE Figure/Landscape – Part One Featuring works by M. F. Husain, George Keyt, Anjolie Ela Menon, Akbar Padamsee, Sudhir Patwardhan, Jehangir Sabavala, Sadequain, F. N. Souza, Jagdish Swaminathan and more Aicon Gallery, New York: 28 October – 20 November 2010 Opening Reception: Thursday October 28, 6:00pm – 9:00pm Throughout the course of modern Indian art, the dual themes of landscape and the figure, and the interaction between the two, have occupied Indian artists significantly more so than artists working in the Western modernist tradition. In part, this may be traced back to the reluctance by early practitioners of Indian modernism to commit totally to abstraction. Unlike their European counterparts, Indian artists such as M. F. Husain and F. N. Souza, among others, remained committed in their work to figurative references to both landscape and the individual, perhaps as an assertive method through which to impart a unique cultural identity to the their ongoing modernist experiments. Partha Mitter has argued that the Industrial Revolution in the West, and the subsequent feelings of alienation and angst it bred amongst individuals, helped give rise to the radically distorted and fragmented techniques that became the hallmark of much of European modernism. However, Mitter argues that India, in the first part of the twentieth century at least, was still largely a non-industrial country with a certain level of socio-economic cohesion binding together much of the population. Mitter argues that it was this sense of shared cultural experience, already rapidly disintegrating in Western societies, that shaped the unique paths India’s early modern artists collectively began to explore. The figure of the common man or woman ensconced in a native landscape can then be understood as an articulation of an indigenous modernism, even while its artists continued to draw upon the aesthetics of the broader international discourse. Typical of such a practice is the artist Sudhir Patwardhan's aim, which he described as "to make figures that can become self-images for the people who are the subject of my work.” Or, as Geeta Kapur contends concerning this shared modernist drive in "Contemporary Indian Artists," "the sense of community belongs as much to the past as to the future." This two-part exhibition, staged in New York and London, aims to explore this prevalence of the figurative in modern Indian art through the presentation of works from across the twentieth-century (and some from the current century). Landscape, the figure and the interplay between them are the pivot points for the project. Some works here appear almost as pure, albeit abstracted, landscapes while others are nearly entirely figurative. Yet a number of works show the figure dissolving into, or functioning almost as a constituent part of the landscape, bringing to light the complex and interdependent relationships that can arise between these two recurring motifs of Indian modernism. The artists in the show include F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, Jagdish Swaminathan, George Keyt, Jehangir Sabavala, Anjolie Ela Menon, Sudhir Patwardhan and Shyamal Dutta-Ray amongst others.

Part One of this exhibition runs in New York from 28 October – 20 November 2010. Part Two of this exhibition runs in London from 25 November – 8 January 2011

For all media inquiries, please contact us at (212) 725 6092 or [email protected]

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Figure/Landscape – Part One Featuring works by M. F. Husain, George Keyt, Anjolie Ela Menon, Akbar Padamsee, Sudhir Patwardhan, Jehangir Sabavala, Sadequain, F. N. Souza, Jagdish Swaminathan and more 28 October 2010 –20 November 2010 VIP Preview & Panel Discussion: Thursday October 28, 6pm – 7:30pm General Reception: Thursday October 28, 7:30pm – 9:00pm Throughout the course of modern Indian art, the dual themes of landscape and the figure, and the interaction between the two, have occupied Indian artists significantly more so than artists working in the Western modernist tradition. In part, this may be traced back to the reluctance by early practitioners of Indian modernism to commit totally to abstraction. Unlike their European counterparts, Indian artists such as M. F. Husain and F. N. Souza, among others, remained committed in their work to figurative references to both landscape and the individual, perhaps as an assertive method through which to impart a unique cultural identity to the their ongoing modernist experiments.

M. F. Husain, Ritual of a River, Acrylic on canvas, 27.5 x 38

This two-part exhibition, staged in New York and London, aims to explore this prevalence of the figurative in modern Indian art through the presentation of works from across the twentieth-century (and some from the current century). Landscape, the figure and the interplay between them are the pivot points for the project. Some works here appear almost as pure, albeit abstracted, landscapes while others are nearly entirely figurative. Yet a number of works show the figure dissolving into, or functioning almost as a constituent part of the landscape, bringing to light the complex and interdependent relationships that can arise between these two recurring motifs of Indian modernism. The artists in the show include F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, Jagdish Swaminathan, George Keyt, Jehangir Sabavala, Anjolie Ela Menon, Sudhir Patwardhan and Shyamal Dutta-Ray amongst others.

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Debanjan Roy Experiments with Truth

July 8 – August 1, 2009 New York

DEBANJAN RO YTRUTH

EXPERIMENTS WITH

DEBANJAN ROY9 JULY - AUGUST 1ST

He has produced a series of works which take Gandhi ostensibly as their subject but this is a Gandhi who is seen holding or interacting with incommensurably contemporary objects; a cell-phone or an iPod for example. This incommensurability is at the heart of Roy’s project – how do we square India’s history with its present and its future?

