A painting by KCS Panicker.

Plans to hold a grand exhibition of K.C.S. Panicker’s works in connection with his birth centenary celebrations will come to naught if steps are not taken immediately to restore his paintings. A respected and celebrated painter of his times, Panicker could have made a fortune from his works or established a museum at Cholamandal Artists’ Village.

Neither was he born in Kerala nor did he live in the State. Yet, K.C.S. Panicker chose to donate all his paintings to the State in 1976. One of the greatest artists of India, he was born in Coimbatore, lived in Chennai and established Asia’s first artists’ village at Cholamandal, Chennai.

A respected and celebrated painter of his times, Panicker could have made a fortune from his works or established a museum at Cholamandal Artists’ Village. The reason why Panicker donated his works to the land of his forefathers is another story, deeply related to his own being, identity and creativity.

But was it a right decision? At least recent history proves otherwise. As the centenary year of K.C.S. Panicker begins in 2010-11, preparations for several commemorative programmes are being discussed. Significant among the programmes would be a retrospective exhibition suggested by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. But chances for such a show are bleak because of the deteriorating condition of the paintings.

Nanda Gopal, eminent sculptor and son of K.C.S. Panicker, along with many artists of the country feel that shifting the paintings from the gallery in his name in Thiruvananthapuram would be disastrous.

Change of colours

The K.C.S. Panicker Art Gallery, adjacent to the the Museum office and auditorium, in Thiruvananthapuram has never had a temperature control system in the span of 30 years. The paintings are exhibited seven hours a day and locked inside for the remaining 17 hours of the day without air-conditioners, air purifying system and dehumidifiers. The most visible factor is the change of colour of the paintings. Eminent art historian R. Sivakumar confirms that the colours have undergone changes.

Nanda Gopal fears that 30 years of being hung in a single direction might have also led to the deterioration of the works. Leading art galleries with permanent canvas exhibits have a system of ‘reverse hanging process’ to maintain the equilibrium, which has not been followed in this gallery. It is a basic fact that like every object, paintings hung on the wall are also affected by gravitational forces, which naturally would have contributed to the decomposition of the material.

Unless the authorities immediately initiate the installation of a temperature control system and then proceed to the restoration project, chances of a retrospective are grim.

Restoration of paintings is not a new phenomenon in the museum art gallery.

The Ravi Varma paintings, which are a century older than the K.C.S. Panicker paintings, were successfully restored in 2005.

Unlike the Ravi Varma canvases, the K.C.S. Panicker paintings demand a different approach towards restoration in terms of colour pigments.

Method of painting

As common to the artists of his period in India, Panicker painted with thin layers of paint, especially in the last phase of his creative life. In all paintings of the ‘Words and Symbol’ series, he was deconstructing his European method of easel painting practice by using transparent layers and delicate linear images with a self-induced calligraphy.

The damages and decolouration in these thin calligraphic forms along with the sweeping fine lines pose a great challenge to restorers. Taking stock of the situation, it is learned that M.A. Baby, Minister for Culture, has initiated some steps to install temperature control system in the gallery as a first phase of the work.

In addition to several bureaucratic and administrative hurdles, the museum does not have a record of having a museum expert to head the institution. But these problems of governance should not stand in the way of efforts to save a cultural project of prime importance.

The K.C.S. Panicker retrospective deserves a grand design like that of the Raja Ravi Varma exhibition executed by A. Ramachandran in 1992 in New Delhi. K.C.S. Panicker, who stands on the threshold of the modern art movement in South India as a painter, teacher and organiser, will definitely become a focus of cultural studies related to modernity and tradition of 20th century India, once his lifetime works are presented contextually in the cultural arena.

Tags: Painted treasure

If you visit the sprawling Bharti Cellular office at Gurgaon, be ready to be pleasantly surprised by a five storey high magnum opus – a painting.

