Contemporary Indian Artists

Indian Artists News

ATUL DODIYA
I know you. I do. O’ stranger’

From 2 March to 27 April 2024, renowned Indian painter Atul Dodiya will be showing a new series of paintings inspired by Bollywood classics at Galerie Templon in Paris Beaubourg.
The exhibition takes as its starting point the Bombay cinema of the 1960s, which marked the artist's childhood. The title "I know you. I do. O' stranger" is inspired by Satyajit Ray's film Charulata (1964). Atul Dodiya transforms still photographs into a monochrome first impression. He completes the metamorphosis of the image by covering it in translucent oil paint, swapping the shimmering palette of Bollywood cinema for a pastel, almost evanescent chroma.
This is Atul Dodiya's 4th exhibition at Galerie Templon

https://www.templon.com/fr/exhibitions/i-know-you-i-do-o-stranger/press/

 

 

RAQIB SHAW
Boston

Renowned Indian artist Raqib Shaw will once again present his exhibition 'Ballads of East and West' at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, USA, from 15 February to 12 May 2024.
Raqib Shaw's works reveal an eclectic fusion of influences - from Persian rugs to Renaissance painting to Japanese lacquer - and are often developed from literary, artistic and historical influences. Raqib Shaw has devised a unique method of painting, manipulating enamel and industrial metallic paints with a porcupine feather to shape the precise detail and rich surface textures of rocks, coral, foliage, feathers and flowers.
https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/raqib-shaw-ballads-east-and-west

 

HAMPI ART LABS
Right Foot First

Opening of a new Contemporary Art Centre in the ancient city of Hampi in India with the exhibition "Right Foot First", bringing together renowned Indian artists such as Zarina Hasmi, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Dayanita Singh, Reena Saini Kallat, and Bharti Kher. The exhibition runs from February 6 to May 31, 2024. 
Hampi Art Labs is the latest initiative of the JSW Foundation, chaired by Sangita Jindal, the philanthropic arm of Mumbai-based conglomerate JSW Group. Ms Jindal has been collecting modern and contemporary art from South Asia for a long time. Today, her collection comprises some 1,000 works by Indian and international artists.
The centre's first exhibition, "Right Foot First", was named, according to Ms Jindal, after the Hindu custom of entering a space with the right foot to attract good luck.
https://www.hampiartlabs.com/
Interview of Sangita Jindal about her art collection by Lee Carter, Artnet, 13 February 2024

 

BIJOY JAIN
Le Souffle de l'architecte
From 9 December 2023 to 21 April 2024, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain presents 'Le souffle de l'architecte', an exhibition specially created for the Foundation by the Indian architect Bijoy Jain, founder of Studio Mumbai in India. Combining light and shadow, lightness and gravity, wood, brick, earth, stone and water, the architect offers a sensory journey that resonates with the material. Crafted with the rhythm of breath and shaped by hand, the exhibition features an installation of architectural fragments.
Bijoy Jain also invites the Beijing-based Chinese artist HU Liu, with her black monochrome graphite pencil drawings, and the Turkish-born Danish ceramist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, who lives in Paris.
https://www.fondationcartier.com/expositions/bijoy-jain-studio-mumbai-le-souffle-de-larchitecte

SHILPA GUPTA
National Gallery of Singapore
The Indian artist Shilpa Gupta is exhibiting two large black inflatable sculptures on the roof of the National Gallery in Singapore, intertwined on a raised platform like wrestlers in a ring. They are on view from 4 June 2023 to 31 March 2024. The work "explores the complexities outside and inside ourselves", says Shilpa Gupta.
https://www.nationalgallery.sg/ShilpaGupta

Shilpa Gupta also has an exhibition "I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt" at Tanya Bonakdar gallery in New York, from 23 October 2023 to 24 April 2024. The exhibition centers on an underlying pursuit within Shilpa Gupta’s practice: the invisible structures of control affecting both the individual and the collective.
Shilpa Gupta: I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt | October 21, 2023 - April 28, 2024 | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

 

 
 

Indian Artists. Profiles, Works & Exhibitions

The Indian art scene has changed a lot in the last ten years. Many Indian artists are now internationally recognised. In February 2023, the 14th edition of India Art Fair (IAF) brought together more than 70 galleries, most of them Indian, as well as a dozen private institutions. In addition, some Indian galleries have gone international via the Art Basel and Frieze fairs (Chemould Prescott Road, Experimenter, Nature Morte, and Vadehra). Today, the most famous artists - Anish Kapoor, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat, Atul and Anju Dodiya, Raqib Shaw - have exhibitions in renowned galleries in Paris such as: Daniel Templon, Perrotin, Thaddaeus Ropac. In October 2017, the Centre Pompidou in Paris organised a retrospective of contemporary Indian artist Nalini Malani. In 2023, Anish Kapoor was the most successful Indian artist with a turnover of RS.91 crore, according to Hurun India Art List 2023, with Arpita Singh following closely behind with a turnover of RS.24.71 crore.
What to say about India Art Fair 2024?

 

RINA BANERJEE

RINA BANERJEE is a contemporary artist of Indian origin living in the United States. She works in painting, sculpture and drawing and creates large-scale installations.
Contact : http://rinabanerjee.com/home.html
https://www.instagram.com/rina.banerjee/?hl=fr
NEWS
Rina Banerjee is scheduled to have a Retrospective at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
ARTIST PROFILE
Rina Banerjee was born in Calcutta in 1963. She grew up in London and then in New York, USA. She first obtained a B.A. in Polymer Engineering from Case Western University (1993). After working in the scientific sector, she obtained a Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University (1995). She lives and works in New York City.
Rina Banerjee's world is both personal and cosmic. She creates assemblages of traditional Indian textiles and clothing, colonial style objects and furnishings, fashion items, organic materials, from New York's bric-a-brac, transformed into new objects such as stuffed crocodiles, wooden cradles, fish bones, ostrich eggs, feathers, umbrellas, saris, pigments, shells. Synthesising mythology, religion, anthropology and fairy tales, Rina Banerjee is also inspired by Western culture and Eastern tradition, especially Tibetan, Himalayan and Indian art. "She offers a fluctuating and dynamic world that can make disgusting attractive or beautiful ugly.
EXHIBITIONS
Rina Banerjee has exhibited internationally since the 2000s. Recent solo exhibitions include: 2023 "Black Noddles", perrotin NY, Take Me to the Palace of Love", by Rina Banerjee, Syracuse University Humanities Center, NYC 2021 "Irresistible Earth", Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen, Norway; 2020 "Irresistible Earth", Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels; "Make Me A Summary of the World", Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles 
A retrospective of Rina Banerjee's work, entitled "Make Me A Summary of the World", was on view at PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), Philadelphia, USA, from 29 October 2018 to 30 March 2019.
Rina Banerjee Exhibitions Biography 

