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India Today
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
The Painter of Signs
Earlier this year, I went to watch the film Emergency, directed and produced by, and also starring, Kangana Ranaut. It was expectedly strange, given the lead actress's reputation as a spiky cheerleader for the ruling dispensation and the fact that the film was focused on the Emergency of 1975-77, an infamous experiment with dictatorship by the previous party of government, under Prime Minister Indira inhabited her role as the former prime minister with an entertaining, slightly unhinged zeal, revelling in the melodrama of the late strongwoman's inner struggles with the powerful impulses of megalomania and, well, motherhood. In one memorable scene, she faces herself, framed in a mirror, and sees the portrait of a churail, her flesh corrupted by the contagion of narcissism and nepotism. It's an unintentionally hilarious masterclass in cringe, simultaneously channelling The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Ramsay this wasn't what I had come to see. Nor was it the scene of the Lok Sabha breaking into a song-and-dance routine, like a chorus line in khadi. Or even Ranaut's extravagantly prosthetic Indira-nose, a character in its own right. No, I was drawn to the Odeon cinema in the hope that the actor-director would not be able to resist a set-piece depicting the notorious incident on July 24, 1975, not long after Emergency had been declared, when the famous artist, and sometime Indira sycophant, the late MF Husain, demonstrated his admiration for the prime minister by presenting her with a triptych of paintings portraying her as a goddess. Three goddesses, actually. I was not disappointed. Ranaut stages the scene with Mrs G facing a single faux-Husain painting. 'The Prime Minister has been depicted as the goddess of power,' the Husain character explains. But unlike the naked goddesses of the original canvases, the tiger-straddling deity in Emergency sports a robust choli. Screenshot from Emergency (2025) MF Husain was hounded out of India in 2006, arguably, for painting too many goddesses and not enough cholis. And he died in 'self-imposed' exile in 2011. But his cameo appearance (played by Balkrishna Mishra), in Emergency was no flash in the pan. Of late, he has returned to India's shores, or at least India's eyeballs, in a number of uncanny 2023, an interactive AI-powered hologram of the artist, trained to respond to questions using every known utterance he left, as a dataset, has been drawing crowds to Abhishek Poddar's MAP in Bengaluru. Interactive Husain hologram in Bengaluru (Photo: MAP) Last year, in Venice, a similarly technologised 'immersive' multimedia experience, based on Husain's life and work was premiered by Kiran Nadar's KNMA. The Rooted Nomad Husain immersive experience (Photo: KNMA) Meanwhile, his art has been back in the headlines for more familiar reasons: In January this year, two drawings by the artist, on display in Delhi, were placed in judicial custody when an advocate (whose Twitter bio proclaims 'will pursue legal action against anyone who insults Sanatan Dharma') alleged that her religious sentiments had been March, Husain reclaimed pole position in auctions of modern Indian art when an untitled canvas he had painted in 1954 went for 13.75 million dollars (about Rs 118 crore, nearly twice the price of the previous titleholder, a painting by Amrita Sher-Gil). And in June, another auction saw the sale, for around Rs 70 crore, of a series of 21 Husains that had languished in receivership since was, apparently, after the artist, piqued that a rival's painting had outsold him, devised a botched scheme to raise the price of his artwork 'by funding part of the advance money' to the 'buyer' (so Kishore Singh in The Indian Express).advertisementGiven such tales of the painter's financial shenanigans, it seemed deliciously appropriate that he made another peek-a-boo appearance in the media a week later, in a viral YouTube interview with the fugitive Indian 'liquor baron' Vijay Mallya. Although the once flamboyant tycoon never said a word about the artist, throughout the four-hour-long conversation in his London hideaway, he was carefully framed against the backdrop of what looked like an expansive and colourful Husain canvas. A Husain as the backdrop for Vijay Mallya's interview with Raj Shamani? (Screenshot: YouTube) MF Husain really should have been there for the Ambani wedding last year. I realise, of course, that he would have been an unlikely 108-going on-109, had he lived to grace this already surreal occasion. But in my defence, it was a bizarre