Multi-Media Artist Sana Arjumand Is a Leading Figure in the Current

PRESS RELEASE

Figure/Landscape – Part One Featuring works by M. F. Husain, George Keyt, Anjolie Ela Menon, Akbar Padamsee, Sudhir Patwardhan, Jehangir Sabavala, Sadequain, F. N. Souza, Jagdish Swaminathan and more

Aicon Gallery, New York: 28 October – 20 November 2010 Opening Reception: Thursday October 28, 6:00pm – 9:00pm

Throughout the course of modern Indian art, the dual themes of landscape and the figure, and the interaction between the two, have occupied Indian artists significantly more so than artists working in the Western modernist tradition. In part, this may be traced back to the reluctance by early practitioners of Indian modernism to commit totally to abstraction. Unlike their European counterparts, Indian artists such as M. F. Husain and F. N. Souza, among others, remained committed in their work to figurative references to both landscape and the individual, perhaps as an assertive method through which to impart a unique cultural identity to the their ongoing modernist experiments.

Partha Mitter has argued that the Industrial Revolution in the West, and the subsequent feelings of alienation and angst it bred amongst individuals, helped give rise to the radically distorted and fragmented techniques that became the hallmark of much of European modernism. However, Mitter argues that India, in the first part of the twentieth century at least, was still largely a non-industrial country with a certain level of socio-economic cohesion binding together much of the population. Mitter argues that it was this sense of shared cultural experience, already rapidly disintegrating in Western societies, that shaped the unique paths India’s early modern artists collectively began to explore. The figure of the common man or woman ensconced in a native landscape can then be understood as an articulation of an indigenous modernism, even while its artists continued to draw upon the aesthetics of the broader international discourse. Typical of such a practice is the artist Sudhir Patwardhan's aim, which he described as "to make figures that can become self- images for the people who are the subject of my work.” Or, as Geeta Kapur contends concerning this shared modernist drive in "Contemporary Indian Artists," "the sense of community belongs as much to the past as to the future."

This two-part exhibition, staged in New York and London, aims to explore this prevalence of the figurative in modern Indian art through the presentation of works from across the twentieth-century (and some from the current century). Landscape, the figure and the interplay between them are the pivot points for the project. Some works here appear almost as pure, albeit abstracted, landscapes while others are nearly entirely figurative. Yet a number of works show the figure dissolving into, or functioning almost as a constituent part of the landscape, bringing to light the complex and interdependent relationships that can arise between these two recurring motifs of Indian modernism. The artists in the show include F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, Jagdish Swaminathan, George Keyt, Jehangir Sabavala, Anjolie Ela Menon, Sudhir Patwardhan and Shyamal Dutta-Ray amongst others.

Part One of this exhibition runs in New York from 28 October – 20 November 2010. Part Two of this exhibition runs in London from 25 November – 8 January 2011 For all media inquiries, please contact us at (212) 725 6092 or [email protected]

28 October 2010 –20 November 2010 VIP Preview & Panel Discussion: Thursday October 28, 6pm – 7:30pm General Reception: Thursday October 28, 7:30pm – 9:00pm

M. F. Husain, Ritual of a River, Acrylic on canvas, 27.5 x 38

EXHIBITION CATALOG Debanjan Roy

Experiments with Truth

July 8 – August 1, 2009 New York EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH DEBANJAN ROY 9 JULY - AUGUST 1ST DEBANJAN ROY Debanjan Roy is engaged in an ongoing process to articulate the changing social realities of day-to-day India.

He has produced a series of works which take Gandhi ostensibly as their subject but this is a Gandhi who is seen holding or interacting with incommensurably contemporary objects; a cell-phone or an iPod for example. This incommensurability is at the heart of Roy’s project – how do we square India’s history with its present and its future?

