The Anxious Artist Today - Part I

Описание: The Anxious Artist Today
Mohile Parikh Centre in collaboration with The Guild.
9th Nov 2012
Speakers: R. Siva Kumar, Gieve Patel, Sudhir Patwardhan, Rakhi Peswani, Prajakta Potnis, Kaiwan Mehta

Sudhir Patwardhan
Route Maps

THE GUILD
November 2 -- December 11, 2012

"In 'Route Maps', Patwardhan's brush appears sometimes to move faster than the image it is meant to render, leaving a swirl or swipe of paint across the picture surface. In consequence, many of his figures now emerge at the cusp between photography and abstraction."

"Circling between the solitude of the studio and the sociality demanded by any engagement with humankind at large; immuring himself in the archive yet also launching forward on journeys of exploration, Sudhir Patwardhan has built for himself (and for us, his viewers) a mobile observatory of human affairs." - Ranjit Hoskote.

"Sudhir prefers to tell his stories through images. But moving into his sixties he now knows that the desire to tell stories and to pass on one's experience to the next generation is an innate human need rather than an individual trait. Transmitting stories is like transmitting one's DNA; it keeps a part of us alive through a chain of memories we inscribe onto the minds of those who come after us."

"With the mechanization of transport, travelling has also become periods of bodily inaction — the inactive body is carried through the world, and the world travels by but it is not seen. The world becomes a blur and the window becomes a mirror. The inactive traveller sinks into thought and multiplies herself internally; the window reflects her and multiplies her externally for the observant eyes of fellow travellers, sometimes clearly and sometimes as a blurred element in a madly overwritten image of the world." -- R. Siva Kumar.

Sudhir Patwardhan was born in 1949. He graduated in medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. He moved to Mumbai in 1973 and worked as a Radiologist in Thane from 1975 to 2005. His first one person show was held by Ebrahim Alkazi's Art Heritage Gallery in New Delhi in 1979. Since then his work has been seen regularly in exhibitions in India and abroad. His selected museum shows include 'Social Fabric', curated by Grant Watson, INIVA, London; Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden; Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai (2012); 'Modernist Art from India', curated by Beth Citron, Rubin Museum, New York (2011); 'Modern Indian Art- The Ethos of Modernity', Sichuan Museum, Shenzhen Museum, Zhejiang Museum, China (2010); 'ReVisions, Indian Artists Engaging Tradition', curated by Susan Bean, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (2009); 'Horn Please -- Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art', curated by Bernhard Fibicher and Suman Gopinath, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2007). His recent solo shows include 'Family Fiction', Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi (2011); 'The Crafting of Reality', The Guild, Mumbai (2008).

A monograph on his work, 'The Complicit Observer' written by Ranjit Hoskote, was published in 2004. This was followed in 2007 by another book by Ranjit Hoskote on Patwardhan's drawings -- 'The Crafting of Reality'. This is tranaslated into Marathi as 'Rekhachitravichar', published in 2012. A monograph in Marathi, written by Padmakar Kulkarni was published in 2005. Anjali Monteiro and K.P.Jaysankar have made a film on the artist, along with the work of the poet Narayan Surve, titled 'Saacha', in 2001.

In 2008- 2009 Patwardhan curated an exhibition of Indian Contemporary Art 'Vistarnari Kshitije' / 'Expanding Horizons' which travelled to eight cities in Maharashtra. His second curatorial project, in 2011, was an exhibition of the drawings of ten artists, shown in The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai and Sudarshan Art Gallery, Pune.

Patwardhan's works are in the permanent collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and Mumbai; Roopankar Museum, Bhopal; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai; the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA and other prominent private and public collections.

The artist lives and works in Thane, near Mumbai.