ANJU DODIYA

ANJU DODIYA is a contemporary Indian artist. She paints in pastel, acrylic, and charcoal; she depicts somewhat mysterious, dream-like scenes in which she is often the main protagonist. She is considered one of the most important contemporary Indian artists today. Her work 'Daphne' sold at Saffronart New York 'Spring Online Auction' in 2008 for $129,375.  In 2011, she sold a painting entitled 'The paths of Berries, at Saffronart' for US$ 92,000. In March 2014, a painting entitled Victor sold for $31,250.
https://www.instagram.com/dodiyaanju/?hl=en
ARTIST PROFILE
Anju Dodiya was born in 1963 in Bombay. She studied at the Sir JJ School of Arts in Bombay where she obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts (B.F.A) (1986). From 1991 to 1992, with a scholarship from the French government, she studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. She lives and works in Bombay. She is married to the painter Atul Dodiya.
Anju Dodiya creates pastel paintings showing overlapping and symbolic images. Her references are often historical, ranging from classical medieval and Renaissance paintings to Japanese ukiyo-e ("floating world image") prints from the Edo period to Ingmar Bergman's films. She uses masks and theatre to construct her various fictions. Rina Banerjee works mainly on human expressions and especially on emotion.
The woman in Anju Dodiya's work can seem to embody recent history (a history that includes #MeToo). She seems constrained by domesticity, and sometimes by the very burden of having to break free from it... in a way, recreating the visceral and sometimes nightmarish poetry of Sylvia Plath, who after her suicide and confessional poems became an icon for the feminist movement. 
EXHIBITIONS
Anju Dodiya's first solo exhibition, Necklace of Echoes, was organised in 1991 by the Chemould Art Gallery, Bombay. 
Anju Dodiya's last exhibition: at Templon Gallery Brussels, "Tower of Slowness", from April 1 to May 22, 2021.
She participated to Asia Now 2021, Paris Asian Art Fair, presented by the Templon Gallery.
EXHIBITIONS

ATUL DODIYA

ATUL DODIYA is a contemporary Indian visual artist. He is considered one of the pioneers of the new post-modern generation. Cinema, Bollywood images, are one of the dominant themes in the work of the artist who creates installations, assemblies of photographs or paintings on shutters. Vadehra Gallery sold two Atul Dodiya cabinets for $80,000 at India Art Fair 2024. A triptych titled "Guernica Bouquet sold for $150,000.00 in 2019 at Varadehra Contemporary Gallery at the India Art Fair 2020. His painting titled "Fool's house" sold on 20 March 2013 at Christie's for $75,000.00. His painting titled "Fool's house" sold on 20 March 2013 at Christie's for $75,000.00. Atul Dodiya was ranked 436/500 in Artprice (sales revenue) with $312,008 in 2018/2019.
http://atul-dodiya.com/  published by Artiana
https://www.instagram.com/dodiya_atul/?hl=en
NEWS
From 2 March to 27 April 2024, Atul Dodiya presents a new series of paintings inspired by Bollywood classics at Galerie Templon in Paris Beaubourg.
ARTIST PROFILE
Atul Dodiya was born on 20 January 1959 in Bombay. He obtained his BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from the Sir J. J. School of Art in 1982 and went on to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1991 to 1992 on a French government scholarship. He lives and works in Mumbai. He is married to artist Anju Dodiya.
Atul Dodiya made a name for himself in 1999 with his series on Mahatma Gandhi. He gained international recognition with another series - the Bombay: labyrinth/laboratory show - at the Japan Foundation Asia Center in Tokyo. After residing at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he took another turn in his style and media, moving from photo-realism to oil painting on canvas to metal curtains. This reflection on the object reflects his interest in the aspirations of the Indian middle class and the impact of globalisation on its traditions. He has pioneered the mixing of influences and references between Western and Indian or Oriental art history.
The ransacking of mosques and the story of the Timbuktu scribes deeply affected him. 
In early 2017 at the Vadehra Art Gallery, in New Delhi, Atul Dodiya revisited portraits of women in history, portraits of great masters such as Francis Picabia, Albrecht Durer, Piero della Francesca's Arezzo Frescos and Rabindranath Tagore. At Galerie Chemould at Art Basel 2018 in June 2018, he said: "The works 'Painted Photographs / Paintings Photographed', or 'Mahatma and Masters' show my interest in the first half of the 20th century in India and Europe. Photography has a key role to play in this work.

Chemould Prescott Road Gallery in Mumbai presented "Dr. Banerjee in Dr. Kulkarni's Nursing Home and Other Paintings 2020-2022" by Atul Dodiya, from 12 January to 25 February 2023. Atul Dodiya creates paintings filled with iconic characters from popular Indian cinema. For this exhibition, the artist has chosen 24 paintings: 24 is a special number in film, with 24 frames per second. The paintings mimic a storyboard in progress. Fake interiors are celebrated, recreated in the pastel hues of early 20th century hand-painted photography.
https://www.gallerychemould.com/exhibitions/124-dr.-banerjee-in-dr.-kulkarni-s-nursing-home-and-atul-dodiya/

EXHIBITIONS
Atul Dodiya's recent solo exhibitions include:
 2023 "Dr Banerjee in Dr Kulkarni Nurshing Home and other paintings » (2020-2022), Chemould Prescott Road gallery, Mumbai; 2020, Abu Dabi Art (online), Atul Dodiya, "Stammer in the Shade", Vadehra Contemporary Gallery.
Atul Dodiya participated to Asia Now 2021, Paris Asian Art Fair, presented by Templon Gallery.
Recent Exhibitions

SHEELA GOWDA

SHEELA GOWDA is a contemporary Indian artist. She uses different media such as painting, drawing, sculpture and installations. Her work is often between fine arts and crafts. In her work she questions the role of female subjectivity in the mix of religions, nationalism and violence that characterise contemporary Indian society. 
ARTIST PROFILE
Sheela Gowda was born in 1957 in Bhadravati. She graduated in art and painting from Bangalore University (1979), Vishwabharati University in Santiniketan (1980-82) and the Royal College of Art in London (1984-86). She lives in Bangalore and intermittently in Switzerland.
Sheela Gowda chooses materials for their symbolism: cow dung, incense, needles, threads, fibres and dyes. She often uses these ordinary materials to create semi-mystical effects. By diverting these objects, she also denounces the violence against women in Indian society. She also uses waste materials made by Indian society, such as bitumen cans or recycled plastic sheets from road construction. Sheela Gowda photographs the cow dung in its context and shows it in exhibitions.
What triggered this type of work was her experience during the violent Hindu fundamentalist riots, particularly in 1992, which led her to turn away from conventional means of painting and to seek stronger forms of expression for her sculptures.
In 1997, Sheela Gowda revisited the Mahabharata by creating a minimalist allegory through her work 'Draupadi's Vow'. She depicts a cascade of hair hanging from a wall, the ends of which are dyed with red turmeric, the colour of coagulated blood. This work refers to Draupadi, a woman who was humiliated by one of her five husbands by losing her in a game. The winners dragged her by the hair and she promised herself that she would not tie it up again until she could rinse it in the blood of her enemies.
For Paris-Delhi-Bombay in 2011 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Sheela Gowda presented "Gallant Hearts", a garland of cow dung cakes (sacred in India) coated with kumkum (vermilion pigment).
In 2014, the Tate Gallery in London acquired her spectacular installation 'Behold' (2009), made of car bumpers and human hair.
EXHIBITIONS
The artist was exhibiting at the Lenbachhaus in Munich until the end of October 2020. The exhibition was not a retrospective (as the artist and curator Eva Huttenlauch emphasised), but was diversified to span decades of his social engagement and artistic activity.  
Exhibitions

