It's celebration time for Chennaities, for they now have a new Art gallery in town, paving way for new and exciting art and thoughts to flow into the city. Ashvitas gallery by Ashvin has opened in a street off Radhakrishna Salai, Mylapore. The gallery promises to be a powerhouse of energy and enterprise manifest in Ashvin, the founder. The opening show that opened for viewing on 18 September is a testimony to Ashvin's enterprise in the Art world today. In the line up of the show he has managed to bring home some of the super star artists of the Art world.
I believe this is the first time Chennai would be playing host to the works of Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat and Thukral and Tagra. Chennaites have seen an LN Tallur installation in the Juggernaut on display at the Phoenix mall in Velachery. Ashvin has also brought in the dynamic Peter Nagy as the curator of the show. One usually expects atleast the curator to be around during the opening of a show, unfortunately that was no to be the case here.
The inaugral show, The Savage nobles, leaves the viewer with a mixed feeling, true to the title.
While Subodh Gupta's installations are stuff of Art world's fleeting and epoch making moments, there was also this lingering dreary feeling that the Art world should have since moved on. The installations are probably an attempt to bring home a sample of the spectacle that rocked the art world in recent times. Subodh's installations smack of megalomania, an urgency to astonish and excite, the power to will up on a mundane object and transform it to some shaman object of the modern Industrialised world. In contrast, LN Tallur's installations are made of layers that draw the viewer in, in trying to explore, revealing layers of sense of history and culture.
T&T's paintings are a loud dislay of colours beaming joy into an animated and a dreamy scape. While Jitish Kalat's works are subdued creations playing on the grey/sepia scale that looks like some scientific model of the world, a mapping of a starry night sky, distorted mathematical modelling images, a biological drawing gone astray and a geographical mapping that gave away.
Tallur's installations of Yogic postures on tiles offers a visual treat in Terracota, just as T&T's wall installations of painted Fibre glass figures are floral and decorative in a disruptive way.
Bharti Kher's works with the Bindhi make loud feminists statements. Her works like Subodh's plays with the ordinary to create extraordinary works. The bindi stuck to mirrors and door frames is a common sight in every Indian house with a female presence. Bharti takes this cue to it's different explorations and weaves patterns and marks currents.
Subodh's painting series titled TBD. breaks many convictions. It offers scope for many deliberations by virtue of keeping the image simple and emptied. He welcomes the viewer to fill the image with his thoughts.
Ashvin has done great service to the city by bringing the works of these Super star artists to Chennai. Ashvita promises to be a great space in the making. The raw look of the walls, the unfinished look of the entrance all point to a great work in progress. The initial trepiditions that one feels while having to locate an art gallery inside a hospital campus, vanishes without a trace once you enter the fabulous gallery space. Cheers to new beginnings.
I believe this is the first time Chennai would be playing host to the works of Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat and Thukral and Tagra. Chennaites have seen an LN Tallur installation in the Juggernaut on display at the Phoenix mall in Velachery. Ashvin has also brought in the dynamic Peter Nagy as the curator of the show. One usually expects atleast the curator to be around during the opening of a show, unfortunately that was no to be the case here.
The inaugral show, The Savage nobles, leaves the viewer with a mixed feeling, true to the title.
While Subodh Gupta's installations are stuff of Art world's fleeting and epoch making moments, there was also this lingering dreary feeling that the Art world should have since moved on. The installations are probably an attempt to bring home a sample of the spectacle that rocked the art world in recent times. Subodh's installations smack of megalomania, an urgency to astonish and excite, the power to will up on a mundane object and transform it to some shaman object of the modern Industrialised world. In contrast, LN Tallur's installations are made of layers that draw the viewer in, in trying to explore, revealing layers of sense of history and culture.
T&T's paintings are a loud dislay of colours beaming joy into an animated and a dreamy scape. While Jitish Kalat's works are subdued creations playing on the grey/sepia scale that looks like some scientific model of the world, a mapping of a starry night sky, distorted mathematical modelling images, a biological drawing gone astray and a geographical mapping that gave away.
Tallur's installations of Yogic postures on tiles offers a visual treat in Terracota, just as T&T's wall installations of painted Fibre glass figures are floral and decorative in a disruptive way.
Bharti Kher's works with the Bindhi make loud feminists statements. Her works like Subodh's plays with the ordinary to create extraordinary works. The bindi stuck to mirrors and door frames is a common sight in every Indian house with a female presence. Bharti takes this cue to it's different explorations and weaves patterns and marks currents.
Subodh's painting series titled TBD. breaks many convictions. It offers scope for many deliberations by virtue of keeping the image simple and emptied. He welcomes the viewer to fill the image with his thoughts.
Ashvin has done great service to the city by bringing the works of these Super star artists to Chennai. Ashvita promises to be a great space in the making. The raw look of the walls, the unfinished look of the entrance all point to a great work in progress. The initial trepiditions that one feels while having to locate an art gallery inside a hospital campus, vanishes without a trace once you enter the fabulous gallery space. Cheers to new beginnings.
