visit to national gallery of modern art.

NGMA-ing

For one of our class we went to NGMA, it was my first visit to Bangalore NGMA. When we were in ngma I had forgotten what all sections had to be seen and noted about. I conveniently passed through Bengal school and went straight to Amrita Sher-Gil’s work. He solo exhibition was put up.
I hadn’t seen a lot of Amrita Sher-Gil’s work. The exhibition but here I feel was very good as it covered a large chunk of her work.

I don’t think I’m anyone to critique her work, but after looking at her work I was extremely impressed by her portraits of herself. The use of colour was bold yet subtle; each colour merged and wasn’t shouting to be heard. Through her work you could feel her bohemian artistic life. I feel she captured the mood of the person really well in all her portraits.

Then, finally I came down to Bengal school, First time I heard about Bengal school but the artist’s whose works were put, I heard about them but not really seen much of there works expect Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy.

It was the first time I saw Abinindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore’s work I personally really liked both their works, especially Gaganendranath’s cubism and Abanindranth’s miniature style of painting.

While looking their works I came across a new medium that I didn’t know about called tempera so I decided to read the boards with writing and that’s when I found out about what Bengal school is; it was a nationalist project in art was led by Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) during the British rule in our country. In collaboration with Europeans such as E.B Havell, the principal of the Government School.  The entire movement was about moving away from conventional oil painting and subjects that were popuar and prominent in both the British and Indian. Abanindranath looked to ancient murals and medieval Indian miniatures for inspiration both for subject matter as well as indigenous material such as tempera.

A lot of other Indian artist joined this nationalist art movement, and this was often called Bengal school though this movement was not only limited to Bengal.
I feel that all the paintings that I saw were indigenous yet had a modern style of art.

I saw and read a lot of new artits’s name whose works I really liked such as: Nanandalal Bose and B.B Mukherjee.

I’m so glad we were asked to go to Ngma by college and for this course, or I wouldn’t have really made the effort to go and made excuses in my head.
Ngma visit made me miss home and my Ngma visits in Delhi.

I loved the feel and the atmosphere of the Bangalore Ngma.

It was a lot of fun and a great experience.

Making Installation.

Final Installation.

The end of the course, finally we were going to start making out final installations.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to go about my final installation, there were to may ideas and too much confusion. I even considered taking forward my 3d installations prototypes that I made for expecting the unexpected 3-installation chapters course.
Every time an idea came to my head I would try and pen it down, but I was too confused to start with any one of them.

When we had our session with our Facilitator he gave us a few parameters that we had to work with in:
- needs to be installed by the 15^th.
- Should be cost efficient and we should spend as less as we can.

My batch mate Nehal had asked me if I wanted to do an installation together, well I was very confused about what I was going to do and so was she. She shared all her ideas and I shared mine. We were both on completely different pages.

My basic idea that I was persistent was I wanted to make something out of multiple small elements that came together as on, so whatever the installation may be each part would make sense on it’s own and multiple pieces of  each together would also make a pattern as a whole.

Personally I don’t feel an art always need to have a concept to start with but I feel, that having a concept before hand works for me better as then my mind doesn’t go all over the place. And the biggest problem that I was facing was that I didn’t have a concept but in my head I knew how I wanted my structure to look vaguely.

so next day just before our class, Nehal came up with this brilliant idea of how we could do do an installation related to the missing flight MH370 . Hher initial ideas was about how we can make the plane with wire, but I felt representing MH370 in a not so direct and a more abstract form would be a better idea. So I thought that instead of making one craft or one major thing, we could make multiple small things joining to make one big.
I could carry on my initial idea of making multiple small things and combining them to make on large installation. So I thought about it did some research about the flight and something that Is the symbol of peace.

Then came in the tracing paper and 239-peace crane.
I suggested that we should make 329 peace cranes because there were 239 passengers on the flight. The no. Is a lot, and sounds very scary we weren’t sure if we would be able to do it but then Anahita (classmate) also joined in and helped making the cranes. Then we thought that I would be boring to have same size cranes. So we experimented with scale.
Experimenting with scale gave our installation more character I feel, and keeping the cranes white made it look delicate and beautiful.
Making 239 was a pain but I was fun and I personally enjoyed it a lot. We didn’t even complain so much while making it cause we had a cause behind making the cranes as they were for the peace of the missing people.
Each crane is an art installation in itself and all together work and make an installation as 
well is what I feel.