As you enter, you’ll be greeted by the 5,000-square-foot Tree of Life right in the centre of the building, showcasing the five elements of nature.

Painted by Manav Gupta, this mega mural, formally inaugurated this week, is a first of its kind piece of art – in Delhi at least. And it took Manav (with a good dose of help from the employees, whose office it is, of course) just two months to finish the project. It took more than a 1,000 employees, investing some 2,000 man-hours, and around 400 cans of acrylic paint and preservatives to give a lovely structure to a blank five storey staircase.

Ask Manav as to how the project came about and he says, “I used to do jugalbandis between art, music and poetry. This time, I thought of bringing the spontaneity of the masses to the fore, and that’s how I thought of collaborative art.” He adds, “I could have created the mural alone, but I wanted the involvement of the employees. Each person who has contributed even so much as a brush stroke would have a sense of bonding with the huge space. Their learning and their experience would be unique – something they would carry back with them.”

But how were so many employees told how to make an artistic whole? Manav says he’d allot them spaces to paint. Sometimes he guided them, sometimes they were asked to go wild with figures. “The concept was challenging but at the same time creative, as each person was with his/her unique thought. Some wanted to paint bleeding hearts, some wanted to paint books or rangoli,” says Manav. And how did he ensure that all they painted looked like one artwork at the end of the day? “The employees would come between 11 am and 5 pm.

After they left, I worked on their art, transforming multifarious hues, shapes, colours and idioms into a composite mega canvas that spoke one language,” says Manav. The mural shows the five elements of nature, one on each floor. The ‘Tree of life,’ a symbol of earth, on first floor; the ‘Peacock’ on second, symbolising water and celebration; a horizon and ‘Leaves’ on the third, denoting air; an introspecting ‘Gaze’ on the fourth, as a symbol of space; and the ‘Glow’ on the fifth denoting fire. The employees are all too happy with the result. “What we have created is a masterpiece and I can proudly say that I am a part of it,” says Manish Khare.

Tags: The big picture by Manav Gupta

South African artist Yuill Damaso stands next to his controversial Nelson Mandela painting, which depicts the country's revered first black president lying on an autopsy table surrounded by prominent Africans.

A painting that depicts Nelson Mandela as a cadaver, surrounded by prominent African figures witnessing his autopsy, has sparked a furor in South Africa.

Artist Yuill Damaso has defended his work, which is a modern take on the Rembrandt oil painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.

According to Damaso, his rendition is a tribute to Mandela.

The painting is meant to underline the fact that underneath all his great achievements, the revered former South African president is flesh and bone, like everyone else, Damaso has said in interviews.

“The eventual passing of Mr. Mandela is something that we will have to face, as individuals, as a nation,” the 41-year-old South African artist told the BBC.

Rembrandt’s 17th century painting shows a doctor demonstrating an autopsy in front other medical colleagues.

In Damaso’s contemporary version, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African President Jacob Zuma and former presidents F.W. de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki are among those gathered around Mandela. Nkosi Johnson — the HIV/AIDS-afflicted child activist who died in 2001 at the age of 12 — performs the autopsy.

“We have Nelson Mandela, one of the great leaders of our time, and the politicians around him are trying to find out what makes him a great man,” Damaso recently told the Guardian.

“Nkosi Johnson, the only one in the painting who’s no longer alive, is trying to show them that Mandela is just a man. So they should stop searching and get on with building the country.”

The artist, whose painting is on display in Johannesburg’s Hyde Park shopping centre, told local media over the weekend he has received death threats since unveiling the painting.

The African National Congress has condemned the work and also suggested it invokes witchcraft.

“The ANC is appalled and strongly condemns in the strongest possible terms the ‘Dead Mandela’ painting,” the party said in a statement.

“It is in bad taste, disrespectful, and it is an insult and an affront to values of our society.”

In Africa, some believe it taboo to depict a living person — let alone the internationally revered, anti-apartheid icon — as dead.