coincidence that first provoked this July 12, 2024, as the internet was strobing with images of dazzling ostentation beamed out of the Jio World Convention Centre, the news cycle cut abruptly to a homely minister, gravely announcing that June 25 would henceforth be Samvidhan Hathya Divas. Or National Dark Days of Emergency Day. I took it as another sign of Husain's lingering presence in the national ether.I still think the Ambani's bacchanal in Mumbai would have made a fine subject for one of Husain's more grandiose canvases. Husain with his painting 'Last Supper' (2004)(Photo: AFP) We know he was given to obscure and whimsical allegories of the high tables of power and celebrity, where he had certainly earned his own well-upholstered seat. It's so easy to imagine him both painting, and posing for, the pictures that streamed from the innermost circles of the Bandra Kurla should certainly have been there when Madhuri Dixit busted her moves to Choli Ke Peeche. Sadly, she did not attempt the tribhanga mataks of Didi Tera Devar Deewana, the number that famously slew our artist, back in 1994. Madhuri Dixit dancing to Choli Ke Peeche at the Ambani wedding (Screenshot from Bollywood Buzz Now/Instagram) advertisementHusain loved big fat Indian weddings. He claimed to have watched Hum Aapke Hain Kaun 85 times. He painted wedding cards for his beloved children and grandchildren, and his friends. The documentary Kekee Manzil contains a genuinely touching account of his post-Emergency reconciliation with the anti-Indira Gandhi Gandhys of Gallery Chemould, when he turned up at a family wedding and literally painted his way back into their are so very many stories about Husain, and perhaps just as many Husain paintings. Of late, I've been collecting some of the things that have been written about his art. One passage from a business magazine is a particular treasure of unintended irony: 'His canvases showed common life—a Mohun Bagan football match in Kolkata, the allure of Dixit's curvaceous figure, Indira Gandhi's take-no-prisoners approach in the Emergency era'Did I mention the Emergency? The truth is that my earliest perceptions of MF Husain were shaped by his reputation as the fawning court painter of this period. I was just a child at the time, but even in that internet-less era, I was aware of the painter's celebrity, his gimmickry and gimcrackery—the speed-painting, the painting over paintings, the painting on live animals.I'm sure I was aware that Husains were very expensive too. These were all elements of what we called 'Modern Art' back then, and MFH was the emblematic modern artist, often parodied in the affectionately resentful cartoons of Mario Miranda, Sudhir Dhar and others, where hairy bohemians passed off distressed canvases as high-priced works of staggering genius. Much as I loved these gags, I wasn't a total philistine. Husain-ish artists in a cartoon by Sudhir Dhar (L) and a comic strip from Deewana magazine (R) Indeed, during the Emergency years, I was sent to take oil painting lessons at Delhi's Triveni Kala Sangam, where we were instructed by the rising artist Rameshwar Broota. His paintings were full of sinister apes—an anguished metaphor for the nation, I presumed. And he carried himself like he was the next Husain, leaving the tedium of instruction to his wife, Shobha. An accomplished painter herself, she had a pleasingly sardonic manner and would stamp her authority on the class by pointing wryly at the stern slogan on a government-issue DAVP sign directly above her head. 'Work More, Talk Less,' it perched in a barsati in another part of town, Husain was working, with characteristic energy, to ingratiate himself with Mrs Gandhi. On July 24, 1975, he was photographed posing with her as he unveiled the infamous triptych of three goddesses manifesting 'The Triumph of Good over Evil'.In sketches for an accompanying pamphlet bearing the same title, he spelt out the meaning of each deity in excruciating detail: Janaki, faced by 'accusing fingers' for 'Twelfth June' (the day of the Allahabad Court judgement against Indira Gandhi), 'Mother Earth'—really a cartographic Mother India—with 'her hair thrown over the Himalayas' for 'Twenty Fourth June' (the day the Supreme Court upheld the ruling), and Durga, with 'the paws of her tiger clinched' (sic) for 'Twenty-sixth June', the day the Emergency was publicly hand-drawn pamphlet (or Maquette for Triumph of Good Over Evil Catalogue, as it was titled at auction) is presumably an object of some value today. As it should be. It's a historically significant artefact that demonstrates the virtuosity and skill of an important the very dodgy politics, there's no mistaking Husain's