Ocula Conversation Bani Abidi: ‘What you see in my films is what I know’ A group of voices accompanies me in the exhibition. They are singing words I cannot comprehend, yet the warm tunes are familiar: folk songs, love songs, songs of longing. There are letters, too. They speak of the quotidian details of a soldier's life: the hardness of the war, sending money to the family, and longing for familiar landscapes, food,...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Jhaveri Contemporary was formed in 2010 by sisters Amrita and Priya with an eye towards representing artists, across generations and nationalities, whose work is informed by South Asian connections and traditions. Amrita and Priya Jhaveri produced, also in 2010, Sir Anish Kapoor’s first-ever public exhibition in India, a landmark event in the country’s art world. Jhaveri Contemporary’s dedication to the creation of original scholarship, engendered through its carefully crafted shows, is one of the many ways in which the gallery distinguishes itself. Entwined with this philosophy is another guiding principle: showcasing the heterogeneous practices of long-celebrated luminaries as well as emerging talents, often in generously interrogative conversations. Jhaveri contemporary’s gallery space in Mumbai, located directly behind the Taj Mahal hotel and adjacent to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, is on the third floor of a heritage building which overlooks the iconic Gateway of India from its balconies.
Ocula Photolog Frieze London 2019 3 October 2019 'Frieze London brings together more than 160 galleries from 36 countries, representing the fair's most international edition since its launch. Introducing new curators and sections showcasing performance, emerging artists and the contemporary significance of complex art genealogies and colonial legacies, Frieze London creates an exceptional moment...
Ocula Photolog Frieze New York 2019 6 May 2019 'Building on Frieze's history as a platform for discovery and challenging the traditional art fair format, the eighth edition introduces new curators and collaborations with leading museum directors; including two exhibitions exploring virtual reality and the significance of self-taught artists, and two new sections celebrating Latin American art...
Ocula Report Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders 20 Sep 2018 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula 'I have felt persecuted for weeks by this same asphyxiating dream.' So narrates the forlorn Portuguese speaker in Kiluanji Kia Henda's film, Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady (2014), as city scenes and modernist buildings in Luanda flit past the camera's lens. The narration is pulled from Another Day of Life (1971), Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski's...
Ocula Conversation Rana Begum Artist, United Kingdom and Bangladesh Rana Begum, winner of the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2017, is an Anglo-Bangladeshi artist whose conversation with the historical legacy of minimalism is textured by childhood memories of reading the Quran inside a mosque in Bangladesh. Her union of styles and influences, which combine references ranging from Donald Judd and Agnes Martin to Islamic art...
Related Press What to look for at Frieze London The Guardian : 2 October 2019 Modernist architecture is still a big focus for artists – as long as its Eurocentric and male-dominated history can be rewritten while its buildings are celebrated. Frieze Live is one of the fair's main curated sections, and this year it features British artist Shezad Dawood's performance piece. Dawood's work draws on the work of Bangladeshi...
Related Press Exploring Sexuality and Myth Through Fiber and Other Types of Sculpture Hyperallergic : 3 September 2019 In 1972, a young Mrinalini Mukherjee began making sculpture with fiber in New Delhi, India. At the time, fiber and similar textiles were mostly unrecognized as materials possessing artistic merit by her Indian contemporaries. In the Western hemisphere, however, a few artists had taken up fiber as a medium for non-representational or abstract art in...
Related Press An Indian Master of Fiber, Clay, and Bronze Hyperallergic : 20 July 2019 The revelatory genius of the late Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949-2015) is laid bare in Phenomenal Nature, currently on at the Met Breuer, New York, where more than 50 sculptures made of fiber, clay, and bronze spanning the artist's 40-year career are on display. Morphing vegetal, animal, and human elements, they range from the embryonic...
Related Press Rana Begum is exhibiting memories of Bangladesh at Frieze art fair Evening Standard : 27 September 2018 At Frieze art fair next week, among thousands of artworks, it will be difficult for any one artist to stand out. But the sensual beauty and formal rigour of the works of Rana Begum, the British-Bangladeshi artist, should be a balm for the eyes and the soul amid the visual cacophony. Begum is showing in the Frieze Sculpture exhibition in Regent's...