Our concept note: Amidst all the conspiracies that surround the disappearance of flight MH370, one can very easily forget the 239 people (including passengers and crew) whose lives are being treated with insignificance, the people whose families haven’t got any closure after the flight went missing, the people who have become a faceless number in the news. This is a small way to give a face to each life, and to let them know that they aren’t forgotten. Take a minute to look at the mass above you.

Each crane is a life.

Understanding Artist work.

Artist Study.

We had to pick Installation artists and study their works, i decide to choose artist's who had very different works from each other.

somehow all were indian artists.

1st artist who i presented was Vivan Sundaram, he is an indian contemporary artist. His work constantly refers to the social problems and current affairs. A lot of this recent installation work is to do with popular culture. He uses different media's- including sculpture, installation, print making and photographs.

He showed tendency towards figurative representation and dealt with problem of identity. installation called house/boat made after the dislocation of many people due to floods and tsunami.



I'm extremely fascinated by his recent work 'Making strange' he likes to call them wearable installation. He has used ordinary daily use everyday materials like plastic cups, sanitary napkins, bandage, bras ect to make unusual garments, these garments are a play of fashion which a popular culture. He called the walk 'GAGAWAKA' as it sounds to him like a brand name. For him this particular installation was not fashion but was art as he was using material to translate popular culture.

2nd Artist

Bharti Kher-

Contemporary feminist London based installation artist, her work is radically heterogeneous, a few things about her work make her unique.

understanding Bhati Kher:

- the use of bindi;s had provided her own aesthetic language. The bindis are sperm shaped.

- Large scale work.

- she shows inclination in her work towards animal subjects.

- Explores radical and different ideas through clichés such as sarees and bangles. the saree installation,     she showed domestic life n dullness that look bright n beautiful on the outside.

works i really liked were- The elephant, Line though space and time and reveal the secrets that you want to see.

3rd artist:
Anish kapoor- London based, one of the most famous installation artist. Anish known for his experiential large scale installations, (large audience based work) his work is known as the urban monuments as they are extremely massive.

when one says Anish kapoor four things automatically come to my head that are; colour-shape-scale-texture.
the use of texture, colour pigment has remained constant in his work. His work directly involves masses, and makes the audience participate. the installations are interactive, the public responds the to installation. His installations interact with people and transform spaces for example, the cloud gate one can walk under it and experience it. It builds a inclusive relationship of audience and piece of art work.

4th artist.
Ranbir kaleka-
works with various media works, a lot of his work is about the historical events and issues,though what makes his work different from other artists is that he brings out a new side to the event or story and gives the audience a whole new perspective.
His work includes art video's photographs and installations. painting+ complex video installations, acrylic and oil paints with projection screens. He uses super imposition which shows the phenomenal extent to his grasp on multiple media. Another crucial dimension in understanding his work is kaleka's video paintings along with parallel running paintings and video clips.

why i really like his work is because his work show's the progress and process of interaction rather than finality of an artistic production.

In 2007 i was a part of one of his video installations called 'Consider' which is about the holocaust period, i played the the role of young girl with braids.
http://www.rkaleka.com/video_works.html



studying and understanding Installations artists has been great for the simple reason that i didn't know that there were so many different kinds of installations that are there. it's gotten me exposed to so may different artworks.
the reason why did not choose individual installations is because all the work is so fascinating and amazing that it's so hard to pick one and i feel looking at one art installation would be limiting myself. Also i feel that to understand an artist's work one installation isn't enough, so tried to cover as much as i could and try and get bring out the things in the class that make me like the artist.

Art process

WHAT IS AN ARTISTIC PROCESS:

Well, I really don’t know what an artistic process but when I think about it, I feel it’s subjective to every artist. It’s their way and style of working and growing as an artist. Its not just events from an artist’s life but it are the entire life. For me it’s the making of an artist.

As a child I would often get disappointed with my paintings and art works that I made, I would cry saying it doesn’t look perfect, and I can’t draw to make it look good. And this would bother me so much that I wouldn’t want to draw again. As I grew up I began to realise that it’s not always about the perfect picture. I often heard my parents talk to me and tell me how the process matters and the effort you put in, also how the art work evolves.