Roy was born in 1975 and trained in Visual Arts at the Rabindra Bharti University, Santiniketan and subsequently at the same institution for his MA. He is part of a generation of artists who has witnessed India’s transformation into a nascent It has been noted before that Roy is using a hyper-real idiom global superpower and like many, is keen to with his hyper-real fiberglass sculptures to display a scene interrogate this process. Others of his generation that is surreal (Gandhi with a laptop for instance). It is use the signifiers of Indian domesticity (steel conceivable then that Roy is not offering any solution – utensils in Subodh Gupta’s work for example) he is not coming down on either the side of tradition or of in order to generate a dissonance between progress but instead is an agent provocateur, highlighting and material and statement. Roy uses the key figure spectacularising the gulfs which have opened up in India’s self- in 20th century Indian history – Gandhi is used definition. Is it possible to square the past with the future or has as a signifier of the history of India, a history some sort of seismic shift taken place, beneath our very noses, of resistance and self-emancipation. Roy’s leaving Gandhi, his wills and ideals, locked in a past that no-one language is pop – he is one of the few Indian knew had gone? artists operating at the moment whose visual idiom very deliberately reference Pop Art, with Roy has recently shown at art fairs around the world including his shiny repeated figures of Gandhi recalled Arco, Scope (New York) and Volta (Basel). He has had solo shows Oldenburg’s outsized signs of American culture at Gandhara Gallery, Kolkata and Birla Academy of Art and or Warhol’s repetition of American icons, most Culture, Kolkata. Group shows have included ‘Who Knew? Mr. obviously Marilyn Monroe. If Warhol’s repetition Gandhi’ and ‘Eastern Edge’ both at the Aicon Gallery; of Marilyn emptied out her face of its personal ‘New Wave of Bengal Art’ at Gallery Akar Prakar, qualities, mirroring perhaps the emptying Kolkata and ‘Tale of Two Cities’ at Birla Academy of Art processes of celebrity, then Roy’s repetition of and Culture, Kolkata and Mumbai. In 2000, Roy received Gandhi empties Gandhi of reverence. Instead he the Best Sculpture Award from the West Bengal State is seen posed in increasingly confused, yet happy academy and the previous year won the same award from poses – a large bird perches on his head in one the Rabindra Bharti University. of Roy’s works. Yet Roy seems to be ambivalent about what this process means – his use of ‘India NIRU RATNAM Shining’ repeatedly in his titles does not suggest a whole-hearted belief in the rhetoric of India’s The artist lives and works in Kolkata. Niru Ratnam is the Gallery Director at Aicon march to global superpower. Gallery London and a critic and curator of ultra-cotemporary art in his own right. INDIA SHINING 1 (GANDHI AND THE LAPTOP) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 27 x 46 x 30 in. • 2007 Edition of 5 INDIA SHINING 3 (GANDHI BUST WITH BIRD PECKING) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 25.5 x 17 x 11.5 in. • 2007 Edition of 5 INDIA SHINING 2 (GANDHI AND THE CELL PHONE) Fiberglass with acrylic paint, cotton fabric + cotton 27 x 46 x 30 in. • 2007 Edition of 5 UNTITLED 7 UNTITLED8 Acrylic on paper Acrylic on paper 14 x 11 in. • 2009 14 x 11 in. • 2009 INDIA SHINING 6 (GANDHI WALKING THE DOG) Fiberglass with acrylic paint Gandhi: 46 x 15 x 14 in. Dog: 11 x 18 x 7 in. • 2007 Edition of 5 INDIA SHINING 4 (GANDHI BUST WITH BIRD) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 26 x 17 x 11.5 in. • 2007 Edition of 5 CALENDAR 1 (BISHNU) CALENDAR 3 (RAVANA) Digital printing on archival paper Digital printing on archival paper 26.5 x 15 in. • 2009 26.5 x 15 in. • 2009 Edition 1/3 Edition 1/3

left CALENDAR 2 (DAS AVATAR) Digital printing on archival paper 31 x 23 in. • 2009 Edition 1/3 INDIA SHINING 8 (GANDHI SUPPORTED BY TWO) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 66 x 56 x 24 in. • 2009 Edition of 5 INDIA SHINING 7 (GANDHI SHARING IPOD) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 36 x 108 x 48 in. • 2009 Edition of 3 UNTITLED 3 UNTITLED 9 Acrylic on paper Acrylic on paper 14 x 11 in. • 2009 14 x 11 in. • 2009 INDIA SHINING 9 (GANDHI AT A CALL CENTER) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 44 x 95 x 38 in. • 2009 Edition of 3 INDIA SHINING 5 (GANDHI WITH IPOD) Fiberglass with acrylic paint 66 x 32 x 36 in. • 20098 Edition of 5

Bachelor of Visual Arts from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (1998) Master of Visual Arts from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata (2000)

2009 Experiments with Truth, Aicon Gallery, New York SELECT SOLO SHOWS 2007 Gandhara Gallery, Kolkata 2002 Sculpture solo, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata

2008 Who Knew? Mr. Gandhi, Aicon Gallery, London The Road to Contemporary Art, art fair, Rome 2007 Eastern Edge, Aicon Gallery, New York 2005 New Wave in Bengal Art, Gallery Akar Prokar 2004 Tale of Two Cities, Birla Academy, Kolkata and Mumbai SELECT GROUP SHOWS Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi 2003 Migration, City, Home, Lalit Kala Academy, Kolkata 2001 Japan Triennial born 1975 Award Winners Exhibition, HK Kejriwal Foundation, Bangalore 2000 West Bengal State Academy Annual Exhibition the artist lives and works in kolkata, india A.I.F.S Annual exhibition 1999-2000 Birla Academy of Art and Culture annual exhibition, Kolkata 1994-2000 Rabindra Bharati University annual exhibition, Kolkata

2004 Nirman Award 2002-2003 Lalit Kala Academy Scholarship. 2002-2004 Junior Fellowship from Ministry of Tourism and Culture Government of India AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS 2001 HK Kejriwal Foundation Young Artist Award 2000 Best Sculpture Award from West Bengal State Academy Best Sculpture Award from Rabindra Bharati University 1999 Best Sculpture Award from Rabindra Bharati University 1996 Certificate of Merit from Inter University Competition Aicon Gallery represents leading contemporary South Asian artists in Europe and America. It has collaborated with museums such as the Tate Britain and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Aicon is excited to have opened its new New York location in the Bowery in the Fall of 2008.

DESIGN AND LAYOUT VIvek Sahni, Amit Lata . Vivek Sahni Design, New Delhi, India

PRINTER Archana, New Delhi, India 35 Great Jones Street . New York . NY 10012 212-725-6092 . [email protected]

EXHIBITION CATALOG Raghu Rai

A Retrospective

January 22 – February 20, 2010 London a retrospective Aicon Gallery represents leading contemporary South Asian artists in a retrospective Europe and America. It has collaborated with museums such as the Tate Britain and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Aicon is excited to have opened its new New York location in the Bowery in the Fall of 2008.