Roy was born in 1975 and trained in Visual Arts at the Rabindra Bharti University, Santiniketan and subsequently at the same institution for his MA. He is part of a generation of artists who has witnessed India’s transformation into a nascent global superpower and like many, is keen to interrogate this process. Others of his generation use the signifiers of Indian domesticity (steel utensils in Subodh Gupta’s work for example) in order to generate a dissonance between material and statement. Roy uses the key figure in 20th century Indian history – Gandhi is used as a signifier of the history of India, a history of resistance and self-emancipation. Roy’s language is pop – he is one of the few Indian artists operating at the moment whose visual idiom very deliberately reference Pop Art, with his shiny repeated figures of Gandhi recalled Oldenburg’s outsized signs of American culture or Warhol’s repetition of American icons, most obviously Marilyn Monroe. If Warhol’s repetition of Marilyn emptied out her face of its personal qualities, mirroring perhaps the emptying processes of celebrity, then Roy’s repetition of Gandhi empties Gandhi of reverence. Instead he is seen posed in increasingly confused, yet happy poses – a large bird perches on his head in one of Roy’s works. Yet Roy seems to be ambivalent about what this process means – his use of ‘India Shining’ repeatedly in his titles does not suggest a whole-hearted belief in the rhetoric of India’s march to global superpower.

Debanjan Roy is engaged in an ongoing process to articulate the changing social realities of day-to-day India.

The artist lives and works in Kolkata. Niru Ratnam is the Gallery Director at Aicon Gallery London and a critic and curator of ultra-cotemporary art in his own right.

It has been noted before that Roy is using a hyper-real idiom with his hyper-real fiberglass sculptures to display a scene that is surreal (Gandhi with a laptop for instance). It is conceivable then that Roy is not offering any solution – he is not coming down on either the side of tradition or of progress but instead is an agent provocateur, highlighting and spectacularising the gulfs which have opened up in India’s self-definition. Is it possible to square the past with the future or has some sort of seismic shift taken place, beneath our very noses, leaving Gandhi, his wills and ideals, locked in a past that no-one knew had gone?

Roy has recently shown at art fairs around the world including Arco, Scope (New York) and Volta (Basel). He has had solo shows at Gandhara Gallery, Kolkata and Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata. Group shows have included ‘Who Knew? Mr. Gandhi’ and ‘Eastern Edge’ both at the Aicon Gallery; ‘New Wave of Bengal Art’ at Gallery Akar Prakar, Kolkata and ‘Tale of Two Cities’ at Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata and Mumbai. In 2000, Roy received the Best Sculpture Award from the West Bengal State academy and the previous year won the same award from the Rabindra Bharti University.

NIRU RATNAM

INDIA SHINING 1 (GANDHI AND THE LAPTOP)

Fiberglass with acrylic paint

27 x 46 x 30 in. • 2007

Edition of 5

INDIA SHINING 3 (GANDHI BUST WITH BIRD PECKING)


25.5 x 17 x 11.5 in. • 2007

Edition of 5

INDIA SHINING 2 (GANDHI AND THE CELL PHONE)

Fiberglass with acrylic paint, cotton fabric + cotton

27 x 46 x 30 in. • 2007

Edition of 5

UNTITLED 7

Acrylic on paper

14 x 11 in. • 2009

UNTITLED8

Acrylic on paper

14 x 11 in. • 2009

INDIA SHINING 6 (GANDHI WALKING THE DOG)


Gandhi: 46 x 15 x 14 in. Dog: 11 x 18 x 7 in. • 2007

Edition of 5

INDIA SHINING 4 (GANDHI BUST WITH BIRD)


26 x 17 x 11.5 in. • 2007

Edition of 5

left CALENDAR 2 (DAS AVATAR)

Digital printing on archival paper

31 x 23 in. • 2009

Edition 1/3

CALENDAR 1 (BISHNU)


26.5 x 15 in. • 2009

Edition 1/3

CALENDAR 3 (RAVANA)


26.5 x 15 in. • 2009

Edition 1/3

INDIA SHINING 8 (GANDHI SUPPORTED BY TWO)


66 x 56 x 24 in. • 2009

Edition of 5

INDIA SHINING 7 (GANDHI SHARING IPOD)


36 x 108 x 48 in. • 2009

Edition of 3

UNTITLED 3

Acrylic on paper

14 x 11 in. • 2009

UNTITLED 9

Acrylic on paper

14 x 11 in. • 2009

INDIA SHINING 9 (GANDHI AT A CALL CENTER)


44 x 95 x 38 in. • 2009

Edition of 3

INDIA SHINING 5 (GANDHI WITH IPOD)


66 x 32 x 36 in. • 20098

Edition of 5

Bachelor of Visual Arts from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (1998)Master of Visual Arts from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (2000)

2009 Experiments with Truth, Aicon Gallery, New York2007 Gandhara Gallery, Kolkata2002 Sculpture solo, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

2008 Who Knew? Mr. Gandhi, Aicon Gallery, London The Road to Contemporary Art, art fair, Rome2007 Eastern Edge, Aicon Gallery, New York2005 New Wave in Bengal Art, Gallery Akar Prokar2004 Tale of Two Cities, Birla Academy, Kolkata and Mumbai Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi2003 Migration, City, Home, Lalit Kala Academy, Kolkata2001 Japan Triennial Award Winners Exhibition, HK Kejriwal Foundation, Bangalore2000 West Bengal State Academy Annual Exhibition A.I.F.S Annual exhibition1999-2000 Birla Academy of Art and Culture annual exhibition, Kolkata1994-2000 Rabindra Bharati University annual exhibition, Kolkata

2004 Nirman Award2002-2003 Lalit Kala Academy Scholarship.2002-2004 Junior Fellowship from Ministry of Tourism and Culture Government of India2001 HK Kejriwal Foundation Young Artist Award2000 Best Sculpture Award from West Bengal State Academy Best Sculpture Award from Rabindra Bharati University1999 Best Sculpture Award from Rabindra Bharati University1996 Certificate of Merit from Inter University Competition

born 1975the artist lives and works in kolkata, india

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

SELECT SOLO SHOWS

SELECT GROUP SHOWS

Aicon Gallery represents leading contemporary South Asian artists in Europe and America. It has collaborated with museums such as the Tate Britain and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Aicon is excited to have opened its new New York location in the Bowery in the Fall of 2008.

