Baiju Parthan and Prayas Abhinav - Variable Operatives

Baiju Parthan and Prayas Abhinav

Variable Operatives

THE GUILD

Preview: Tuesday, January 17, 6.30 pm – 8.30 pm

The Guild Art Gallery is delighted to present Variable Operatives, exhibition by Baiju Parthan and Prayas Abhinav previewing on Tuesday 17, 2012

Baiju’s section title: Vector

“Is virtuality an escalation of the real, augmented and exponentially raised to the nth power?

Or is it the antinomic twin gradually and stealthily devouring its sibling… ?

As French theorist Paul Virilio points out “The invention of the ship is also the invention of the shipwreck".

The art works in this show are located at the interstice of the objective real and the ethereal virtual.

The suggested motif - Reality is essentially an epiphenomenon by virtue of it being an interpretation of sensory data filtered through cultural and gender bias,and virtuality the inevitable effervescence a probable dystopian adjunct modifying the real.

These art objects are collision points aimed at presenting the erosion of the implicit 'faith in perception' which is the foundation on which solidity and predictability that we associate with the objective real are built upon.” -Baiju Parthan.

Prayas’ section title: This & this

“Characters in the global pipelines of information-flow are not simple-minded anymore. Multi-faced, holographic personas are now the model. The poetry of this game of smoke and mirrors is performed with a zest shared on all the sides of the fence: the agents and the actors. A few decades back the front-lines of this dance-charade-war had occupied also the world of bits from the world of atoms. The fractal nature of bits co-exists with its plastic shadow. Viewports often que back to the middle of the disarray randomly with disruption in either dimension. Courtship is now a cinematic experience, a kind of biding time for another. A cinema which is performed as much on the screen as in our memory.

These times are like any other and also with our capacity to dream things which we cannot understand, tangents of progression can go anywhere. This is a pattern which is not genetic, it is accidental and algorithmic at the same time. Generative with a history. Perception of patterns and complexities demands history, memory and a computation. This processing is a learnt characteristic for our epoch and species. The instruction line is the instant, the moment where dimensions get compiled into our experience. This is where resistance is; that which resists compilation floats around as an orphan fragment. And these fragments populate the buffer of our psyche with apparitions. What I see is different from what you see.

To unravel the onionskins of these apparitions is where the decay starts. That is when the static sets in. Climbing onto the moving horse, boarding the spinning carousel and getting off at a moment’s distraction... is the rhythm of our waking. A percussionist attempting to read this rhythm into a beat will be constantly listening and calibrating. There is no continuity, only disruption. Meanings are placeholders for eventual substitution. Cognition is meta.

My individual as well as collaborative art works in this exhibition tread in the spaces along these thoughtlines.”- Prayas Abhinav.

There are many ways of deciphering the present experience. And some ways of not having to. Of letting layers of unprocessed information build up and explode into some dimension of lucidity. There are two approaches for dealing with perceptual drift in this exhibition. Questions not easily answered, and questions not asked often enough as they inspire the delirium of division by zero. An impossibility.

The prevailing conditions of art requires the vocalization of intent in a way that demands itself to be treated as a singular reality. Besides being a paradox, this is often a too heavy a burden to carry. To escalate a crescendo and then to climb down... as a part of the same performance, is a balancing act.

Perception is trained by illusions. Agreements, negotiations, deals happen between faculties to establish the most basic ways of looking at the world. When this deal-making is challenged in the most radical ways, we experience things that we cherish. In this game, playing by the rules is not playing at all. Not that there are any rules to speak of, really. Every time the smoke clears and the dust settles there is a re-calibration happening.

We are talking of scales which do not have any markings. Scales which are not imposed but are discovered to be existing. The discovery of each such scale is either becoming a part of a weave we call truth or adding to the violence and disarray of our confusion. That is the pendulum we must swing on.

