MY glass is always brimming. With art that nourishes me. It’s like a day when you have punched in your nadi shodan pranayam in place and feel energised. I know, `tis true that the pollution post-Diwali in Max City is at an all-time high, but I derive my oxygen from the diverse abundance of amazing art and their creators. Mumbai gets lucky the second time around. The excitement is palpable as you see the tents set up at Mahalakshmi race course as the curtain is set to be raised for a huge Art Mumbai 2024! Cheers!
Transfigurations
ART Musings bring Sakti Burman’s exceptional new medium, his suite of bas relief sculptures. The title Translated or Transfigured emerges from Sakti’s synchronicity in retaining his signature composite from one medium to another.
The gallery at Colaba has a comprehensive collection of his works with his early figures both Renaissance and Baroque in tandem with the gods and goddesses in India. There is the reflective jester and his self-portrait revealing, to us voyeurs, his work and world. Sakti’s subliminal subjects again relay messages for us to decipher in his recent reliefs. We encounter his commedia dell’arte opus, the Three Graces, and his love for architecture that engages the tactile sensory beyond the visual.
Ranjit Hoskote, author and art historian wraps up his curatorial note, “Burman’s paintings and sculptures fascinate us, not only because they captivate us with the particularity to the stories they hold, but because they connect the eye, the touch and the mind with the irresistible river of story, whose flow will never cease so long as the human imagination remains actively engaged with the surprises, disappointments, epiphanies and nightmares that our life world throws up.”
More Sakti to us!
SAKTI’S retrospective at NGMA Mumbai on October 17, 2017 is what the compelling connection to great art is about. Sangeeta and Shanti Chopra had the best of the family at an exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery which included Sakti’s wife Maite Delteil and his daughter Maya. His niece Jayshri Burman’s best too has been showcased at its finest in the gallery while Paresh Maity is represented by Sunaina Anand’s Delhi-based Art Alive.
Madhuri Bhaduri
MB and I have finally caught up in person over Iridessa- The Light Within. Cymroza Art Gallery X Polka Art Gallery presented this curation by Aarti Singh. The artworks are the kind that you have in your space and they just grow on you. The palette is refreshing and carries a serenity that we much need.
Dr Pheroza J Godrej summed up Madhuri’s long association and career over the years. It is heart-warming to see the familial bonding that Dr Godrej brings with her patronage of the arts. The curation holds huge albums and memorabilia of the early 80s of the art world from which Pheroza points out so many familiar faces.
Here’s to many more for our Pune-based Madhuri who has showcased numerous solos and feels the same intensity as she gets together her latest exhibition. Go Cymroza, I say!
On view till the 15th.
Indian Film Museum
MY surprise pick this week is the NMIC Museum located at The Films Division Complex at Pedder Road. While NMIC and NDFC host multiple screenings and festivals the presentation of the exhibitions at the multi-floor sections is amazing. The camera section, for one, is meticulously documented by the research team of the Nehru Centre. The entire space over two buildings is a haven for film lovers and tourists.
Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life
THE centennial of master painter Vasudev Santu Gaitonde born to Goan parents was on November 2, 2024.
Regarded as one of South Asia’s greatest abstract painters, Gaitonde was part of the Progressive Group that included Hussain, FN Souza, SH Raza and other modern masters. The group was formed at the cusp of India’s Independence and the birth of a new nation. It marked a formative new era seemingly disruptive and unconventional.
Gaitonde was well-versed in Western techniques but was rooted in Asian philosophy. He is said to have been inspired by Japanese philosophy which might explain the serenity his works convey.
His works now fetch astronomical sums. While Gaitonde is known for his many accolades, including being awarded the Padma Shri and his painting hanging in MOMA, NY, he died in obscurity. As the story goes, a recluse by nature, he would not open his door to visitors. It is said that artist Hussain would draw on his door to indicate that he stopped by in such instances.
Art Twist
TARIK Currimbhoy’s Tender Forces at Akara Contemporary is a celebration of form. The antithesis of a gentle push that brings a hardy slickly styled metal to dance is remarkable. distillation of a form to its purest shape, weight determined by the centre of gravity and the metal used. The graceful ballerina swing by a steel pendulum and bronze. I peeped in through the magnificent closed doors (got it wrong!) on a Monday. The twist is at the intersection of art and the aesthetic use of science. It is an infinity 8 that swirls to take the shape of folded hands that turn slender at the tip.
On till November 16
AN Thursday is now Tuesday
ANT takes a twist to Art Night Tuesday on September 12, with so many wonderful previews. The big second edition of Art Mumbai opens this Thursday, November 14-17. All roads lead to the Mahalakshmi racecourse where the finest on the Indian art scene collaborates. Watch out for Mumbai’s Art Opus!