{"id":37317,"date":"2010-06-19T16:06:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-19T16:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=37317"},"modified":"2010-06-19T16:06:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-19T16:06:32","slug":"the-next-big-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-next-big-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"The next big thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to be a little ahead of the curve in the art world? Five hot curators pick the young artists to keep your eye on<\/em><\/span>
\nWhat does sarah Jessica Parker, star of the never-ending\u00a0Sex and the City<\/em>\u00a0franchise have to do with art? As of this month, a lot. Parker has successfully put together\u00a0Work of Art<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a reality show designed on the lines of\u00a0Project Runway<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Top Chef\u00a0<\/em>in which a dozen young artists will compete before a panel of judges. It is the fullest flowering of our desire to have no one famous sneak up on us. Celebrity must be achieved between commercials under our watchful eyes. one can wait and see if the show creates new fans for what is still perceived as an opaque subculture. If it does, then it will bring artists back to the popular gaze in a way that they have not been for a very long time. Perhaps not since the 1860s when all of Paris \u2014 from workman to aristocrat \u2014 paid a franc each to attend the government-organised annual salon. The fiercely competitive salon could make or break an artist\u2019s reputation and ended in parties, suicides and duels. a reality show can only dream of such riches. In the real world, us moderately interested members of the public try to piece together what is happening in the Indian art world. our curators have their own hopeful vision of the change round the corner, the blazing talent walking down the street. It could be this girl animating double helixes in a corner or the boy weaving his mother\u2019s hair. Perhaps even that old-fashioned thing \u2014 a painter. We asked five curators to pick their favourites and tell us why.\u00a0(Inputs from Aastha Atray Banan, Rishi Majumder and Nisha Susan)<\/em><\/span>
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\nALKA PANDE<\/strong>\u00a0PICKS<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>Tarun Jung Rawat\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Works with mixed media. \u00a0<\/em>Rawat, 36, is steeped in interaction design, fairytales and Edgar Allan Poe<\/em>
\n\"\"<\/a>TARUN IS<\/strong>\u00a0the only sensitive and creative artist working with interaction design,\u201d says Delhi-based curator Alka Pande.
\nRawat\u2019s work is influenced by fairytales and writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Roald Dahl. His recent show was bafflingly named\u00a0Never Mind the Bullfish, here’s a spot of T<\/em>\u2014 an involved reference to the Sex Pistols and himself \u2014but his work has simple and accessible themes like the girl child, freedom or self expression. His technological homage lies in the use of hidden sensors and moving kinetics embedded in his art which make the work move as a viewer approaches it. \u201cHe combines modern electronics and technologies with hand work and traditional colours to create a very fresh and new kind of mixed media. He has evolved a new pictorial language that consists of fables and stories. His imagery is extremely allegorical,\u201d says Pande who admires his strong graphic language. Two of Rawat\u2019s works have recently been acquired for their permanent collection by the Essl Museum at Vienna, a very prominent museum for contemporary art. Pande demurs from talking about how Rawat is doing in the market. \u201cI can’t put a value on his art. Creativity and prices don’t always go hand in hand, especially the big art market bubble which was there two years ago no longer exists.\u201d
\nOTHER PICK<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI also like Akshay Rathore\u2019s work,\u201d says Pande. Rathore trained in Baroda and works with vector illustration, animation, glass sculpture, and lenticular printing. His recent show\u00a0When She is Away<\/em>\u00a0explored the themes of violence. \u201cHe works with contemporary media. The future of art lies in exploring such new media,\u201d insists Pande.
\n[\/box]
\nLATHIKA GUPTA<\/strong>\u00a0PICKS<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Rohini Devasher\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Devasher, 31, explores the space between science and art. Works with multiple media including digital prints, drawing and video<\/em>
\nI THINK<\/strong>\u00a0Rohini Devashar has got incredibly solid training and is technically very sound, and that will really take her ahead,\u2019 says Delhi-based curator Lathika Gupta. \u2018I think Rohini Devasher has got incredibly solid training and is technically very sound, and that will really take her ahead. One of her solo shows ranged from showcasing a huge site-specific drawing and prints to a video piece, for which the data was collected via video feedback which occurs when a camera is plugged into a TV and a loop is created between the two. The result is an astonishing array of patterns that emerge spontaneously within the feedback loop, mimicking biological life \u2014 tree, plant and cell structures. In Bloodlines, a video and print installation, she creates an family tree of artificial life forms.\u201d Trained in painting and print-making, Devasher\u2019s work explores the ambiguous spaces between science and art or as Gupta says more succintly, \u2018She is a science freak\u2019. She is interviewing astronomers asking what draws them to the night sky and exploring the sub-culture of eclipse-chasers. Gupta adds, \u201cRohini is also doing well commercially \u2014 she has buyers that include everyone from the young Delhi art aficionado to American museums.\u201d Devasher\u2019s prints are priced at Rs 2.5 to Rs 3 lakhs.
\nOTHER PICK<\/strong>\u00a0Gupta also likes the young artist Shine Shivan. She says, \u201cShivan is a taxidermist, who makes costumes out of carcasses \u2014 he made one out of the ribcage of a horse and uses stuff like his mother\u2019s hair and cowdung in his installations. It\u2019s crazy but he has so much passion.
