December 2010 - January 2011
by Mrinal Ghosh

Society of Contemporary Artists- Annual
Birla Academy. December 1 to December 12, 2010.
This year's annual show of Society of Contemporary Artists marked the completion of its golden jubilee celebration that had started one year earlier. The Society had invited some of the promising young artists from the four art institutions of West Bengal, the show therefore reflected the future along with the present.

The students who exhibited their works were: Ranjit Kumar Bor, Ganesh Chandra Das, Shamba Biswas, Dipanjan Bagli and Shibram Das from Govt. College of Art & Craft; Bhaskar Chowdhury, Indrajit Roy, Sanjay Kumar Patra from Rabindra Bharati University; Tapan Kumar Maharana, Koushik Saha, Koushik Pal, Arunodaya Ghosh Biswas from Indian College of Art and Draftsmanship; Mahammad Nur, Pradip Kumar P., James Khamlansawama, Ayhubu Lorin and Sarmily Sarkar from Kala Bhawan, Santiniketan.

Members of the Society participating in the exhibition were: Aditya Basak, Atanu Bhattacharya, Atin Basak, Amitabha Banerjee, BR Panesar, Bimal Kundu, Dipak Banerjee, Ganesh Haloi, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Manik Talukdar, Manoj Dutta, Monoj Mitra, Niranjan Pradhan, Partha Dasgupta, Pradip Moitra, Sadhan Chakroborty, Sanat Kar, Suhas Roy, Sunil Das and Sunil Kumar Das.



Unbounded - Sculptures and Sculpture Based Installations
Gallery Kolkata. December 5 to December 19, 2010
Five sculptors, Bamdeb Mondal, Bhaskar Chowdhury, Kartik Ch. Soren, Tuhin Kundu and Rathin Barman, who have just completed their post-graduation from Rabindra Bharati University, were invited to exhibit their sculptures and sculpture based installations. Most of the works were innovative and reflected critique of the social and political reality. The concept note stated, 'the show literally becomes a sight of reconciliation between passive and active, sophisticated and crude, urban and rural politics. It is like a dialogue between the two that one experience while making one's way through the sculptures and sculpture-based installations'.





Faces in the Dark
Birla Academy of Art and Culture. December 5 to December 24, 2010
Dedicated to Tagore's immemorial poetry on Africa, on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary and also in the memory of BR Ambedkar; this exhibition curated by Pranab Mukherjee explored the notion of darkness with canvases, video art, stills, installations and performance. It tried to focus on how darkness engulfs us on various aspects of our living both in urban, so-called sophisticated and rural, so-called backward strata of our society. Almost all the works were conceptual in nature and tried to create unconventional forms. Participating artists were Dilip Chitre, Sanjeev Khandekar, Toofan Rafal, Sandeep Bhattacharya, S. Someetharan, Mollah Sagar, Manas Acharya, Dhrupadi Ghosh, Swaraj Lab Project and 'Hind Swaraj' Project of Prakriti Foundation.



Illustrating Rabindranath
Gaganendra Gallery. December 7 to December 12, 2010
This exceptional exhibition was held under the auspices of Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre. Conceived and curated by Abhik Kumar Dey, the show put together most of the important illustrations done by various artists from our country and abroad and also by Tagore himself. It also tried to focus on the history of illustration since its beginning specially in Bengal.

The viewers were enchanted by the illustrations of Jibansmriti and Raktakarabi by Gaganendranath, Chitrangada by Abanindranath, Birpurush by Nandalal Bose, The Crescent Moon by Asit Kumar Haldar and many other images extracted from Tagore's texts by many famous artists throughout the world. The greatest attraction was the visual images of his own works by Tagore himself.







Looking For Bapu Recent Sculptures by Debanjan Roy
Akar Prakar Gallery. December 9 to December 18, 2010
Debanjan Roy, the promising sculptor who got his Master of Fine Arts from Rabindra Bharati University in 2000, works both in three dimensional sculptures and sculptural installations to highlight on social injustice and decay of present national and global moral values. His present series is on Mahatma Gandhi. He places Mahatma Gandhi in contemporary social environment. The life size aluminum cast of Mahatma painted in unusual red is seen engrossed with a laptop or a fibre glass figure with a large walking stick in hand attentively listens to an iPod or lands on the moon with the dress of an astronaut. Besides all such pieces the sculptor has shown his excellence in the installation titled Absence of Bapu where on the gallery floor an immaculate white bed is laid with a side pillow, an open book and the spec of Gandhi on the book. Beside the bed there are two pairs of chappals one of which is wooden, without belt. The bed showing the absence of Bapu emanates a kind of spiritual purity. On the two sides of the bed stand two soldiers with automatic rifle on their shoulder indicating how 'power' dominates the ethics of non-violence.



Unravelling Sweden - An Exhibition of Artworks by the Artists from Sweden
Emami Chisel Art. December 16 to December 30, 2010
Emami Chisel Art in collaboration with Aschan and Co. presented the show of about 30 artists from Sweden showcasing nearly 60 fantastic works, paintings, needle works, installations and videos. What, in the words of its curator Oscar Aschan, is unique about the show, is “the innate power in all the works of art, to reach out beyond immediate visual pleasure and come across instead as a language unto itself, a language that communicates the experiences, emotions and inspiration of the artist, unmediated to the viewer”. The artists have stressed on the construction of a separate visual language. The needle works of Stig Lindholm, embroidery of Annika Anderson, wool and silk work of Elisabet Lamm, stitched cloth fabrication of Lisa Albert are some of the examples of such exercises. Jeanette Scharing constructed two works one with black, other with white hair. Installation of Pecka Söderberg with a bust human figure and hanging spherical objects and the reptile-form was conceptually unique. Similarly engrossing was the video by Bigert and Bergström showing an expedition on the sea. Another special feature of the show that came from the home of the Nobel, Sweden, was the display of Nobel Diplomas that had been awarded to various personalities.



A Glimpse of Life Video Art by Dr. Sanjay Ghosh.
Nandan III. December 28, 2010
Besides being a dermatologist of repute Dr. Sanjay Ghosh is also a poet and painter. In this set of 12 videos, each 3 to 4 minutes in length, he has proved his excellence in this alternative art form. The work shows that the fusion of visual image with poetry and music can create a sonorous environment to enter into deeper reality with a philosophical perspective through expressionist and surreal forms. The first piece was titled The Trembling Sun. It depicted the reflection of the setting sun in trembling water to highlight the shattered reality of life. The last piece titled The Tunnel showed the last journey of Yudhisthira of Mahabharata to have a glimpse of the hell through the tunnel of life.