© 2009 Aicon Gallery, New York, NY

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced/stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any other means without written permission.

DESIGN AND LAYOUTVIvek Sahni, Amit Lata . Vivek Sahni Design, New Delhi, India

PRINTERArchana, New Delhi, India

35 Great Jones Street . New York . NY 10012

212-725-6092 . [email protected]

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Raghu Rai A Retrospective

January 22 – February 20, 2010 London

a r e t r o s p e c t i v e

22nd january - 20th february

aicon gallery . london

a r e t r o s p e c t i v eaicon Gallery represents leading contemporary south asian artists in europe and america. it has collaborated with museums such as the tate Britain and the asian art Museum in san Francisco. aicon is excited to have opened its new New York location in the Bowery in the Fall of 2008.

© 2009-2010 aicon Gallery, London, UK

all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced/stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any other means without written permission.

D e s i G N a N D L a Y o U tvivek sahni, amit Lata . vivek sahni Design, New Delhi, india

p r i N t e rarchana, New Delhi, india

Niru ratnam is the Gallery Director at aicon Gallery London and has written numerous essays for contemporay art shows in London.

the inner vibrations of that space or person. vibrations come in gentle whispers, only in moments when your mind is still and there is silence in you. What you reflect through your image has captured the physical reality with its inner aura.

they say a good photograph is worth a thousand words. But thousand words can be a lot of noise. How about some silence – a moment in space which is non-negotiable. stories have been told and retold in many different ways through words and photographs, but silence happens rarely.

about art for art’s sake or to debate whether photography is art, just as in early years photographers imitated painters, similarly many artists world over have painted in photographic style. No point condemning individuals using different creative media for different or personal usages. But photography even at this young age has acquired a very specific and significant role to play especially in this new Millennium and that role cannot be replaced by another art-form.

While launching a major photographic exhibition in the 1950s, Family of Man, edward steichen made a famous statement, “The purpose of photography is to explain man to man and to himself”. powerful human documentation done by great masters like Henri cartier-Bresson or american photographers robert Frank and Lee Freedlander were the result of their own personal vision born out of their personal experience- which is why they left such an indelible mark on the bulk of photography being practiced in the rest of the world.

the British raj brought photographers like Bourne and shephard to india in the 1850s simultaneously when photography started in europe. and these individuals began systematically to document the lives of important people and places in india. photographers like raja Deen Dayal and many of their precious images from the

it’s a learning of the self and the world. as Henri cartier Bresson once said when you close one eye to look through the viewfinder, one eye looks at the world and the other eye looks inside you! as i learn about the life click by click, the desire at the end is to ingest everything and realize it to the point without your consciousness or spirit being colored by it. as all that you are in these moments, gets reflected through your work – so you reflect as a clean mirror.

photography at its best, goes far beyond the style of an individual; like the spirit – the soul and it need not always be explained. in course of my work, i find that i have been moving to focus on the changing equations of our times, trying to record the deeper universal human responses to realities, to energy, to the spirit. i believe that the photographer’s job is to cut a frame-sized slice out of the world around him, so faithfully and honestly that if he were to put it back again, life and the world would begin to move without a stumble. My goal now is not so much about ‘good photography’; it is to go beyond acquired styles and address life itself.

in india as in the rest of the world we live in an age of millions of ephemeral images. thankfully, good photograph can communicate deeper levels of human experience; it can change one’s view of the world and enhance the possibilities of another vision and awakening. the electronic media marks our minds, several times a day. the print media especially important magazines like the Time, Stern or The New Yorker have their own image power. it is not so difficult to produce competent and good photographs now and again. However the fire inside you that makes you thirst, lies in digging deeper into the layers and complexities. to be able to experience, realize and capture that moment of Man and Nature you have to be like a clean mirror that has the sensitivity and the discipline of the medium to capture and reflect what is, not to judge, but to let the situation speak for itself. We capture reality, the truth - not only its physical aspect, but,

various photo albums of the Maharajas’ took us beyond history and geography. viewing them today is like sitting in your drawing-room now and experiencing the real lives and continuing aura of some of those people and spaces, the daily lives, the way that they were lived over a hundred and fifty years ago. although a painting of that era could be as powerful, but experiencing the physical truth through a photograph of that time could be breath taking. and the response would be “Oh my God! That’s the way it used to be!” You could paint a face or situation even from the centuries gone by, and date it. But the fact is that a photograph of that era is truly the way it was - and, is in a way, still is.

Many of the precious treasures of our civilization - of human relationships, values and simple interactions of daily life are going through major changes. this is precisely what i am talking about, to bring man closer - face to face with human reality, quite unlike television screens where images come and disappear as a flickering experience- but still-images are here to stay as an experience that is so powerful and a moment so potent that it is tangible.

iNDia is, for me, the whole world, an ocean of life – churning day in day out!

it’s never the same again….at the same spot….

over the centuries, so much has melded into india, that it’s not really one country, its not one culture. it is crowded with crosscurrents of many religions, beliefs, cultures and their practices that may appear incongruous. But india keeps alive the inner spirit of her own civilization with all its contradictions. Here, several centuries have learnt to live side by side at the same time. and a good photograph is lasting witness to that as photo history of our times. Being a multi-lingual, multi- cultured and multi- religious society, the images must speak these complexities through a multi- layered experience.

to me the camera is an instrument of learning. when you look through it, you start achieving a kind of concentration. in these concentrated moments you can penetrate and discover the unseen - the unknown.

