Indian Art
curated by Antonio Manfredi
May 26th– July 10th 2007
opening May 26th 18.30 pm
Sponsored:
Italian Cultural Institute of New Delhi, India
Indian consulate of Naples
Contemporary Art Center_Santiniketan-West Bengal, India
Saturday the 26th of May a wide selection of Indian artist will be presented in the CAM_Casoria Contemporary Art Museum exhibition “India revealed”. The artworks are a selection of engravings, paintings, installations multimedia works and videos by Indian artists and photographs taken in India by Antonio Manfredi.
The “India revealed exhibition“ has originated from a trip in a magical and contradictory part of the world, looking for emerging Indian artists.
Travels into the houses and personal lives of some artists portrayed by Manfredi’s lens while they are preparing their artworks for the exhibition at CAM_Casoria.
A pursuit directed not only to the exterior aspects of being an artist both in East and West, but with the purpose of analysing the real role of a contemporary artist who has to show not only the invisible, but more than this, the modern artist has to emphasize problems and truths difficult to confess. It is a sociological and introspective search initiating from the Neapolitan suburbs to mystic places without time.
CONCEPT
A terrible noise and a sultry hot weather, colourful people in motion, characters and costumes, which are part of a visual myth: this is the common view of India. But India is the continent REVEALED by the travel-pursuit of Antonio Manfredi: a mixture of ancestral and modern myths. The artist’s perception of reality is deep-rooted between an undeletable tradition impossible to forget and a new technological West.
Manfredi’s photographs are not just a mere reportage but real artworks. Its lens sees order where there is chaos: in the midst of noises and colours Manfredi foresees an ancestral design, a mystical repetition of the features of the mankind. Mysticism is destroyed by the strength of the Sacred River with colourful goods, rainbow flowers, animal icons, hundreds of taxis, and on the background humanity is only a passive object, just a frame.
The exhibition route is designed to allow people to discover contemporary Indian art and expression which are similar to the western ones but freer and in search of their identity. The India world, in its evolution, gives us artworks made of contrasting techniques and themes, with diversified means and expressions.
The artist Suksnja Das portrays a modern votive offering in which the Virgin Mary is substituted by the Statue of Liberty. Beneath the feet of the Madonna there is a human figure while overhead an angel holds a banner saying “Global”. The multimedia works of the Indian artist Vibha Galhotra constituted of 2 videos based on existential questions have a strong accusing impact. A collage of newspaper items and a flow of war scenes transform daily horrors into works of art. The digital interactive works symbolize a constant construction and evolution of abstract shapes and an amorphous humanity without any ethnic identification. Beneath a mosquito net lies the outline of a corps which tries to protect itself from bullets with wings, which symbolize that death lies over us all the time. One over the other like a totem Pooja Iranna’ boxes picture India’s modern skyscrapers, like colourful toys for powerful children. Gigi Scaria’s video, which is not less dramatic, portrays a young adolescent who has to make calendars in a stuffy room, moving in a mechanical way similar to a robot. Here Indian labour becomes global trade.
The photographs taken by Antonio Manfredi in India will be exposed and sold to finance the CAM Casoria exhibitions.
Artists:
Pulak Dutta, Rati Basu, Arpan Mukherjee, Nirmalendu Das, Ashis Ghosh, Sukanja Das,Gigi Scaria, Jenson Anto, Pooja Iranna, Vibha Galhotra, Shreya Mukherjee