June 11, 2015 | 6.30 pm
Visitors’ Centre, CSMVS, Mumbai

The history of museums is tied to the developments of international fairs and exhibitions in the 19th century and rose as nationalistic temples of culture and symbols of European power. Influencing the formation of national identity, citizenship, social values and cultural perspectives, museums and politics have been perennial bedfellows, shaping our views of both ourselves and of the world.

Museums have transformed themselves from cabinets of curiosity to centers of civic pride and prestige, representing our shared heritage. But lingering questions remain about politically charged relationships between aesthetics, contexts, and implied assumptions that govern how art and artifacts are displayed, interpreted and understood. While museums retain their influence on cultural production, they need to adapt to meet the demands of a rapidly changing global world order.

By examining the cultural, historical and political atmosphere of the societies in which museums were born and continue to operate, this discussion will attempt to further our understanding of the public museum, and its place at the centre of modern relations between culture and government.

Cho Rao is an arts and museum consultant, based in San Francisco. She has worked with several institutions such as the Asian Art Museum, the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her research interests include art and globalization, the history of exhibition making, post-colonial studies, and contemporary curatorial practice.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee is the Director General of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), and also heads its postgraduate program in museology and conservation. He has initiated several innovative projects including the CSMVS Museum Modernization Plan, and also edits and publishes books and journals on Indian art and culture.

Arshiya Lokhandwala is the founder/curator of Lakeeren Gallery in Mumbai that has presented over 100 curated exhibitions and critical interventions. She writes and curates on biennales, large-scale exhibitions, feminism, performance and new media arts and is the curator of After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997 at the Queens Museum, New York.

Shilpa Gupta is an artist based in Mumbai.  Her practice involves the use of found objects, interactive video, websites, photographs, sound and public performances to probe themes of consumer culture, security, militarism and human rights. She has exhibited at numerous biennales, triennales, galleries, museums, cultural centres and foundations in India and across the world

February 4, 2015 | 6.30 pm
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

The Dharavi Biennale is a two-year process leading to an exhibition in 2015. It blends art and science to share information on urban health and to showcase the contribution of the people of Dharavi to Mumbai’s economic and cultural life. The Biennale project has been organized by SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action), an NGO working to improve the health of women and children in Mumbai’s informal settlements. With four themes – art, health, recycling and vitality – the Biennale invites Dharavi residents to meet, educate themselves on urban health, learn new skills, and produce locally resonant artworks that are authentic, honest and relevant.

The Biennale is structured around workshops that bring Dharavi artists together with mentor artists and health scientists to develop artworks that raise questions about urban health. Each of these workshops is called an Artbox and happens at our Dharavi workspace and gallery, the Colour Box. All the Artboxes will come together in February 2015 at an exhibition and series of events called the Alley Galli Biennale, a lighthearted name for a big-hearted show involving a mixture of languages, media, places and subjects. This panel discussion is a preview to the Biennale.

David Osrin is a paediatrician and public health researcher, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Global Health at University College London.  He is the co-director Dharavi Biennale.

Dr Nayreen Daruwalla is a psychologist and activist who head the program on prevention of violence against women and children at SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action). She is the co-director Dharavi Biennale.

An illustrator, graphic designer and filmmaker, Chaitanya Modak is a mentor for one of the Art Boxes at the Dharavi Biennale. He facilitates the Comic Epidemic, a series of workshops on graphic novel making created by the young and the old residents of Dharavi.

Prajna Desai is an art historian and has curated the Food Project for Dharavi Biennale. This examined the practice of household cooking through art historical questions regarding the economy of labour, the value of work, and the intent to aesthetics.

August 24, 2013 | 6.30 pm
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

‘Between the Lines: Identity, Place and Power’ Selections from the Waswo X Waswo Collection of Indian Printmaking is an exhibition that represents over eighty-four Indian artists from diverse geographical regions. Consisting of woodcuts, etchings, lithographs and screen-prints, the works in the collection span a time from 1916 to the present. During this period, transformations in the Indian subcontinent have been enormous and reflect in the content of the works.

In the background of the exhibition, it is interesting to investigate several frameworks within which printmaking has been practiced and extended as a fine art and also a commodity in artistic transaction in India. The existence of Printmaking Studios is at the centre of the dialogue today. These studios have provided the space and technology for artists to continue making prints outside of a college department, and also became centres of continuing pedagogical support both supplementing and replacing academic discourse.

The medium, best produced in the collective, has thrived in various studio facilities across India, including Garhi in Delhi, the Lalit Kala Academi Regional centre graphics unit in Chennai, and Chhaap Studio in Baroda. These have also turned into hubs for artistic and theoretical movements and characterise significant local inputs in the promotion of the medium. In this discussion, three educators discuss printmaking pedagogy in the studio format, moderated by the curator of the exhibition.