SAKSHI GUPTA

SAKSHI GUPTA is a sculptor and visual artist from the young Indian artistic generation. She uses everyday materials that she reinterprets into sculptures. She discusses the contradictions of the real world and its complexities.
Sakshi Gupta (sakshiguptastudio.com)
PROFILE OF THE ARTIST
Sakshi Gupta was born in 1979 in New Delhi. She obtained a BFA (Sculpture) (2001) and a Master's Degree (2004) from the Government College of Art, Chandigarh. She lives and works in New Delhi.
Sakshi Gupta recycles used materials, often of industrial origin, to make sculptures that transform the meaning of the materials and give them a certain spirituality. On the one hand she uses the weight of the material and on the other she creates light and fragility. Her works can be seen as a vision of the contemporary world: the transition from heavy industry to the information age and information technology.
In her spectacular sculpture, entitled 'Some Beasts', 2008, for example, she used rusted iron to create the shape of a ceiling fan that resembles a writhing beast. It refers to the dominance attributed to mythical religious animals in traditional Indian culture and the war machines of today. Sakshi Gupta also draws on his own experience. In her work "Nothing is freedom, Freedom is everything, Everything is you", 2007, she refers to the contradictions that young people face today: hopes and expectations without guarantees, or struggles and unexpected joys. The first piece in the series is a collection of 7 pillows that evoke not rest but sleepless nights in a claustrophobic environment. Another is a traditional carpet, made of car parts, showing the ups and downs of life. The third piece is a bust made of bicycle chains, showing the artist's belief in the freedom of choice of individuals.
EXHIBITIONS
Sakshi Gupta's most recent solo exhibitions include: 2023 "If the Seas Catch Fire", Experimenter Colaba, Mumbai  ;  2017, 'I marvel at your forgetfulness', Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; in 2015 'At the still point of the turning world', Galleryske, New Delhi; in 2013 'Become the Wind', Galleryske, Bangalore and two further exhibitions at Galleryske, Bangalore in 2009 and 2007; 'I Object' at Gallery One, Bangalore, in 2006.
Sakshi Gupta was presented at India Art Fair 2023 by Experimenter gallery.
Sakshi Gupta Exhibitions

SHILPA GUPTA

SHILPA GUPTA is a contemporary Indian artist. She is a video artist who uses videos, websites, objects, photographs, sound and performance.  Her work focuses on political (racial and religious violence, insecurity) and philosophical themes. Shilpa Gupta began to make a name for herself internationally in the 1990s. Her record sales were over $39,000 for "Untitled", his first auction, at Sotheby's in London on 2 May 2008 and "Untitled" sold by Saffronart New York 'Spring Online Auction' in 2008 for $27,797. 
Contact : http://shilpagupta.com
https://www.instagram.com/shilpaguptastudio/?hl=en

NEWS
Shilpa Gupta is exhibiting two large black inflatable sculptures on the roof of the National Gallery in Singapore. They are on view from 4 June 2023 to 31 March 2024.
Shilpa Gupta also has an exhibition "I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt" at Tanya Bonakdar gallery in New York, from 23 October 2023 to 24 April 2024.

ARTIST PROFILE
Shilpa Gupta was born in 1976 in Bombay.  She trained in sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai between 1992 and 1997 where she obtained her BFA (1997). She lives and works in Mumbai.
Shilpa Gupta creates sculptural works and multimedia installations in which she mixes everyday objects with technological objects. What interests her most about technology is "its emotional and conceptual significance and its ability to question our lifestyles and beliefs, our psyches and automatisms, community affiliations and prejudices".
The artist has been confronted with violence between Hindus and Muslims and speaks of fear and insecurity. She has worked with an Indian neuropsychologist - Mazharin Banaji - on fear and its origins "to try to understand the discrepancies between thought and consciousness". In 2009, she presented a monumental work "Singing Cloud", a suspended sculpture composed of about 4000 microphones at the Laboratoire de Paris. "Reacting to the environment, alternating between sleep and startle, this swarm transforms itself into a polyphonic creature, a form of gigantic fly's eye from which emanate, at certain moments, a multitude of voices, memories and languages", explained the Musée d'Art Contemporain du Val de Marne where the artist was in residence in 2007. Shilpa Gupta regularly works with researchers and scientists such as Noam Chomsky, whom she has interviewed about the influence of the media and the power of images as much as words.
Always working on fear, she proposed to individuals to move in public space with a bag on which was written "There is no explosive in this". She turned this experience into a very personal photographic set.
In her exhibition "Drawing in the Dark" at the contemporary art centre, the synagogue of Delme, in 2017, Shilpa Gupta testified to her research on the porosity of borders. For this exhibition, she presented a series of new works related more specifically to the border between India and Bangladesh, which runs for several thousand kilometres. In 2018, the YARAT Contemporary Art Space in Baku (Azerbaijan) presented a musical installation by Shilpa Gupta "For, in your tongue I cannot fit: 100 jailed poets', 2017 - 2018," in which the artist revived the voices of imprisoned, deceased poets.
Shilpa Gupta participated in the 2019 Venice Biennale with her sound installation "For, In Your Tongue, I cannot fit" (2017-2018). She also participated with her work "There is no border here" (2005-2006), in the Biennale Arcipelago Mediterraneo, in Palermo, Italy, from November 6 to December 8, 2019 and in the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, in Kanazawa, Japan, from October 12, 2019 to April 12, 2020
EXHIBITIONS
Shilpa Gupta's recent solo exhibitions include: in 2021-2022, "Shilpa Gupta: Sun at Night", Barbican Centre, London, 7 October 2021-6 February, 2021, "SHILPA GUPTA - Today will end" at M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium; in 2018 "For, in your tongue I cannot fit: 100 jailed poets', 2017 - 2018, "YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan; "Where do I begin", Voorlin.
Shilpa Gupta proposed activities for youg minds - "Art et Futur" - at Galleria Continua, Les Moulins, in France (77), from 26 June to 28 August 2022.
Biography/Exhibitions

SUBODH GUPTA

SUBODH GUPTA is a visual artist, currently a "star of contemporary art" in India. .
With cumulative sales of $1.3 million, Subodh Gupta ranked 149th/500 in the Artprice (Sales Revenue) ranking of the art market worldwide in 2015/2016. He ranked 382nd in the 2020/2021 Artprice ranking of the top 500 contemporary artists in the world with cumulative sales of $489,931 (5 lots).
In 2008, his work "Vehicle for Seven Seas", a cart and three sculpted aluminium suitcases, sold at auction for €500,000 ($785,243). In 2018, Subodh Gupta sold a 2007 work "Untitled" for $100,000 at Christie's. In 2019, he sold a work "Untitled (Gober Ganesh)" for $128,838 at Saffronart. In 2021 he sold at Sotheby's a work "Untitled" for $ 81,900.
https://www.instagram.com/subodhguptastudio/?hl=en
http://www.subodh-gupta.com/
ARTIST PROFILE
Subodh Gupta was born in 1964 in Khagaul, Bihar. Coming from a modest background, he became an artist under the influence of a teacher. He studied at the College of Arts in Patna (1983-1988) from which he graduated (Bachelor of Fine Arts), before leaving for New Delhi where he currently lives and works. He is married to the Indian artist Bharti Kher.
Subodh Gupta trained as a painter and then opened up to a variety of media such as installation, performance, photography and video, before devoting himself solely to sculpture. As the artist himself acknowledges, his creations are very much like a theatrical work. In 1999, he presented his first installation "29 Mornings" - small wooden benches that he decorated to tell the story of his life in 29 days - at the Fukuoka Triennial in Japan. This was his entry into the Indian contemporary scene.
Subodh Gupta works on icons of Indian culture: the cow, galvanised (electrified) iron, kitchen utensils, the milk delivery scooter, cow dung, the Ambassador. Subodh Gupta's work attempts to understand how all these objects, emblematic of a culture, construct both individual or collective identities and the body politic of the nation itself. Subodh Gupta employs many of the original techniques of French conceptualist Marcel Duchamp by elevating the ready-made into an art object.
Subodh Gupta's most famous work, "Very Hungry God" (2006), a giant skull made of stainless steel utensils, was exhibited on the Grand Canal quay in Venice in 2007. The Monnaie de Paris in Paris presented - from 13 April to 26 August 2018 - the first retrospective in France of Subodh Gupta.
The Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris gave carte blanche to Subodh Gupta - from January 9 to February 19, 2023 -. In his exhibition - entitled "Sangam" - the artist presented three installations, composed of vintage furniture and thousands of aluminium objects and utensils, key elements of his work.
Subodh Gupta exhibition in pictures: the Bon Marché Rive Gauche gives carte blanche to the Indian artist - Arts in the City (arts-in-the-city.com)