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\n\"\"<\/a>NANCY ADAJANIA<\/strong>\u00a0PICKS<\/span>
\nCAMP
\nShaina Anand (35) Ashok Sukumaran (36) and Sanjay Bhangar (27).\u00a0<\/em>
\nTogether they hate the word \u2018collective\u2019 and work with everything<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>THE ART BOOM<\/strong>\u00a0and the slump that followed have occluded from our vision the real criteria which make for greatness in Indian art,\u201d says Mumbai-based critic and curator Nancy Adajania. \u201cThe media circus has lionised individual artists and forgotten the value of intellectual and cultural capital that art provides its audiences. The next big wave of Indian artists will be collectives like CAMP. CAMP which consists of Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran and Sanjay Bhangar actively attempts to shape the public sphere through dialogue and debate rather than be content with creating commodities for the gallery system. Their work revolves around the politics of resource sharing \u2014 like water and electricity.\u201d CAMP loves creating relationships with neighbourhoods. In 2007, for a whole month they hung an electric switch on a tree in Khar, Mumbai. The sign said, \u2018This switch allows you to turn on the lights of Flat 23 of the building across.\u2019 Everytime a curious passerby pressed the switch, Anand or Sukumaran would wave from their balcony. \u201cFrom 2008, they have been working in Jogeshwari to discuss questions related to the right to water, water tanker politics and the dilemma of access to civic infrastructure,\u201d says Adajania. In 2009, CAMP won the Grand Jury award at the Sharjah Biennale, a project which looked at dhows leaving Sharjah for Somalia, offering a way to rethink global capital.\u00a0
\nOTHER PICKS<\/strong>\u00a0Desire Machine Collective (Sonal Jain and Mrigank Madhukaillya), a group based in Guwahati.<\/span>
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\n\"\"<\/a>PRATEEK RAJA<\/strong>\u00a0PICKS<\/span>
\nOtolith group
\nAnjalika Sagar, 40, and Kodwo Eshun, 43, work with video. Their work is dominated by themes of Third World movements<\/em>
\nWE THINK THE<\/strong>\u00a0Otolith Group, who will be showing at our gallery in December, is totally hot,\u201d says Prateek and Priyanka Raja of the Experimenter gallery in Kolkata. In May, the video artist duo Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun were nominated for the \u00a340,000 Turner Prize, one of the art world\u2019s most glamorous prizes. The Turner prize judges praised their ability \u2018to work collaboratively across a range of disciplines, in particular the moving image, to investigate overlooked histories through archival and documentary materials.\u2019 Prateek says, \u201cTheir work is different, as their cross referencing is amazing. They use archival footage that\u2019s never been used. For example, they once used a recently declassified video to explored the diplomatic relationship between India and Russia.\u201d The Otolith Group\u2019s work has been admired by critics for its approach that can be \u2018playful as well as unflinchingly erudite\u2019.
\n
\nOTHER PICK<\/strong>: \u201cWe think Sanchayan Ghosh is a talent worth watching out for.\u201d says Prateek Raja. Ghosh is a site-specific installation artist who uses light and sound to make the audience a part of his work. In one of his works,\u00a0Sisyphus Effect,<\/em>\u00a0the intensity of the light changes based on the movement of the people in the room. While the Kolkata-based Ghosh makes critics in some quarters peevish because of the involved references in his works, others admire his ability to stick his neck out. At least one critic expressed her delight at the body-builder who was part of his\u00a0Sisyphus Effect\u00a0<\/em>installation.
\n[box]
\nRANJIT HOSKOTE<\/strong>\u00a0PICKS<\/span>
\nNikhil Chopra<\/span>
\nChopra, 35, is a performance artist whose work includes tableaux of early British imperial photography<\/em><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>A CRUCIAL MIX<\/strong>\u00a0of factors will determine who the \u2018next big artist\u2019 on the Indian art scene will be,\u201d says cultural theorist and independent curator Ranjit Hoskote. First: the sustained backing of galleries and foundations for the production of art with no immediate commercial returns. Second: the belief of bold collectors both at home and abroad in such work, without expectations of instant returns. Third: the catalytic role of curators in presenting and contextualising such artistic departures internationally. And fourth: acceptance for such artistic positions in the global art arena. Using these criteria, he picked performance artist Nikhil Chopra as someone who has the potential to achieve that major leap in the next few years. \u201cChopra revisits his ancestral past through elaborate performances, testing the limits of his endurance in situations that are simultaneously private and social,\u201d says Hoskote. In 2009, at an exhibition curated by Marina Abramov, the grand dame of performance art, Chopra played an array of personas from a Victorian dandy called Yog Raj Chitrakar, a Maharaja and a loin-cloth clad \u2018native\u2019. More recently he left Mumbai artists bemused with\u00a0Drum Solo,<\/em>\u00a0the performance of a celibrity rockstar.\u00a0
\nOTHER PICKS\u00a0<\/strong>Gigi Scaria, Manjunath Kamath and Rohini Devasher.
\n[\/box]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to be a little ahead of the curve in the art world? Five hot curators pick the young artists to keep your eye on What does sarah Jessica Parker, star of the never-ending\u00a0Sex and the City\u00a0franchise have to do with art? As of this month, a lot. Parker has successfully put together\u00a0Work of Art\u00a0\u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":37323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[5725,494,6103,1791,6104,6105,6106,6107,6108,6109,6092,6110,6111,6112,6113,6114,6115,6116,6117,6118,6119,6120,6121,6122,6102,6123,6124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}