Rajan Shripad Fulari studied Printmaking from Goa Art College and M.S. University, Baroda, and followed that with Film Appreciation from FTII, Pune. He has to his credit many accolades which include the Junior Fellowship, Govt. of India, National Award from Rajasthan Lalit Kala Akademi, and AIFACS Award, New Delhi. He has held many solo shows including those in Goa, Mumbai, New Delhi & at the Robson Gallery, Halliwell’s House Museum, Selkirk-Scotland. With exhaustive attributions to his career as a printmaker, Rajan has participated in group shows in India and abroad, including several international print biennales. At present, he is the Print Studio Incharge at Lalit Kala Akademi, Regional Centre-Garhi, New Delhi.

With a Diploma in Fine Arts (Painting and post-Diploma in Industrial Design from the College of Arts, Chennai), R M Palaniappan studied advanced Lithography at Tamarind Institute (USA1991) and was the Artist in Residence at the Oxford University (1996). His solo and group exhibitions find presence to major art centres across the globe. He has curated several important shows including ‘Major Trends in Indian Art’ on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee celebration of India’s Independence. A recipient of several awards, honours and residencies including the Fulbright Grant, Charles Wallace India Trust grant, he currently serves as the Regional Secretary of Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai. Palaniappan, primarily a printmaker has successfully ventured into digital and computer imagery besides painting and photography.

Kavita Shah is a visual artist, painter, printmaker, educationist and a founder member of Chhaap Foundation for Printmaking Trust. Associated with Chhaap for a decade she attempts to create awareness for limited edition original prints. As an academician, she is involved with the Fine Arts faculty of M.S. University, Baroda, NID and other institutions. She has participated in major juried shows viz. Triennial-India and Bharat Bhavan Print biennial and has several awards at state level shows organized by the Lalit Kala Akademi of Gujarat, Karnataka and AIFACS. She has compiled several international print portfolios and was artist- in- residence in Finland and Italy and has worked actively in print studios at In La couriere et Frelaut, Paris and Print Making Workshop with Robert Blackburn, New York, USA.

March 25, 2013 | 6.30 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

Of Bodies, Armour, Cages is a recent project by the artist, Shakuntala Kulkarni that engages with questions of the presence of a human being/body in public space. The self is always floating within many contexts – social, legal, historical as well as the personal network of memories. How, and in what way do we articulate our presence within these networks and environments?

In this project, Kulkarni elaborately dresses the body, the self is enhanced through an act of design and extension, but also one could say, bracing and protective layering. Kulkarni has been fascinated by the very structure and grandeur of metal or leather armour: masculine and peerless in nature that was used in wars. In this project, she uses cane as an organic material to create beautifully crafted armours that protect the body and also break the gaze through the joineries of the cane and weave.

Interrogating the notions of protection and trap, the body is exaggerated and introduced into the everyday lives of many other bodies, the city and its spaces and the personal terrain of the neighbourhood. A narrative of existence, presence, intervention and being emerges through performative gestures.

This panel discussion aims to discuss the many pertinent narratives that emerge from this artistic thought process and journey of the artist.

Shakuntala Kulkarni is an artist who works through the mediums of painting, photography, installations and performance. She lives and works in Mumbai.
Mitra Mukherjee Parikh is Associate Professor and Head at the Department of English, SNDT University, Mumbai.
Flavia Agnes is a lawyer based in Mumbai. She is one of the founder members of Majlis that works in the areas of gender, rights discourse and culture.
Kaiwan Mehta is an architect and urban researcher based in Mumbai. He is also Managing Editor at Domus India.

March 14, 2013 | 5.30 pm
Terrace Gallery, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai

A Photograph Is Not An Opinion: Contemporary Photography by Women is a group exhibition curated by Sunil Gupta and Veeranganakumari Solanki that explores the work of twenty-two photographers, including Shilpa Gavane, Chino Otsuka and Anusha Yadav. On the occasion of the exhibition opening, a conversation around the curatorial theme and photography practices of the participating artists is organized in collaboration with FOCUS and the Japan Foundation.

Delving into the history of photography and women photographers, this exhibition is an inquiry into the concerns of the artists who exclusively use photography as a medium of creative expression. This conversation will re-look at the historical impulses of women photographers and engage with the work of the exhibiting artists in the contemporary context.

Sunil Gupta is an artist, curator and photographer based in London.

Shilpa Gavane, Anusha Yadav and Chino Otsuka are photographers based in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and London respectively.