EXHIBITIONS
Subodh Gupta Biography/Exhibitions
Subodh Gupta's last solo show: "Cosmic Battlle, Galerie Nature Morte, New Delhi
https://naturemorte.com/exhibitions/cosmicbattle/
The two great Indian artists Jitish Kallat & Subodh Gupta were reunited for a joint exhibition: Confabulations, at the Nature Morte gallery, New Delhi, in early 2021.

JITISH KALLAT

JITISH KALLAT embodies the revival of Indian contemporary art. Alongside painting, he uses other media such as video, photography and sculpture. He produces large format, highly coloured paintings. He is also known for his very graphic black and white hair designs (turbans or helmets). A life-size rickshaw made by the artist from bone fragments was sold for $125,000 at the Shanghai Art Fair to a British collector in September 2007. In 2009, Jitish Kallat's "Dawn chorus 7" sold for the first time for over $386,500 at Christie's in New York. With cumulative sales of €291,193, he was ranked 448th in Artprice's 2013/2014 world art market rankings (Sales revenue).
Jitish Kallat sold a work at Art Paris 2020 for $50,000.

Contact : https://jitishkallat.com/
ARTIST PROFILE
Jitish Kallat was born in 1974 in Bombay. In 1996 he obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts (painting) from the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art, in Mumbai. He lives and works in Mumbai.
Jitish Kallat devotes much of his work to the poor people of Mumbai, even though he treats them in a very colourful and graphic way. The main actors in his works are characters from everyday life, whose hair, made up of accumulations of various objects, seems to be a condensation of life, or he creates skeleton sculptures of large vehicles such as cars, motorbikes or trucks, inspired in particular by his photos of vehicles burnt during riots. His "Dawn Chorus" series (2007) depicts street children whose heads are like urban scenes in black and white. The artist uses a strong visual language that references both Asian and European artistic traditions while using the image of advertising. His influences include Pop Art, Persian miniatures, Dadaism and posters.
Jitish Kallat is also interested in Indian history: his bronze sculpture "Public Notice 2"* (2006) recalls the speech delivered by Mahatma Gandhi at the beginning of the epic march of March 12, 1930 against the salt tax instituted by the British, in order to wrest India's independence. Another of his works in his Public Notice series refers to the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, delivering a speech on freedom of expression on 15 August 1947. The best known is his installation Public Notice 3, presented at the Art Institute of Chicago, which referred to Swami Vivekananda's historic speech to the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.  He also discovered Gandhi's open letter to Hitler telling him that in his world there were no enemies: this was projected onto a steam curtain at his exhibition at emplon Gallery. It was also exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 13 November 2016 to 5 March 2017.
In early 2018, he presented at the Sperone Westwater gallery in New York, series entitled "Rain studies" or "Wind studies". For these, he worked in the rain, at night, or drew drawings with flammable liquids, which he ignited.
Jitish Kallat presented at the Indian Pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale a video installation with a projection on a fog screen of a letter written by Gandhi to Hitler.
In January 2020, Jitish Kallat exhibited two major new works at Famous Studio in Mumbai: a photographic and sound installation entitled 'Covering Letter (terranum nuncius)' and 'Ellipsis', his largest painting to date. For the latter, a meticulously hand-drawn graphic underlies the entire painting. "Ellipsis' is made of many panels and is based on a web-work of free associations. It takes the form of a deeply speculative and exploratory abstraction. For "Covering Letter (terranum nuncius)" [2019-20], Jitish Kallat is inspired by the two phonographic Golden Records that were hoisted on the legendary Voyager 1 and 2 space probes launched by NASA in 1977. A large round table with over 100 3D photographic transparencies placed on top occupies the space.

First exhibition in the United Arab Emirates, Jitish Kallat presented 'Order of Magnitude' at Ishara Foundation in Dubai, from January 12 to June 16, 2022.

EXHIBITIONS
Jitish Kallat's works have been exhibited in most museums such as the Tate Modern in London and the ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe or in gallery collections such as the Saatchi Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

"Whorled (Here After Here After Here)" : courtyard installation by Jitish Kallat commissioned by   Somerset House in London: on view from 16 February to 23 April 2023
Jitish Kallat Exhibitions Biography
Latest solo exhibitions : 
2022-2023 Otherwhile, galerie Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai ; 2022 Echo Verse, Galerie Templon, Paris.
The Museum of Modern Art, Norrtalje Konsthall, Sweden, presented two solo exhibitions by artists Reena Saini Kallat and Jitish Kallat: 'Deep Rivers Run Quiet' and 'Epicycles', from 19 June to 25 September 2021.
Jitish Kallat and Subodh Gupta presented "Confubalations" at the Still Life Gallery in early 2021.
Jitish Kallat participated in Asia Now 2020 and 2021, Paris, presented by the Templon gallery.

REENA SAINI KALLAT

REENA SAINI KALLAT is a contemporary artist who belongs to the new generation of Indian artists. Her artistic practice ranges from drawing to photography, sculpture, video and installations.
Contact : http://reenakallat.com/

PROFILE

Reena Saini Kallat was born in Delhi in 1974. She obtained a BFA in painting from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai (1996). She lives and works in Mumbai. She is married to Indian artist Jitish Kallat.
Reena Saini Kallat's work deals with the endless cycles of nature and the fragility of the human condition. A recurring motif in her work is the electric cable, a symbol of the communication revolution and a means of conveying energy and ideas. However, the artist also argues that the electric cable is both a transmitter and a barrier. 
His Series Hyphenated Lives 2013-2015 imagined mutations in the natural world, where new hybrid species of birds, animals, trees and flowers, are made from national symbols of politically divided countries.
In Half Oxygen (2014), as if it were an analogy between the human body and nature, the Banyan and the Deodar, both referred to as the national trees of India and Pakistan, intertwine to form a pair of lungs. 
EXHIBITIONS

Reena Saini Kallat Exhibitions Biography
Latest solo exhibition: 2023 Deep Rivers Run Quiet", Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland  ; Reena Saini Kallat's solo exhibition "Common Ground" in Compton Verney, UK, from 21 October 2022 to 22  January 2023.
The Museum of Modern Art, Norrtalje Konsthall, Sweden, presented two solo exhibitions by artists Reena Saini Kallat and Jitish Kallat: 'Deep Rivers Run Quiet' and 'Epicycles', from 19 June to 25 September 2021.

