Sudhir Patwardhan
Route Maps
THE GUILD
November 2
– December 11, 2012
The Guild Art Gallery is proud to
present ‘Route Maps’, a solo exhibition of Sudhir Patwardhan’s
work, previewing on Thursday, November 1.
“In
‘Route Maps’, Patwardhan’s brush appears sometimes to move faster than the
image it is meant to render, leaving a swirl or swipe of paint across the
picture surface. In consequence, many of his figures now emerge at the cusp
between photography and abstraction.”
“Circling
between the solitude of the studio and the sociality demanded by any engagement
with humankind at large; immuring himself in the archive yet also launching
forward on journeys of exploration, Sudhir Patwardhan has built for himself
(and for us, his viewers) a mobile
observatory of human affairs.” - Ranjit Hoskote.
“Sudhir prefers to tell his stories through images. But moving into
his sixties he now knows that the desire to tell stories and to pass on one’s
experience to the next generation is an innate human need rather than an
individual trait. Transmitting stories is like transmitting one’s DNA; it keeps
a part of us alive through a chain of memories we inscribe onto the minds of
those who come after us.”
“With
the mechanization of transport, travelling has also become periods of bodily
inaction — the inactive body is carried through the world, and the world
travels by but it is not seen. The world becomes a blur and the window becomes
a mirror. The inactive traveller sinks into thought and multiplies herself
internally; the window reflects her and multiplies her externally for the
observant eyes of fellow travellers, sometimes clearly and sometimes as a
blurred element in a madly overwritten image of the world.” – R. Siva Kumar.
Sudhir Patwardhan was born in 1949. He
graduated in medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. He moved to Mumbai in 1973 and worked as a
Radiologist in Thane from 1975 to 2005. His first one person show was held by
Ebrahim Alkazi’s Art Heritage Gallery in New Delhi in 1979. Since then his work
has been seen regularly in exhibitions in India and abroad. His selected museum
shows include ‘Social Fabric’, curated by Grant Watson, INIVA, London; Lunds
Konsthall, Lund, Sweden; Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai (2012); ‘Modernist Art
from India’, curated by Beth Citron, Rubin Museum, New York (2011); ‘Modern
Indian Art- The Ethos of Modernity’, Sichuan Museum, Shenzhen Museum, Zhejiang
Museum, China (2010); ‘ReVisions, Indian Artists Engaging Tradition’, curated
by Susan Bean, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (2009); ‘Horn
Please – Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art’, curated by Bernhard Fibicher
and Suman Gopinath, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2007). His recent solo shows
include ‘Family Fiction’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
(2011); ‘The Crafting of Reality’, The Guild, Mumbai (2008).
A monograph on his work,
‘The Complicit Observer’ written by Ranjit Hoskote, was published in 2004. This
was followed in 2007 by another book by Ranjit Hoskote on Patwardhan’s drawings – ‘The Crafting of
Reality’. This is tranaslated into Marathi as ‘Rekhachitravichar’, published in
2012. A monograph in Marathi, written by
Padmakar Kulkarni was published in 2005.
Anjali Monteiro and K.P.Jaysankar have made a film on the artist, along
with the work of the poet Narayan Surve, titled ‘Saacha’, in 2001.
In 2008- 2009 Patwardhan
curated an exhibition of Indian Contemporary Art ‘Vistarnari Kshitije’ /
‘Expanding Horizons’ which travelled to eight cities in Maharashtra. His second
curatorial project, in 2011, was an exhibition of the drawings of ten artists,
shown in The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai
and Sudarshan Art Gallery, Pune.
Patwardhan’s works are in
the permanent collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and
Mumbai; Roopankar Museum, Bhopal; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai; the
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA and other prominent private and public
collections.
The artist lives and
works in Thane, near Mumbai.
On view till December 11, 2012
and at Jehangir Art Gallery from December 4 - 10, 2012
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