Monthly Archives: December 2015

This

Picture This, Gauri Gill, PMARevanti, 2003 (negative); 2015 (print). Gauri Gill, Indian, born 1970. Inkjet print, Image: 62 13/16 × 42 inches

Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India

December 2015 – April 3, 2016

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting the work of four contemporary photographers whose visions of India blend keen social observation with emotional insight, beauty, and imagination. Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India focuses on Gauri Gill, Sunil Gupta, Max Pinckers, and Pamela Singh. This exhibition features sensitive portraits and self-portraits; landscape photographs dealing with identity, family history, and the notion of a homeland; and a unique body of work mixing a documentary inquiry into love with the fantasy and spectacle of Bollywood film—all on view for the first time in Philadelphia. The artists share a cosmopolitan approach to the world, picturing India from multifaceted perspectives that often blur such categories as “insider” and “outsider.” They are also united by a creative approach to the documentary capacities of the photographic medium.

Picture This, Gauri Gill, PMASunita, Sita, and Nirmala, 2003. Gauri Gill, Indian, born 1970. Inkjet print, Sheet: 28 × 42 inches

Gauri Gill is represented by images from her Balika Mela series, in which she combines traditions of popular and fine-art portraiture with an awareness of photography’s historical role in ethnographic documentation and exotic stereotyping. Asked to “do something with photography” at a fair for girls in rural Rajasthan, the artist set up a makeshift studio and invited fair-goers to have their portraits made. The subjects of Gill’s photographs mix improvised demonstrations of personality and friendship with gestures and poses drawn from local visual culture and popular media. Above all, the girls embrace the unusual opportunity to decide how they will be seen—not only within their own communities, but also by audiences beyond.

Picture This, Sunil GuptaUntitled, 20062011 (negative); 2015 (print). Sunil Gupta, Canadian (born India), active London and Delhi, born 1953. Inkjet print, Image: 17 7/8 × 22 inches

Sunil Gupta is an artist-activist. Since the 1970s, he has explored the politics and experience of gay life in terms of his own identity as an HIV-positive Indian man living and working between Canada, the US, England, and India. He is represented by unflinching images from the beginning of his career, including the 1976 Christopher Street series shot in New York’s West Village, to an ongoing series, originating in 2006, dealing with Gupta’s contradictory emotions around his family’s ancestral village and the death of his father.

Picture This, Pamela Singh, PMATreasure Map 006, 19941995 (negative); 2015 (print and painting). Pamela Singh, Indian, born 1962. Inkjet print, hand painted, Image: 5 1/4 × 8 inches

Pamela Singh turned to photography as an expressive medium after many years as a photojournalist. Featuring her own body in photographs of the social landscape of the Old City of Jaipur, she imbues the images with psychic depth, placing her cosmopolitanism in dialogue with nostalgia for community. These works raise questions about what it means to look and to be looked at across social boundaries. Singh’s use of paint to embellish the surface of her images also connects them with traditions of Indian miniature painting, as well as with the historical practice of painting on photographs. In the Tantric Self-Portrait series, her application of gold, vermillion, and mud further invests the photographs with personal spiritual meaning.

Picture This, Pamela Singh, PMAThe Lorry Driver, 19941995 (negative); 2014 (print). Pamela Singh, Indian, born 1962. Gelatin silver print, Image: 6 × 9 inches

Picture This, Max Pinckers, PMAZindagi, 2014. Max Pinckers, Belgian, born 1988. Inkjet print, Sheet: 42 15/16 × 52 3/8 inches

Max Pinckers, who was raised primarily in South and Southeast Asia, is represented by a body of work titled Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty (2014). The project weaves photojournalistic images with staged scenes that draw on the romantic plots and glitzy look of Bollywood films, magazine and newspaper clippings, and photographs of ephemeral sculptures created in the streets of Mumbai. It also documents love and marriage in India and explores the ways in which photographs can tell the truth about complex subject matter. Using the photobook as a primary format, Pinckers weaves these pictures into a loose narrative that becomes a tapestry of facts and perceptions.