ANISH KAPOOR

ANISH KAPOOR is a contemporary, British visual artist of Indian origin. He is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. His work is totally abstract with inspiration from both East and West. He was awarded the coveted Turner Prize in 1991, given in particular to artists using new media, such as video art, installation and unconventional sculpture. 
With cumulative sales of $10.6 million (48 lots),Anish Kapoor ranked 34th/500 in Artprice's 2018/2019 World Art Market Rankings (Sales Revenue). He ranked 110th/500 in the Artprice 2020/2021 ranking with sales of 3.3 million $ (47 lots). For the second time, the artist topped the Hurun India Art List 2020 with sales worth Rs 44.39 cr. 
In 2016, Anish Kapoor sold a work "Untitled" at SaffronArt, Mumbai, US$ 705,882. According to Mutualart, Anish Kapoor's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from $85 USD to $3,9 USD (Untitled, sold at Sotheby's London in 2008) depending on the size and medium of the artwork. 
http://anishkapoor.com/
https://anishkapoorbeijing.com/en.html#hero
ARTIST PROFILE
Anish Kapoor was born on March 12, 1954 in Bombay. In 1973 he went to study art at the Horsey College of Arts (1973-1977) and at the Chelsea School of Arts and Design in London (1977-78). Anish Kapoor is most often defined as an artist of Indian origin, living in England. The artist insists that he doesn't like these kinds of classifications, especially when they relate to his Indian origins: "I think we have to resist this categorization; I'm not interested in being an Indian artist; I don't need a definition of this kind to cling to," he said in an interview with Farah Nayeri for Bloomberg News on October 30, 2008. He lives and works in London although he frequently returns to India.
Anish Kapoor creates simple, harmonious and often very colourful forms; he uses a wide variety of materials (marble, powder, wax, mirrors, plastics, etc.). The artist's most spectacular sculptures - such as the gigantic mirror sculpture that has adorned one of Chicago's squares (Cloud Gate or the Bean) in Millennium Park since 2006 - have acquired an iconic status, according to the European Journal of International Migration in October 2012.
His early works, inspired by his native India where Anish Kapoor saw heaps of colourful spices in markets and temples, show sculptures covered in intensely coloured pigments. His later work focuses on massive quarried stones, "playing with the duality of earth and sky, matter and spirit, light and dark, visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious, male and female, and body and soul. His recent works are based on reflective and mirrored surfaces, sending back to the viewer a distorted image of himself and the environment.
Venice Biennale: The Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia presented a major solo exhibition by Anish Kapoor, from 20 April 2022 during the Venice International Art Biennale, until 9 October 2022.
In early February 2023 Anish Kapoor unveiled his first permanent public work in New York, nestling at the base of the Jenga towner designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Hill West Architects. Referencing Kapoor’s most famous sculpture in Chicago—Cloud Gate, nicknamed “the Bean”—the new smooth and shiny sculpture, looks like a bean being squeezed beneath the building’s cantilevering structure. It took four years and between $8 million and $10 million to complete.
From 7 October 2023 to 4 February 2024, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Firenze, Italy, presented Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal, a major exhibition by the artist.
EXHIBITIONS
2023-2024 Untrue Unreal, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, Italy; 2023, solo exhibition by Anish Kapoor at Kukje Gallery, Seoul ; solo exhibition by Anish Kapoor at Lisson Gallery in Beijing, from 20 August to 30  October 2022, Major exhibition of Anish Kapoor "Paintings" at the Modern Art Oxford Gallery from October 2, 2021 to February 13, 2022. A large exhibition was also dedicated to Anish Kapoor from November 10 to January 1, 2020, in Beijing, at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Imperial Ancestral Temple, inside the Forbidden City. Among his major installations on display: Symphony for a Beloved Sun (2013), Sectional Body preparing for Monadic Singularity (2015), My Red Homeland (2003), mirrored steel works S-Curve (2006) and C-Curve (2007)

Exhibitions : https://anishkapoor.com/biography
Anish Kapoor at Houghton Hall/FAD Magazine, 26 Août 2020

BHARTI KHER

BHARTI KHEis a contemporary Indian artist best known for her sculptural works. On 28 June 2010, she sold a sculpture of a reclining elephant covered with thousands of bindis at Sotheby's in London for $1.5 million, making her the highest priced Indian artist. She broke another record in May 2013 with the sale of an elephant sculpture 'The Skin Speaks A Language Not Its Own' (2006), for $1.8 million at Christies.
Contact: https://www.perrotin.com/fr/artists/Bharti_Kher/39#images
https://www.instagram.com/bharti_kher/?hl=fr

ARTIST PROFILE
Bharti Kher was born in 1969 in London. She studied at Middlesex Polytechnic in London (1987-1988) where she obtained her Bachelor's degree in Fine Art Painting (1988). She then obtained her BA Honours, Fine Art, Painting at the Foundation Course in Art & Design Newcastle Polytechnic, Newcastle, England (1988-1991). She lives and works in New Delhi.  She is married to Indian artist Subodh Gupta. 
Bharti Kher makes sculptures as well as paintings and installations around cultural and social taboos in India. Through her work she explores issues of personal identity, social roles and Indian traditions, but also more broadly the 21st century with subjects related to genetics, evolution, technology and ecology.
Bharti Kher's work makes extensive use of bindis, which she uses to adorn monumental fibreglass sculptures, often inspired by the animal world, and to create pictorial compositions on panels.
Bharti Kher is also known for her sculptures of hybrid creatures with human or animal bodies. "The monster is an omen for the future. He/she opens the doors of your mind and expands the possibilities of the body", said Bharti Kher. Bharti Kher is inspired by artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya or William Blake, to invent magical beasts, mythical monsters or allegorical stories.
Bharti Kher's figurative paintings also explore the future for women in modern Indian patriarchal society, through representations of Indian interiors.
In her sculpture Solarum Series (2007) or 'the Waq tree' (2009), the artist turned to the world of nature. She used references to the tree, a powerful symbol that appears in ancient mythologies in many cultures, and combined them with contemporary references, such as biological clones.
Bharti Kher exhibited a monumental sculpture entitled Ancestor at the south entrance of Central Park in New York, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, from September 8, 2022 to August 27, 2023. The female-faced figure has a raised hand that evokes a mudra blessing depicted in traditional Buddhist and Hindu imagery; 23 children emerge from her body like buds on a blossoming tree. The artist has made education a priority.  The sculpture was commissioned by the Public Art Fund of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, and Kiran Nadar plans to exhibit the sculpture at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi.
EXHIBITIONS

Biography/exhibitions
Bharti Kher's recent solo exhibitions include: in 2021-2022, 'Strange Attractors', Galerie Nature Morte, New Delhi ; 2020-2021 "A consumate Joy" at IMMA (National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art), Dublin, Ireland; in 2020 "The Unexpected Freedom of Chaos", Galerie Perrotin, New York. Bharti Kher participated in the group exhibition 'Animals in Art' at the Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj, Denmark (May 2020- January 2021).
The Nature Morte Gallery in New Delhi took advantage of the lockdown to review the various exhibitions and works of Bharti Kher, in parallel with his rise on the international <<<<
market.https://mailchi.mp/naturemorte.com/newsletter-artist-in-focus-bharti-kher?e=2603471727
The Perrotin Gallery also offered a virtual tour of the exhibition, the "The Unexpected Freedom of Chaos", by Bharti Kher, scheduled from February 22 to April 11, 2020. The artist had thus assembled broken mirrors, connected by bindis applied individually. Bindis have appeared in almost all of Bharti Kher's works for over twenty years; here they become objects that heal and repair themselves, like the skin.