DESIGN AND LAYOUT Vivek Sahni, Amit Lata . Vivek Sahni Design, New Delhi, India

PRINTER Archana, New Delhi, India

Niru Ratnam is the Gallery Director at Aicon Gallery London and has written numerous essays for contemporay art shows in London.

22n d j a n u a r y - 20t h f e b r u a r y a i c o n g a l l e r y . l o n d o n It’s a learning of the self and the world. As Henri Cartier to me the camera the inner vibrations of that space or person. Vibrations various photo albums of the Maharajas’ took us beyond Bresson once said when you close one eye to look come in gentle whispers, only in moments when your history and geography. Viewing them today is like sitting through the viewfinder, one eye looks at the world and is an instrument of mind is still and there is silence in you. What you reflect in your drawing-room now and experiencing the real the other eye looks inside you! As I learn about the life learning. when you look through your image has captured the physical reality with lives and continuing aura of some of those people and click by click, the desire at the end is to ingest everything its inner aura. spaces, the daily lives, the way that they were lived over a and realize it to the point without your consciousness through it, you start hundred and fifty years ago. Although a painting of that or spirit being colored by it. As all that you are in these achieving a kind of They say a good photograph is worth a thousand words. era could be as powerful, but experiencing the physical moments, gets reflected through your work – so you But thousand words can be a lot of noise. How about truth through a photograph of that time could be breath reflect as a clean mirror. concentration. in these some silence – a moment in space which is non- taking. And the response would be “Oh my God! That’s the concentrated moments negotiable. Stories have been told and retold in many way it used to be!” You could paint a face or situation even Photography at its best, goes far beyond the style of an different ways through words and photographs, but from the centuries gone by, and date it. But the fact is that individual; like the spirit – the soul and it need not always you can penetrate and silence happens rarely. a photograph of that era is truly the way it was - and, is in be explained. In course of my work, I find thatI have been discover the unseen - a way, still is. moving to focus on the changing equations of our times, About art for art’s sake or to debate whether photography trying to record the deeper universal human responses the unknown. is art, just as in early years photographers imitated Many of the precious treasures of our civilization - of to realities, to energy, to the spirit. I believe that the painters, similarly many artists world over have painted human relationships, values and simple interactions of photographer’s job is to cut a frame-sized slice out of the in photographic style. No point condemning individuals daily life are going through major changes. This is precisely world around him, so faithfully and honestly that if he using different creative media for different or personal what I am talking about, to bring man closer - face to face were to put it back again, life and the world would begin usages. But photography even at this young age has with human reality, quite unlike television screens where to move without a stumble. My goal now is not so much acquired a very specific and significant role to play images come and disappear as a flickering experience- about ‘good photography’; it is to go beyond acquired especially in this new Millennium and that role cannot but still-images are here to stay as an experience that is so styles and address life itself. be replaced by another art-form. powerful and a moment so potent that it is tangible.

In India as in the rest of the world we live in an age While launching a major photographic exhibition in the INDIA is, for me, the whole world, an ocean of life – of millions of ephemeral images. Thankfully, good 1950s, Family of Man, Edward Steichen made a famous churning day in day out! photograph can communicate deeper levels of human statement, “The purpose of photography is to explain man to experience; it can change one’s view of the world and man and to himself”. Powerful human documentation done It’s never the same again….at the same spot…. enhance the possibilities of another vision and awakening. by great masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson or American The electronic media marks our minds, several times a photographers Robert Frank and Lee Freedlander were Over the centuries, so much has melded into India, that day. The print media especially important magazines like the result of their own personal vision born out of their it’s not really one country, its not one culture. It is crowded the Time, Stern or The New Yorker have their own image personal experience- which is why they left such an with crosscurrents of many religions, beliefs, cultures and power. It is not so difficult to produce competent and indelible mark on the bulk of photography being practiced their practices that may appear incongruous. But India good photographs now and again. However the fire inside in the rest of the world. keeps alive the inner spirit of her own civilization with all you that makes you thirst, lies in digging deeper into the its contradictions. Here, several centuries have learnt to layers and complexities. To be able to experience, realize The British Raj brought photographers like Bourne and live side by side at the same time. And a good photograph and capture that moment of Man and Nature you have Shephard to India in the 1850s simultaneously when is lasting witness to that as photo history of our times. to be like a clean mirror that has the sensitivity and the photography started in Europe. And these individuals Being a multi-lingual, multi- cultured and multi- religious discipline of the medium to capture and reflect what is, began systematically to document the lives of important society, the images must speak these complexities through not to judge, but to let the situation speak for itself. We people and places in India. Photographers like Raja a multi- layered experience. capture reality, the truth - not only its physical aspect, but, Deen Dayal and many of their precious images from the Photography was born and brought up in the West where seniors spoke about capturing a moment in space which every one followed. And to raise the vision of this young and powerful medium, even Mother at Sri Aurobindo Ashram explained the purpose of PHOTOGRAPHY - “CAPTUREING THE TIME WE LIVE IN”. But the time we live in, is complex and multilayered –The experience of India is horizontal, it does not begin from any where, nor does it end any where. There comes a saturation point in art form, the overloading of expression shows it down – a moment in space is just not enough and a panoramic experience creates the possibility of capturing simultaneity of moments happening in any given situation. And it opens up much larger canvas to deal with. That’s what India is all about, where several centuries and several moments can live and vibrate through each other and beyond, that challenges the vision of the past and the only choice is to open up the understanding inside and the space out side. It’s the panoramic experience that allows me to photograph throbbing of several energies on one given canvas.