Picture This, Max Pinckers, PMAPaper Planes, 2014. Max Pinckers, Belgian, born 1988. Inkjet print, Sheet: 21 1/4 × 26 inches

Nathaniel M. Stein, the Museum’s Horace W. Goldsmith Curatorial Fellow in Photography, stated: “Like many contemporary photographers, the artists featured in this exhibition use the documentary capacities of the medium imaginatively. They pose questions about identity, self-representation, and truth. They also explore the role of photographic images in modern society, and they envision social experiences such as desire, dislocation, and love. In doing so, these photographers are connecting a culturally specific engagement with India to themes and strategies that are central to contemporary artists across the globe.”

About the artists

Gauri Gill (b. 1970, Chandigarh, India) is based in New Delhi. She received a BFA in Applied Art at the Delhi College of Art, New Delhi; and a BFA in Photography at the Parsons School of Design, New York; and an MFA in Art at Stanford University in California. In addition to maintaining a robust international exhibition schedule, she works extensively with local communities in India, using photography as a means to effect social change. Gill is a coeditor (with Sunil Gupta and Radhika Singh) of the Delhi-based photography journal, Camerawork. In 2011 she was awarded the Grange Prize, Canada’s foremost award for photography.

Sunil Gupta (Canadian, b. 1953, New Delhi, India) is among India’s best-known living photographers. He is an artist, writer, activist, and curator who lives and works in London and Delhi. Gupta’s work has been presented in over ninety international solo and group exhibitions. Educated at Concordia University, Montreal; The New School for Social Research, New York; and the Royal College of Art, London, his publications include three monographs Pictures From Here (2003), Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life (2008), and Queer: Sunil Gupta (2011).

Max Pinckers (b. 1988, Brussels, Belgium) received his BA and MFA in photography from the School of Arts at University College, Ghent, where he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the fine arts. Based in Brussels, Pinckers was raised in Indonesia, Australia, Belgium, India, and Singapore and has worked extensively in Thailand, India, and Africa. In 2015 he was selected as a Nominee Member of Magnum Photos. His publications include The Fourth Wall (2012) and Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty (2014). Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India is his first exhibition in an American museum.

Pamela Singh (b. 1962, New Delhi, India) trained at the Parsons School of Design, New York; the American College, Paris; and the International Center for Photography, New York. During the 1990s Singh worked as a photojournalist in communities, disaster areas, and conflict zones around the world, publishing in venues such as Newsweek, Paris Match, The Sunday Times (London), and The Washington Post. In 1997 her work was included in the major touring exhibition India: A Celebration of Independence, 1947–1997, organized by Aperture and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. By 2000 Singh shifted her attention away from photojournalism and has since exhibited internationally.

Curator

Nathaniel M. Stein, Horace W. Goldsmith Curatorial Fellow in Photography

Location

Julien Levy Gallery, Perelman Building

Exhibition hours

Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Social Media

Facebook and Twitter: philamuseum; Tumblr: philamuseum; YouTube: PhilaArtMuseum; Instagram: @philamuseum

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is Philadelphia’s art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.

Thank you to The Philadelphia Museum of Art for the content of this post.

Read DoN‘s review of Sunil Gupta‘s photography at DoNArTNeWs

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India

Drawn from Courtly IndiaTwo Archers, c. 17101720, India (Rajasthan, Sawar), Brush and black ink, watercolor, and opaque watercolor on beige paper, mounted on paper, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, purchased with the Stella Kramrisch Fund for Indian and Himalayan Art, 2013

Drawn from Courtly India: The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition of rare and masterful drawings created in the workshops of royal Indian courts over the course of four centuries. Drawn from Courtly India: The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection features a wide range of sketches, preparatory studies, and compositional drawings that vividly depict mythological themes, verdant landscapes and architectural settings, portraits of prominent rulers, and scenes from the lives of Indian nobility. The Museum acquired these important works in 2013, many as a gift, and is presenting the collection in this exhibition for the first time.