Bharti Kher presented an installation 'Intermediaries' at Venice Biennale Biennale 2022, at Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello 
https://leaflet.perrotin.com/view/19/the-unexpected-freedom-of-chao
BIO/EXPOS
: A Short film about Bharti Kher, 
 The Trick is Living

NALINI MALANI

NALINI MALANI is an Indian contemporary artist. She is considered one of the leading artists in India today. She uses the technique of painting under glass but is best known for her multimedia installations. Her work revolves around recurring themes such as gender, memory, race and multinational politics in reference to India's post-colonial history after independence and distribution. Her politically engaged works have been shown in major exhibitions, in India, Japan, Australia, England, Cuba and South Africa.
http://www.nalinimalani.com/ 
Contact : nalinim2@gmail.com
https://www.instagram.com/nalinimalani/

ARTIST PROFILE
Nalini Malani was born in Karachi (Pakistan) in 1946 (just before the partition of India in 1947). She studied painting at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in Mumbai (1964-1969). She then continued her studies in Paris. She lives and works in Mumbai.
Initially a figurative painter on subjects such as class, race and gender, Nalini Malani became known in the 1980s for her feminist struggle and later in the early 1990s for her innovative theatre and video installations. She was thus part of the first generation of video artists in India. She presented her first installations at the Johannesburg Biennale in 1995. Based on the German Heiner Muller's adaptation of Euripides, her work "Medea project" showed sexual exploitation as an aspect of colonisation. She is often inspired by Hindu and Greek mythology, 19th century authors such as Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and early 20th century experimental theatre.

Video allows the artist an unlimited spatial and temporal density with which to work on her approach to painting. Her work consists mainly of multi-media installations and experimental theatre, but painting and drawing remain central to her work. In her installations she combines painting, light and shadow.
From 18 October 2017 to 8 January 2018, the Centre Pompidou/Paris presented a retrospective of Nalini Malini, making her the first Indian artist to have a retrospective in this prestigious venue: 'The Rebellion of the Dead, Retrospective 1969-2018' as well as the installation 'Traces'.

Vision in Motion at M+ Museum HK until 31 July 2022 brought together three major artworks of the artist—Utopia (1969–1976), Remembering Mad Meg (2007–2019), and Can You Hear Me (2018–2020)—showcasing the evolution of her practice over the past fifty years as she has embraced new technologies. Nalini Malani widely recognized as a pioneer of video art and experimental film. The exhibition highlights the artist’s distinctive storytelling methods, with the power to transcend traumas of national divisions and address issues of social injustice.
In her exhibition at Galerie Lelong, Paris, from November 2023, the artist borrowed the title of her 'The Human Stain' series from Philip Roth's novel. Nalini Malini explains: "In this series 'The Human Stain', I want to bring out mythical characters, in this case Greek myths, so that they resonate with our own times. 
Nalini Malani received the Kyoto Prize in the arts and philosophy in June 2023 from Inamori Foundation in Japan.
EXHIBITIONS
Latest solo exhibitions by Nalini Malani : 2023 "Human Stain" , Galerie Lelong, Paris, "My Reality is Different" at Arario Gallery in Seoul, My Reality Is Different, National Gallery, London ; 2022, Vision in Motion, M+ Museum HK
Nalini Malani is exhibited in collections of national museums around the world.
Biography/Exhibitions 

Indian artist Nalini Malani is set to make her mark in 2023

SURENDRAN NAIR

SURENDRAN NAIR is an Indian visual artist. He is one of India's leading contemporary artists. His paintings are a mixture of traditional imagery - drawn mainly from Indian, Greek and contemporary mythologies - often speaking to India's post-colonial politics. A number of his works have been sold at auction including 'Doctrine of the Forest: An Actor at Play (Cuckoonebulopolis)', sold at Saffronart New York 'Spring Online Auction' in 2008 for $558,969.
ARTIST PROFILE 
Surendran Nair was born in 1956 in Onkkoor, Kerala, India. After obtaining his BFA from the College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum (1982), he went on to study at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.U., Baroda where he obtained a diploma in printmaking (1986). He lives and works in Baroda.
The artist uses in his paintings many pictorial images of surrealism such as dream landscapes, the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated objects or symbolic creatures; he is reminiscent of René Magritte or Francesco Clement. He himself rejects the surrealist label, as his paintings do not reveal landscapes of the unconscious but "more dramatic" scenes. One must be familiar with the legends of Indian deities to enter the painter's universe.
His best-known work, An Actor Rehearsing the Interior Monologue of Icarus (2000), shows a naked, winged man standing on the Ashoka column - a sacred symbol in India.
Exhibitions
Biography/exhibitions

G. RAVINDER REDDY

G. RAVINDER REDDY  is an Indian artist-sculptor, among the most famous. He creates monumental sculptures, usually with much larger heads than in reality. His works are a mixture of different iconographic sources and technical processes: their totemic forms have something of Pop Art about them. His sculpture from the Amaya Collection, "Family" sold for $341,000 at Sotheby's in June 2013. "Untitled (Head)" sold for €40,988 at Christie's, London on 11 June 2013. His sculpture Devi II was sold at Saffronart Auction for Rs 23,67,000 in 2018. A resin and fibreglass head by the artist was sold for $85,000 at India Art Fair 2020 by Vadehra Contemporary Gallery. With cumulative sales of $293,810, he was ranked 384th in Artprice's ranking (Sales Revenue) of the art market worldwide in 2016/2017
ARTIST PROFILE
G. Ravinder Reddy was born in 1956 in Suryapet, Andhra Pradesh. He obtained a B.A. (1980) and M.A. sculpture (1982) from M.S. University, Baroda (1982). He graduated from Goldsmith College of Arts (Art & Design), University of London (1983) and then trained in ceramics at the Royal College of Arts in 1984, adding terracotta to his mediums. He teaches in the Department of Fine Arts at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, where he lives.
G. Ravinder Reddy uses both contemporary and traditional elements in his creations which are very colourful, and which could be classified as folk art rather than fine art. His images of women, couples or families, show the human body as a site of social, sexual, religious and cultural identity. "Without women there is no life", says G. Ravinder Reddy. These women are often Indian deities that he makes contemporary. The heads are dispassionate and impersonal, even though there is a kind of liveliness in their expressions. They look straight ahead, never to the side, eyes wide open.
His references come from various sources such as Egyptian and African sculptures and even the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, Fernando Botero, Luis Jimenez and Jeff Koons. The artist uses fibreglass in polyester resin: he covers this fibreglass with opaque car paint or metallic gold leaf.
Although he has not made Artprice's Top 500 art market in recent years, his heads of deities in very bright colours - reminiscent of traditional Indian statuary art - continue to be highly prized.
In June 2019, the contemporary art gallery Emami Art, at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), organised an exhibition dedicated to Ravinder Reddy entitled 'Rasa': it featured a large selection of the artist's work from 1989 to 2019.
EXHIBITIONS
Recent solo exhibitions of the artist include:  2020 "Soma", Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; 2019 "Rasa", Emami Art, Kolkata Centre for Creativity, India.
Biography/Exhibitions
Ravinder Reddy also participates in numerous group exhibitions. In 2011 he was one of the Indian artists exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris, as part of the exhibition "Paris-Delhi-Bombay". His monumental head, "Tara", like a kind of icon of contemporary Indian women, enthroned in the center of the circular documentary room around which the exhibition was organized