FOCUS Festival Mumbai (March 13 – 27, 2013) a celebration of the art of photography, is Mumbai’s first festival dedicated exclusively to the work of young and established photographers from India and abroad. This festival will exhibit photographic works in over 20 venues in Mumbai. These sites will include art galleries, museums, international arts council venues, outdoor areas, boutiques, cinemas, cafes, restaurants, and other public spaces.

The Japan Foundation (Kokusai Koryu Kikin), founded in 1972 is a non-profit entity that promotes international cultural exchange and educational programs. The Japan Foundation New Delhi was officially established in January 1994 and since then has been carrying out the Foundation’s programs successfully.

February 22, 2013 | 6.30 pm
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

The disciplinary understandings of contemporary Indian art are being challenged in our time by experiences, narratives and strategies designated as activism. The book, Articulating Resistance: Art and Activism (Ed: Deeptha Achar & Shivaji Panikkar, New Delhi: Tulika, 2012) explores this space between art and activism without letting the discourse being reduced either to a simple formulation about art in activism or activism in art. The focus, instead, is on interrogating the politics of aesthetics as well as the connections between the visual and other disciplines. Deriving its insights from methodological moves made in the fields of art history/criticism, culture studies and visual culture, the book foregrounds the links between the practice of art and the urgencies of the public world trying to bridge, in the process, the space that reaches across the academy and all that is known as activism in our time. The different sections in the book explore the complex relationship between art-producing practices and frameworks of viewing that seek alignment with the various struggles around caste, community, gender and sexuality.

Keeping the context of the book in mind, the panel discussion will examine the role of the artist-citizen in articulating a language of protest and dissent, lending a critical charge to political and cultural questions. The book is a timely introduction in the field, given the paucity of scholarly materials, and the discussion proposes to draw on the terrain of art and activism, seen together.

Deeptha Achar teaches at the Department of English, M.S. University of Baroda (MSU) Vadodara.

Shivaji Panikkar teaches at the School of Culture & Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD), New Delhi.

Nalini Malini is an artist, based in Mumbai.

Tushar Joag is an artist, based in Mumbai.

Sudhanva Deshpande is an actor and director with Jana Natya Manch and editor at LeftWord Books, New Delhi

January 10, 2013 | 6.30 pm
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

The exhibition ‘Between the Lines: Identity, Place and Power’ curated by the art historian Lina Vincent Sunish explores the history and practice of printmaking in India through the unique collection of prints collected over the years by the artist Waswo X. Waswo. This collection spans a calendar of over ninety years, a period considered the general time frame printmaking has existed in India as a fine art and a medium for artistic expression. While bringing together works of several generations of artists, the collection does not claim to be a comprehensive overview of the history of Indian printmaking. It reflects the personal taste of the collector and certain passion for the medium.

Not bound by chronology, the exhibition explores the works for their imagery, expressive qualities and socially reflective stances of the individual artists rather than being limited to the evaluation of their ‘print type’ status. The medium of printmaking, being associated with outdated modes of production, and with the idea of multiple editions, has sometimes faced criticism as well as discrimination. The other operating structures that enter into the dialogue are the history of art institutions, the quality of art pedagogy in India and the art market which has changed the dynamics of art production/consumption in India.

The role of a collection itself is significant as is the stance of the curator as each allows for the exhibition to become an educative context to evaluate the place of printmaking in Indian Art while seeking to engage with individual achievements. This discussion with Waswo X. Waswo (artist/collector), Lina Vincent Sunish (art historian/curator) and Viraj Naik (artist) will examine the issues involved in the practice of printmaking, the notions of authenticity, the role of institutions and galleries and the future trajectories of this artistic medium.

A special interview between noted printmaker Anupam Sud and Waswo X Waswo will be screened as part of the program. Anupam Sud is one of the finest intaglio printmakers in India and one of the founder member of ‘Group 8’, formed in 1968, to promote and sustain printmaking as an independent expressive art form.

November 9, 2012 | 6.30 pm
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

Being anxious is second nature to being an artist. This is so in any period and in any place. But every particular period and place gives a specific form and content to artists’ anxieties. This panel discussion proposes to address certain of these anxieties in relation to our own times, and see how different generations of artists are affected by them. Changing economic conditions, a rapidly expanding art world, multiplying choices and superseded forms, all give an increased urgency to these issues.

Specifically, the panel will try and explore the anxieties at three levels – professional anxieties like career woes, the difficulties of finding a niche in the art world, making a name, choosing one’s ambition level etc; secondly, psychological anxieties arising from trying to match one’s personal aptitudes and attitudes with curatorial and art market demands; anxieties about being left behind by the ‘avant garde’, not making it into art history, becoming passé and redundant. And thirdly, and most importantly, anxieties about real artistic choices being made in the studio, and how professional and psychological factors affect, or do not affect these artistic choices.

