Art & Culture

Caught in the Act

Kalpish Ratna

A dispassionate history of sex and the powerful mythologies that have surrounded it down the ages

How They Do It in Venezuela

Aastha Atray Banan

As Miss India auditions begin, it is a good time to ask why this little South American country wins so many world titles

Study of an Archive Photographer

Janice Pariat

Pablo Bartholomew seeks to recover a forgotten way of seeing by revisiting his work on Bombay done 25 years ago

Goons as Critics

Shruti Ravindran

Another ‘provocative’ art show, another right-wing attack. And the themes that draw their ire only seem to widen every year

Open’s staff writer Mihir Srivastava likes to sketch nude portraits of regular people—men and women, strangers and friends, thin and fat. Some are disgusted when he asks them if they would pose for him. But, surprisingly, many agree. Why?

The Cult of C-Grade Movies

Shaikh Ayaz

This is cinema that can make a masochist wince. So how come it is acquiring fans who know—or ought to know—good cinema from bad?

In Search of Modern Art

Shaikh Ayaz

From Raza to Husain to the leader of the Bombay Progressives, FN Souza, nobody really knew what modern art or modernity was. It was Paris and its influences that gave their amorphous ideas a sense of form and identity

When Talking Is High Art

Rahul Bhattacharya

British-German artist Tino Sehgal’s work ‘creates’ conversations between strangers in urban societies. Someone should tell him about Kolkata’s famous addas