Vinita Agarwal
Mobile: +447957124181
Email: vinitaseye@gmail.com
Skype: myriad
Last year, I directed a small short film of dancer Indrani Datta - and her exceptional dance, and beautiful mesmerising eyes. Here is the video titled, Silent Beats in which the viewer is asked to follow the beats and imagine the music through her movements. Thank you to Indrani Datta and to Noi Kuan for his camera and editing assistance.
I am proud to announce my cousin is opening a gallery/art space in Mumbai under the name of Volte.
Volte exists to provide a platform for non traditional art and culture in Mumbai. We see ourselves as a node, a gathering point to promote ideas and conversations between artists, technologists, activists, writers, intellectuals and the community at large. We will house an exhibition space, a curated bookshop, artist residencies/studios, a cafe, a film club and a platform for public art.
Volte is a radical shift from the traditional gallery model, where the exhibitions, events and audience intermingle in a dynamic and exciting program. While we promote all media of contemporary art, we are interested in advocating and exhibiting projects which blur the lines between the arts, sciences, spirituality and life itself.
Tushar Jiwarajka
Founder and Director
info@volte.in
“Iran Inside Out,” at the Chelsea Art Museum (556 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, 212-255-0719, chelseaartmuseum.org) through Sept. 5
The image above is from the third Iranian art exhibition I have read about in the span of a week. Last week also debuted two Iranian shows, back to back: The first being ‘Made in Iran‘ co-organised by Arianne Levene, showcasing at Asia House followed by ‘In a different light‘ which opened at Osbourne Samuel Gallery in Mayfair. Both shows have some powerful pieces, which depict a certain specific cultural heritage. Indian art on the contrary for example, deals in myopinion with more universal themes, and are not as directly patriotic. The works I have seen, seem to me to show a sense of liberation or attempt at breaking free from a past. The history of Iran is in itself unique, as is it’s current political situation. These artists find themselves producing work within this environment, and this does eventually show through, however I do feel as though the prime root behind the work is that they want at the end of it all to educate; to make those outside of their home country aware, of it’s strengths, it’s weaknesses, its power, its spirituality and most of all it’s essence.
Dakhil (Image 1), 2003
Installation
Green fluorescent lamps, plexiglass & glass thread.
200.0 x 200.0 x 200.0 cm (78¾ x 78¾ x 78¾ inches)
Considering the amount of art on offer at the Biennale, In-finitum which took place at the Palazzo Fortuny was exceptional. For me. Imagine if we took a century worth of ideas and expressions of thought, all emerging from the same root – the desire to find out what lies beyond time, space, matter and energy and collectively placed all the works which stem from this theme into an exhibition. That is in-finitum.
As you walk through the exhibition, you feel as though you are walking through time, through discovery and the emergence of light through the work, reminds you of how inquisitive our minds are and most of all how little it is we know. Infinitum literally translated can be defined as infinite, however the curators of the show have put in a hyphen in the middle of the word, to break it apart providing it with a new found double meaning, finite in the infinite. It is the quest for the limit, in a limitless world, the nothing but the everything. It is a spiritual quest, one which pushes our boundaries, and natural frames of thought.
We see this through the exceptional video piece by Bill Viola, the photographs of Sugimoto and the minimalist yet striking paintings by Miro. We see traces of drawings, artifacts, collections, constructions all yearning, searching and wanting to stretch and explore. Fantastic to see such works, which are so simple at first glance, but have deep and thought out meaning behind them.
Artists
In-finitum will present works by Giovanni Anselmo, Natvar Bhavsar, Pierre Bonnard, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Michael Borremans, Alberto Burri, Alexander Calder, Paul Cézanne, Antonio Canova, Eugène Delacroix, Ray & Charles Eames, Lucio Fontana, Adam Fuss, Giuseppe Gabellone, Francesco Hayez, Ann-Veronica Janssens, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Kimsooja, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Brice Marden, Fausto Melotti, Mario Merz, Joan Mirò, Tatsuo Miyajima, Vic Muniz, Renato Nicolodi, Roman Opalka, Palagio Pelagi, Pablo Picasso, Otto Piene, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Guido Reni, Gerhard Richter, George Romney, Thomas Ruff, Kazuo Shiraga, Ettore Spaletti, Vassilikis Takis, Diana Thater, Dirk Van De Len, Jef Verheyen, Rik Wouters, Gilberto Zorio … and many others.