india3Portrait of a Seated Ruler Dressed for Ritual Practice, c. 1740, India (Rajasthan, Kishangarh), Brush and black ink and watercolor over charcoal with corrections by the artist in white opaque watercolor on beige laid paper on decorative mount, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, 2013

While Indian paintings have long been sought after by museums and individual collectors, there has been only a limited interest in drawings. Yet drawings may be wonderful works of art in their own right, yielding a remarkable amount of information about workshop practices and artistic process. Conley Harris, a landscape painter, and the late Howard Truelove, an architectural designer, shared a passion for drawing. They began collecting Indian drawings after being inspired by their travels throughout that country. The collection they assembled over the course of more than a decade provides new insights into the artistic practices of the royal workshops that developed over generations, and offers fresh perspectives on Indian painting. Many of the works to which these collectors were drawn were created during the eighteenth century in the Hindu courts of western India and the Himalayan foothills, an area including the present-day states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu-Kashmir.

india2A Prince and Courtiers in a Garden, c. 17201730, India (Rajasthan, Jodhpur), Brush and brown ink, metallic gold and silver paints, and opaque watercolor over traces of charcoal on beige laid paper,The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, 2013

Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO, stated: “The ongoing development of the Museum’s collection has always represented our partnership with great collectors who have been as passionate as we are about sharing with everyone the finest works of art. In this regard we are especially fortunate to have acquired the marvelous collection assembled by Conley Harris and Howard Truelove, and we are enormously grateful to the collectors. This collection adds a new and important dimension to our holdings of Indian art, which is one of the most important in the country. It also enables us to bring to a broader audience this fascinating and delightful aspect of South Asia’s artistic heritage.”

The first section of the exhibition features a group of finished drawings and explores the relationship between court artists and their royal patrons. A second focuses on the innovative workshop process, examining how artists developed and revised drawings through techniques such as white wash corrections, color notations, and pouncing. The drawings in this section highlight not only the artists’ adept handling of the medium, they will also testify to the collaboration of artists employed within a hierarchical workshop structure, demonstrating how skills were conveyed from master to apprentice. A third section, dedicated to the key moment when brush first meets paper, calls attention to the expressive power of the expert brushstroke. The fourth and final section of the exhibition invites visitors to respond to the works on display by creating their own drawings using workshop techniques.

india1Raj Singh of Sawar with a Standing Courtier, c. 17101720, India (Rajasthan, Sawar), Brush and black ink with white opaque watercolor on beige paper, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, 2013

The exhibition is organized by Ainsley M. Cameron, the Museum’s Ira Brind and Stacey Spector Assistant Curator of South Asian Art. She stated: “These works offer new ways of looking and thinking about Indian courtly drawing. People tend to approach the study of paintings or drawings from the perspective of the patron because so many of the artists’ names are unknown, but we are exploring the perspective of the artist, as maker—the gesture of an artist’s hand, the spontaneity of line, and the process through which ideas are born.”

Drawn from Courtly IndiaBattle Scene with Demons, c. 1740, Attributed to Manaku of Guler, India (Himachal Pradesh, Guler), Brush and black ink over charcoal with pen and red ink ruled line around perimeter on beige paper, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, purchased with the Stella Kramrisch Fund for Indian and Himalayan Art, 2013

Publication: Drawn from Courtly India: The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection

ISBN: 9780876332696

This volume presents the first in-depth survey of the Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian drawings (160 pps., 185 color illustrations; $35) and is co-published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Yale University Press, supported by a grant from Conley Harris. Comprised largely of works from the royal courts of North India, the 65 drawings in this collection, recently acquired by the Museum, were created between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries and have never before been published. The majority of these drawings were preparatory models for the colorful paintings created by Indian court artists that have been widely collected and studied throughout the world. The major essay is written by Ainsley M. Cameron and uses the collection to survey the genre and explore the overarching themes of Indian drawing. Darielle Mason, the Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, introduces us to the collectors. In total, this catalogue highlights the assured draftsmanship of Indian artists, recognizes these drawings as consummate works of art in their own right, and celebrates the art of drawing.

