S C U L P T U R E

THE GUILD MUMBAI 19 December 2009 – 10 January 2010

Preview - December 19, 12.00 – 3.00 pm

Postmodernism entered the lexicon of art theory and discourse in the 1970s in relation to art movements like minimalism, post-minimalism, earthart, and conceptual art. Post-modern sculpture occupies a broader field of activities than Modernist sculpture, as Rosalind Krauss has observed in sculpture in the expanded field. Her paper identified a series of oppositions that describe the various sculpture-like activities that are termed post-modern sculpture. The "permission, or pressure, to think the complex," as she wrote, has increased exponentially into a dynamically expansive field, one whoch moves us to think past the object.

Parameters of sculpture have changed considerably in recent years making ‘sculpture’ a diverse, conceptually rich and enormously expanded form. This show portrays sculptures by leading Indian contemporary artists who have been engaged in sculpture and its various forms.

The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to present ‘Sculpture’ showcasing works by Anant Joshi, K.P. Reji, Prajakta Potnis, Rakhi Peswani, Riyas Komu, Sudarshan Shetty and T.V. Santhosh.

Anant Joshi

Anant Joshi obtained his B.F.A and M.F.A in Painting from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai. Joshi often arrives at his drawings and paintings from forms and spaces that he sculpts or constructs. He uses carefully selected toys that he breaks apart, paints over and re-contextualizes (a process of de-construction and then re-construction within his own space and context.) Joshi’s multi-layered/sensory-filled works hope to create experiences that hit at the deep, dark, violence of the mundane acceptance of our individualistic schizophrenic everyday urban lives. His use of objects comes together in a dramatic theatre of public/private protest.

K.P.Reji

K.P. Reji received his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Fine Arts from M.S. University, Vadodara, in 1998 and 2000 respectively. A significant facet in K.P Reji’s work is the intimate way in which his work integrates personal and the social aspects, thereby liberating meanings through disassociation and relocation from their commonsensical associations. Although Reji’s works exude a matter of fact quality, his work is multifaceted and complex in its analysis of the individual’s relationship to his or her external environment. Despite, or perhaps because of their apparent simplicity, his works seem enigmatic, and the motifs he engenders are difficult to decipher. Often political in inflection, his works explore the connection between psychological states of mind and socio-political behavior. In 2007, Reji was awarded the Sanskriti Award for Young Artists by the Sankriti Foundation in New Delhi.

Prajakta Potnis

Prajakta Potnis received her graduate and postgraduate degree from Sir J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai and has been a participant at the Indian Highway, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway, 2009. Even though Potnis’ works evolve on appreciation of the private space, like the interior of a middle- class house where ‘feminine’ colours and objects embellish the interior-spaces, they remain a starting point for more complex observations. Her works create a paradox around human habitation. Walls perform as a significant analogy in her works. They are a metaphor of the chosen human territories through which a city designates order and planning and at the same time an organic substance like a visceral membrane. Through and within these walls Potnis creates notations of the fragility and disregard observed in everyday situations.

Rakhi Peswani

Rakhi Peswani obtained her Bachelor’s degree in painting and her Master’s degree in sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts at M. S. U, Vadodara. For Rakhi the expanse between what we see and what we touch and respond to has only increased with the passage of modernity. The unified body has been fragmented into inert zones of perception. This experience of fragmentation has structured her focus to the processes of traditional crafts; allowing her to re-route the notion of oneself through the language of these processes. Peswani’s point of departure is to locate a visual / verbal / tangible language that blends the local character of our system and the global character of verbal language. She further layers this juxtaposition with the inclusion of verbal text, fabricating discreet ironies within the material processes to depict contemporary identities. In 2007, the artist won the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art’s Emerging Artist Award.

Riyas Komu

Riyas Komu was a participant in the 52nd Venice Biennale 2007 curated by Robert Storr. Other prominent museum shows include Milan Museum show, curated by Daniella Polizolli and 'India Contemporary', GEM, Museum of Contemporary Art, Hague. His subjects are charged with significance bringing about a disturbance depicting an element of political disquiet. For Riyas, art is a medium for social comment on the situations the world is facing today. “Take Away is a work that provokes the agenda of capitalism (in order to occupy the world of a renewed material reality) which a dominant country surreptitiously unleashes to exploit aspirational labour and imprison it in an intangible enclosure that makes them proudly compromise their dignity and freedom.” - Riyas Komu

Sudarshan Shetty

The artist strives to escape from the social framework, and at the same time, tries to collect scattered fragments of daily life. Through the process of editing and applying these (fragments), he superimposes various facets of contemporary society. In fact, though formally trained as a painter, Shetty progressively became interested in sculpture and installation, and began to combine his paintings with found objects that he painted. “I want to lure the viewer into this with deception-that of products that we negotiate with on a daily basis. I try to define this space with familiar objects, to create a dialogue between them that may reveal some truths to me about my own life. I find this the best way I can have a true communication possible with the world at large” – Sudarshan Shetty

T.V.Santhosh

Born in Kerala, T.V.Santhosh obtained a B.F.A in painting from Santiniketan and Masters in Sculpture from MS University, Baroda. Santhosh has had several successful shows with many international art galleries and museums. His recent sculptural installation from ‘Passage to India’ is in the Frank Cohen collection at Initial Access. Some of his prominent museum shows are ‘Aftershock’ at Contemporary Art Norwich at Sainsbury Centre, England in 2007; India Xianzai, MOCA, Shanghai, China, 2009 and Passage to India, Part I & II: New Indian Art from the Frank Cohen Collection, at Initial Access, Wolverhampton, UK. “My works are more of an ethical and philosophical questioning of the current events across the globe. Speaking about the question of who is the real enemy, it is not just about terrorism that comes out of religious fundamentalism. It is about the violence terrorism unleashes and the counter measures the state employs which actually is more violence” - T.V. Santhosh.

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