Washington, Jan 28:
Artists from India and the Indian diaspora are featured in “Shifting Shapes-Unstable Signs” – an exhibition of contemporary art from around the world at Yale University School of Art`s new gallery.Organised by School of Art dean Robert Storr and Jaret Vadera, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidate in the School of Art, the exhibition on view till Feb 27 includes 33 works by 13 artists based in Mumbai, New Delhi, Toronto and New York, and one artists` collective.Together, the works establish a dialogue that crosses geographic borders and spans generations and media while undermining the static borders that seek to lock cultures, gender, sexuality, and national and religious identities into place.”This exhibition is the first step in an ongoing effort to widen the scope of contemporary art that can be seen within the Yale and New Haven communities,” said Storr.It “developed organically through conversations Dean Storr and I had about different artists, multiple art histories, and the destabilisation of fixed categories in the cosmopolitan context”, Vadera said.It “continues that open and active dialogue with a variety of work by artists from major cities across the world”.The exhibition at the New Haven, Connecticut, based school encompasses virtually all contemporary media, from direct photography to staged and manipulated images, from painting on canvas to painting on plexiglass, from video installation to graphic installation using custom-designed tape.The exhibition includes three examples of Gauri Gill`s documentary photographs, taken as she travelled across the United States to big cities and small towns documenting everyday moments in the lives of Indian Americans.Nalini Malani`s two paintings of Medea explore the social politics of women, focusing on their bodies and gaze. Two colour and two black-and-white photographs by Ram Rahman document the everyday through a range of subjects, from opulent wedding parties, to street vendors, to funerals.Chitra Ganesh`s digital collages bend and twist images and text from popular Indian comics, as well as from Hindu and Greek mythology.Also featured in the exhibition are works by Jaishri Abichandani, Brendan Fernandes, Shilpa Gupta, Abir Karmakar, Bhupen Khakar, Bharti Kher, Riyas Komu, Raqs Media Collective, Tejal Shah and Vivan Sundaram.