Mandela, who is due to celebrate his 92nd birthday on July 18, has increasingly limited his time in the public in recent years. He made a brief public appearance at Soccer City in Johannesburg on Sunday about an hour prior to the World Cup final match.

Tags: Artist’s Mandela autopsy painting draws ire

Eleven oil paintings taken by a US soldier at the end of World War II are being sent back home to a museum in the small German town of Pirmasens, the US customs enforcement agency said Wednesday.

US officials thanked the grand-niece of the serviceman who took the paintings following the allied invasion of Germany, who they said researched where the paintings came from after inheriting them.

Three of the paintings by local artist Heinrich Buerkel are each worth some 50,000 dollars, while seven others are valued at some 4,000 dollars each. The painting by artist Alois Broch is worth around 10,000 dollars.

“Without the integrity and good will of Beth Ann McFadden, the repatriation of these paintings to the Pirmasens Museum could not have taken place,” said New York southern district attorney Preet Bharara in a statement.

“Each work of art returned symbolizes an act of justice, bringing us one step closer to the goal of repatriating all of the surviving pieces taken from museums during World War II.”

The city of Pirmasens, heavily bombed by allied forces due to its position as a key manufacturing base, hid 40 of its museum’s prized paintings under a local school building, but the works suffered heavy looting.

McFadden’s great uncle, US Army sergeant Harry Gursky, was stationed in Pirmasens after the fall of Nazi Germany.

Upon inheriting the paintings McFadden sought to find out more of their history — eventually finding the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had an open investigation searching for them.

ICE, the largest investigative unit in the Department of Homeland Security, has returned some 2,100 stolen art and antiquities to more than 15 countries since 2003.

“There are still dozens of these paintings missing from Pirmasens,” said ICE Special Agent James Hayes.

“We hope that this example will prompt others who might have ‘mystery’ paintings in their family to bring them to ICE. If they are stolen art, let the United States return them to their rightful owner,” Hayes said.

Tags: US returns to Germany WWII-era looted art

A restoration project for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin of the Rocks” has revealed new details and suggest the Renaissance artist may have painted all the picture himself, instead of with his assistants as previously thought, a British gallery said Wednesday.

The 18-month conservation project involved removing much of some badly degraded varnish that was applied to the painting in the late 1940s, enabling experts to take a much closer look at the picture’s brush strokes and styles, the National Gallery said.

The cleaning revealed the painting’s full tonal range, especially in the darker areas, and resulted in a clearer sense of how the artist intended for space to recede through the rocky landscape, the gallery said.

It also affirmed that Leonardo likely painted the entire picture himself and intended for it to be unfinished.

The restored painting showed a range of completion from the barely sketched hand of the angel to the fully realized heads of the main figures — consistent with many of Leonardo’s works. The Italian artist, said to be the “eternal perfectionist,” is thought to have left his pictures unfinished because he wished to return to them later, gallery spokesman Thomas Almeroth-Williams said.

In the past, scholars believed the different levels of finish in “Virgin of the Rocks” showed that Leonardo was helped by assistants.

The painting dates from about 1491 to 1508 and is a later version of one on display in the Louvre in Paris.

The latest cleaning project followed years of scrutiny of the masterpiece.

In 2005, experts using infrared technology found two drawings hidden beneath the surface of the picture — one design was never painted, and the second one revealed Leonardo changed his mind about the subject several times.

The painting goes back on display in the National Gallery on Wednesday.

Tags: Restored Da Vinci painting reveals hidden details

An art work on display

The latest collection on display at Iconart is a study in black and white

Titled, ‘Salt and Pepper’ the latest collection of art work on display at Iconart Gallery has the theme of black and white running through all the works.

On entering the gallery you see a bicycle rickshaw that is painted in white and the seat covered in writing; in front of the rickshaw is placed a pair of black shoes. This is an installation by Pavan Kumar.

