Mixed Media

Some new art...H & I made this together. I'm a pacifist, he's a nationalist. I'm not sure it's about our thoughts on Kashmir;  I think it's about being able to hold opposing views and still working together. Or maybe it's about Kashmir. 

Singapore Night Festival 2016

This was such a dramatic show! Quite enjoyed it!

The Steve McCurry Exhibition

The Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Singapore is running an exhibition of some of Steve McCurry's most famous photographs. These two were little K's favourites. Why? In the first photo, K likes how the little boy is running and both his feet are in mid-air. In the second photo of the shaolin monks, K likes how the guy can walk on a wall like Spider-Man, but what he really loves in this photo is the monk's hairstyle. Perfectly great reasons to love a photo, I say!

Double decker

While in Mumbai, we went to a restaurant at Bandra Kurla Complex's Maker Maxity where I noticed this art installation by artist Sudarshan Shetty. Perhaps it was nostalgia, perhaps it was pride in my city....that made me really like this homage to the good old B.E.S.T. double decker. Surely it's going to be a thing of the past pretty soon, but I have great memories of having travelled on the front row on the top deck with the wind blowing in my face (yes, now it does seem kind of reckless of the authorities that kids were allowed to sit there with their heads sticking out of the front window).

Cardbot

Saw this robot sculpture made out of recycled cardboard at the National Library last evening. Pretty cool isn't it!

Melancholy

We picked up this piece of art in Pune around 2 years ago. The art collector we got this from showed us a number of pieces made by the same person (a Calcutta based artist named Dilip Kundu who struggled to make ends meet most of his adult life, wasn't very well appreciated, and one ominous day, while still a young man, he simply left home never to return. To this day, Kundu is still reported missing & presumed dead by some, perhaps also by the family he left behind...but today 3 of his works of art are displayed at the National Museum of Modern Art in Delhi. As the unfortunate cliche goes, his art & genius were appreciated after he was gone.) The story of the artist says a lot. Its evident he was a depressed soul. And while most of his work is beautifully imaginative in the most curious way, it reflects a brooding unhappiness of the artists soul. We fell in love with all his works the moment we saw them - most of them were very intricate; in varying shades of black; quirky & outlandish; and they were invariably melancholy & disturbing. That made us apprehensive about putting one on the walls of our home. But we eventually had to get this one. It's relatively less - um, how do I say this - its relatively less 'disturbing' than some of the others, but this portrait of a man weighed down by all the stuff he has been carrying on his shoulders resonates with everyone who has ever carried any baggage. I love the simplicity of this monochromatic man, he makes me shed a tear, he makes me want to reach out & share some of the weight he carries with him. He has my pity because he seems to have lost hope & he makes me wonder how he could've created art without hope...because surely, this must be a self portrait.

Life through the eyes of the unfortunate

Some of these pieces of art on display at the National Library are interesting & almost all of them send a chill down your spine. They tell stories of atrocities in or by the developed world.

The Lego exhibit by Nathan Sawaya

I was awestruck by the patience; the sheer patience of this artist. I usually give up after the first 10 blocks!

OH Open House Art Walkabout

We went for the art walkabout 2 years ago. It was a strange experience then...going through people's homes looking at the art in their very 'heartland Singapore' setting. This year, the walk was in a more familiar setting. It was set in the financial district. And went through my office! :)

The coolest part of the tour this year, for me, was an installation in the Google office. How fun is that office! Not only is it yellow & green, it has a swing in its reception & a wrought iron spiral staircase running in the middle of the office space. The installation in that office, was very cheekily called 'search for happiness' .

Personally, I liked the setting of the tour more than the art itself. Singapore's business district has its own unique character. The old(ish) law firms from the 80s, the swanky trading floors of the new banking giants, the evergreen appetite of the construction sector, the reclaimed earth & the ever receding seashore. The tour takes you through all of these. It is pretty awe-inspiring, intimidating, glittery & ruthless all at once. The theme was 'Happiness Index' though & that isn't easy to forecast in this part of the city.

A Moving Masterpiece

We went to see the exhibit of "A Moving Masterpiece" on the recommendation from a friend & we were glad we did. The exhibit is based on a 1000-year old Chinese scroll painting (a national treasure in China now) painted by the imperial painter of the Song Dynasty to depict life in the then-capital of Bian Jing. It shows life in the peak of a 'golden era' in the Song dynasty's rule. The exhibitors have blown up this painting to 30 times its size & animated the scene; complete with details of wine shops, boat quays, hotels, vendors, city wells, costumes, hairstyles, songs, chatter, and so on. Its accompanied by an audio guide which gives a lot of information on the life & times of the Song Dynasty (how a person's economic status can be told by the mode of transport he is on; impact of the travellers from the spice-growing countries of South East Asia; the status of government officials...)It's an impressive technological feat, an innovative idea, and a great way to learn about the culture and time of a bygone era. Even little K was impressed with the animated city :)

Chocolate dreams :)

This was from a charity event at work....The bank had organised an auction for art work created by under-priviliedged kids from all across Asia. I bid for this crayon-work by a 10 year old girl from India who was asked to draw her thoughts on the subject "My Hopes & Dreams". Her hand-written note at the back says that her hope is to be the master of a world made of chocolates where chocolate flows in streams and ice-cream grows on trees; and her dream is to live in a chocolate-house. We made an immediate connection there; I knew this piece of art belongs in my room :)

Art galleries at home

Over the weekend, we went to the OH! Open House Walkabout - it's an art exhibit held in peoples' homes and this year the curators chose 5 HDB homes in Marine Parade as the venue of these exhibits. The concept was very cool - to bring art out of pretentious galleries and place it in unpretentious HDB homes associated with middle class heartland Singapore.