distinctive hand in the sly and attractive cover motif, which manages to suggest the trinity of Indira, India, and Bharat Mata with remarkable the 'geometrical analysis' of the paintings within its pages, reveal his attention to the kinetic architecture of each image. Reduced here, to its skeletal axis, the notorious Durga recalls the doomed angular visions of those early Soviet artists, the Constructivists and Supremacists, whose totalitarian flirtations have long been forgiven by the art market. Pages from Husain's Maquette for Triumph of Good Over Evil catalogue (1975) (Photos: Christie's) But the pamphlet is also valuable, or should be, as a document of Husain's pusillanimous opportunism and vanity. Two of the pages here display a frame, left blank, for An Appreciation of MF Husain, awaiting the genuflections of an 'S. Chowdhry'.This was presumably filmmaker Sati P Chowdhury, director of the hagiographic Films Division documentary on Husain, A Painter of Our Time (1976). But even Chowdhury's hosannas pale before the astonishing mawkishness and self-regard with which Husain describes his own creative process in the pamphlet. It peaks in a flush of such page-curling awfulness that one can only conclude he had been reading Irving Stone's torrid Michelangelo novel, The Agony and the Ecstasy, for inspiration. 'The painter from deep inside the weave of the canvas begins to paint in agony,' Husain writes of himself. 'And in one day, the surging charging lava of events is poured out. A violent fracture indeed. The paintings are torn from a living body as three big chunks of flesh.'Today, some 50 years after those events, it may seem churlish to hold Husain—or his ghosts—to account for such trespasses. Given the many turns of fortune in his long life, particularly the cruelty of his second cancelling and persecution at the hands of Hindutvist vigilantes when he was in his 80s and 90s, and his final years in gilded exile, the late painter has acquired an aura of beatitude and year, I attended the flashy event where his life and art were presented in the KNMA's audiovisual 'immersive experience', not unlike the Van Gogh extravaganzas that have been touring the globe in recent years. Emerging, a little disoriented, from the churning tunnel of projected colour and sound, I felt a nagging question forming, persistent as a smudge of lint: was Husain being tumble-washed for a posthumous return to another take-no-prisoners India, or had he himself become some sort of reputational formula for the curatorial class?One of the defining features of Husain's art is its ambiguity. His paintings are insistently referential, and yet somehow evasive—both inviting interpretation and eluding it. In a Festschrift published as the artist turned 95 in 2010, the historian of religion, Bruce B Lawrence eulogised his (then) recent work Last Supper in Red Desert, a painting Husain had produced for his new patron, Sheikha Mozah of canvas, which features four enigmatic characters at a long table, along with a camel and an assortment of cherubs and imps, also plainly references an earlier pair of Last Supper paintings by him. Lawrence himself was transfixed by a gold-lettered 'storyboard' Husain had attached to the new work. This read: "In Lenardo [sic] Da Vinci's 'LAST SUPPER' Europe may be heavily CODED, Yet Arabia in my 'Last Supper of the Desert in Red' remains UNCODED."Husain's gnomic hints leave Professor Lawrence invoking the Sufi mystic Rumi, but it never seems to occur to him to consider that the artist might be low-brow enough to make a heavy-handed allusion to Dan Brown's pulp bestseller, The Da Vinci Code (Actually, Husain had good reason to feel some affinity for the novel, the film version of which had been banned by several Indian states in 2006).Some of Husain's more famous paintings, Between the Spider and the Lamp (1956), for example, have provoked more fervid speculation from the cognoscenti. Is the spider dangling from a thread or being skewered? One noted critic speculates on a 'coded connection' between 'the dancing spider and the bare pudenda' of the young woman on the right side of the picture. Another suggests that the lamp is phallic, yet another that it is the flame that represents the female sex. Husain himself expressed his happiness that 'there is a kind of mystery about what the five women are talking about,' in this painting. 