Stitching Images, Weaving Worlds

Six artists seek inspiration from the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri to work across the fault-lines between craft traditions and contemporary practices, discovers Georgina Maddox.

Roles People Play

Performance art in India has come of age in Delhi, claims Meera Menezes, as she engages with the work of inspired practitioners from the city.

Moulting Skin, Growing Hands

Photography is borrowing from sculpture, painting, fiction and cinema to create an expanded field. Shweta Upadhyay reports about contemporary Indian photographers and their new interventions.

Curatorism: In Praise of Folly

Even as their interventions influence standards of assessment, their choices may not always do justice to complex art practices, argues Girish Shahane, as he sheds light on the new status of curators in the context of contemporary art.

Art in Exile?

Johan Pijnappel traces the journey of video art in India and raises some poignant questions.

"A GREAT BOON TO THE INDIAN ART WORLD"

Gieve Patel remembers how an adventurous approach helped win more readers for the magazine.

WHEN MANJIT BAWA BROKE INTO A JIG

Anupa Mehta, the Founding Editor of ART India paints a vivid picture of the early years.

The Thing Itself

Arjun Appadurai examines the aesthetic life of objects and reveals how their status and behaviour changes with altering circulation patterns and socio-political contexts.

Spectres of the Real

Geeta Kapur presents varied readings of Ranbir Kaleka's Man Threading a Needle, a work which combines the painted image with video and sound.

The Mutable Aesthetic of New Mediatic Realism

Nancy Adajania engages with the new turn in contemporary Indian art and provides the socio-political and aesthetic contexts to critique its manoeuvres and developments.

"WHEN THE "IT'S IN THE MAIL" EXCUSE FOR MISSED DEADLINES HAD NOT GONE EXTINCT!"

Girish Shahane reminisces about how he marshalled the magazine to explore contemporary art.

A Dozen Ways of Viewing India

Ranjit Hoskote provides an account of the way art in India has, over the decades, reflected and questioned the state of the nation.

Flesh and Bone

Abhay Sardesai considers the contract between word and image in the works of eight artists.

Good Earth

Sandhya Bordewekar discusses the growth of ceramic art practices in the country.

FROM LONDON TO MUMBAI

Tasneem Mehta dwells on the thrill of engaging with the art scene in the late 1990s via ART India.

Now, Voyager

Travelling around has become more than a lifestyle choice for artists and their artworks. Zehra Jumabhoy journeys with them.

Tree Ears, Bird Voices

Paths of rivers traced on tree barks, the map of a city located in a bulbul’s heart – Praneet Soi investigates imprints left by lost homes, finds Arushi Vats.

Vanishing Acts

Boundless mountains in Kartik Sood’s paintings open a portal to a world that is oneiric, intense and expansive, exults Arushi Vats.

The Body to its Limits

Radhika Khimji explores the female form, disrupting its traditional character and constitution, marks Anirudh Chari.

Patchwork Memories

Urdu pulp fiction, a legendary Lahori bookshop, and architecture in Pakistan and Bangladesh, come together in Shezad Dawood’s show to navigate South Asian identity, discovers Pooja Savansukha.

Transience and its Preservation

Lac, as material and metaphor, speaks to transforming fragilities. It leads Hemali Bhuta to explore issues of labour and processes of memorialisation. Adwait Singh responds to her quilts, carpets and cyanotypes.

Regarding the Pain of Others

In Varunika Saraf’s most recent show Caput Mortuum at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, held from the 25th of November to the 31st of December, 2021, material serves as metaphor: Saraf uses the iron oxide caput mortuum, which resembles dried blood, to symbolise decay and decline, and the carmine extracted from the cochineal scale insect to refer to the blood that continues to be spilt in public life. Many of the images in her paintings echo photographs that appear in newspapers every day and depict growing disenfranchisement on the basis of caste, class and religion. Here, Saraf talks to Zeenat Nagree about the role of an artist in such a divisive political climate, and answers questions about representing contemporary violence through a study of imagery and techniques from the past.

Paradise Lost

Adip Dutta travels through Paula Sengupta’s forest stories.

Morphed Selves, Mixed Worlds

Bharti Kher’s composite creatures attract and repel at the same time, insists Meera Menezes.

Ode to Multiple Belongings

Through the use of costumes, movement, gestures and embellishments, Hetain Patel performs a variety of identities, says Chintan Girish Modi.

Anatomy of Power

Gender biases and sexual exploitation, faith and violence, are boldly examined by Piyali Sadhukhan, finds Anirudh Chari.

Something in the Air

David Hockney's pouncing cat inspires intimations of doom in Sujith S. N's new works, reveals Meera Menezes.

THE FACE AND ITS PHASES

Non-resident was a series of portraits for the camera, in which I painted five paintings over five days for a duration of three hours each day.

The Dazed Harlequin and Other Stories

Sakti Burman's pantheon of figures entrances Azra Bhagat.

THE ROMANCE OF RAIN

The monsoon is the king of all seasons. It affects our lives in contradictory ways - it disrupts our travel but it secures the production of food and the supply of water.