Baiju Parthan

Born in Kerala in 1956, Baiju Parthan has an eclectic academic background. Along with degrees in Painting, Botany, Philosophy, and a Post-grad diploma in Comparative mythology, he has done studies in computer game level design at the Pratt Institute Manhattan USA. Baiju Parthan is an inter-media artist, working simultaneously with the traditional media of painting as well as digital technology based installation art. He is one of the early exponents of new media art and mediatic-realism in the Indian contemporary art scene. Essentially, his work is about world views or cosmographies that are on collision course affecting and transforming each other, and the resulting ontological fallout felt and lived by us all.He has done his BSC in Botany, studied painting from 1978-83 at the art school in Goa and he has a Master’s degree in Comparative Mythology at Bombay University. Some of his prominent shows include 'Constructed Realities', curated by Gayatri Sinha at The Guild, Mumbai, 2010 'Go See India', part of India-Sweden Cultural Exchange Program presented by Emami Chisel, Kolkata at Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata; Vasa Konsthal and Gallery-Scandinavia,Gothenburg; 'The Intuitive: Logic Revisted', from the Osians Collection at The World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland; 'Looking Glass: The Existence of Difference', Twenty Indian Contemporary Artists presented by Religare Arts Initiative, New Delhi in collaboration with American Centre; British Council; Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi; 'The 11th Hour: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art from India / Diaspora', Tang Contemporary, Beijing.Parthan;s recent new media installations include Arpeggio for Abbe Faria,- Photography Installation, Benedictine Museum, Fecamp, France; Rorschach Breath Dual channel video, Anant Gallery, N.Delhi, Bombay Art Gallery, Mumbai, India; Liquid memory new media Installation- Christian Hosp Galleries, Nassereith, Austria.His recent solo sahows are 'Dislocation: Milljunction Part 2', Aicon Gallery, London; 'Milljunction: Paintings and Photo-Works by Baiju Parthan', Aicon Gallery, New York, Liquid memory + Rant - Inter-media show Vadehra Gallery New Delhi.

Prayas Abhinav

Artist, Faculty at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA). Prayas Abhinav lives in Bangalore, India. Presently he teaches at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and is a researcher at the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA). He has taught in the past at Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT). He has been supported by fellowships by Sarai/CSDS (2005), Openspace India (2009), TED (2009) and Center for Media Studies (CMS) (2006). He has presented his projects and proposals in the last few years at Periferry, Guwahati (2010), Exit Art, New York (2010), Futuresonic, Manchester (2009), Wintercamp, Amsterdam (2009), 48c: Public Art Ecology (2008), Khoj (2008), Urban Climate Camp, ISEA (2008), Sensory Urbanism, Glasgow (2008), First Monday, Chicago (2006), The Paris Accord (2006) and PSBT/Prasar Bharti (2006). He has also participated in the exhibitions Myth ←u8594 Reality (2011) at The Guild, Mumbai, Continuum Transfunctioner (2010) at exhibit 320 in Delhi, Contested Space - Incursions (2010) at Gallery Seven Arts in Delhi and Astonishment of Being (2009) at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkatta.

In July 2011, he curated a residency and exhibition project on time called, "On the Sidereal" at The Guild (Mumbai).

Until February 29.

www.guildindia.com

Ravi Agarwal video exhibition installation Of Value and Labour at The Guild

Ravi Agarwal

Of Value and Labour

THE GUILD

16th December, 2011 – 2nd January, 2012

The Guild is delighted to present ‘Of Value and Labour’ the first solo exhibition of Ravi Agarwal in the city of Mumbai.

The interrupted cycle of nature is inscribed by mass produced commodities which serve to fulfill wants and desires, and direct lives and materials. “A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside of us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.” wrote Marx.

Value is added throughout the chain with labour and technology, as both become equated in monetary terms. An ‘aura’ of desirability determines the price, till it becomes worthless, as waste, only to be recovered back into the commodity cycle by the labour of the waste picker. There is an ongoing theatre of aura and decay. Intertwined in this economy are narratives of many lives, often homogenized through contestations of power and powerlessness.

Some of the works being presented in the exhibition were documented in a monograph titled ‘Down and Out : Labouring under Global Capitalism,’ Jan Breman, Arvind Das and Ravi Agarwal, OUP, 2000, New Delhi. The body of the work was produced between 1996 and 2000 and was sited in South Gujarat, in and around the city of Surat, as a collaborative project with Jan Breman, the well known Dutch labour anthropologist who has been researching in India for over 45 years.

Ravi Agarwal is a photographer artist, writer, curator and environmental activist. He explores issues of urban space, ecology, capital in an interrelated ways working with photographs, video, performance, on-site installations and public art.