'Stories perhaps even unknown to themselves.' Maybe they're talking of one interview, Husain selects The Spider and the Lamp as his Guernica. Pablo Picasso's most famous work was, of course, an enduring reference in Husain's art, and its reception. He also told his biographer, Ila Pal, that another work, the installation Theatre of the Absurd (1989), was his Guernica. Pal, for her part, describes the fevered days he spent in Paris, creating a series of Mahabharata paintings, in anticipation of an encounter with Picasso in 1971, as Husain's attempt 'to produce a masterpiece that would be a match for Guernica.'A Christies catalogue draws the same parallel. The collector Kent Charugundla, makes his own claim for the massive 12-panelled hoarding, Lightning, a propagandist work produced by Husain for the Congress party in 1975. The panels are festooned with a stampede of Husain's famous horses, and symbols of Indira Gandhi's own vision of a Viksit Bharat (atomic energy and the Family Planning triangle), but Charugundla describes this work as 'being for India, what Guernica is for Spain.' Husain's 'Lightning' (1975) Lightning actually looks to me like Husain trying to channel Franz Marc's horses, while The Spider and the Lamp seems more of a response to the Demoiselles d'Avignon. Husain's 'Between The Spider And The Lamp' (1956) recalls Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' (1907) (Right image: AFP) But I can see the central dying horse of Guernica in the screaming black steeds of Husain's Karbala (1990). And inevitably, Guernica is present at his Waterloo too. In that precious pamphlet on the 1975 triptych, 'torn from his living body', he finds the purplest of parallels: 'the fracture of forces on a vast canvas. Guernica: that created history and gave birth to Picasso." Husain's Karbala (1990) (Photo: KNMA) Husain was the author of many legends surrounding the birth of his own genius. Perhaps the most appealing of these is the story that he became an artist at the moment of Indian independence. 'On that night, I decided I would commit myself to the art world in a big way,' he once said. Midnight's painter, as it were. This fable would acquire a tragic portentousness decades later, when, harried by religious fanatics, he became a strange, painterly mirror for the fatwa-occluded figure of Salman Rushdie. But along the way, Husain built a reputation as a national painter, or as the critic Geeta Kapur puts it, with what I think are mixed feelings, as a 'self-elected modern-day sutradhar for the nation.' In that sense too, he seems, uncannily, to foreshadow Saleem Sinai, the protagonist of Midnight's untangling my own mixed feelings about Husain, I am confronted by my nostalgia for the nation he painted and painted for. And I do have my own sentimental answer to Kapur's famous question 'When was Modernism in Indian Art?'. For me, modernism was the time when Husain was 'our Picasso': the Number 1 import-substitution modern artist. It was the time of Scandi-desi teak furniture by Ravi Sikri and Mini Boga, of Riten Mozumdar's bindu bedspreads, and the sarkari brutalism of Shivnath Prasad and Mahendra Raj. That time of Kolhapuri chappals and desperately seeking denims. Somewhere in this eddy of cosmopolitan consumerist aspirations and Handloom House virtue-signalling, of bourgeoiserie with Gandhian characteristics, were the modernist Indian aesthetics that settled in, and shaped people like all know how those days would end, of course. And what would follow. But with the distance of five decades, even the Emergency becomes an artefact of nostalgia. Our own, shabby knockoff import-substitution experiment with it happens, some time ago, I was a tenant in the building in Delhi's Jangpura Extension, where Husain once rented a barsati. There was a house designed by Shivnath Prasad two doors to the left and the sculptor Amar Nath Sahgal's home on the right. I heard tales about how, back in the day, Husain would cross over the naala to visit his friend Gaitonde in neighbouring Nizamuddin, and cross Mathura Road to see Krishen Khanna in Jangpura pal Ram Kumar was on the Bhogal side, I'd been told. Occasionally, junk mail aerograms addressed to Husain would arrive at my door, and I would collect them. Our landlady told me stories about him with some affection, and a pride I came to share—in a very house-proud, Dilliwala way. She told me that he had painted the 1975 Indira-as-Durga right here. More recently, watching the 1976 Sati Chowdhury Films Division film on Husain, my growing irritation at the ponderously flattering voiceover was interrupted by delight, as I stumbled on footage of Husain enjoying the view from the barsati above my old balcony. Husain, on the left, in his Jangpura barsati. A screenshot from the Films Division documentary A Painter Of Our Time (1976) As you can see, I still like to show off my proximity to the national artist—we were virtually flatmates, after all. But the scene from A Painter of our Times also