Artists of different generations presumably respond to the pressures of these anxieties in different ways. Are there characteristic differences between art by younger artists and art by older artists? What artistic gain comes from preoccupations held steady over a period of time? Or, do older artists lose out by not responding to the pressure to change? And conversely, are younger artists finding it difficult to give themselves the necessary time to discover their own vision? Or is a new model of urgent reactive creativity more appropriate to our times? The panel will try and discuss these issues by focusing on the core issues themselves rather than on personal stories.

In collaboration with Mumbai Art Room and Arbour Research Initiatives, Mumbai

October 20, 2011 | 6.30 pm
Arbour Research Initiatives, Mumbai

Every human being is an artist. Caution: Children at Work, a contemporary art exhibition that was held at the Mumbai Art Room in September 2011, addressed this concept, popularised by the artist-pedagogue Joseph Beuys, but also introduced in the writings of Novalis, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and the Russian avant-garde. Curated by Gitanjali Dang, the show featured work by artists Shreyas Karle, Sanjeev Khandekar with Vaishali Narkar, Sharmila Samant, and Apnavi Thacker. The exhibition also involved four local children, Tanushri and Saloni Tandel, and Tanushree and Vishakha Malode. The curator conducted workshops with them over a period of time, discussing key ideas from Beuys’ I Am Searching For Field Character, 1973. Consequently, two videos were realised; conceptualised by the curator, they are a reflection of the process.

A talk by Dang, examining the exhibition and its genesis, will be followed by a panel discussion with the artists. Susan Hapgood, director, Mumbai Art Room, a non-commercial storefront exhibition space in Colaba, will moderate the discussion.

Gitanjali Dang is an independent curator and critic living in Mumbai, and curator of the recent exhibition, Caution: Children at Work.

Shreyas Karle, an award-winning young artist based in Mumbai, received a PD in Visual Arts from the M.S. University of Baroda.

Sanjeev Khandekar is a Mumbai-based visual artist, Marathi poet, and writer, who collaborates with artist Vaishali Narkar on diverse bodies of work in mediums including stone inlays, embroideries, paintings, and photography.

Sharmila Samant is an artist whose work deals with issues of globalisation, identity and consumer culture. She was one of the founders of the Mumbai-based collective, Open Circle.

Apnavi Thacker is a self-taught artist who was born in Mumbai and raised in Geneva, and has just completed a residency in Berlin.

Susan Hapgood, an art historian, is the founding director of the Mumbai Art Room, and senior advisor to Independent Curators International, New York.

November 27, 2010 | 6.30 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

The works by the artists included in the exhibition “changing skin” curated by Marta Jakimowicz revolve around conceptual and aesthetic strategies that involve assuming other personalities, hybrid imagery and altering the surface of things. These strategies, on the one hand, belong to the structure of metaphor, necessary for art to create a world parallel to reality in order to empathize with or critique it and express its experience, while the artist is always present in the artwork which interprets, hence layers and changes, the actual. On the other hand, such properties remain intrinsic in a reality which constantly mutates, contradicts itself and accommodates or encompasses the contradictions, the globalised today carrying elements of the anyway composite past. Although all art-making accepts these paradigms in some measure, the particular artists were chosen for the show because they foreground and make evident the use of those paradigms in order to probe and comment on issues and sensations of complex, ambiguous or radically altering identity, both personal and collective, concerning intimate recognitions along with gender, political, idea-related and economical ones. The show focuses on the intertwining of culture and the body through the means of masquerade or superimposition, hybridisation and altering the surface of objects, so bringing a frequent recourse to performance and installation vocabulary in video-based images as well as paintings, prints and sculptures which often locate themselves on the edge of different media.

In the panel discussion, the artists will converse about their art practices while responding to curatorial positions/ideas via aesthetic devices and the possibilities of artist interventions/curation in the contemporary context keeping the exhibition “changing skin” in mind.

Anju Dodiya is considered among the most important contemporary painters in India.

Jehangir Jani is a self-taught artist who works with different media like sculpture, ceramics, fibreglass and sheet metal.

The work of Mansi Bhatt functions within the mode of performative photography while often lending itself to sculptural and cinematic transformation.

Navjot Altaf is a distinguished painter, sculptor, installation artist and filmmaker.

Sonia Khurana’s art practice embraces areas in-between video, elements of performance, text, photography, drawing and installation

Gita Chadha is a sociologist and her areas of interest are science studies, women’s studies, cultural studies and post-colonial studies. She has worked with women artists and poets on several interdisciplinary projects.

The curator, Marta Jakimowicz will be present at the program. This program is organized in collaboration with The Fine Art Company, Mumbai.