photography was born and brought up in the West where seniors spoke about capturing a moment in space which every one followed. and to raise the vision of this young and powerful medium, even Mother at sri aurobindo ashram explained the purpose of pHotoGrapHY - “captUreiNG tHe tiMe We Live iN”. But the time we live in, is complex and multilayered –the experience of india is horizontal, it does not begin from any where, nor does it end any where. there comes a saturation point in art form, the overloading of expression shows it down – a moment in space is just not enough and a panoramic experience creates the possibility of capturing simultaneity of moments happening in any given situation. and it opens up much larger canvas to deal with. that’s what india is all about, where several centuries and several moments can live and vibrate through each other and beyond, that challenges the vision of the past and the only choice is to open up the understanding inside and the space out side. it’s the panoramic experience that allows me to photograph throbbing of several energies on one given canvas.

When the relevant and the irrelevant separate to merge again, the secret to capture the amalgam of so many lives lived in different times at times different meditations merge into one, and they gather in single space, simply a spontaneous collection of circumstances. i stand amid this human deluge trying to untangle the merging and emerging of various colours, the myriad hues of every emotion, set in motion by each charge and recharge. it’s an exploration into the unknown and unseen. it energizes and enriches itself…the restless and restful fluid their home in me…

the inadequate wishes i was four or five of me, it’s life’s longing for itself that makes me go on…the emergence of the unseen and revelation of the unknown leaves me amazed!!!

the experience becomes a DarsHaN.

What a country of mine!!

raghu rai

raghu rai’s india teems with activity. crowds of workers and other individuals go about their daily business in cities, streets, marketplaces, docks, fields and riverbanks. it would be easy to imagine that such crowds would be so radically heterogeneous that they would be uncontainable within one picture plane - after all that is how india is popularly imagined. However, rai’s works act to subtly frame the reality in front of him and through that bring together the disparate elements contained within, into a momentary, unified gaze. so for example, in ‘Ganapati celebration’ (2001) we see a dense crowd who are in the middle of their religious celebrations. people are absorbed in their own private moments - that is, they are not a crowd who has one singular object of attention (say, as a crowd at a football match might have). they look in different directions and seem largely oblivious of each other. Yet the composition and framing of the work brings this disparate mass of people together through visual associations. For example the arm of the woman in the foreground of the picture is bent across her chest, right-angled at her elbow, wrist cocked downwards slightly, gesturing in some way perhaps to the woman next to her. this pose is both isolated but also linked to something else in the work for on closer viewing it visually rhymes with another pose in the work - that of four of the arms of the statue that stands above the crowd, which point in a similar direction.

an even more disparate crowd comprises the cast of ‘Traffic at Chawri Bazar, Delhi’ (1984). the scene is filled with individuals going about their daily business; walking, riding horse-drawn carts, pushing trolleys piled high with various materials, cycling. they head in a variety of directions disappearing into dot-sized heads in the very background of the picture at its upper edge. again however, there is a subtle framing or direction at work. tracks made by the wheels of carriages form a series of vertical black lines that head up the centre of the picture frame and act to orientate all the figures in the image. some of them head in a direction that is congruent to these tracks. another set of people cross these tracks in a perpendicular direction around three-quarters up the image; this set of people are clearly following another road; they form a horizontal plane to the vertical plane demarcated by the tracks.

rai himself would probably shy away from such formal readings of his works, having repeatedly stated that his works have an absolute faithfulness to life as he sees it in front of him, for example stating: “When I slice out a space, a moment, it should be done with such simplicity and faithfulness that when I give it back to life, life starts moving and flowing around it without a stutter.” this is no doubt the case, and rai is certainly working in the mode that can is often described as ‘documentary’. However, it is possible to construct an argument that suggests that these moments of formal congruence occur in the ongoing flux of the world around us - it’s just that we don’t have the ability to freeze-frame the world and realise that a woman’s arm might visually rhyme with the arm of a statue behind her, and that both are framed under a dramatic, cloud-filled sky. india itself might be tumultuous, multivalent and polyphonic rai’s india is a series of moments where unexpected congruencies are made manifest. in ‘Imambara,

Lucknow’ (1992) the verticals of different elements all gently relate to each other: the line of broken columns which head downhill, the brick wall that the first one leans against, the man between the first column and the second broken column all echo with each other and the two towers in the background. in ‘On A Train To Darjeeling’ (1995), the window of the bus provides a vertical zip between interior and exterior but one that also reflects the exterior onto the interior creating a doubling of imagery.

rai has repeatedly insisted on the documentary status of his works although i would argue that he develops the documentary form in a unique way in response to his immediate world. through the twentieth century modernist photography in the West developed through its own experiments within the documentary mode. Henri cartier-Bresson, Walker evans and andré Kertész produced work that pushed the idea of documentary far beyond the mere utilitarian or functional to the point where audiences of these works saw them as much more than simple copies of the world. this would feed through to later practitioners such as robert Frank and Jeff Wall who coined the phrase the “art concept of photojournalism” (Jeff Wall, ‘Marks of indifference”, p.248). However the key difference that rai brings through his work to that tradition is the sense of a multitude. cartier-Bresson and evans tended to work in within relatively confined picture planes focusing on the details of the everyday. For rai this would be impossible because his canvas is vast - india. rai has talked about the experience of being immersed within india as being ‘horizontal’, without beginning or end - thus even though he frames what is in front of him into a moment that becomes the work, there is a strong implication in each work that life and the multitude teem on beyond the frame. so even if his framing ties together what is in the work, it does not exclude what is outside that framing. When rai talks of taking a slice out of space, he is articulating at this idea of taking one slice from many. Whilst that one slice becomes the work, it continually gestures beyond at the other moments that have a horizontal relationship to the work. at times what is exterior to the work makes an appearance; so for example in ‘Imambara, Lucknow’, and ‘The Day Before….Ayodhya 6 December 1992’ (1992), disembodied parts of bodies extend into and disrupt the frame (legs in the former, an arm in the latter).