RAQIB SHAW

RAQIB SHAW is an Indian painter and sculptor, known for his finely detailed paintings of imagined paradises. His paintings and sculptures evoke the work of old masters such as Holbein and Bosch. In 2006, a work representative of his style, between visual and decorative arts, was sold at auction for the first time, at a price of $60,000. In 2010 and 2011, his best sales were between $750,000 and $740,000: 'Garden of Earthly Delights XIV' sold at Christie's and 'Absence of God III And His Tears of Blood will drown the cities of Men II', sold at Phillips de Pury & Company, London In June 2014 he sold a painting 'Garden of Earthly Delights XIII' for $349,656 at Sotheby's. He was in 488th/500th place in the Artprice rankings (Cumulative Revenue) with sales of $262,936 in 2015-2016, and in 291st place, with sales of $533,732 in 2018/2019.
Contact : https://raqibshawstudio.com/
www.instagram.com › raqibshawstudio
NEWS
Raqib Shaw will once again present his exhibition 'Ballads of East and West' at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, USA, from 15 February to 12 May 2024.
PROFILE OF THE ARTIST
Raqib Shaw was born in 1974 in Calcutta. In 1998, he moved to London to study: he obtained his BA Fine Art (2001) and MA Fine Art (2002) at the Central Saint Martins School of Art. He lives and works in London.
Raqib Shaw is known for his opulent and finely detailed paintings of fantasy worlds, often with surfaces inlaid with brightly colored jewelry and painted in enamel.
Raqib Shaw's works are on the border between visual and decorative arts. Canvases populated by hybrid creatures, at the crossroads between deities, men and animals, all entangled in spectacular compositions. 

The artist testifies to a unique technique, using enamels and metallic industrial paint to emphasize the details inside his paintings, such as corals, feathers or flowers.
"His paintings suggest a fantasy world, behind which there is actually a collection of very violent sexual images." For example, his inspiration for his first major exhibition (2002-2006) was hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Delights (1480–90): he describes an erotic underwater world.

Ca' Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art - in collaboration with White Cube Gallery, presented new works by Raqib Shaw - 12 paintings and a film - at the Venice Biennale, Palazzo Della Memoria, from April 22 to September 25, 2022. In his new series, Raqib Shaw transforms his own South London garden into a verdant backdrop; he recreates the now lost world of Kashmir, an imaginary paradise of a childhood landscape tinged with the melancholy of exile. This was an in situ project inspired by the unique pictorial traditions of Venice and Rome, particularly by Renaissance artists, including Tintoretto's Venetian paintings, St. Mary of Egypt (1582-87) from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and Presentation of the Virgin (1551-56) from the church of Madonna dell'Orto, as well as Giorgione's iconic La Tempesta (1506-08) from the Galleria dell'Accademia.
https://capesaro.visitmuve.it/en/mostre-en/mostre-in-corso-en/ex-raqib-shaw-palazzo-della-memoria/2022/02/21770/exhibition-raqib-shaw/
EXHIBITIONS
L’artiste is exhibited in the world . Recent solo exhibitions include : 2023 Paintings by Raqib Shaw "Space between Dreams", Pace Gallery, New York, from 10 November to 22 December 2023, "Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West", Frist Museum, Nashville, Usa2022 'Tales from an Urban Garden', Dries van Noten Space, Los Angeles ; 2021 "Raqib Shaw: Reflections Upon the Looking-Glass River", Pace Gallery, Geneva; 2020, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK; 2019 "Landscapes of Kasmir", Pace Gallery, New York
Last group exhibition: 2020 'Cranach: Artist and Innovator', Compton Verney, England

Biography/exhibitions
Raquib Shaw in his studio (video)

SUDARSHAN SHETTY

SUDARSHAN SHETTY is a contemporary Indian artist. This conceptual artist is known for his sculptural installations and his use of multi-media. Little recognised until 2002, he is now one of the most innovative creators of the generation of Indian contemporary artists who are now making their mark on the international scene. He sold a work "Untitled" for $52,500 and "Missing" for $23,204 (June 2008) at Christie's in London. In March 2014, an "Untitled" work was offered for sale at Sotheby's, New York and estimated at $30,000 to $50,000.
www.instagram.com › sudarshanstudio
NEWS
GALLERYSKE in Mumbai presents "One Life Many", an exhibition by Sudarshan Shetty at IFBE, Mumbai, from 6 to 17 January 2024
ARTIST PROFILE
Sudarshan Shetty was born in Mangalore, Karnataka, India in 1961. He obtained his BFA in painting from the Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1980. From 1989 to 1991, he worked at the Kanoria Centre for the Arts in Ahmedabad. He was also a resident at the Mattress Factory in Pitttsburgh, USA. He lives and works in Mumbai.
"Sudarshan Shetty creates hybrid constructions that question the fusion of Indian and Western traditions as well as domestic concerns and the question of movement. This is illustrated, for example, by the wrecked car he presented in 2011 at the Daniel Templon Gallery, made of finely carved wood in the tradition of Indian craftsmanship: "Turning slowly on itself, the car appears as an archaeological object and raises many questions about the accident - and civilisation - that gave it form.
Sudarshan Shetty is also famous for his huge mechanical and kinetic sculptures such as "Love" (2006), a gigantic dinosaur skeleton copulating with a sports car or the 9,000 kg of a double-decker bus with wings, Flying bus (2012). The artist likes to mix the macabre with humor.
Exhibitions
EXHIBITIONS
Sudarshan Shetty participated to Asia Now 2021, Paris Asian Art Fair, presented by Templon Gallery