When the relevant and the irrelevant separate to merge again, the secret to capture the amalgam of so many lives lived in different times at times different meditations merge into one, and they gather in single space, simply a spontaneous collection of circumstances. I stand amid this human deluge trying to untangle the merging and emerging of various colours, the myriad hues of every emotion, set in motion by each charge and recharge. It’s an exploration into the unknown and unseen. It energizes and enriches itself…The restless and restful fluid their home in me…

The inadequate wishes I was four or five of me,I t’s life’s longing for itself that makes me go on…The emergence of the unseen and revelation of the unknown leaves me amazed!!!

The experience becomes a DARSHAN.

What a country of mine!! raghu rai Raghu Rai’s India teems with activity. Crowds of workers and other individuals go about their daily Lucknow’ (1992) the verticals of different elements all gently relate to each other: the because the street itself allows modernist photographers to explore what their cameras business in cities, streets, marketplaces, docks, fields and riverbanks. It would be easy to imagine that line of broken columns which head downhill, the brick wall that the first one leans are capable of: “Aesthetic transcendence is deemed to result from creating an integrated such crowds would be so radically heterogeneous that they would be uncontainable within one picture against, the man between the first column and the second broken column all echo aesthetic whole out of mere ‘stuff’….the street with its crowds and movement, unplanned plane - after all that is how India is popularly imagined. However, Rai’s works act to subtly frame the with each other and the two towers in the background. In ‘On A Train To Darjeeling’ development and diverse signage provides a privileged site for testing this conception.” reality in front of him and through that bring together the disparate elements contained within, into a (1995), the window of the bus provides a vertical zip between interior and exterior but Edwards goes onto argue that the street allowed modernist photographers to explore momentary, unified gaze. So for example, in ‘Ganapati Celebration’ (2001) we see a dense crowd who one that also reflects the exterior onto the interior creating a doubling of imagery. the specific characteristics of the medium of photography through the framing views are in the middle of their religious celebrations. People are absorbed in their own private moments of doorways, windows and street vistas, the fluidity of people’s movement through - that is, they are not a crowd who has one singular object of attention (say, as a crowd at a football Rai has repeatedly insisted on the documentary status of his works although I would space and the light effects that produce strong shadows. I would argue that it is match might have). They look in different directions and seem largely oblivious of each other. Yet the argue that he develops the documentary form in a unique way in response to his possible to extend this argument with regard to Rai; for not only does all of that apply composition and framing of the work brings this disparate mass of people together through visual immediate world. Through the twentieth century modernist photography in the in when Rai is photographing the street, it seems that the particularities of India associations. For example the arm of the woman in the foreground of the picture is bent across her West developed through its own experiments within the documentary mode. Henri such as the co-existence of the past alongside the present, the religious festivities chest, right-angled at her elbow, wrist cocked downwards slightly, gesturing in some way perhaps to Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans and André Kertész produced work that pushed the and rituals, the swarming, multifarious crowds all present visual phenomena are the woman next to her. This pose is both isolated but also linked to something else in the work for on idea of documentary far beyond the mere utilitarian or functional to the point where congruent with the experiments in form of modernist photography. But in Rai’s case closer viewing it visually rhymes with another pose in the work - that of four of the arms of the statue audiences of these works saw them as much more than simple copies of the world. I would argue that the key shift is that the ‘street’ is both internal to the work which that stands above the crowd, which point in a similar direction. This would feed through to later practitioners such as Robert Frank and Jeff Wall through its use of visual rhymes and echoes brings out unexpected congruities, but raghu rai’s india who coined the phrase the “art concept of photojournalism” (Jeff Wall, ‘Marks of also that the ‘street’ is present beyond the frame in the extended horizontal plane that niru ratnam An even more disparate crowd comprises the cast of ‘Traffic at Chawri Bazar, Delhi’ (1984). The scene Indifference”, p.248). However the key difference that Rai brings through his work to surrounds the works. In a sense there is what is going on inside the work, and also is filled with individuals going about their daily business; walking, riding horse-drawn carts, pushing that tradition is the sense of a multitude. Cartier-Bresson and Evans tended to work what can be assumed to be going on in the wider world outside the frame. This is