Manifestations VII
Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
March 26 to June 30, 2012

Featuring a select collection of seventy-five artists, Manifestations VII features significant modern and contemporary Indian artists from 20th century.

The exhibition features several works of academic realist portraiture from early 20th century oil portraits by Pestonji Bomanji, M. F. Pithawalla, Baburao Painter and L. N. Taskar as well as charcoal sketches by M. V. Dhurandhar. The selection features Western academic oil-influenced works on mythological themes by the school referred to as Early Bengal and two works painted in a Raja Ravi Varma-derived style  an anonymous work by the Ravi Varma 'School' and Aroomoogam Pillay.

The Progressive Artists' Group is represented in their entirety by the artists M. F. Husain, S. H. Raza, K. H. Ara, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade and F. N. Souza; and other modernist masters featured in the selection are names like Bikash Bhattacharjee, Nikhil Biswas, Sunil Das, Bijan Choudhary, Jogen Chowdhury, Laxma Goud, Ganesh Haloi, Gopal Ghose and K. K. Hebbar. The 'Bengal School' is represented by Nandalal Bose and Mukul Dey.  Tantra is represented by Biren De, K. V. Haridasan and G. R. Santosh, while other artists known for their tantra association  Sohan Qadri and S. H. Raza are seen here with their abstract works of an earlier period. The sculpture section is led by master-sculptor Ramkinkar Baij and features modernist sculptors, D. P. Roy Chowdhury, Chintamoni Kar, Tarak Garai and G. Ravinder Reddy.

Recent Suite of Works by Rudragaud L Indi
Gallery Beyond, Mumbai
April 3 to May 10, 2012

The concern for loss, the urge to see the world as a discernible space and cautious observations of the goings-on inform the seemingly surrealist work by Rudraguad L Indi. He takes the role of an overt commentator and a satirist.

The paintings are delicate and have an ephemeral quality about them. Yet the raw energy and starkness in the portrayal leaves a lasting memory in the minds of the viewer. Indi re-orients Picasso's Guernica and the Goddess of Oomph, Marlyn Monroe; Gandhi on the chess board and Hitters killing fields; the madness of Charlie Chaplin or the strange charisma of Michael Jackson; all this with a curious mix of respect and disregard. The past triggers a memory in the present - the past and the present moment merges with each other, time melts to create a mood, an essence; the imagery is both sensuous and grotesque; so starkly real, balanced dangerously on the edge of a half sleepy state.

AuViCo 2109-2110 by the Otolith Group
Project 88, Mumbai
April 5 to May 5, 2012

Following Westfailure, The Otolith Group's first solo exhibition in Mumbai, AuViCo 2109-2110, is the second exhibition of The Otolith Group. AuViCo 2109-2110 presents Otolith Timeline (2003- 21010) and The Otolith Trilogy (2003- 2009).

Otolith Timeline (2003- 2010) offers an extensive insight into the scope and the scale of the enfolded universe of The Otolith Trilogy.

The Otolith Trilogy is an interconnected series of essay films made between 2003 and 2009 that project scenarios of possible futures based upon events from the recent past. Combining fictional narration with archival and contemporary footage, the artists create a series of speculations that range from the City of Tomorrow to the 22nd Century when the Earth is no longer capable of supporting life. Otolith I (2003) Otolith II (2007) and Otolith III (2009) envision the effects of past and present actions upon different aspects of culture including biology, space travel, urbanism, architecture, economics and media.

The Otolith Trilogy proposes a 'temporal deconstruction that folds together past, present and future' thereby opening a route to ' challenge the current unfolding of globalization, particularly its outcome presumed to be the result of historical inevitability.'

Unified Imagery
M.E.C. Art Gallery, New Delhi
The show continues till May 5, 2012

Through Unified Imagery, a solo exhibition of small paintings by Paresh Mridha, the artist settles his paintings into a highly textured base that seems to provide the impetus for his style of working. It is quite natural for the artist to begin disturbing the surface of the pictorial space by inducing relief areas all around, mounds that could jut colours closure to the eye in various directions. The paintings tend to attain a stark quality that is accentuated with his use of highly contrasting colours for maximum result. Yellow peeps through areas laden with deep blues on a leathery surface that seems to make the effort of unifying the image easier.