Agarwal has participated in several international shows including Documenta XI (Kassel 2002), ‘Horn Please,’ Kunstmuseum, Bern, 2007; ‘Indian Highway’ (2009 ongoing); ‘Generation in Transition,’ National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; ‘The Eye is a Lonely Hunter, Images of Humankind,’ at Fotofestival Mannheim_ludwigshafen_Heidelberg; ‘After the Crash’ at Museo Orto Botanico, Rome; his recent solo show being ‘Flux: dystopia, utopia, heterotopia,’ Gallery Espace, New Delhi. Agarwal recently co-curated a twin city public art project, Yamuna-Elbe.Public.Art.Outreach. He writes extensively on ecological issues, and is also founder of the leading Indian environmental NGO, Toxics Link. He is an engineer by training.

www.guildindia.com

Ravi Agarwal - Of Value and Labour-Gallery View

Do visit The Guild for the solo exhibit of Ravi Agarwal- Of value and Labour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atISecr_1qI

Bodies/Subterrain (Eurydice & Sita) of Rakhi Peswani

Art 4 Sunday - Scaffolding the Absent solo by G.R. Iranna at The Guild

Dear Friends,

We invite you to visit us on Art 4 Sunday, November 27, 2011 from noon to 5 pm.

Do catch the lat day of Scaffolding the Absent - solo by G.R. Iranna @ The Guild

On view till Sunday, November, 27, 2011

We look forward to welcoming you this Sunday with your family and friends.

Riyas Komu and K. P. Reji in Jogja Biennale 2011

Jogja Biennale 2011 - 2012
from 26 November 2011 - 8 January 2012

Shadow Lines

curated by Alia Swastika (Indonesia) and Suman Gopinath (India)

The Guild is pleased to announce the participation of Riyas Komu and K. P. Reji in Jogja Biennale 2011.

Komu presents two works- a very large scale carved installation in wood titled ‘The Undertakers’ and ‘Magic landscape’. K. P. Reji will be making a site-specific work.

Participating artists include:

Atul Dodiya, Archana Hande, Anita Dube, Amar Kanwar, N S Harsha,Prabhavati Meppayil, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Pushpamala N, Riyaz Komu, K.P Reji, Sheela Gowda, Shilpa Gupta, Sheba Chhachhi,Sakshi Gupta, Valsan Koorma Kolleri, Setu Legi, Krisna Murti,Jompet Kuswidananto, Arahmaiani, Wedhar Riyadi, Andy Dewantoro, Christine Ay Tjoe, Paul Kadarisman, Albert Yonathan,Akiq AW, Ariadhitya Pramuhendra, Iswanto Hartono, Wimo Ambala Bayang, Tromarama, Octora, Theresia Agustina, Titarubi, RE Hartanto, Nurdian Ichsan, Wiyoga Muhardanto, Erika Ernawan,Melati Suryodarmo, Arya Panjalu / Sara Nuytemans, Ruangrupa, Irwan Ahmett

Shadow Lines suggests imaginary lines that draw people together and pull them apart; it also refers to geo-political borders and the creation of modern states in South Asia. Curated by Alia Swastika (Indonesia) and Suman Gopinath (India), the Biennale, with its overarching theme of ‘religiosity, spirituality and belief’ will attempt to present ways in which artists from the two countries address and interpret their contemporary conditions, informed by their personal experiences, as also by the political structures of the countries they live in.

http://www.biennalejogja.org/?lang=en

Scaffolding the Absent by G.R. Iranna at The Guild November 4 - 22, 2011

G.R. Iranna

Scaffolding the Absent

THE GUILD MUMBAI
November 4 - 22, 2011

Preview: Friday, November 4, 7 pm – 9 pm

Scaffolding the Absent: G.R. Iranna’s Phenomenological Interventions¹

“Martin Heidegger pointed out that in every fear there is the recognition of our vulnerability, our mortality, and that anxiety, that feeling of finding ourselves cast adrift, nothing supporting us, nothing to hold on to, is a premonition of what dying will be: a being cast from existence into the void, into nothingness.”²
—Philosopher Alphonso Lingis

The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to present Scaffolding the Absent solo exhibition of G.R. Iranna featuring his most recent body of paintings, with catalogue essay by critic/curator Maya Kóvskaya, PhD. previewing on Friday, November 4, 2011.