trolleys piled high with various materials, cycling. They head in a variety of directions disappearing into in within relatively confined picture planes focusing on the details of the everyday. made manifest in a work like ‘Flower Market, Kolkata’, (2004) in the contrast between dot-sized heads in the very background of the picture at its upper edge. Again however, there is a subtle For Rai this would be impossible because his canvas is vast - India. Rai has talked the static figures and those moving through the market.T he figures that are static are framing or direction at work. Tracks made by the wheels of carriages form a series of vertical black lines about the experience of being immersed within India as being ‘horizontal’, without enmeshed within the work, whilst those who are a blur are part of the multitude that that head up the centre of the picture frame and act to orientate all the figures in the image. Some of beginning or end - thus even though he frames what is in front of him into a moment extends beyond the work. them head in a direction that is congruent to these tracks. Another set of people cross these tracks in that becomes the work, there is a strong implication in each work that life and the a perpendicular direction around three-quarters up the image; this set of people are clearly following multitude teem on beyond the frame. So even if his framing ties together what is in Rai extended the language of vernacular modernism by being immersed within another road; they form a horizontal plane to the vertical plane demarcated by the tracks. the work, it does not exclude what is outside that framing. When Rai talks of taking the greater whole of India - that in some ways is the only subject of his work. a slice out of space, he is articulating at this idea of taking one slice from many. His works attest to a multi-layered reality, where spatial frames jostle with each Rai himself would probably shy away from such formal readings of his works, having repeatedly stated Whilst that one slice becomes the work, it continually gestures beyond at the other other, where people’s own personal space is overlaid and invaded by other people’s that his works have an absolute faithfulness to life as he sees it in front of him, for example stating: moments that have a horizontal relationship to the work. At times what is exterior to space, where temporalities rub up against each other. In the work ‘Preparing for “When I slice out a space, a moment, it should be done with such simplicity and faithfulness that when I give the work makes an appearance; so for example in ‘Imambara, Lucknow’, and ‘The Day Durga Pooja, Kolkata’ (1999) a street outside erupts into the photography as a it back to life, life starts moving and flowing around it without a stutter.” This is no doubt the case, and Rai Before….Ayodhya 6 December 1992’ (1992), disembodied parts of bodies extend into parallel reality to the interior of the workshop or storage that forms the foreground is certainly working in the mode that can is often described as ‘documentary’. However, it is possible and disrupt the frame (legs in the former, an arm in the latter). of the work. As she rides on the handlebars of a cycle a young girl’s gaze directly to construct an argument that suggests that these moments of formal congruence occur in the ongoing back at the camera momentarily links these two parallel planes. Her gaze from flux of the world around us - it’s just that we don’t have the ability to freeze-frame the world and realise The academic Steve Edwards has argued in his essay ‘Vernacular Modernism’ the outside, inwards, is mirrored by the gaze of the statue in the foreground of that a woman’s arm might visually rhyme with the arm of a statue behind her, and that both are framed (published in ‘Varieties of Modernism’ edited by Paul Wood, Yale University Press in the work, also looking back at the viewer. It is these momentary connections under a dramatic, cloud-filled sky. India itself might be tumultuous, multivalent and polyphonic associate with the Open University, 2004) that street photography has been central through the disparate, through the multi-layered experience that is India, which Rai’s India is a series of moments where unexpected congruencies are made manifest. In ‘Imambara, to the programme of modernist photography. Edwards argues that this is in part Rai conveys in his unique body of work. Traffic At Chawri Bazar, Delhi 1964 • 20” x 30” Dust Storm Created by a VIP helicopter, Rajasthan 1975 • 20” x 54” Morning activities along Mullick Ghat, Kolkata 1990 • 20” x 30” Cows and Men Burning Ghat, Varanasi 2003 • 20” x 30” At Manikarnika Ghat, where Hindus burn their Dead, Varanasi 2004 • 20” x 54” Imambara, Lucknow 1992 • 20” x 30” Woman Cart Pusher, Delhi 1979 • 20” x 30” Wrestlers under Hawrah Bridge, Kolkata 2004 • 20” x 54” o N a T r a i n t o D a r j e e l i ng 1995 • 20” x 30” Monsoon Downpour in Delhi 1984 • 20” x 30” All eyes and ears for the leader at Chouranghee, Kolkata 2006 • 20” x 54” Stilled by the Rain, Gurgaon 2000 • 20” x 30” The day before…..Ayodhya 6 Dec. 1992 1992 • 20” x 30” Directing Traffic in Central Avenue, Kolkata 1990 • 20” x 54” B uld i ng H yd e r a b a d H i ghw a y 2004 • 20” x 30” Dockyard, Kolkata 1990 • 20” x 30” Turkman Gate, Delhi 2005 • 20” x 54” Flower Market, Kolkata 2004 • 20” x 30” Migratory Labourers, Kolkata 2005 • 20” x 30” Drum Players for Hire, Kolkata 2004 • 20” x 54” Artist Studio, Kolkata 