The Indians overlook the art in its most international fair

New Delhi, Jan. 21. - India today opened the largest art fair in the country, an event that is becoming increasingly international in a rush and that, in its third year, seeks to position the country as one of the world centers of the art market.
In the "India Art Summit" (IAS), located in Hall Delhi Pragati Maidan fairs, for three days 84 participating galleries from twenty countries, including Spain, with works by some 500 artists, both established and young talent.
"In just two years, the IAS has increased threefold in scale and scope. Since the second edition attracted 40,000 people and reflected the growing interest and potential for art in India, "he said in a press release Exhibition Director, Neha Kirpal.
Welcome to the center serves a small Tata Nano, the world's cheapest car, covered with body paint hub caps to reflect the imagery of India Street, a work of the artist Ketna Patel between pop art and psychedelia .
Once inside the enclosure, eclecticism takes over shelves and walls, with apologies of abstract art, figurative clear visions South Asian origin, strange machines or cutting-edge techniques such as video projection on painting.
"My expectations are very good. We are much better than before: before Americans and Europeans who were buying Indian art, and now the Indians themselves who do it, "said Tushar Jiwarajka Efe, head of the art gallery Volte.
While the percentage represented by the Indian art market in the world total is even laughable, the sector is experiencing a dramatic expansion, after overcoming the effects of international financial crisis has had on the pockets of greedy Indian elites.
In 2010, a work of Indian artist SH Raza was auctioned at Christie's British home for 3.5 million dollars (2.5 million euros), a record for Indian art, and in this edition of the IAS, the organization expects sales of $ 8.8 million (6.5 million euros), compared with the previous 5.4 (3.9 million).
The galleries are also more varied and many have an international flavor, with works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor, along with dedicated Indian artists like himself Raza, FN Souza or Sakti Burman.
"I think we will be well received, because I use elements from India and relocated. The reasons for us Indians are exotic, "he told Efe the artist Marcel Bohumil, sets out in Spanish the only gallery in the sample, the Cadiz Neilson.
The organization has arranged a sculpture park, an area of ​​screenings, plant rooms, guided tours, an art shop and a series of conferences with participation of artists, editors and outstanding teachers.
The goal, according to the director of the sample, is to attract both "serious collectors" as those willing to pay modest amounts for work in hazardous media, such as a pool lined with flowers in which they play their own gallery.
"In India there are more and better art, and at the same level as what you find out. I think we could get more recognition than we have, "he told Efe artist Hemi Bawa India before his last work, a sculpture of glass fiber and women.
But among chickens plucked, the everlasting portraits of Gandhi and a small robot that wobbles, is noticing the absence of the Indian painter MF Hussain Muslim, whose works have had to be removed again for fear of radical Hindu group actions.
Three of his paintings were to be exposed, but these days the organization received a score of mail and threatening phone calls by suspected radicals who do not forgive the painter, in exile, having depicted naked Hindu deities.

Klimt's golden sensuality, recreated in the colorful world of India

New Delhi, 21 Jan 2010. - Overloaded scenarios, scrolls of gold and copper-skinned models have served the Indian photographer Rohit Chawla to celebrate with his camera the colorful erotic symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, recreated this week in the Indian capital.
The show, dubbed "Klimt. The sequel, "is marked by the sensual reinterpretation Chawla has made ​​its goal of a dozen works of Austrian painter, such as" Girlfriends, "the popular" The Kiss "or the" Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I ".
"Klimt is an artist who believed in the beauty," he told EFE photographer outside his version of the latter work, a stunning portrait of gold and yellow ornamental motifs that inspired the exhibition and Chawla himself considered his favorite.
During a visit to the Neue Galerie New York, "attracted by its Viennese coffee", the photographer came face to face with the image of Bloch-Bauer, "there was, all gold scrollwork, square brilliant" reduplicándose in "kaleidoscopic permutations ".
"Thus began my journey," says Chawla in his presentation.
To change the imagined world of Klimt (1862-1918) by the camera lens, Chawla enlisted the help of Indian artist Manoranjan Mukherjee, who for six months created by hand accessories, costume jewelry and icons of the stage.
"We literally hit a treasure of jewels imaginary steeled the models," Mukherjee said about the script of the show, whose works have been commissioned by technology company india Birdgroup for their annual calendar.
In this "humble photographic tribute" to Klimt, Chawla has opted for the female portraits, for which it had the participation of Indian actresses and models, as Chitrangada Singh, Ayesha Thapar and Blanca Dixit Peralta.
Your sensuality comes face to baroque dresses, geometric and "lust Byzantine" the universe of Klimt, one of the greatest exponents of modernism and symbolism painting of fin de siecle decadence nineteenth and early twentieth century.
"Working with Indian models was a deliberate decision. New Delhi is full of foreign models and would have been easy to work with them. But it is the color of their skin which makes it stand out to women in Klimt. Enough air, "said the photographer.
An exuberant dahlias entry gives way to the photographs, in a large room of the Gallery of Visual Arts in New Delhi where several girls discussed the details of "The Kiss" and some foreigners are walking to the sound of arias from "La Boheme" .
Chawla has portrayed its South Asian Judith, holding-covered breasts, the head of a decapitated Holofernes, also the brazen young harbor, open eyes, to a sleeping virgin, and medical Hypeia while fiddling with his snake.
Along with the photos on the large hall, the organizers have outlined some of the jewelry and decorative elements made of plastic, canvas and also with sparkling Swarovski crystals, used during the project, which began last July.
"How is reconstructed Klimt's eclecticism? Mixing solid flesh fantastic ornaments, "concluded Chawla.
The photographer will now Vienna's exhibition - "makes sense to be home" - and according to Efe said, arises a dialogue with Spanish galleries for this striking recreation of the muses india step Klimt Spanish soil.
Then, the colorful spirals Austrian painter will give way to a new tax, revealed Chawla, this time dedicated to Paul Gauguin French and Tahitian dreams