the academic steve edwards has argued in his essay ‘vernacular Modernism’ (published in ‘varieties of Modernism’ edited by paul Wood, Yale University press in associate with the open University, 2004) that street photography has been central to the programme of modernist photography. edwards argues that this is in part

because the street itself allows modernist photographers to explore what their cameras are capable of: “Aesthetic transcendence is deemed to result from creating an integrated aesthetic whole out of mere ‘stuff’….the street with its crowds and movement, unplanned development and diverse signage provides a privileged site for testing this conception.” edwards goes onto argue that the street allowed modernist photographers to explore the specific characteristics of the medium of photography through the framing views of doorways, windows and street vistas, the fluidity of people’s movement through space and the light effects that produce strong shadows. i would argue that it is possible to extend this argument with regard to rai; for not only does all of that apply in when rai is photographing the street, it seems that the particularities of india such as the co-existence of the past alongside the present, the religious festivities and rituals, the swarming, multifarious crowds all present visual phenomena are congruent with the experiments in form of modernist photography. But in rai’s case i would argue that the key shift is that the ‘street’ is both internal to the work which through its use of visual rhymes and echoes brings out unexpected congruities, but also that the ‘street’ is present beyond the frame in the extended horizontal plane that surrounds the works. in a sense there is what is going on inside the work, and also what can be assumed to be going on in the wider world outside the frame. this is made manifest in a work like ‘Flower Market, Kolkata’, (2004) in the contrast between the static figures and those moving through the market. the figures that are static are enmeshed within the work, whilst those who are a blur are part of the multitude that extends beyond the work.

rai extended the language of vernacular modernism by being immersed within the greater whole of india - that in some ways is the only subject of his work. His works attest to a multi-layered reality, where spatial frames jostle with each other, where people’s own personal space is overlaid and invaded by other people’s space, where temporalities rub up against each other. in the work ‘Preparing for Durga Pooja, Kolkata’ (1999) a street outside erupts into the photography as a parallel reality to the interior of the workshop or storage that forms the foreground of the work. as she rides on the handlebars of a cycle a young girl’s gaze directly back at the camera momentarily links these two parallel planes. Her gaze from the outside, inwards, is mirrored by the gaze of the statue in the foreground of the work, also looking back at the viewer. it is these momentary connections through the disparate, through the multi-layered experience that is india, which rai conveys in his unique body of work.

raghu rai’s indianiru ratnam

t r a F F i c a t c H a W r i B a z a r , D e L H i

1964 • 20” x 30”

D U s t s t o r M c r e a t e D B Y a v i p H e L i c o p t e r , r a J a s t H a N

1975 • 20” x 54”

M o r N i N G a c t i v i t i e s a L o N G M U L L i c K G H a t , K o L K a t a

1990 • 20” x 30”

c o W s a N D M e N B U r N i N G G H a t , v a r a N a s i

2003 • 20” x 30”

a t M a N i K a r N i K a G H a t ,

W H e r e H i N D U s B U r N t H e i r D e a D , v a r a N a s i

2004 • 20” x 54”

i M a M B a r a , L U c K N o W

1992 • 20” x 30”

W o M a N c a r t p U s H e r , D e L H i

1979 • 20” x 30”

W r e s t L e r s U N D e r

H a W r a H B r i D G e , K o L K a t a

2004 • 20” x 54”

o N a t r a i N t o D a r J e e L i N G

1995 • 20” x 30”

M o N s o o N D o W N p o U r i N D e L H i

1984 • 20” x 30”

a L L e Y e s a N D e a r s F o r t H e L e a D e r

a t c H o U r a N G H e e , K o L K a t a

2006 • 20” x 54”

s t i L L e D B Y t H e r a i N , G U r G a o N

2000 • 20” x 30”

t H e D a Y B e F o r e … . . a Y o D H Y a 6 D e c . 1 9 9 2

1992 • 20” x 30”

D i r e c t i N G t r a F F i c i N c e N t r a L a v e N U e , K o L K a t a

1990 • 20” x 54”

B U L D i N G H Y D e r a B a D H i G H W a Y

2004 • 20” x 30”

D o c K Y a r D , K o L K a t a

1990 • 20” x 30”

t U r K M a N G a t e , D e L H i

2005 • 20” x 54”

F L o W e r M a r K e t , K o L K a t a

2004 • 20” x 30”

M i G r a t o r Y L a B o U r e r s , K o L K a t a

2005 • 20” x 30”

D r U M p L a Y e r s

F o r H i r e , K o L K a t a

2004 • 20” x 54”

a r t i s t s t U D i o , K o L K a t a

2004 • 20” x 54”

p r e p a r i N G F o r D U r G a p o o J a , K o L K a t a

1999 • 20” x 30”

G a N p a t i c e L e B r a t i o N , M U M B a i

2001 • 20” x 30”