Shrikanth Kolhe plays with shadows and light, depth and perception in his canvases. S. Nataraj’s watercolour has everyday people in acrobatic poses- from a man crouched and holding his briefcase over his head to another man who seems to be flying to his destination, bag in hand.

Shweta Pavan’s collages are an amalgamation of materials such as printed cloth and twined thread. B. Karuna has experimented in woodcut, her work shows a large tube carved inside which is engraved a figure in a convoluted pose.

Catching the eye is an installation by Masuram Ravikant. Animal figures such as a lion, bear and elephant among others are painted in black and stuck on the blade end of white painted scissors. Srikant Dhunde’s work is reminiscent of the Rorschach ink blot test – thick, bold strokes of black paint against a white canvas.

The monochromes in visual art showcase a variety of styles and techniques. The show features art works by 15 artists and is on till July 25 at Iconart Gallery, SBI building, road no.12, Banjara Hills.

Tags: Visual appeal

While others build doors to shut themselves inside four walls, the rebel in artist Shilpa Gupta, builds doors to break those walls. With her solo show at Castle Blandy, France, by Galleria Continua in collaboration with Yvon Lambert Gallery on till October 24, the Mumbai-based new media artist has not only opened new doors to success, but also brought Indian contemporary art into global focus.

The 33-year-old artist—who has recently been nominated as one of the the top 29 artists of the 21st century—is the only Indian contemporary artist picked up by Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in his ‘Curating 21st century’ exhibition, in Europe’s Du Magazine. “In 1997, at my maiden exhibition, my work was placed next to the door at Jahangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. I was elated then, and I still love being by the door. Being there gives me the freedom to belong to both—the inner and outer world,” says Gupta.

At Castle Blandy, Gupta is exhibiting a combination of her new and old works. Her latest work shown at the exhibition is I Keep Falling At You, which is an installation of thousands of microphones with multi-audio channel. “This is the age when the medium defines communication. Through this installation I want to convey the change in communication pattern. Now the medium speaks to the sender and the receiver rather than vice versa,” says Gupta. Among her older works on display are an animated light installation called Blind Stars, and a photo-based mechanical installation called 100 Queues, in which she shows images of people standing in different queues at different locations. “It is such a shame that even for a basic necessity like water, people have to wait in line,” says Gupta, as she explains the theme of her work.

The artist graduated in 1997 from JJ School of Fine Arts, Mumbai, in sculpture. She loves to interact with people from different walks of life and that shows in her work. For her work While I Sleep, the artist worked with psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, on the reception of images to explore the concepts of fear and prejudice. She also met and interviewed Noam Chomsky for the same. “I had a list of questions for him. But he kept asking me about my art. He was very impressed with the Blame Bottles project,” shares Gupta. The Blame Bottles project was an interactive installation with bottles that contained simulated blood and carried blame stickers. It also included posters, video and an interactive performance where the artist distributed the bottles in Mumbai’s local trains in 2004.

Since her graduation, the artist has used interactive videos, websites, objects, photographs, sounds and public performances to probe themes like religion, security, nationality and desire. She is known for her engaging socio-political commentary and interactive art. One prominent example of this is There is No Explosive in this in 2007 when Gupta made a satirical comment on the rising security paranoia post 9/11. As part of the same project, she distributed suitcases that read ‘There is No Explosive in This’, on the streets of London and Florida. “We distributed hundreds of them. In USA, a group of punks got offended with the project, but next day, one of them returned to collect a bag. I knew that my art had hit the right chord,” says Gupta.

Sincd she returned from France, Gupta has been busy with her upcoming exhibition at OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria. Still she has found time to celebrate the publication of a monogram of her work, edited by Nancy Adajania and released by Prestel Publishers and Vadehra Bookstore. The book will be launched in Delhi soon.

Tags: French Connection

The carnival at Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city after Stockholm, between August 10 and 15 this year will coincide with a large exhibition of contemporary Indian art. The show will continue till September 15.