2004 • 20” x 54” Preparing For Durga Pooja, Kolkata 1999 • 20” x 30” Ganpati Celebration, Mumbai 2001 • 20” x 30” Worshiping Ganga, Kolkata 2005 • 20” x 54” Evening prayer Jama Masjid, Delhi 1982 • 20” x 30” 2004 Exposure - Drik Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Leica Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic Born 1942, Jhhang (currently Pakistan) Glorious Harvest – Photographs from the Michael E. Hoffman Tribute Collection – philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA Over the span of nearly half a century Raghu Rai has won many national and international awards and accolades including being nominated 2003 Exposure: Portrait of a Corporate Crime - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA in 1971 by Henri Cartier Bresson to Magnum Photos. His solo exhibition has travelled worldwide and he has shown in London, Paris, Bhopal - Sala Consiliare, Venice, Italy; Photographic Gallery, Helsinki, Finland New York, Hamburg, Prague, Tokyo, Zurich and Sydney. His photo essays have appeared in many of the world’s leading magazines and body.city – New Perspectives from India – Haus der Kulturen de Welt, Berlin, Germany newspapers including “Time”, “Life”, “GEO”, “The New York Times”, “Sunday Times”, “Newsweek”, “The Independent,” and the “New Yorker”. 2002 volkart Foundation, Winterthur, Switzerland Raghu Rai currently lives and works in New Delhi. Collection AWARDS Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France 1992 photograph of the Year, USA 1971 padmashree Award, India Publications 2005 Mother Theresa: A Life of Dedication, Harry N. Abrams, USA Select Solo Exhibitions Romance of India, Timeless Books, India 2008 Raghu Rai: A Retrospective – National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India 2004 Indira Gandhi: A Living Legacy, Timeless Books, India Raghu Rai: A Retrospective – National Gallery of Modern Mumbai, India Exposure: Portrait Of A Corporate Crime, Greenpeace, Netherlands 2007 Maestros: Masters of Indian Classical Music, Bodhi Art Singapore, China 2003/04 Saint Mother: A Life Dedicated, Timeless Books, India; Just by the Way – Tasveer, New Delhi, India (Mère Teresa), La Martinière, France Just by the Way – Tasveer, Mumbai, India 2002 Bhopal Gas Tragedy (with Suroopa Mukherjee), Tulika Publishers, India Earthscapes – Bodhi Art Singapore, China 2001 raghu Rai’s India - A Retrospective, Asahi Shimbun, Japan 2006 Raghu Rai – Tasveer, Kolkata, India 2000 Lakshadweep, UT of Lakshadweep, India Just by the Way – Tasveer, Bangalor, India Raghu Rai... in his Own Words, Roli Books, India Earthscapes – Bodhi Art Mumbai, India 1998 Man, Metal and Steel, Steel Authority of India, Ltd., India 2002 Raghu Rai’s India - A Retrospective – Photofusion, London, UK 1997 My Land and Its People, Vadehra Gallery, India Raghu Rai – Sala EFTI, Escuela de Fotografia, Centro de Imagen, Madrid 1996 Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work or Mother Teresa, Element Books, USA 2001 Raghu Rai’s INDIA – Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan 1996/01 Dreams of India, Times Editions, Singapore/Greenwich, UK 1999 La India – Centro de le Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico 1994 Raghu Rai’s Delhi, Indus/Harper Collins, India 1997 Retrospective - National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India 1991 Khajuraho, Time Books International, India 1990/91 Tibet in Esilio, Mondadori, Italy; (Tibet in Exile), Chronicle Books, USA Select Group Exhibitions 1990 Delhi and Agra (with Lai Kwok Kin and Nitin Rai), Hunter Publications, Inc., USA 2008 The Photograph: Painted, Posted and of the Moment – 1989 Calcutta, Time Books International, India National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, and New Delhi, India 1988 Dreams of India, Time Books International, Singapore; (L’Inde), Arthaud, France Magnum – 60 Years of Photography – Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1986/87 Taj Mahal, Times Editions, Singapore; Robert Laffont, France; Rizzoli Publications, USA 2007 Lens – Bodhi Art Singapore, Singapore, China 1985 Indira Gandhi (with Pupul Jayakar), Lustre Press, India India – Public Spaces, Private Spaces – The Newark Museum, Newark, USA 1984 The Sikhs, Lustre Press, India 2005 India - Musei Capitolini Centrale Montemartini, Rome, Italy 1983 Delhi: A Portrait, Delhi Tourist Development Corporation/Oxford University Press, India/UK 2005 Bhopal 1984 – 2004 - Melkweg Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1974 A Day in the life of Indira Gandhi, Nachiketa Publications, India Vision Aicon Gallery’s curatorial vision begins in India but reaches outwards internationally from there. The two gallery spaces are located in New York and London, and each provides a vital platform for artists based in the Indian Subcontinent to exhibit in the United States and Europe. Alongside in-depth, focused solo shows the galleries present a programme of curated group exhibitions that are international in their scope and ambition. Following recent debates in institutional curating, the programme deliberately thinks together art produced very recently and art made through the latter half of the 20th century. Through this we aim to produce unexpected congruencies, shed light on other modernities, make complex the designation ‘contemporary’ and signal a shift away from simple survey exhibitions. In short, Aicon Gallery presents recent and contemporary art from India and beyond.

