On Schedule

With summer over,the art aficionado has much to look forward to this August,with exciting shows on the city’s cultural fixture. Art Alive Gallery begins its season with an exhibition ‘Turn the Tables’,that opens on August 12 which brings together six contemporary artists. Tunty Chauhan of Gallery Threshold is back from her summer vacation and opens her gallery with a show titled ‘Small Format’ featuring sculptor Ved Gupta,on August 10. Gallery Ragini too,which organised some shows at restaurants during the dull summer months,will return to their Lado Sarai gallery with a performance-based exhibition by artist Siri Devi Khandavili,whose performance Get out of Debt opens on August 11.

“ We are opening with an unusual show by Ved,where he has scaled down his larger-than-life sculptures to small format works. The miniature sized figures create an illusion of physical magnitude,while their execution remains fine and detailed like a miniature painting,” says Chauhan. In his work Gupta has often critiqued the powerful and the corrupt by portraying them as mutated,dwarfed caricatures. The themes of gluttony,corruption,and oppression caused by unchecked power have been recurrent in his work. “Expression is central to the works and subjectivity is best brought out with minimal modeling. The incisive flat edges of the faces divulge the cunning nature of my characters,” says the 35-year-old Gupta.

Peter Nagy too returns with an exhibition,‘Spiral Jetty’,at his gallery Nature Morte,featuring Anita Dube,Puspamala N,Peter Schiff,Mithu Sen and Abhisekh Hazra from August 7.

The exhibition at Art Alive featuring artists Jignasha Ojha,Kartik Sood,Vipul Prajapathi,Uma Shankar Pathak,Meghansh Thapa and Sonam Jain will have interesting works on display. These works cut across a variety of themes within a mixed framework of contemporary and traditional techniques. Sonam Jain for instance,capitalises upon the potential of playing cards: her figures are card pop-outs and puppets. “Playing cards are a good metaphor for politics. My work talks of the hierarchy between the rulers and the oppressed. The kings and queen from the card pack are of course the rulers while the puppets are the common man,” says the 24-year-old,who lives in Ludhiana. On the other hand,Vipul Prajapati’s imagery is grounded in Communist ethos. “My works that are Marxist in nature,borrow from the Soviet poster culture. The themes are of work sites,dockyards and industrial labourers,” says Prajapati.