DAYANITA SINGH

DAYANITA SINGH is a contemporary Indian artist. Her art is photography and the book is her expression. She started her career as a photo journalist but now considers herself a bookmaker working with photography. Her images, usually in black and white, are of urban middle and upper class families in their environment. A 'family portrait' by the artist sold in late 2014 at Christie's in Mumbai, $36,476.
Contact: https://dayanitasingh.net/
ARTIST PROFILE
Dayanita Singh was born in 1961 in New Delhi. She studied Visual Communication at the National Insitute of Design in Ahmedabad (1980-1986) and documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York in 1988. She lives and works in New Delhi.
Over the past 30 years, Dayanita Singh has been working on series of photographs which she revisits in different contexts and often presents in book form. She has published 12 books to date. In 2013 she began working on what she calls 'portable museums', large wooden structures that can be opened and placed in different architectural configurations, each containing 70 to 140 photographs. For each presentation, she rearranges the photos so that only part of the photo is visible for a given time, while the others wait their turn inside the structure. Her series 'Myself Mona Ahmed' (1989-2001) - a black and white photo essay on an elderly transsexual/eunuch living in a graveyard in old Delhi - was recently acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago as was 'Museum of Chance' (2013) - a book about how life happens. His work 'Sent a letter' (2008) consists of 7 small photographs of everyday life in a small box designed by the artist. Go Away Closer' (2006) is a short story without words, based on the reconciliation of photographs.
In her recent works, Dayanita Singh uses the possibilities and particularities of colour film to produce photographs saturated with intense colours, as in her work 'House of Love' (2011) (in which reference is made to the Taj Mahal).
EXHIBITIONS
Dayanita Singh's recent solo exhibitions include: in 2019 Dayanita Singh at Frith Street Gallery, Golden Square, London; in 2016, Museum of Chance Book Object, a solo project at the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh, Museum of Chance Book Object, a solo exhibition at the Hawa Mahal, Jaipur, Dayanita Singh, Museum of Machines (MAST), Bologna, Italy, 'Conversation Chambers', Kiran Museum of Art (Museum Bhavan), New Delhi.
The artist also participates in numerous group exhibitions: Nature Morte, New Delhi, Museum of Chance at Surrounds: 11 Installations at Museum of Modern Art, New York, In the Company of Artists at Hostetter Gallery, Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, USA; 2018 Time Measures and Pothi Khana, 57th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA; in 2017 Museum Bhavan, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; in 2016 Suitcase Museum and Kitchen Museum at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for the 20th Biennale of Sydney
Dayanita Singh/Expositions/Biography
Dayanita Singh has also published several books: Zakir Hussain (1986), Myself, Mona Ahmed (2001), Privacy (2003), Chairs (2005), Go Away Closer (2007), Sent A Letter (2008), Blue Book (2009), Dream Villa (2010), Dayanita Singh (2010), House of Love (2011), File Room (2013), and Museum of Chance (2014). In 2008, she received the Prince Claus Award, Amsterdam, and the Robert Gadner Fellowship, from Harvard University, Boston. 

SALMAN TOOR

SALMAN TOOR is a young contemporary artist from Pakistan. He has become particularly well known for his works that examine vulnerability in public and private life today and the notion of community in the context of queer identity.
His painting "The Singers" (2019), featuring young people gathering around a guitarist sitting on a brick wall, sold for $612,500 at Christie's on March 9, 2021. The work has surpassed its estimate of $100,000 and is now the second most expensive work out of the artist's five works to be auctioned, after the record price of $822,000, paid at Christie's in December for Rooftop Party with Ghosts 1 (2015).
Salman Toor made a very nice sale at Phillips HK on December 3, 2020 for his work "Group Dance" (2012): $ 520,000.
Salman Toor ranked 43rd in the Artprice 2020/2021 ranking of the top 500 contemporary artists in the world with a turnover of $9,941,254 (19 lots sold).
In 2021, Salman Toor is part of the upcoming Time100 list that highlights new influencers who have a vision for the future. According to Time, the artist "made his career subverting the styles of ancient paintings and openly focusing on queer men from South Asia."

https://www.instagram.com/salman.toor/
https://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/salman-toor#tab:thumbnails
ARTIST PROFILE
Salman Toor was born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1983. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting and Drawing), with Honors, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware Ohio (2006) and a Masters of Fine Art (Painting), at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (2009). He lives and works in New York City.
Salman Toor is particularly inspired by the aesthetics of the portraits of the European masters of the 17th and 18th centuries that he combines with scenes of contemporary life. "Instead of evolving over time, I wanted an academic background in painting," he explains. "I wanted to be as good as the old 'white' masters. In fact, I was only happy when I could claim to be a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century painter living in Madrid, Venice or Holland."

Salman Toor's characters are amalgams of historical references of art - from Baroque to Rococo - imbued with an atmosphere of the Beat Generation from the 1950s to the twenty-first century. Multi-ethnic couples kiss in bars, sharing cigarettes and glasses of wine in the hustle and bustle of nightlife. Companions dance in cramped apartments filled with books and music. Salman Toor represents mostly gay men in scenes of warm camaraderie, great scenes of friendship, love in which he mixes technology. Salman Toor is also looking for an act of validation or approval of queer men of color who would otherwise have disappeared from art history.

The artist has developed his style and created breathtaking work. He works with intricate brushstrokes and combines a palette of earthy colours, brushed layers and coarse textures. The framing of his paintings, in elegant and simple wooden frames, adds to the protection he wishes to give his creations.
While he has made a name for himself by depicting a certain gay milieu, he has also investigated his own more complicated identity. "I like to play with the dignity of a brown person, especially a hairy brown body, in this 17th century language, which is filled with smooth alabaster. Quiet surfaces and bodies - I want to destroy that idea of beauty." Some of his new paintings feature variations of himself as a young man in Lahore, dressing like a princess or witnessing violence against a gay man in his neighbour's house. "I've been exposed to things in Pakistan that don't allow me to take these freedoms for granted," he says. "Being queer - I accepted it for a very long time, but I never really celebrated it. And I want to celebrate it now. "Through painting, I try to evoke a world where people of colour are equal and proud inheritors of the humanist culture that welcomes the freedoms we enjoy in urban centres in the West," the artist said. 
The artist had an exhibition in the Baltimore Museum: 'Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love', in 2022. Among the works, several were made especially for the exhibition and are inspired by paintings from the BMA's renowned European collection dating from the 17th to 19th centuries, such as Rinaldo and Armida (1629) by Sir Anthony van Dyck.  
Work by Salman Toor was exhibited in the 16th Lyon Biennale, 'manifesto of fragility', from September 2022 until December 2022.
EXHIBITIONS
Salman Toor has already had several solo exhibitions in New York and Pakistan: 2023-2024 'No Ordinary Love', Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA; 2022 'Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love', Baltimore Museum; 2020-2021 "How wil I Know", Whitney Museum, New York; in 2019 "I Know A Place", Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi; Salman Toor "New Paintings", Gallery: O Art Space, Lahore; 2018 "Time after time, Aicon Gallery, New York; 2017 "Short Stories", Canvas Gallery, Karachi; 2015 "Salman Toor: Drawings from 'The Electrician'", Honey Ramka, New York Resident Alien, Aicon Gallery, New York; 2014 Close Quarters, Canvas Gallery, Karachi; 2013 The Happy Servant, Aicon Gallery, New York; 2011 "I ♥ Kitsch", Rohtas II Gallery, Lahore.
The artist has also participated in group exhibitions: 2021-2022 Salman Toor at Frick Collection, New York ;  2020-2021 The Pleasure Pavilion: A series of installations, Luhring Augustine, New York ; 2019 Them, Galerie Perrotin, New York, "Home is Not a Place", Anat Ebgi Gallery, LA; 2018 "Are you Here? Lahore Biennale 2018, Lahore; 2016 ; Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, Kochi; 'Go Figure', Aicon Gallery; 2014 'Wrech', Honey Ramka, New York; 2013 Cinephiliac: Art Transcending Technology and Motion, Twelve Gates Art, Gallery, Philiadelphia, Return of The Native, Rohtas II Gallery, Lahore; 2012 Stop Play Pause Repeat, Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai Letters to Tase
er II, Drawing Room Gallery, Lahore.
Pinault Foundation in Paris bought two works by Salman Toor in 2023.