reminds me of how Husain's arc as a sutradhar faded from Rushdie-esque magical realism to the treacly ubiquity of a Forrest Gump. There was an early signal of this trajectory in the celebrity globe-trottery with which he had once trumped the exilic glamour of his peers, Raza, Souza, Padamsee and in the 50s and 60s, while they festered in European garrets, he was the barefoot jetsetter, seen now with Nehru, now with Lohia. With Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman in Rome, with Truffaut in Paris and Chairman Mao in Peking. Perhaps this Gumpian streak played a role in both his Emergency downfall and his late-career salvation, reprising civilisational panoramas for NRI steel magnates and the Sheikhs of Husain's life was no box of chocolates, and we should not remember him only for his errors or the opulent squalor of his final years. Better to end with another of his gritty early fables. My favourite is the one about his Damascene moment in 1948, when he travelled to Delhi with his comrade FN Souza to see the Exhibition of Indian Art, a display of historic national treasures, at Government House (what is now Rashtrapati Bhavan). Husain described the exhibition, and particularly the impact of seeing ancient Gupta-era sculptures, and 'the rawness of colours' in antique Pahadi miniature paintings, as a transformative experience. It's a famous episode that is sometimes nervously compared to the encounter of an earlier generation of European painters, notably Picasso, with 'primitive' I find myself held by the vision of a young Maqbool and Souza walking up to the palace of wonders at the top of Raisina Hill, and later, careening down again, drunk with visual delight. 'The exhibition left me both humbled and exhilarated,' Husain told Ila Pal. 'It was like scaling a mountain and then discovering a whole new range of mountains.' And then comes the best bit: 'We couldn't afford a hotel, and we had no friends. So we slept on the steps of the Jama Masjid.'It was early winter, and he would have been just 33 at the time. In a country that was young and hopeful too. It must have been very heaven. Today, it's hard to imagine anyone in India making a film about the life of MF Husain, though it's said that Amitabh Bachchan was once considered for the role. And who knows? Maybe Kangana Ranaut will give Husain another shot. But if he ever does get the biopic he deserves, that humble and exhilarating night on the Jama Masjid steps is a tableau that simply must be staged.- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Must Watch
Mint
06-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
New galleries power a shift in India's art scene
There's a quiet yet determined shift in the Indian art market landscape. Newer art galleries are whetting the appetite of collectors, both seasoned and novice, as interest continues to evolve. Many of these galleries showcase the personal collections of longtime art collectors. For some, the galleries represent a chance to give their artworks a home. For others, it's a way to tap into a growing fraternity that's interested in acquiring art. HOMES FOR ART COLLECTIONS In Ashish Thapar's art gallery, which opened earlier this year in the National Capital Region (close to KNMA's mammoth art space slated to open sometime next year), the idea was to give centrestage to lesser-known but significant modernists of India, and more obscure works from leading modernists. In Thapar's view, it's not enough to only talk about M.F. Husain's horses, F.N. Souza's nudes, or S.H. Raza's bindu series. 'We should talk about Husain's Blue period and Raza's White period when the artists were evolving in their own right," says the graphic designer, curator and art collector. Thapar Art Gallery's inaugural exhibition in February, Celebrating the Modernists of Indian Art, was a showcase some of the lesser-known works of the progressives along with other artists such as Sakti Burman, Ramkinkar Baij, Himmat Shah, G.R. Santosh, Bimal Das Gupta, Sadanand Bakre, Haku Shah, Abdul Aziz Raiba, B. Prabha, B. Vithal, Laxma Goud, Sankho Chaudhuri and Abdulrahim Appabhai Almelkar. While a majority of the paintings on display are owned by Thapar, many of them are on sale. He's already working on the estates of two lesser-known Indian modernists, besides gearing up for forthcoming shows in his gallery. In Mumbai's Fort area, Subcontinent is a new gallery space started in March by husband-wife duo Dhwani Gudka and Keshav Mahendru. 