Drawn from Courtly IndiaA Nobleman and His Family in a Pavilion, c. 1790, India (Himachal Pradesh, Kangra), Brush and black and red inks, watercolor, and opaque watercolor with corrections by the artist in white opaque watercolor on beige paper, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, purchased with the Stella Kramrisch Fund for Indian and Himalayan Art, 2013

Support

Support for this exhibition is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions. The publication is also generously supported by Conley Harris.

About Conley Harris and Howard Truelove

Based in Boston, artist Conley Harris (born 1945) is a former faculty member of the department of art and art history at the University of New Hampshire. Harris is known for his lyrical landscapes of New England and the American West. Howard Truelove (1946–2012) was an architectural designer and vice president of design at the firm KlingStubbins in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His interior-design work ranged from public spaces in major office buildings to universities and museums. Harris often uses works in their collection as a source of inspiration, creating paintings that not only absorb motifs from South Asian and Persian miniature paintings, but also play with the idea of multiple layers, the palimpsest found in artists’ working sketches and so creatively reinterpreting the historical drawings for a new generation.

Drawn from Courtly IndiaMen Falling from Their Rearing Horses, c. 1790, India (Himachal Pradesh, Guler), Brush and black ink over charcoal on beige laid paper, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Conley Harris and Howard Truelove Collection of Indian Drawings, purchased with the Stella Kramrisch Fund for Indian and Himalayan Art, 2013

Curator

Ainsley M. Cameron, The Ira Brind and Stacey Spector Assistant Curator of South Asian Art

Location

Special Exhibitions Gallery, first floor, Perelman Building

Exhibition hours

Tuesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays until 8:45 p.m.

Exhibition tour dates

Philadelphia Museum of Art, December 6, 2015–March 27, 2016

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, November 2016–March 2017

Drawn from Courtly India

Social Media Facebook and Twitter: philamuseum; Tumblr: philamuseum; YouTube: PhilaArtMuseum; Instagram: @philamuseum

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is Philadelphia’s art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.

Thank you to The Philadelphia Museum of Art for the content of this post.

Read the press release for Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India at DoNArTNeWs

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Mannequin

Mannequin, Laura StorckLauraquin, Laura Storck and Addison Geary, Mannequin at Da Vinci Art Alliance

Mannequin: A Group Photography Exhibition At Da Vinci Art Alliance – Opening January 6th

(Philadelphia, PA December 15th, 2015) Da Vinci Art Alliance, 704 Catharine  Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 invites the public to Mannequin: A Group Photography Exhibition January 6th – 31st. Regular gallery hours for this exhibition will be Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:00PM,Saturdays and Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00PM with an opening reception on January 6th from 6:00 – 9:00PM.

This exhibition shows the collective work of 30 Philadelphia-area photographers, each who share their own unique viewpoint of mannequins and their roles as life size models. The zany appeal of these articulated dolls prove both attractive and disconcerting at the same time; mysterious yet strangely familiar. This interesting dichotomy is being explored and interpreted through the vision of each artists’ lens.

“As this project has unfolded, I’ve come to observe and photograph mannequins of several different configurations, located in windows and within merchandizing displays,” says curator Laura Storck.

Mannequin, Laura StorckChelseaquin by Laura StorckMannequin: A Group Photography Exhibition at Da Vinci Art Alliance

“These models can vary demographically by neighborhood – even though the stores could be selling essentially the same product, each has a unique style and ambience which is reflected in their mannequins – the pose, color, and choice of whether or not to use a realistic face versus abstract, or even headless versions. The more expensive the clothing, the more rich-looking the mannequin seems. Mannequins in windows tend to have faces and are more eye catching, whereas those within the retail environment appear utilitarian. These silent salespeople were held in high regard during the surrealism movement of the early 20th century, as these objects blurred the lines between animate and inanimate, human and machine, the sexualized and the sexless, and ultimately life and death.”

Mannequin, Ed SnyderMannequin at Da Vinci Art Alliance, Ed Snyder, Heads

Written by Laura Storck

View more of Laura Storck’s work on Instagram @laurastorck under #philly_mannequins.

