Mumbai Round-up : Pre- Season : August to Mid-November, 2004

New Galleries
To add to the 20-odd (operative) Art Galleries in Mumbai, Three new ones are added pre-winter 2004 season. Of them, called the "Phillips Contemporary", can well be said the first : it is the gallery looking for curatorial vantage points, rather than the sale advantage. And this is not qouted from a journalistic interview with either of the directors (Mortimer Choudhari and Tara Lal), but is rather an observation. The first show at the Phillips was Nasreen Mohammedi retrospective, in three parts.Some unexhibited photographs that had Nasreen's markings were shown here. The abstractionst sojourn was continued with Jeram Patel's woodworks and watercolours, followed by Pamela Singh's photo-paint works Later this year, this small space will house Anant Joshi's installation : black to play and draw, that featured in 'Body/city' (curated by Geeta Kapur, berlin) and Japan Foundation Asia Center (curated by Puja Sood) but never shown in India. Sudarshan Shetty, a talented sensation from Mumbai, is working specially for the Phillips Contemporary. Shows of some unseen young talents, like Rajesh
Pullarwar and Sudhir Pande, are also in the Offing.

In same Kala Ghoda (art district) vicinity as the Phillips, the dynamic dealer Vibhuraj Kapoor has finally set his venture, Gallery Beyond within four white walls. Considerably spacious by the Mumbai standards, Beyond will now vie for a different breed of artists :
Sanjeev Sonpinpare's painted comments on the so-called "important" styles, and Yashvant Deshmukh's works that cusps the real and the 'drawn' perceptions, Praksh Chandwadkar's intriguing Buddhas... are in the pipeline.
The third Gallery that opened recently, is not well-received as yet. Tarana Khubchandani and Jisal Thacker operate it from Worli.

Artists :
Individual painters that left a mark were many. Vinod Sharma, Rini Dhumal, Navjot... apart from these "well-known" ones, Reena Sain at Chemould with her visual odes to the predicament of commoners, coupled with her tkae on the old-European graphic representations of fictional villains, was sure to get applause. A bold Mumbai debut was
that of Julius Macwan, a painter trained at Sir JJ School of Art and now settled down in Chennai, went way ahead in establishing his brand-equity as a thinking artist. "Hope" at Jamaat Art Gallery by Abhimanyu Ray, showed the drama of black-and-white, while Vanita Gupta's ascetic strokes in black were enshrined at Pundole art Gallery. The Guild Art Gallery continued its passion for pedagogical presence and also its preference for K. Laxma Goud, by juxtaposing Goud's drawings with F N Souza's, which is now epitomised in a book-form. Sajal Sarkar made a vigorous presence with Cymroza. Then, there was Anand Prabhudesai, one the handful scupltors from Mumbai to use marble. Anand worked a metamorphosis of Marble and Yarn (!), and made poignant ponderings on the middle-class life, in a city once known as the textile capital! To the more informed, Ashok Ahuja's (inkjet) prints at Ruia House (by now established as a Gallery) were a thoughtful sight. Milburn Cherian, with her surrealist understanding of the human bondage, seemed to have arrived further, with her recent Jehangir show. Collectible paintings in her "naiive" style were offered by Naina Kanodia, while city's favourite scrap-sculptor Arzan Khambatta made headlines with taking smaller works, and also, when
Khambatta's opening night turned into "Amitabh Bacchan's birthday evening" (with big B's presence, and it was his B'day!).

Like all marketplaces, the Mumbai Artdom often confuses celebrity presence with serious creativity. At the same time, it also creates niches for the serious ones. The effort here, is to trace both these tendencies with an inclination towards serious talent.

- abhijeet tamhane