'Our vacations are all about visiting museums and looking at works of art," says Gudka, adding that the reason behind opening their own gallery space was to foster dialogue with South Asian art. The inaugural show last month, curated by Jesal Thacker, Ya Ghat Bheetar/Rediscovering Form, was a retrospective of Vadodara-based Haku Shah, who gave indigenous folk art a twist through his distinctive style of painting. Gudka and Mahendru are managing the artist's estate, which is why many of Shah's previously unseen works were displayed in the gallery. Self-confessed 'art nerds", Gudka and Mahendru talk about paintings over meals, on their way to work, during their free time. 'For us," he adds, 'art is all-consuming. We wake up looking at art, we go to bed looking at art, we spend the whole day engaging with it in one way or another… some of our closest friends are artists." A NEW APPROACH A majority of new art gallery owners say it's the growing number of collectors that's fuelling the interest for spaces. 'A young collector who is just starting out can be looking for something entirely different than a more seasoned one," says Monica Jain, founder-director of Art Centrix Space, which was established in 2012 to focus on 'vernacular voices of mid-career contemporary Indian artists". While the newer galleries have a variety of exhibitions on artists, some older art galleries like Jain's are moving into providing grants for artists to promote 'diverse painting methodologies in Indian art". Galleries are also going beyond just exhibitions. Art Centrix Space, for instance, recently held the screening of The Song for Eresha, an indie film by A.K. Srikanth set to release abroad later this year before releasing in India. Similarly, in Thapar's gallery, a music concert by bansuri player Kartikeya Vashist and Arman Dehlvi on tabla and vocals was held to coincide with the opening of the Haku Shah exhibition. Jain is correct in her assessment that there's room for everyone, not just as a collector but also as a gallerist. In Delhi's Defence Colony area, an art district of sorts is emerging with new galleries cropping up alongside some of the recognised ones such as Vadehra Art Gallery, Akar Prakar and Treasure Art Gallery, among others. Galleryske and Photoink, both with a presence in Delhi, collaborated to open earlier this year in Defence Colony. Five-year-old Method Art Gallery from Mumbai also expanded to Delhi earlier this year, enthused by the demand of collectors in the city. In Kolkata, Art Exposure, around since 2018, ventured into a bigger space last October. According to Somak Mitra, founder-director of Art Exposure: 'We wanted to build a world-class gallery to attract South Asian and international artists to put Kolkata on the global art map." The new space is a sprawling 7,000 sq. ft, two-floor building dedicated to contemporary and modern art. It is currently hosting the exhibition Indian Modern Art: Evolution of Narratives, featuring artists such Gaganendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose and Jamini Roy. The exhibition is on till 15 June. Existing galleries such as Method, Galleryske and Photo Ink are in expansion mode. Rukshaan Art, promoted by Rukshaan Krishna, has been one of the foremost galleries to promote contemporary art since its opening in Vadodara in 2007. Krishna opened her new gallery space in Mumbai's Ballard Estate in March. The gallery has been at the forefront of The Baroda March, an annual exhibition showcasing contemporary art from Vadodara city, which has been going on for 18 years. Besides hosting this annual exhibition, showcasing Vadodara's vibrant art scene, Rukshaan Art continues to hold art camps, residencies and other artist-led events. Though not a traditional art gallery, on Museum Day (18 May), Jaipur's Sabha Niwas, originally Diwan-e-Aam or public audience hall in The City Palace, reopened after more than a year of restoration work. It will double up as a museum-gallery for rare artefacts, including 19th century elephant seats, canopies used for royal events, thrones, and portraits by the 18th century master painter Sahibram. 'It's a niche and saturated market, and you have to be very distinctive to offer something new," says Sanya Malik, curator and director, Black Cube Gallery, which opened in February in Hauz Khas, Delhi. Black Cube was a 'nomadic" gallery, without a space of its own. Its inaugural show in March in the new permanent space was Vocabulary of Vision, which brought together 25 Indian artists—nine modern masters and 16 contemporary voices—to explore the evolving visual language of Indian art. Most collectors at Black Cube Gallery are first-timers. It's a reason why Malik, unlike many other art galleries, has kept a wide-ranging price point, starting around ₹3 lakh. She advises collectors that they can always start looking at prints of master artists or start investing in some of the younger, contemporary artists, the latter being a very fascinating market. Malik is happy that her art has finally found its home. 'Personally, I have this itch to bring out a strong curatorial context to present my art to people. Having a personal space allows so much more freedom." Abhilasha Ojha is a Delhi-based writer. Also read: Father's Day 2025: Gifts for the dad who has everything