History Aicon Gallery was developed from Gallery ArtsIndia, which was one of the first major outlets in the United State for art from India. Initially Gallery ArtsIndia connected collectors, critics and curators to artists in India via an on-line platform, and after the initial positive feedback, opened as a gallery space in New York in 2002. Aicon Gallery was launched when our second major space opened in London in 2007. The New York space shifted location to its new premises in the Lower East Side in 2008.

Ongoing Programme Aicon is programming through 2010 and 2011 with solo and group exhibitions taking place in both New York and London. Aicon draws upon the academic interests of its curatorial staff whose specializations in subjects including globalization, identity, environmentalism, international politics and postcolonialism often feed into programming. We look forward to expanding our programming into ambitious external projects to complement the ongoing gallery shows. NEW YORK PALO ALTO LONDON 35 Great Jones Street 535 Bryant Street 8 Heddon Street New York NY 10012 Palo Alto CA 94301 London W1B 4BU T: 212-725-6092 T: 650.321.4900 T: +44 20.7734.7575 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected]

EXHIBITION CATALOG Sana Arjumand

‘Let’s Fly First Class!’

May 27 – June 14, 2010 New York

Design and Layout

Printer Let’s Fly First Class Sana Arjumand “That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?” (Life of Pi) Yann Martel

The work of art, like dream, in its nature is a mode of transportation. It moves a viewer from one place to other, without shifting him physically or changing his environment. While looking at a painting, reading a book, watching a movie or listening to a piece of music, a person is transposed from his actual background into another realm: to the world of ideas, imagination, inspirations, aspiration and fantasy.

A number of means, methods and mediums are available to facilitate this flight of fancy. Artists often employ a language that due to its unusualness compels the viewer to abandon his conventions, conditions and constraints, and to start looking and locating new realities, even though those are fabricated from familiar. Sana Arjumand has been using a similar formal vocabulary in order to convert her immediate reality into an idea – perhaps the lasting entity.

Reality in the work of Arjumand is spread out in multiple directions and dimensions. Hence in the context of her work, there ceases to be a singular definition or description of what is real. In fact the notion of real constantly – and consequently is being modified with each new work, since the technique, sensibility and pictorial order of each work suggest the change of approach and a persistent urge of investigation.

Through her new body of work, Arjumand has addressed, questioned and challenged the concepts of nationalism, fundamentalism, high art, craft and the act of stereotyping a society and individual. References to Pakistan’s national flag (as the silk cover of an automobile, or parts of it in a lantern/light) indicate the artist’s inquiry in the usage of symbols in a grand setting as well as on plebeian arena. For instance the practice of driving through a busy road in an official vehicle is not dissimilar to the journey of speedy bus or truck painted with some national forms, as both take their passengers away from the crowd. Hence if the flag in one case is utilized for the purpose of state, its elements are opened, rearranged and are included in some other popular, utilitarian and usual items, may those are on the road, or in the hands of a girl in the form of a lantern. Probably this contrast of patriotism can be read as a critique on the construct too. But both versions/voyages, besides being actual, represent a world of fantasy, which in our context merges into fanaticism as well. . .

FLIGHTS OF FANCY Sana Arjumand deals with this aspect, of fantasy turning into fanaticism, in her immaculately executed works; by drawing delinquent characters that represent a primitive element/force in our surroundings. Men with beards, shaven heads and long shirts, are rendered from observation of certain models/human beings, but in their pictorial essence these allude to the basic phenomenon of perception. The outlines of aeroplanes (resembling to circling birds, because of their directions and numbers) whether next to the figure or insides his dress – with other elements of landscape – denote the nature of seeing, in which the viewer can not be detached form the subject of view. Hence what is observed is not a view, but a point of view, as all contradictions and contrasts lie within the beholder.

So the characters, characteristics, concerns and conflicts, from within and about outside, are visible in Sana’s work, yet her tone is private, poetic and lyrical. Symbols in her work extend the meaning of her subject/theme, such as the recurring motif of aeroplane, extensively used in the background of figures, as independent shapes and sculptural pieces; indicate something important, significant and urgent for the narrative of this age. Mainly because after the attacks on Twin Towers, the connotations of an aircraft, regardless if it is a passenger carrier or a fighter jet, are connected to a new world, altered after/with the 9/11. Hence the outline of a plane dominates several works, along with emerging into a main motif in a work, where it serves to take the viewer into incredible destinies.

In fact Sana, in her approach towards the issues of our times, treats them in a personal, unique and humorous manner. Two aeroplanes so near to each other as if kissing, or flying on the pattern of love sign/diagram depict an impossibility in physical terms, but at the same instance allude to a probability – if one considers the two carriers of people, as the symbols and transporters of ideas, especially in this century, which is associated (or started) with the clash of civilizations. The duality of two fighter planes is repeated in other works too, with double portraits of the same person, or juxtaposition of a child with a grown up figure, that seems partly human, partly made of plantations and national icons.

With its blend of formal issues and conceptual tissues, painterly surfaces and graphic elements, peculiar references and popular preferences, the art of Sana Arjumand is a treatise of its times. Yet like any other work of art, it transcends its age, region, spectators and maker, in order to remain an entity to be explored freely, frequently – but not perfectly or finally. Thank God! Quddus Mirza 2010 Massive Human Search 1 2010 Oil on Canvas 54 x 42 inches

Massive Human Search 2 2010 Oil on Canvas 54 x 42 inches

Massive Human Search 3 2010 Oil on Canvas 54 x 42 inches

Then their shadows fell from the sky 1 2010 Ink, Acrylics and tea stains on Canvas 36 x 36 inches

Then their shadows fell from the sky 2 2010 Ink, Acrylics and tea stains on Canvas 60 x 60 inches

Then their shadows fell from the sky 3 2010 Ink, Acrylics and tea stains on Canvas 36 x 36 inches

In the Play Ground-(Dialogue) 2010 Acrylic wash and Oil on Canvas 36 x 48 inches

In the Play Ground-(Nurture) 2010 Acrylic wash and Oil on Canvas 48 x 36 inches

In the Play Ground-(Voyage) 2010 Acrylics, Inks, Tea Stains and Oil on Canvas 48 x 48 inches

A hundred thousand years of growing beard 1 2009 Coffee, Inks, Acrylics on Mylar Film 24 x 36 inches