The Figurative elements in his painting are subjected to various levels of distortions. An almost cubistic break up of forms takes place over the textured surface. The face that looks at the viewer is halved, broken up and added to create different planes on the same surface of the form.

Distorting the figurative elements could be a step ahead of getting away from a mundane level of work. A conscious effort of reworking the figurative with the objective of gaining a different perspective exists in the creative process of Paresh. It is a pursuit that he would have to maintain to further embolden his work, although it could lead to an uncomfortable, mutilated distortion of the human form. In the present format, the artist has been able to achieve a certain unification of the variations he has used in his paintings.

Of Places and Journeys- Group Show
Vadehra Art Gallery
April 9 to may 9, 2012

Of Places and Journeys is a group show including works of Gulammohammed Sheikh, Shilpa Gupta, Praneet Soi, Ram Kumar, Rameshwar Broota, Tushar Joag, Atul Bhalla, Annu P Matthew, Gauri Gill, Sunil Gupta and Prajakta Palav Aher. The show includes photographs, archival inkjet print, acrylic on canvas, serigraph, acrylic on paper, archival pigment print, digital Print on archival paper, watercolour on paper and other mediums.

An Anthropomorphic Incarnation
Karin Weber Gallery, Hong Kong
April 17 to May 12, 2012

Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi is an emerging artist whose large format multi-panel with anthropomorphic figures works are a part of our modern world, and belong equally to the exotic fantasy world of nowhere. Nuts, bolts and metallic strips seem their very essence, in lieu of blood, sweat and tears. These cross-currents of our existence touch the core of Phaneendra's expressions in this public exposition, through these anthropomorphic and allied images, where the benevolent man of yester years has metamorphosed into a modern man, devoid of nobility and philanthropy. His stark drawings in this exhibition portray brutal reality of the new incarnated man. The artist portrays a world where humanity seems to be veering dangerously down a self-willed path to extinction, with 'normalcy' being tailor-made on a daily basis to suit one's selfish needs. These anthropomorphic beings focus attention on the fakeness of beautiful appearances and the corruption that the artist believes has found its way into every aspect of contemporary human existence and interaction.

An Anthropomorphic Incarnation will be the first solo exhibition of Phaneendra in Hong Kong.

Inside-Out- Space Specific Show
Priyasri Art Gallery, Mumbai
April 21 to May 21, 2012

Site is a word as complex as space, may be a concept. It's like the intuition, beyond the morale, philosophy, form of any kind, and yet individual for each and every one. Site specificity is a multifarious term, since there is no time when art has not been 'site'd. The installations, termed so in the recent decades, are mere adoptions of arts of all times, preset to a concept, perceived in difference. Inside-Out attempts to create beyond concept, a gratis idea of what space reads to one.

The exhibition curated by Priyasri Patodia includes works by Neha Thakar, Sumedh Kumar and Manali Mehta.

Art Quarter
Crimson, Bangalore
April 21 to May 31, 2012

Art Quarter is an exhibition of original paintings by 30 young artists including Anand Panchal, Bhumika Dange, Dilip Chaudhury, Dilipkumar Kale, H R Das, Nishant Dange, Pramod Apet, Ramesh Hari Pachpande, Shantkumar Hattarki, Somnath Sen, Vijay Achrekar, Yasala Balaiah and others.

Materia Nova
Galerie Ludwig Trossaert in Antwerp (Belgium)
May 18 to June 6, 2012

The title of the exhibition references Dante's famous masterwork Vita Nova as an expression of the artist's inner renewal. And as with the poet, Materia Nova marks a key turning point in the creative path of Andrea Cagnetti (Akelo): the decision to present to a larger public his iron sculptures, which until now had been reserved for a small following of 'initiates'.

Born in 1967 in Corchiano, in the provincia of Viterbo, Andrea Cagnetti is an old soul and a Renaissance man, completely dedicated to his art and his research that also pertains to the twenty-first century. His artworks have been shown in numerous shows around the world and acquired by important museums.