Hindustan Times
06-06-2025
- Hindustan Times
5 places in Delhi to visit and enjoy traditional artworks
India's national capital, New Delhi, offers a diverse palette of art experiences, from traditional folk heritage to contemporary street murals. The art venues offer a rich journey through India's artistic soul, blending the traditional with the contemporary across different neighbourhoods of Delhi. If you are an art enthusiast like us, here are five must-visit spots that will amp up your love for art - Arts by East Craft Design at Uttarakhand Bhawan brings out the beauty of the picturesque nature of Uttarakhand and enhances the traditions of the valley to life. Located in Uttarakhand Sadan, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, the place is open for visitors to enjoy the large-scale murals made with the traditional Likhai wood-carving craft of Uttarakhand. It is characterised by intricate motifs of birds, animals, flowers, and mythological themes. The walls of Uttarakhand Bhawan are also decorated with a detailed resin and silica mural capturing the historic Jageshwar temple, reflecting architectural finesse and religious importance. Madhya Pradesh Bhawan in Delhi is more than just a building; it is a living museum, a cultural ambassador, and a tribute to the state's glorious heritage. The artworks within its walls offer an enchanting journey through time. Each floor within Madhya Pradesh Bhawan is adorned with paintings that depict the state's traditional folk art, such as Bhil and Gond. These vibrant artworks showcase the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous communities, their stories, and traditions brought to life through intricate patterns and bold colours. The entrances of the bhawan are adorned with a grand brass sculpture of the banyan tree, the state symbol of Madhya Pradesh. This sculpture is strategically placed in the lobby, stands tall and proud, its branches spreading out in a gesture of welcome. Lodhi Art District in Delhi is India's first open-air public art district and a living canvas that celebrates contemporary street art. Located between Khanna Market and Meherchand Market within the Lodhi Colony, the district has more than 65 large-scale murals painted by artists from across the globe, under the initiative of the St+art India Foundation. From simple Indian motifs to striking observations about social and environmental concerns the walls of these lanes speak compelling stories. All the murals of this lane turn ordinary buildings into living works of art that promote community engagement and cross-cultural exchange. When one walks around the neighborhood, he or she is treated to a trip of imagination, where art forms part of everyday life. Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is an active and living cultural hub that features the finest of modern and contemporary Indian art. It is India's first privately funded large scale museum. KNMA features a captivating selection of works by master legends along with emerging artists, a reflection of the country's changing artistic path. Guests visiting the museum can glimpse through interactive galleries that contain abstract art, digital art, statues, and even more. KNMA also has regular exhibitions, workshops, and educational lectures to encourage the creative process and public participation. With its constantly evolving collection and provocative spaces, KNMA is a powerful mix of artistic heritage and modern innovation. Vernssage Art Gallery Delhi is a well-curated destination that connects India's heritage art forms with modern expressions. This two-storeyed gallery consists of two floors, providing a calm and immersive experience for art lovers. Established by art advisor Sunaina Magan, Vernssage strives to make art acquisition easy and bring Indian art to a wider audience. The gallery features a varied selection of pieces from artists like Sabia Khan, Shampa Sircar Das, and Bani Pershad. A variety of artworks can be viewed by visitors, from detailed folk paintings to contemporary mixed media art, that mirror India's rich cultural heritage. With its vision of bringing art within reach and making it exciting, Vernssage Art Gallery is a dynamic cultural center that asserts the changing face of Indian art.