The artists drew their inspiration from the Marine Parade neighbourhood (born out of a large government project of reclaimed land, its dolphin sightings, the associated ghost stories and earthquake tremors) as well as the individual home owners & their personalities.

Some of the exhibits were quirky & imaginitive - a black curtain with small peepholes symbolic of the lack of privacy in HDB homes; or an upside-down room with a mirror-floor which gets one confused between reality & perception; or the visually deceptive image of a HDB lift landing. Some of the exhibits were beautiful - I loved the TV-painting in the second home with a lovely music installation in the background. And the paintaing of a team of gold-medallists was gorgeous.

And then there were some exhibits I didn't quite get - a peephole into the room of lonely girl playing piano in a room filled with outlandish stuff.
The tiny cluttered rooms of HDB apartments may not be one's idea of a perfect art gallery (some were not even well lit), but I thought it worked. What did not work, was that the number of people who turned up for the walkabout were way more than what the HDB could cope with; making the whole walk a bit of a drag with a tour guide filling the empty waiting time with some simplistic observations about Marine Parade & the art!

PS: How brave do you have to be to allow hundreds of strangers walk into your living room & bedrooms for a whole weekend!

Our precious acquisition from Bali....

is finally framed and hanging on the wall in our living room!

Browsing on a slow day at work...

And found that Nat Geo's Photo-of-the-day pics are very cool :)

Another Sleepless Night

Rajib Chowdhry -- I really like this artist & have been following him for a while now -- this is an oil painting titled "Another Sleepless Night". I like how the dishevelled bed can tell a story; it looks soft & comfortable & inviting; but clearly is not a place of peace for a restless mind.
(Incidentally, this also reminds me of my friend D who has always pondered about satin bed-sheets - -They look sexy alright, but how do people manage not to slide off them?)

And here's another painting I like from the same artist. This one is titled "The Morning of 27-11-09". Interesting, uh?

India Shining -Gandhi and the Laptop

I saw this sculpture made by a Kolkata artist named Debanjan Roy; I found it amusing (not sure if that was the intended effect the artist meant to have). I don't know why Gandhiji is all red-- (thats more of Chairman Mao's colour, yes?); but the laptop that's replaced the charkha & the title "India Shining" makes the piece very tongue-in-cheek.

Chinese Buddhist Art

Saw this huge painting on the tiled front wall of a Chinese monastery here & it caught my attention.

I don't know much about Buddhist philosophy, but this painting seems to depict some sort of a struggle for survival -- with the monks helping from one side; and demons attacking from the other; while men & women struggle in a sea-storm (of life, perhaps?)

Would love to know more about it --maybe it's a scene from an ancient mythological story; or from the religious texts, perhaps?

Click on image to enlarge

Dying Arts

I read this article about how the artisans of Lucknow, famous for their traditional 'Lucknowi chikan' embroidery, are struggling on account of competition from the Chinese factories, where machines do faster & cheaper embroidery than the artisans.

Its sad to watch traditional arts die this silent death; maybe nobody will mourn their loss; maybe the next generation of these artisans will move on to better-paying jobs in some new BPO company in Lucknow or Delhi; maybe the knowledge will evaporate with this last generation of artisans; maybe *traditional* will soon mean something else; maybe *one-of-a-kind* would be a foolish thing to do.

My point in short: I own a lovely pink salwar-suit with chikan work on it; and I think I should preserve it better than I currently do.

Amer Palace

I tried publishing this post a couple of times the other day, but for some reason, the pics wouldn't get uploaded. So here goes another attempt...

Here are a few images from our recent visit to the Amer Palace; built by Raja Man Singh in Jaipur around 400 years ago. The Hindu monarch had struck a political deal with the then Mughal king Akbar & to demonstrate his friendship with the Mughals, decorated this palace with a blend of Hindu & Muslim designs. As a result, one finds in the palace beautiful Hindu motifs like elephant heads, set in typical Mughal craftsmanship. I loved the overall harmony of design inspite of this peculiar stew of influences. Or maybe the harmony was a consequence of this unique stew...!

The Dali Statue

Singapore has a great public art collection, which can be seen in many parts of the Central Business District. This piece here is created by Salvador Dali and is called "Homage to Newton" (popularly called simply "The Dali Statue"). Bizzare as Dali's surrealist style looks, I find his work here quite interesting.

It is a homage to Isaac Newton & his pursuit of science. The plaque below the statue explains that the open torso is meant to depict Newton's open-heartedness & the open skull is meant to depict his open-mindedness; both important qualities for not just pursuit of science, but all human endevours.