Contemporary Photography and Lens-based Art From India

View India brings together recent works by nineteen young Indian photographers and lens based artists.

The book gives an updated version of what is going on in contemporary photography in India, and the works expose different aspects of life in India today.

Featuring work by Anisha Baid, Ajit Bhadoriya, Vaibhav Bhardwaj, Anushree Fadnavis, Nihaal Faizal, Gayatri Ganju, Chandan Gomes, Apoorva Guptay, Arshad Hakim, Cheena Kapoor, Saumya Khandelwal, Sl Shanth Kumar, Selvaprakash Lakshmanan, Vivek Mariappan, Venkatesh Peevee Perumal, Ram Krishna Ranjan, Anoop Ray, Chinar Shah and Ritesh Uttamchandani.

Chimera

Bharti Kher works primarily with representations of the female body and plays with the varied roles of women in society and culture. In her work from the last twenty years, time and again we see the motif of the bhindi, the dot painted on the forehead between the eyebrows that comes from Hindu tradition.

‘Chimera’, the title of the exhibition at the Kunsthaus Pasquart in Biel, can be understood in relation to mythology as well as genetics. Bharti Kher sees her artistic practice as the search for the chimera, and in her works she hovers on the dividing line between reality and illusion.

Matthew Krishanu

The emotional strength of Matthew Krishanu’s work derives from the imagery drawn from the artist’s imagination and memories, especially the landscapes of Bangladesh where he spent his childhood.

Krishanu’s British father and Indian mother completed theological training in Birmingham, then relocated their family to Dhaka in the early 1980s, working for the Church of Bangladesh.

Many of the paintings capture the childhood gaze of these early experiences and the distinctive bond between the artist and his older brother. The scenes convey a complex, atmospheric mix of expatriates, missionaries and expansive landscapes.

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition by Indian artist Sheela Gowda at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK.

Sheela says the works ‘anticipate, counter or are inspired by the space to begin with; the elements could take on other variants in other spaces’.

The result is a dialogue between what the artist finds in the gallery, and ideas and observations informed by her experience of living in Bangalore.

Upward Movement

One of the most significant Indian artists of his generation, NS Harsha draws on a broad spectrum of Indian artistic and figurative painting traditions and popular arts as well as the western art canon.

He has worked across a range of media including painting, sculpture, installation and performance. For this publication and exhibition he has produced a series of paintings that explore notions of ascent.

Each canvas features variations on the motif of a particular human, animal or hybrid figure engaged in a singular activity, which may involve physical elevation, technological innovation or spiritual transcendence.

Common Man

The creator of monumental sculptures that threaten spectacular dissolution at any moment, of refulgent photorealist paintings and playfully provocative installations, Subodh Gupta defies easy definition.

He is the self confessed ‘Idol Thief’ who raids the cupboards of Indian culture, stealing the sacrosanct and the vulgar alike to make works that speak about a sub-continent on the move, but also about art itself, its chameleon-like ability to be different things in different places and yet to communicate in a language that can be understood by all.

This book documents the artist’s first solo exhibition in London and features an interview between Gupta and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and an essay on his work by Martin Herbert, offering a unique insight into an expansive, multifarious practice.

From Here to Eternity

From Here to Eternity is the first major retrospective of UK based photographer, Sunil Gupta, offering a complex and layered view of his unique transcontinental photographic vision.

This book, which features a new essay by Mark Sealy, focuses on ephemera of Gupta’s political and personal journey dating from 1962 to 2019.

It also contains, an array of seminal, cultural references shown alongside intimate moments of love, life and family.

In the shadow of the tree and the knot of the earth

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. Born in Bombay, he has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s.

Kapoor sees his work as being engaged with deep-rooted metaphysical polarities; presence and absence, being and non-being, place and non-place and the solid and the intangible.

Throughout Kapoor’s sculptures his fascination with darkness and light is apparent; the translucent quality of the resin works, the absorbent nature of the pigment, the radiant glow of alabaster and the fluid reflections of stainless steel and water.

Through this interplay between form and light, Kapoor aspires to evoke sublime experiences, which address primal physical and psychological states.

Published on occasion of Sundaribai’s first solo exhibition outside of India.

Consisting of painted clay sculpture and wall mounted panels, it proposes a place for craft activity within the context of an innovative contemporary art programme.

Easy-going with respect to a conventional (western) art/craft distinction, it is also remarkable for its inventiveness and ambition.

Twilight Language

Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) have been variously described as artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes.

Their work, which has been exhibited widely in major international museums and galleries, locates them in the intersections of contemporary art, historical enquiry, philosophical speculation, research and theory – often taking the form of installations, online and offline media objects, performances and encounters. They live in New Delhi and work internationally.

Contemporary Indian Drawing

This book brings together three of India’s most innovative contemporary artists.

Weaving a thread between contemporary drawing and 19th century Company paintings, Drawing Space maps the intimate historical connection between Britain and India.

Nasreen Mohamedi (who died in 1990) is a seminal figure in contemporary Indian art and known as India’s minimalist. Cross-referencing past and present, N. S. Harsha’s practice fuses the mythological with the modern, while Sheela Gowda creates 3D works that refer to and subvert modernist drawing traditions.

All three artists use the line as a device for negotiating space in ways that are both innovative and self-empowering.

The Indian Files

This publication brings together 11 interviews with Indian artists and cultural producers carried out in the 2000s and 2010s by professional conversionalist Hans Ulrich Obrist, in the artists’ studios or exhibitions.

Edited by Shanay Jhaveri, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Assistant Curator of South Asian Art, this book is a much-needed volume about the Indian art scene.

Featured artists include Raqs Media Collective, Shilpa Gupta, Zarina Hashmi, M.F. Husain, Amar Kanwar, Geeta Kapur, Bharti Kher, Nalini Malani, Gulam Mohammed Sheik, Dayanita Singh and Vivan Sundaram.