A recent incident that I can recall was when our graduation festival winter at Srishti was going on, I called my Father to tell him that some of the projects by the diploma students were very good some were not so great, and that’s when my father told me was that the project that you don’t like you are judging by the final piece but, that’s not what the it’s about its about the process. How you come to the final piece is what matters.

Now when I think about it, I feel the process is more important cause that’s were all the learning and research happens. While working we try out so many ways and out that we choose one. For example while making a painting on discovers ways and methods. A lot of time unexpected accidents happen. There is a lot that goes into making an artwork and that’s the process, which is what makes the art beautiful in a way. I feel the art process in itself is an art work, it’s like a journey.

We watched 2 films in class about two very famous artists, about their lives and artistic process, it helped me realise that it’s not so easy and it’s a forever-long journey. After watching the films about 2 very different artist lives, though both their genre is abstract expressionism; both the artists are poles apart in their work. First artist we saw was Mark Rothko who had a very different style of art but also a very different approach as compared to the second artist who was Jackson Pollock.

Rothko explored how forms could float in space, space being his canvas. Sometimes it appeared as if they were advancing towards you and sometimes as if they were quietly receding away from you. Rothko was extremely notoriously hermetic about his studio practices. He worked in isolation, Rothko layered zone over zone of paint in his work. On the other hand Jackson Pollock had a very different life, he discovered his style while working on an artwork. Pollock’s unconventional process and his organized, yet very chaotic patterns of splattered paint. It’s not just a splatter of paint as he has all control over were he drops the paint. Jackson Pollock lived a very extreme life with a lot of alcohol dependence. I don’t know if the kinds of lives and art process they had are the only way to make great art, but their lives where very extreme.  And when I look at both their works and know about their extreme art process I can relate to it and I feel both of these things; the art and the artistic process have to be looked in a context together and not in isolation. As the artist can’t exist without his art, same way the art can’t exist without an artistic process.
I don’t know what my artistic process is and what my style is which I’m still discovering and learning. But as a student of art I know the importance of an art process and I can say my artistic process is still in the making as I discover more of art and myself...

3 Movies.

Day 5

Movie marathon day we watched 3 different kind of art films, all the 3 films talked about 3 different kind of art processes.
First movie : In the Mood for Love.
the story was about man who is a journalist he shifts into an apartment where this woman lives who works in a shipping company. move in to neighbouring Hong Kong apartments they begin to  form a bond when they both suspect their spouses of extramarital activities.
Before we started watching our facilitator had told us to watch it with a  political outlook in our mind, and the film was about the political situation of Hong Kong.

my view: After watching the film i didn't really understand how it was about the political situation, but later in class when we discussed it started making sense.

2nd and 3rd movie.

The 2nd Movie was about the American Artist Rothko, the film was about his work and the artist process. the film also covered how his work changed over the years and also covered how he worked.
3RD movie was on Jackson Polluck's life and his artistic process, the film covered the growth of the artist.

I feel watching these films helped me understand what makes an artist. Both the movies invoked the phrase "The making of an artist"

later we were asked to write an essay on what artist process if for us.

Day 4

Our last week's discussing continued, we continued with 'what art is' we also discussed how Art is a relationship.
We started exploring different kinds of art practices, last week we learnt about performance art and performed as well, this week while we continued our discussion and a new question was raised- what is conceptual art?

So, our facilitator divided us into 3 groups and asked us to research about:
a) conceptual art
b) pop art
c) minimalism

During group research i realised these terms are not just about the genre of art, but how the particular genre has evolved with time. for example how minimalism was an art movement against art movement, but now its become a way of doing art where do art minimally, cause abstract art can be minimalistic. we also discussed how something minimal does not have to be simple but can combine to be complex.
After our class discussions we were asked to create conceptual art, pop art and abstract expressionism.

I got abstract expressionism, my group consisted of Nehal Vyas, Anahita Ganjoo and Priyank. so whatever we understood of abstract expressionism we tried to transfer that into our art piece, and to support that i we added a short note.

our work :

Concept note

This piece of art depicts the most common of the problems faced in life. Making decision based on the current situation. The husk can be seen as the state of our minds. Just like its texture, it’s chaotic and wavering.The shift in shadow depicts situations that we can contemplate. The wind can be seen as spontaneous events that spring up in our lives randomly. The combination of both these forces bring about a disturbance in our so-called ‘plans’. The empty spaces between the mud signify how void our plans feel retrospectively because we poured the mud in reference to the husk’s past position.