W o r s H i p i N G G a N G a , K o L K a t a

2005 • 20” x 54”

e v e N i N G p r a Y e r J a M a M a s J i D , D e L H i

1982 • 20” x 30”

a W a r D s1992 photograph of the Year, Usa1971 padmashree award, india

s e L e c t s o L o e x H i B i t i o N s2008 Raghu Rai: A Retrospective – National Gallery of Modern art, New Delhi, india Raghu Rai: A Retrospective – National Gallery of Modern Mumbai, india2007 Maestros: Masters of Indian Classical Music, Bodhi art singapore, china Just by the Way – tasveer, New Delhi, india Just by the Way – tasveer, Mumbai, india Earthscapes – Bodhi art singapore, china2006 Raghu Rai – tasveer, Kolkata, india Just by the Way – tasveer, Bangalor, india Earthscapes – Bodhi art Mumbai, india2002 Raghu Rai’s India - A Retrospective – photofusion, London, UK Raghu Rai – sala eFti, escuela de Fotografia, centro de imagen, Madrid2001 Raghu Rai’s INDIA – Bunkamura, tokyo, Japan1999 La India – centro de le imagen, Mexico city, Mexico1997 Retrospective - National Gallery of Modern art, New Delhi, india

s e L e c t G r o U p e x H i B i t i o N s2008 The Photograph: Painted, Posted and of the Moment – National Gallery of Modern art, Mumbai, and New Delhi, india Magnum – 60 Years of Photography – stedelijk Museum, amsterdam, Netherlands2007 Lens – Bodhi art singapore, singapore, china India – Public Spaces, Private Spaces – the Newark Museum, Newark, Usa2005 India - Musei capitolini centrale Montemartini, rome, italy2005 Bhopal 1984 – 2004 - Melkweg Gallery, amsterdam, Netherlands

2004 Exposure - Drik Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Leica Gallery, prague, czech republic Glorious Harvest – Photographs from the Michael E. Hoffman Tribute Collection – philadelphia Museum of art, philadelphia, Usa2003 Exposure: Portrait of a Corporate Crime - University of Michigan, ann arbor, Usa Bhopal - sala consiliare, venice, italy; photographic Gallery, Helsinki, Finland body.city – New perspectives from india – Haus der Kulturen de Welt, Berlin, Germany2002 volkart Foundation, Winterthur, switzerland

c o L L e c t i o NBibliothèque Nationale, paris, France

p U B L i c a t i o N s2005 Mother Theresa: A Life of Dedication, Harry N. abrams, Usa Romance of India, timeless Books, india2004 Indira Gandhi: A Living Legacy, timeless Books, india Exposure: Portrait Of A Corporate Crime, Greenpeace, Netherlands 2003/04 Saint Mother: A Life Dedicated, timeless Books, india; (Mère Teresa), La Martinière, France2002 Bhopal Gas Tragedy (with suroopa Mukherjee), tulika publishers, india2001 raghu Rai’s India - A Retrospective, asahi shimbun, Japan2000 Lakshadweep, Ut of Lakshadweep, india Raghu Rai... in his Own Words, roli Books, india 1998 Man, Metal and Steel, steel authority of india, Ltd., india 1997 My Land and Its People, vadehra Gallery, india1996 Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work or Mother Teresa, element Books, Usa1996/01 Dreams of India, times editions, singapore/Greenwich, UK1994 Raghu Rai’s Delhi, indus/Harper collins, india1991 Khajuraho, time Books international, india1990/91 Tibet in Esilio, Mondadori, italy; (tibet in exile), chronicle Books, Usa1990 Delhi and Agra (with Lai Kwok Kin and Nitin rai), Hunter publications, inc., Usa1989 Calcutta, time Books international, india1988 Dreams of India, time Books international, singapore; (L’inde), arthaud, France1986/87 Taj Mahal, times editions, singapore; robert Laffont, France; rizzoli publications, Usa1985 Indira Gandhi (with pupul Jayakar), Lustre press, india 1984 The Sikhs, Lustre press, india1983 Delhi: A Portrait, Delhi tourist Development corporation/oxford University press, india/UK1974 A Day in the life of Indira Gandhi, Nachiketa publications, india

Born 1942, Jhhang (currently Pakistan)

over the span of nearly half a century raghu rai has won many national and international awards and accolades including being nominated in 1971 by Henri cartier Bresson to Magnum photos. His solo exhibition has travelled worldwide and he has shown in London, paris, New York, Hamburg, prague, tokyo, zurich and sydney. His photo essays have appeared in many of the world’s leading magazines and newspapers including “Time”, “Life”, “GEO”, “The New York Times”, “Sunday Times”, “Newsweek”, “The Independent,” and the “New Yorker”.

raghu rai currently lives and works in New Delhi.

v i s i o Naicon Gallery’s curatorial vision begins in india but reaches outwards internationally from there. the two gallery spaces are located in New York and London, and each provides a vital platform for artists based in the indian subcontinent to exhibit in the United states and europe. alongside in-depth, focused solo shows the galleries present a programme of curated group exhibitions that are international in their scope and ambition. Following recent debates in institutional curating, the programme deliberately thinks together art produced very recently and art made through the latter half of the 20th century. through this we aim to produce unexpected congruencies, shed light on other modernities, make complex the designation ‘contemporary’ and signal a shift away from simple survey exhibitions. in short, aicon Gallery presents recent and contemporary art from india and beyond.

H i s t o r Yaicon Gallery was developed from Gallery artsindia, which was one of the first major outlets in the United state for art from india. initially Gallery artsindia connected collectors, critics and curators to artists in india via an on-line platform, and after the initial positive feedback, opened as a gallery space in New York in 2002. aicon Gallery was launched when our second major space opened in London in 2007. the New York space shifted location to its new premises in the Lower east side in 2008.

o N G o i N G p r o G r a M M eaicon is programming through 2010 and 2011 with solo and group exhibitions taking place in both New York and London. aicon draws upon the academic interests of its curatorial staff whose specializations in subjects including globalization, identity, environmentalism, international politics and postcolonialism often feed into programming. We look forward to expanding our programming into ambitious external projects to complement the ongoing gallery shows.