ABOUT DA VINCI ART ALLIANCEDa Vinci Art Alliance is a public, non-profit!501(c)(3) artists’ organization located in South Philadelphia. The organization was founded in 1931 to serve the needs of professional artists and artisans in the Delaware Valley. Da Vinci currently has over 140 members and is supported through membership dues, gallery/studio rentals, sales commissions, grants, and donations. It holds exhibitions of members’ and nonmembers’ artwork as well as special events, workshops, performances, poetry readings, and lectures. The mission of the non-profit artists-run organization is to support its members and to further community-based arts, cultural, and educational exchanges.

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Man

Man Ray, Artsy.netMan Ray, Mona Lisa as seen by Duchamp (“La Joconde” vue par Duchamp), gelatin silver print, 6 3/5 ” x 4 1/10″, 1921-22,  Artsy.net

Man Ray was born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. in 1890. Born Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp on July 28, 1887 in Upper Normandy region of France, the grandson of a painter, Marcel Duchamp would have an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art. The arguments and jabs go on to this day about photography being for artists with no talent, photography isn’t fine art, anyone can do it…someone wrote to me and said I should write about real art for a change. That’s so DADA.

“In 1915 he was introduced to Marcel Duchamp, who would become a lifelong friend and influence; he subsequently moved to Paris, practicing there for over 20 years.” – Artsy

 

“In 1919, Duchamp made a parody of the Mona Lisa by adorning a cheap reproduction of the painting with a mustache and goatee. To this he added the inscription L.H.O.O.Q., a phonetic game which, when read out loud in French quickly sounds like “Elle a chaud au cul”. This can be translated as “She has a hot ass”, implying that the woman in the painting is in a state of sexual excitement and availability. It may also have been intended as a Freudian joke, referring to Leonardo da Vinci‘s alleged homosexuality. Duchamp gave a “loose” translation of L.H.O.O.Q. as “there is fire down below” in a late interview with Arturo Schwarz. According to Rhonda Roland Shearer, the apparent Mona Lisa reproduction is in fact a copy modeled partly on Duchamp’s own face. Research published by Shearer also speculates that Duchamp himself may have created some of the objects which he claimed to be “found objects”. – Wikipedia

“The source for the fraternal friendship that linked the two men is to be found in their shared freedom and independence of spirit. Aside from a passion for chess, they shared a taste for the subversive and an irresistible desire to invent. Intellectually, their processes were similar. As art terrorists, they both knew how to place mines under artistic conventions, and their works, without being similar, nevertheless responded to the other.” – DADA Companion

Hi – my name is Joel, and I work at Artsy. While researching Man Ray, I found your page: http://brewermultimedia.com/2009/04/. I wanted to briefly tell you about Artsy‘s Man Ray page, and about our mission.

We strive to make all of the world’s art accessible to anyone online. Our Man Ray page, for example, provides visitors with Man Ray’s bio, over 100 of his works, exclusive articles, as well as up-to-date Man Ray exhibition listings. The page even includes related artist & category tags, plus suggested contemporary artists, allowing viewers to continue exploring art beyond our Man Ray page.

I’m contacting certain website & blog owners, and asking them to help us achieve our mission by adding a link to Artsy’s Man Ray page. In addition to spreading the word about our page, I believe your site visitors would enjoy this content.

If you are able to add a link to Artsy’s Man Ray page, please let me know, as I’d love to share it with my team.

Best,
Joel

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask “how,” while others of a more curious nature will ask “why.” Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
-Man Ray

Thanks Joel!

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Cairns

Brian Dickerson, Cairns, with an Essay by Miriam Seidel,  John Thornton Films

Brian Dickerson is an artist who knows how to wander, and how to make his way through uncertainty. Seeing the stone cairns of rural Ireland, he recognized them for what they were: mediators of mysterious places, markers for the lost, messages from the past. In Cairns, his new series of constructed paintings, he brings this understanding into a new form.” –Miriam Seidel

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