Best of 2016 Art

The two biggest art events of 2016 will be the India Art Fair 2016 and the Kochi Muziris Biennale, both of which have roped in a new international director and curator in Zain Masud and Sudarshan Shetty, respectively. Across the seas, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, starting 20 June, will exhibit 30 paintings from India under ‘The Royal Hunt: Courtly Pursuits in Indian Art’. The Met will also commemorate the Narasimha avatar of Vishnu with sculptural depictions in an exhibition titled ‘Encountering Vishnu: The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama’ which will run for six months till mid-2016. Closer home, there are solos by some of India’s foremost contemporary artists like Sudarshan Shetty at the National Gallery of Modern Art and Jitish Kallat at Chemould Prescott Gallery in January.

TABIYAT: MEDICINE AND HEALING IN INDIA

London’s Wellcome Collection museum has been dubbed one of the most interesting cultural spots in recent times, as it explores ‘ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art’. This museum will organise a wide-spanning exhibition ‘Tabiyat: Medicine and Healing in India’ that explores healthcare offered in four places: the Shrine, Home, Street and Clinic. To illuminate India’s rich and diverse cultures of medicine, the exhibition will draw from art, science and history to present a vast array of resources including decorative wrestling clubs and domestic utensils, combs and foot scrubbers, medical instruments and board games. The most important exhibit is a diagram of the human body used by practitioners of Ayurveda. Another highlight is a photograph by Gauri Gill that captures an umbilical cord being severed after childbirth; it speaks of the role of the dai, the traditional Indian midwife. Committed to exploring the extraordinary in the everyday, this exhibition is part of a cultural exchange between India and the UK that examines the challenges faced by ordinary Indians who often do not have access to elementary public health amenities.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, 12 January to 28 March 2016

THE EVERLASTING FLAME: ZOROASTRIANISM IN HISTORY AND IMAGINATION

Even as the Government attempts to multiply the headcount of India’s dwindling Parsi community through a fertility program, the Jiyo Parsi scheme, the National Museum in Delhi will take us through a visual narrative of the community’s ancient history and cultural heritage with a collection of texts, paintings, artefacts, textiles and even a walk-in Fire Temple. This unique exhibition is expected to take the visitor on a magic carpet ride to the earliest days of Zoroastrianism. It will track its emergence as the principal religion of imperial Iran and trace its maritime journey from the shores of Iran to the western coast of India where a group of Zoroastrians settled in the 10th century and later came to be called Parsis. The exhibition will be held in collaboration with the University of London’s SOAS, and will also draw from the treasure chest of the National Museum. It is to be curated by Pheroza Godrej and Ursula Sims-Williams of the British Library, among others.

National Museum, New Delhi, 19 March to 29 May 2016

SATISH GUJRAL: A BRUSH WITH LIFE

Sculptor, painter, graphic designer, muralist, architect and writer—the protean powerhouse that is Satish Gujral is an artist who commands deep respect. An accident at the age of ten left Gujral deprived of his hearing faculties, but could not affect his determination to overcome the loss and work with the widest possible range of mediums and reach the zenith of India’s contemporary artscape. He has been the subject of a number of documentaries and books and a full-length feature film is also on the anvil. To mark his 91st year in 2016, the Gujral Foundation plans to hold a solo show by the artist. The month-long exhibition will derive its material from some of Gujral’s most significant artistic achievements spread over nine decades. More than 70 original works of art will be on display alongside rare archival photographs of his life.

IGNCA, New Delhi, 21 January to 20 February 2016

NASREEN MOHAMEDI

Twenty-five years after her death from a rare neurological disorder, modern Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi is finally being feted by the world. An extraordinary talent with rare, incredible foresight, she wrote the following in her diary in 1980: ‘One day all will become functional and b hence good design. Then there will be no waste. We will then understand basics.’ The sparse, inscrutable lines in her abstract works have been hailed for their ‘economy of form’ and her work is now the stuff of international modernism. With 130 paintings, the largest ever display of her work, the exhibition will shed light on her experimentation with raw lines, grids and hard-edged shapes and reveal the sources of her inspiration: from Italian neo-realist cinema to Indian classical music, Mughal architecture and Louis Kahn to artists like Agnes Martin to Paul Klee. This exhibition has been conceived as a magisterial study of the evolution of Mohamedi’s career and will trace the origins and maturity of her art.

The Met Breuer, New York, 18 March to 5 June 2016

(Compiled by Sneha Bhura)

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