Indian Art: Where is Hussain?

"Art is a very good investment in India. Shopping in a few years now and the value is multiplied, "he has a gallery on the first International Art Fair in India. The organizers take chest by list of artists, over 200, and 35 leading galer ies that are represented in the Trade Fair in New Delhi, better known as Pragati Maidan.

The welcome given by a car made ​​with skeletons paste, to which visitors, unaccustomed to contemporary art, taking photos with smiles. After loitering for the jobs of the galleries, where abstract paintings are interspersed with experimental portraits of Gandhi and other reasons which prove the existence of an "Indian way" for contemporary art.

The artists roam sandals give visitors little more elegant to ensure their sensitivity squeals from the crowd. A fair, it seems, the most homologous with the West. "The Indian market 'says in a statement the organization-has grown by 485 percent in the last decade, making it the fourth most buoyant in the world."

And business people rush to buy Souzas of HTAs me of Burmans, new names that are slowly populating the walls busiest in India. In all but one: MF Husain, the most media coverage of the painters, who has become the center of controversy ... without being present in the sample.

"We did get a warning (to the galleries) of the real risk of including Husain" he told the Hindustan Times Sunil Gautam, director of the organization. "The exposure is worth millions of dollars and thousands of visitors."

But Husain is a dangerous man? ¿Threatens his professional colleagues, destroys their works? Far from reality: Husain, 93 and known as the "Picasso of India", lives between Dubai and London and want to return home, but can not.

What he fears the organization, in fact, is that exposure of any of his paintings attract the attention and ire of the "moral police" India, the name given in India conservative groups trying to maintain a strictly-for them and others, the tradition and standards of "decency" in the country.

T o Husain, the problems began in 1996, in his eighties, coinciding with the publication in a magazine several nude portraits of Hindu goddesses made ​​in the seventies. The article, entitled "A painter of flesh", was the presentation of eight complaints against the artist for "inciting religious hatred."

Although the charges were later dismissed by the courts, Husain received death threats and his house was attacked by a group of Hindu radicals destroyed several of his works. The painter left India and now in exile, he saw from afar a new controversy, this time a couple of years.

The painting in question, "Bharat Mata" ("Mother India"), depicting a naked woman superimposed on the map of India and the names of some parts written in your body. Was displayed in an exhibition on Kashmir, and automatically received criticism from Hindu groups like the VHP (World Hindu Organization).

The painter apologized for his work, promised to withdraw from the auction s and since then awaits his chance to return to India. "The only way is perhaps the Conservatives return to power Hindus" he said recently, hoping that they could control their own members to avoid attacks on this "old man".

But Husain is actually just one of the sights of the most radical organizations in India, as the RSS, the Shiv Sena or VHP on the Hindu and the SIMI and fundamentalist clerics at the head Muslim.

Their activities, and other groups of fast nerve-van since the sack of newspaper offices for publishing articles disadvantages to destroying movie theaters to project films considered offensive. His list includes "cheer-leaders" of cricket, the caricatur ists bold or foul-mouthed actors.

Thus, the Muslim tennis player Sania Mirza in India does not play by the criticism of the apparel, the writer Taslima Nasreen had to leave Calcutta for his criticism of Muslims, actress Khusboo threw tomatoes to break a lance in favor of sex premarital ...

A long statement, in short, of offenses against the tradition that often ends with the apologies of the characters, prior violence or court action. "I understand the organizers of the art show, is resigned Husain, aimed at reconciling or Stockholm syndrome. In India there are 2,500 complaints against me. "

Shortly before the start of the exhibition, the Ministry of Culture issued a commu nicated denial "have been consulted about the artists in the exhibition." In other words, praising the freedom of expression appropriate vechando this time the buck was from another: "We would be happy if all the great artists, including paintings by Husain, were represented."

This time, the painter has been supported by the organization of artists SAHMAT, which has organized an exhibition solidarity parallel where there are 20 of his works, but for now the champions of the moral police have issued a verdict.

By the way, in the pompous India Art Fair, where a box of cockroaches vanguard entertains visitors or where the outline of a train station marks the colorism of Indian painting, the first Indian Art Fair, I say, there many portraits of women in sari, but not a single naked.

Photographs: MF Husain, his "Bharat Mata", an untouchable flees after being stripped for protesting.