In this powerful collection of five new large-scale works, G.R. Iranna meditates on human mortality and the fragility of our existence. “I wanted to create the fragile and slippery ground upon which our life and our existence rest,” explains the artist. Using the figure of the Buddhist monk and Buddhist iconography as a metonym for larger questions, he employs his characteristic visual language in “scaffolding the absent” elements present in our search for an understanding of Being against the backdrop of its incompleteness in our mortal journey. Through his phenomenological visual interventions, Iranna shows how we have failed to articulate a language to explain our origins, our destination and our sense of purpose in the collective solitude of humankind. Even when we are together, we stand alone in tackling these questions that concern each of us and define the nature of our mortality.

While nominally depicting religious symbols, the works are not representations of Buddhism, per se, but rather visual vehicles for exploring deeper human questions alluded to in the quotation by Alphonso Lingis above. With characteristic abstract backgrounds, devoid of figurative, representational content, Iranna’s work embodies the “neither here nor there” space that Michel Foucault called “heterotopias”—interstitial spaces at “the intersection of the real and the virtual” that collapse the binary between the two—and what Homi K. Bhabha interprets as a “third space of enunciation”—heterogeneous, hybrid, transnational and post-national discursive spaces of cultural production. In this way, Iranna transcends the pervasive Orientalist essentialism that is frequently implicated in iconic representations of “Eastern” spiritualist symbology.

Multiple layers of absence are present in this body of work. Absence appears in Iranna’s paintings in the Buddhist sense as absence of desire, longing, struggle, manifesting as transcendence in the search for meaning. It appears in the phenomenological sense as the absence of explanations and definite answers to the questions of existence. Absence resides in the spatio-temporal dislocation of the figures of against the heterotopic background and foregrounded perforations in the surface appearance of the works, and heterotopia makes absence into a space of possibility. Visually there is also an absence of horizons; there are paths but no destinations. There is an absence of faces, or facial expressions, and the monks are sometime depicted on a journey with an unknown destination, traveling upon the most fragile and unsteady of supports—bridges cobbled together with metal sutures, held up by wobbly crutches, as if to question whether the structures of faith available to us can actually support the weight of the human condition.

From a diversity of perspectives, Iranna’s work performs the function of “scaffolding the absent”—deconstructing the very elements it formally offers, and bringing the latent instability of the invisible structures underlying them to the fore. Scaffolding is typically used as a noun, referring to ad hoc support structures, such as temporary architectural platforms used during the building and repair of an edifice (structural or social), but can also metaphorically refer to religious belief, systems of social regulation, dominant societal norms, and so on. Scaffolding can also be used as the gerund form of the verb ‘to scaffold,’ and as a reference to the activity or process of building a temporary platform that supports the erection of an edifice. Thus G.R. Iranna offers a scaffolding of the absent; a temporary structural outline of that which is invisible within the frame, but contextually present in its visible absence, and in doing so, he asks us to reflect upon our human predicament.
—Maya Kóvskaya, PhD

[1] Excerpted from the catalogue essay of art critic Maya Kóvskaya, PhD.
[2] Alphonso Lingis. 2006. Defenestration (Deleuze Conference Paper). http://gavinwit.googlepages.com/Lingis.pdf. Accessed 30.07.2007.

Iranna obtained M.F.A. from Delhi College of Art. His selected solo exhibitions being Ribbed Routes, The Guild, Mumbai 2010; ‘Birth of Blindness’, The Stainless Gallery, New Delhi and Aicon Gallery, London and New York. G.R Iranna was awarded the Juror’s choice award for the ABPF Signature Art Prize 08, Singapore Museum and the international scholarship from Charles Wallace Trust, British Council. Other selected group exhibitions include 'Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern & Contemporary Art from India', San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; 'Time Unfolded', Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi; 'Finding India: Art for the New century', Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan; Go See India, curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay and Oscar Aschan, Gothenburg, Sweden; Cultura Popular India y mas alla, la presidenta de la comunidad de Madrid Museum, curated by Shaheen Merali and Arad Biennale, Romania.