June 22, 2012
LONDON.- Rossi & Rossi presents Stargazing – an exhibition bringing to London a discriminating selection of works by four prolific contemporary Indian women artists: Chitra Ganesh, Mithu Sen, Anita Dube, and Jaishri Abichandani, and an exciting new Muslim American artist, Nida Abida.
Chitra Ganesh, How We Do at the End of the World, 2011
June 22, 2012
LONDON.- Rossi & Rossi presents Stargazing – an exhibition bringing to London a discriminating selection of works by four prolific contemporary Indian women artists: Chitra Ganesh, Mithu Sen, Anita Dube, and Jaishri Abichandani, and an exciting new Muslim American artist, Nida Abida.
Chitra Ganesh, How We Do at the End of the World, 2011
Provocatively addressing issues of gender, race and power, Stargazing is a fantastical contemplation on hidden realities at the personal and cosmic level. The exhibition includes installation, sculpture, drawings and prints, with new works created for the show and a full-colour catalogue featuring a critical essay by the curator of the show, Jaishri Abichandani.
Applying a Hindu tantric lens, the artists approach their work with a sensual, subversive, and dark femininity akin to the energy of Kali, the fierce goddess associated with empowerment. Chitra Ganesh, recently awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, exhibits Performing in Paradise, a portrait of the iconic Grace Jones pulsating with raw, visceral energy. Envisioning herself as a male Borg drone in Cyborg as Self, Jaishri Abichandani alludes to the androgynous iconography of Ardhanarishvara, which highlights the Goddess (Devi) as the source of divine power. With a hint of black magic and science fiction, Stargazing’s works reverberate between the mortal and mythic, seductive and repulsive, personal and political, interrogating the body, transformation and fantasies of power.
From the body of work that won her the prestigious Skoda Prize for Indian contemporary art, Mithu Sen’s You Owe Me pries into the male psyche, presenting hermaphroditic male bodies pregnant with impossibilities. Nida Abida’s Weatherproof examines the intersections of fashion, power and identity at play in the hijab. Meanwhile, Anita Dube’s installations provide an abstract counterpoint to the show’s figurative works. Her constellation Neti Neti imagines a blueprint for revolution, overlapping outlines of a traditional pattern, a map and a random doodle to represent the collision of tradition, place and spontaneity. Bringing these provocative works together, Stargazing is a rare insight into the acute and bold visions of five outstanding international artists.
Chitra Ganesh received a Guggenheim fellowship for 2012. She has an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and has exhibited at PS1/MOMA, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. Mithu Sen won the Skoda prize for Indian contemporary art in 2010. Educated at the Glasgow School of Art, she has exhibited extensively in India as well as at MOCA Shanghai, SOMA Seoul, and MOMAT Tokyo. Anita Dube is an art historian and critic turned artist. Since her involvement with the Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors Association (1984-89), she has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Haunch of Venison, Espace Louis Vuitton, and the Venice, Moscow, and Prague Biennales. Nida Abida is an emerging artist with a MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. She has exhibited at C24 Gallery, Cuchifritos, and MoCADA in New York. Jaishri Abichandani founded the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective in 1997 and received her MFA from Goldsmiths College in 2005. She has exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, P.S.1/MOMA, and the Guangzhou Triennial.
Courtesy: artdaily