L o N D o N8 Heddon street

London W1B 4BU t: +44 20.7734.7575

e: [email protected]

N e W Y o r K35 Great Jones streetNew York NY 10012

t: 212-725-6092e: [email protected]

p a L o a L t o535 Bryant street

palo alto ca 94301t: 650.321.4900

e: [email protected]

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Sana Arjumand ‘Let’s Fly First Class!’

May 27 – June 14, 2010 New York

Design and Layout

Printer

Let’s Fly First Class Sana Arjumand

“That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting

of it to bring out its essence?” (Life of Pi) Yann Martel

The work of art, like dream, in its nature is a mode of transportation. It moves a viewer

from one place to other, without shifting him physically or changing his environment.

While looking at a painting, reading a book, watching a movie or listening to a piece

of music, a person is transposed from his actual background into another realm: to the

world of ideas, imagination, inspirations, aspiration and fantasy.

A number of means, methods and mediums are available to facilitate this flight of fancy.

Artists often employ a language that due to its unusualness compels the viewer to

abandon his conventions, conditions and constraints, and to start looking and locating

new realities, even though those are fabricated from familiar. Sana Arjumand has been

using a similar formal vocabulary in order to convert her immediate reality into an idea

– perhaps the lasting entity.

Reality in the work of Arjumand is spread out in multiple directions and dimensions.

Hence in the context of her work, there ceases to be a singular definition or description

of what is real. In fact the notion of real constantly – and consequently is being modified

with each new work, since the technique, sensibility and pictorial order of each work

suggest the change of approach and a persistent urge of investigation.

Through her new body of work, Arjumand has addressed, questioned and challenged

the concepts of nationalism, fundamentalism, high art, craft and the act of stereotyping

a society and individual. References to Pakistan’s national flag (as the silk cover of an

automobile, or parts of it in a lantern/light) indicate the artist’s inquiry in the usage of

symbols in a grand setting as well as on plebeian arena. For instance the practice of

driving through a busy road in an official vehicle is not dissimilar to the journey of speedy

bus or truck painted with some national forms, as both take their passengers away from

the crowd. Hence if the flag in one case is utilized for the purpose of state, its elements

are opened, rearranged and are included in some other popular, utilitarian and usual

items, may those are on the road, or in the hands of a girl in the form of a lantern.

Probably this contrast of patriotism can be read as a critique on the construct too. But

both versions/voyages, besides being actual, represent a world of fantasy, which in our

context merges into fanaticism as well. . .

Sana Arjumand deals with this aspect, of fantasy turning into fanaticism, in her FLIGHTS OF FANCY

immaculately executed works; by drawing delinquent characters that represent a primitive

element/force in our surroundings. Men with beards, shaven heads and long shirts,

are rendered from observation of certain models/human beings, but in their pictorial

essence these allude to the basic phenomenon of perception. The outlines of aeroplanes

(resembling to circling birds, because of their directions and numbers) whether next to

the figure or insides his dress – with other elements of landscape – denote the nature of

seeing, in which the viewer can not be detached form the subject of view. Hence what is

observed is not a view, but a point of view, as all contradictions and contrasts lie within

the beholder.

So the characters, characteristics, concerns and conflicts, from within and about outside,

are visible in Sana’s work, yet her tone is private, poetic and lyrical. Symbols in her work

extend the meaning of her subject/theme, such as the recurring motif of aeroplane,

extensively used in the background of figures, as independent shapes and sculptural

pieces; indicate something important, significant and urgent for the narrative of this

age. Mainly because after the attacks on Twin Towers, the connotations of an aircraft,

regardless if it is a passenger carrier or a fighter jet, are connected to a new world,

altered after/with the 9/11. Hence the outline of a plane dominates several works, along

with emerging into a main motif in a work, where it serves to take the viewer into

incredible destinies.

In fact Sana, in her approach towards the issues of our times, treats them in a personal,

unique and humorous manner. Two aeroplanes so near to each other as if kissing, or

flying on the pattern of love sign/diagram depict an impossibility in physical terms, but

at the same instance allude to a probability – if one considers the two carriers of people,

as the symbols and transporters of ideas, especially in this century, which is associated

(or started) with the clash of civilizations. The duality of two fighter planes is repeated

in other works too, with double portraits of the same person, or juxtaposition of a

child with a grown up figure, that seems partly human, partly made of plantations and

national icons.

With its blend of formal issues and conceptual tissues, painterly surfaces and graphic

elements, peculiar references and popular preferences, the art of Sana Arjumand is a

treatise of its times. Yet like any other work of art, it transcends its age, region, spectators

and maker, in order to remain an entity to be explored freely, frequently – but not

perfectly or finally. Thank God!

Quddus Mirza 2010

Massive Human Search 1 2010

Oil on Canvas54 x 42 inches

Massive Human Search 2 2010


Massive Human Search 32010


Then their shadows fell from the sky 12010

Ink, Acrylics and tea stains on Canvas 36 x 36 inches

In the Play Ground-(Dialogue)2010

Acrylic wash and Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches

In the Play Ground-(Nurture)2010

Acrylic wash and Oil on Canvas 48 x 36 inches

In the Play Ground-(Voyage)2010

Acrylics, Inks, Tea Stains and Oil on Canvas 48 x 48 inches

A hundred thousand years of growing beard 12009

Coffee, Inks, Acrylics on Mylar Film24 x 36 inches

Bureau Car2010

Oil on Canvas 60 x 120 inches

Mairaj 12010

Digital Print on Canvas 30 x 45 inches

Mairaj 22010

Digital Print on Canvas 30 x 45 inches

Let’s give each other space 52009

Mono Print 30 x 22 inches

Boom Boom Pow2009

Acrylics on Silver Printed Paper6 x 8 inches

SANA ARJUMAND

Born, 1982 in Karachi, Pakistan. Graduated in Fine Arts from the National College of Arts in 2005.