In 1927, Volvo Cars was founded in Gothenburg, which has a spectacular boulevard known as the Avenue. This 1.6-mile road, where the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the city’s theatre, the city library as well as the concert hall are located, is the scene of the annual carnival. It attracts about one million people from all over Europe. The Indian art exhibition will also be held on the road.

Titled Go India, it is the fruit of a cultural exchange programme between Emami Chisel Art and Aakriti Art Gallery, Calcutta, on the Indian side, and Vasa Konsthal and Gallery Scandinavia in Gothenburg along with Aschan & Co on the Swedish side. The Emami Group, the city of Gothenburg and the Culture Ministry of Sweden are the chief patrons of this project being organised in close collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in India.

It all began with the visit of Oscar Aschan, director of Oagallery, to Aakriti gallery’s GenNext exhibition and art camp at Emami Chisel in 2008, when he proposed the exchange programme to Vikram Bachhawat, director of Emami Chisel Art. Both groups started working towards it thereafter.

Oscar visited India three times when he established contacts with leading cultural personalities and representatives of various institutions. Later, the deputy mayor of Gothenburg, Elisabeth Rothenberg, visited Calcutta and finalised the cultural exchange programme.

The exchange programme began with an Indian fashion show held at the Elite Park Hotel, Gothenburg on May 8.

The Indian exhibition will be spread over six galleries and museums, some of which were established by rich businessmen, and the streets too. The show will be jointly curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay and Oscar Aschan. About 20 artists from all over India will participate and the works will range from paintings, sculptures, and drawings to installations and videos.

Some of the participating artists will be Baiju Parthan, Gigi Scaria, Pushpamala N, Mithu Sen, Chhatrapati Dutta, B.M. Kamath, G.R. Iranna, Tushar Joag, Akhil Chandra Das, Pankaj Panwar, Nobina Gupta, Probir Gupta, Nantu Behari Das, Mansoor Ali, Ketan Amin, Tapas Biswas and Sekhar Roy. Mithu Sen will present a sound installation along with drawings. Gigi, Tushar and Sumedh Rajendran will contribute digital prints.

Kaushik Mukhopadhyay will install a kinetic sculpture outside the Gothenburg Opera House. Mansoor Ali, Ketan Amin and Nantu Behari Das will display sculptures done in fibreglass, stainless steel and wood. A contemporary Swedish art exhibition will be held in Calcutta in December.

Tags: Indian art show in Volvo country - Cultural exchange programme with Sweden

A rosewood panel on display at the Crafts Bazaar that opened in Chennai on Wednesday.

12-day Crafts Bazaar on at Sankara Hall

A 12-day Crafts Bazaar at Sankara Hall in Alwarpet showcases the artistry and craftsmanship of over 50 artisans from across the country. From handmade lacquer bangles and handcrafted hairclips to block-printed tie-and-dye prints and embroidered dress material, there are plenty to choose from.

The exhibition, organised by Tamil Nadu Handicrafts Development Corporation, was inaugurated by M. Ravi, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic). The Corporation’s Managing Director K. Sellamuthu participated in the function.

The Orissa ikat saris and duppattas attract attention. Prashant Kumar Das, who has displayed the ikat works, explains that some of the delicate saris are the result of hard work. The longer it takes a weaver to make a product, the more expensive it is. The stall has duppattas priced at Rs.3,000 and saris costing Rs.7,000.

Exquisite artefacts include brass jaali work from Chhattisgarh and embossed rosewood panels. The brass jaali works displayed at the exhibition are a product of Tribes India. Each work, created by hand, depicts tribal men and women. Among the expensive rosewood panels is that of an elephant frolicking in the river, priced at Rs.95,000.

The exhibition will be on from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and a special discount of 10 per cent is offered on all items.

Tags: Artistry, craftsmanship from across the country on show