Bureau Car 2010 Oil on Canvas 60 x 120 inches

Mairaj 1 2010 Digital Print on Canvas 30 x 45 inches Mairaj 2 2010 Digital Print on Canvas 30 x 45 inches Let’s give each other space 5 2009 Mono Print 30 x 22 inches Let’s give each other space 6 2009 Mono Print 30 x 22 inches Let’s give each other space 7 2009 Mono Print 30 x 22 inches

Boom Boom Pow 2009 Acrylics on Silver Printed Paper 6 x 8 inches

SANA ARJUMAND www.sanaarjumand.com [email protected]

Born, 1982 in Karachi, Pakistan. Graduated in Fine Arts from the National Apr Group exhibition, “Drawings of the Soul”, at university of College of Arts in 2005. Sunderland, U.K. Mar Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. 2010 National exhibition organized by Artists Association of Punjab. May Solo show, “Lets Fly First Class”, Aicon Gallery, New York, USA. Apr Group show, “Once Upon a Wonderland”, Exhibit 320, New 2006 Delhi, India. Oct Group show, Nomad art gallery, Islamabad. Apr RM Residency (International) Exhibition, Ejaz art galleries, Jun Group show, VM art gallery, Rangoon Wala centre art gallery, Lahore, Pakistan. Karachi. Mar Artist in Residence at RM Residency (International), Lahore, May Group exhibition of paintings, Khaas art gallery, Islamabad. Pakistan. Mar Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. Mar “ Across the Frontier”, Apparao galleries, Delhi, India. Feb Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. Organized by Young Artists Association, Punjab. 2009 Lecturer at Pakistan National Council of the Arts, Islamabad, in Sep “Redo Pakistan” - Flux festival, London, UK. Marjorie Husain’s workshop. Aug Indian Art Summit, Delhi, India. Jul Artist in Residence at “Art Omi”, New York, USA. Selected publications and reviews May Group show “Celebrating Karachi”. May Group show “Tales of the City” – National College of Arts, 2009 Rawalpindi, Pakistan. “Operating above the law”, Fatima Bhutto, Art Asia Pacific, November – Apr Redo Pakistan- “Shanakht” festival, Karachi, Pakistan. December issue. Apr Group show “Honor killing”, at PNCA (Pakistan National Council “Art for the Masses”, Aarti Dua, The Telegraph, Calcutta, India- August of the Arts). 29th. Mar Group show, “Going Places”, at Canvas Gallery Karachi, Pakistan. Mar Dubai Art Fair – Aicon gallery booth, UAE. 2008 “Passage from India”, Farah Rahim Ismail, Art Quarter Combined, Christies 2008 Art Fund. Dec Group Show, “As it seems - or as far as the eye can see”, at ''Contemporary Pakistan'', Honolulu Advertiser, 4th May. National College of Arts, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. “Mumbai to Manhattan”, Art Dubai, Canvas Magazine supplement, Nov Solo Show, “Bold and the Beautiful“ Canvas gallery, Karachi. 2008, March. Oct Solo Show, Gallery 6, Islamabad. “Realism Today”, Salwat Ali, Dawn Gallery, November 15, 2008. May Hong Kong Art Fair, Aicon gallery booth. “Feeling for Flag”, Quddus Mirza, The news, November 16, 2008. Apr Group exhibition, East West Centre, Honolulu, Hawaii. Apr Group exhibition, Alhamra National Council of the Arts, Lahore. 2007 National exhibition organized by Artists Association of Punjab. ''Under the Gun'', Carla Power, Time Magazine, December 17, 2007. Mar Dubai Art Fair 2008. Aicon gallery booth. ''Going Places'', Salwat Ali, Dawn Gallery, December 1, 2007. ''Emerging artists exhibit Pakistani art in Jordan'', Shahina Maqbool, The 2007 News, August 31 2007. Nov Group exhibition, “Figurative Art, Pakistan”, at Aicon Gallery, ''Faces and Places'', Mike Derderian, The Jordanian Star, August 30, 2007. London. ''A Catalogue of Surprises'', Anwer Mooraj, The Herald, February, 2007. Oct Group exhibition, “Lantern of the East”. 17th Pyeomg Paek international art festival. Nake art museum. Korea. 2006 Aug Two person show, “361 hours of dialogue”, at Broad way ''A perspective of contemporary paintings, prints and sculptures in Pakistan Gallery, Amman, Jordan. 1987-2006'' by VM art gallery, M.M printers, Karachi 2006. Vision Aicon Gallery’s curatorial vision begins in India but reaches outwards internationally from there. The two gallery spaces are located in New York and London, and each provides a vital platform for artists based in the Indian Subcontinent to exhibit in the United States and Europe. Alongside in-depth, focused solo shows the galleries present a programme of curated group exhibitions that are international in their scope and ambition. Following recent debates in institutional curating, the programme deliberately thinks together art produced very recently and art made through the latter half of the 20th century. Through this we aim to produce unexpected congruencies, shed light on other modernities, make complex the designation ‘contemporary’ and signal a shift away from simple survey exhibitions. In short, Aicon Gallery presents recent and contemporary art from India and beyond.

History Aicon Gallery was developed from Gallery ArtsIndia, which was one of the first major outlets in the United State for art from India. Initially Gallery ArtsIndia connected collectors, critics and curators to artists in India via an on-line platform, and after the initial positive feedback, opened as a gallery space in New York in 2002. Aicon Gallery was launched when our second major space opened in London in 2007. The New York space shifted location to its new premises in the Lower East Side in 2008.