2010May Solo show, “Lets Fly First Class”, Aicon Gallery, New York, USA.Apr Group show, “Once Upon a Wonderland”, Exhibit 320, New Delhi, India. Apr RM Residency (International) Exhibition, Ejaz art galleries, Lahore, Pakistan.Mar Artist in Residence at RM Residency (International), Lahore, Pakistan.Mar “ Across the Frontier”, Apparao galleries, Delhi, India.

2009Sep “Redo Pakistan” - Flux festival, London, UK.Aug Indian Art Summit, Delhi, India.Jul Artist in Residence at “Art Omi”, New York, USA. May Group show “Celebrating Karachi”.May Group show “Tales of the City” – National College of Arts, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.Apr Redo Pakistan- “Shanakht” festival, Karachi, Pakistan.Apr Group show “Honor killing”, at PNCA (Pakistan National Council of the Arts). Mar Group show, “Going Places”, at Canvas Gallery Karachi, Pakistan.Mar Dubai Art Fair – Aicon gallery booth, UAE.

2008Dec Group Show, “As it seems - or as far as the eye can see”, at National College of Arts, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.Nov Solo Show, “Bold and the Beautiful“ Canvas gallery, Karachi.Oct Solo Show, Gallery 6, Islamabad.May Hong Kong Art Fair, Aicon gallery booth. Apr Group exhibition, East West Centre, Honolulu, Hawaii.Apr Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. National exhibition organized by Artists Association of Punjab. Mar Dubai Art Fair 2008. Aicon gallery booth.

2007Nov Group exhibition, “Figurative Art, Pakistan”, at Aicon Gallery, London. Oct Group exhibition, “Lantern of the East”. 17th Pyeomg Paek international art festival. Nake art museum. Korea. Aug Two person show, “361 hours of dialogue”, at Broad way Gallery, Amman, Jordan.

Apr Group exhibition, “Drawings of the Soul”, at university of Sunderland, U.K.Mar Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. National exhibition organized by Artists Association of Punjab.

2006Oct Group show, Nomad art gallery, Islamabad.Jun Group show, VM art gallery, Rangoon Wala centre art gallery, Karachi.May Group exhibition of paintings, Khaas art gallery, Islamabad.Mar Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. Feb Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. Organized by Young Artists Association, Punjab. Lecturer at Pakistan National Council of the Arts, Islamabad, in Marjorie Husain’s workshop. Selected publications and reviews

2009“Operating above the law”, Fatima Bhutto, Art Asia Pacific, November – December issue.“Art for the Masses”, Aarti Dua, The Telegraph, Calcutta, India- August 29th.

2008 “Passage from India”, Farah Rahim Ismail, Art Quarter Combined, Christies Art Fund.''Contemporary Pakistan'', Honolulu Advertiser, 4th May. “Mumbai to Manhattan”, Art Dubai, Canvas Magazine supplement, 2008, March.“Realism Today”, Salwat Ali, Dawn Gallery, November 15, 2008.“Feeling for Flag”, Quddus Mirza, The news, November 16, 2008.

2007''Under the Gun'', Carla Power, Time Magazine, December 17, 2007.''Going Places'', Salwat Ali, Dawn Gallery, December 1, 2007.''Emerging artists exhibit Pakistani art in Jordan'', Shahina Maqbool, The News, August 31 2007.''Faces and Places'', Mike Derderian, The Jordanian Star, August 30, 2007.''A Catalogue of Surprises'', Anwer Mooraj, The Herald, February, 2007.

2006 ''A perspective of contemporary paintings, prints and sculptures in Pakistan 1987-2006'' by VM art gallery, M.M printers, Karachi 2006.

www.sanaarjumand.com [email protected]

VisionAicon Gallery’s curatorial vision begins in India but reaches outwards internationally from there. The two gallery spaces are located in New York and London, and each provides a vital platform for artists based in the Indian Subcontinent to exhibit in the United States and Europe. Alongside in-depth, focused solo shows the galleries present a programme of curated group exhibitions that are international in their scope and ambition. Following recent debates in institutional curating, the programme deliberately thinks together art produced very recently and art made through the latter half of the 20th century. Through this we aim to produce unexpected congruencies, shed light on other modernities, make complex the designation ‘contemporary’ and signal a shift away from simple survey ex-hibitions. In short, Aicon Gallery presents recent and contemporary art from India and beyond.

HistoryAicon Gallery was developed from Gallery ArtsIndia, which was one of the first major out-lets in the United State for art from India. Initially Gallery ArtsIndia connected collectors, critics and curators to artists in India via an on-line platform, and after the initial positive feedback, opened as a gallery space in New York in 2002. Aicon Gallery was launched when our second major space opened in London in 2007. The New York space shifted location to its new premises in the Lower East Side in 2008.

Ongoing ProgrammeAicon is programming through 2010 and 2011 with solo and group exhibitions taking place in both New York and London. Aicon draws upon the academic interests of its cura-torial staff whose specializations in subjects including globalization, identity, environmen-talism, international politics and postcolonialism often feed into programming. We look forward to expanding our programming into ambitious external projects to complement the ongoing gallery shows.

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