Hindustan Times
04-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Hindustan Times
This ongoing exhibition in Delhi's Saket has an artistic take on environmental preservation
There are turtles on the wall of a passage connecting a hub of malls in Saket. These aren't real yet significant enough to capture the attention of passersby towards the rising concerns of environmental degradation. The concern comes into focus – particularly on World Environment Day (June 5) – as the ongoing exhibition titled Slow Is The New Urgent continues to feature works of 11 artists. Created using multilayered plastic wrappers, ply boards, nails, and staple pins, these vibrantly-hued turtle sculptures are part of Manveer Singh's artwork, Trail of Turtles. 'It is a homage to the Olive Ridley turtles, which play a crucial role in balancing the aquatic ecosystem. But, unfortunately, many of these are dying due to consumption of plastic, which gets mistaken for jellyfish. The damage we are causing to these sea creatures is reflective of the damage humans are causing to the environment in general. No matter how much we progress in other aspects, if we damage the environment, nothing else shall sustain in the long term,' says Singh. For a viewer, it's difficult to not notice beyond this and spot plastic and industrial chemical carriers also hanging on a wall. These have been painted by artist Mohd Intiyaz, as his work Dar-Badar that explores how the exploitation of natural resources by a few results in suffering for many while reminding one that environmental degradation isn't just ecological but also deeply social. 'Environmental awareness should lead to real change in the way we live, consume, and think about our relationship with Nature,' feels Tahsin Akhtar, who uses everyday objects to shed light on damage to environment through overconsumption, and says, 'I use projection mapping on everyday wood-carved mundane objects because these are part of our personal, daily routine. For example: cosmetic jars, toilet rolls, and mirrors. My work critiques the environmental damage caused by overconsumption. These everyday objects represent the throwaway culture built into capitalist systems. It's here that the resources are quickly taken, used, and thrown away, adding to the environmental harm caused by fast-paced consumer habits. It also points to the idea of digital footprints due to the unseen trail of energy use, server load, and data storage left behind by our online actions, which silently adds to environmental pollution.' Explaining how this show is both a poetic provocation as well as a proposition, curator Avik Debdas, says, 'The title reflects a deeper philosophy that challenges the velocity of consumption and the attention economy that fuels it. Located in a public skybridge between Delhi's prominent hub of malls, the exhibition uses its very location as a conceptual framework to draw a connection between the consumer market and environmental degradation." What: Slow Is The New Urgent Where: KNMA Art Passage, Saket On till: June 30 Timing: 11am to 8pm Nearest Metro Station: Malviya Nagar (Yellow Line)
Time of India
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Go! go! caravaggio! see his sacred game
16th c. Italian master-dramebaaz Caravaggio's 1606 painting ' Magdalene in Ecstasy ' (MiE), stumbled upon in a private collection in 2014, was to be on display at Delhi's Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) till May 18. Now, it's staying till May 30. So, if you haven't already gone to see it, then 'Go, go, Caravaggio!' and see it. If MiE were a film, it would open in slo-mo, drenched in chiaroscuro, as the Bible's 'Other Mary' collapses into divine rapture. Cue Ennio Morricone's haunting score. Forget delicate Renaissance Madonnas - this is full-throttle Baroque drama mixed with Kill is caught mid-swoon, her head tilted back, her body slack, as if she's just been hit by the full force of divine revelation - or, the final episode of a Netflix revenge saga. The lighting is pure Scorsese. A single beam cuts through the darkness, illuminating the Big M in a way that screams 'final showdown'. And talk about ambiguity. Is this spiritual ecstasy? Or something more visceral - shall we say, ' European art house '? Caravaggio, ever the provocateur, blurs the line between sacred and sensual, making this the perfect poster child for our OTT, maximalist era with its perfunctory statutory warnings. MiE is the OG (visual) climax, proving that centuries before Anurag Kashyap et al, Caravaggio was already rolling the credits on Sacred Games.
