Contemporary Indian Art Exhibition at The Helsinki City Art Museum

Written by Jukka Pentikäinen Wednesday, 02 May 2012 23:07

Helsinki, Finland - A new exhibition of Indian contemporary art opens at the Helsinki City Art Museum on Friday March 4 and is open until May 29.. The exhibition is a joint production between the museum and Kulturhuset in Stockholm. The exhibition, called "Concurrent India 4", shows works from a cohort of artists inspired by the changing environment in their home country. Indian society now has a growing middle class and increasing urbanisation, two things that have changed life for many marginalised Indians. Subjects covered by the exhibition include the role of female saints and transexuals, and the materials used to construct dwellings in slums. Hema Uphadyay is exhibiting a range of works made from aluminium, which is common in slums.

“If you go into these areas, they often have aluminium doors for their homes,” explains Hema Uphadyay. “So aluminium is a material that doesn't rust, doesn't erode, so I decided to take on that material and sculpt it, and make structures from it.” The artists like to be provocative. Valay Shende made a table produced using ash from the funeral pyres of cremated peasant farmers. Rural poverty has caused an upsurge in suicides in the countryside, where a lot of the artists have their roots and from where Shende draws his inspiration.“My family were there, and I moved to Mumbai to study,” says Shende. “But still I have - being an artist - I have some responsibility towards society, and hence I tried to portray this work.”




The changing role of women in Indian society is also a recurring theme, but even in modern urban India there are restrictions on artists' freedoms. ”There is a taboo on certain kinds of nudity, and certain things,” notes Archana Hande. “Or there is a taboo on the kind of comment on which state, where you are doing things. If it affects the political parties when you can speak and when you cannot speak. Sometimes it depends on the place.”

The full list of artists featuring in the exhibiton includes, Anay Mann, Anita Khemka, Archana Hande, Bharat Sikka, Chitra Ganesh, Gigi Scaria, Hema Upadhyay, Nalini Malani, Pushpamala, Rashmi Kaleka, Reena Saini Kallat, Riyas Komu, Sheba Chhachhi, Shilpa Gupta, Supriyo Sen, Thukral & Tagra, Valay Shende and Vivan Sundaram

The Helsinki City Art Museum is active in a very broad field. In addition to an active exhibition programme, the Art Museum has its own art collection, is responsible for the City of Helsinki's collection of public art, and operates the Kluuvi Gallery.

The Helsinki City Art Museum comprises Art Museum Tennis Palace and Art Museum Meilahti, which together put on between 10 and 15 exhibitions each year that broadly engage with past and present art to stimulate debate on current issues. The Helsinki City Art Museum cooperates closely and actively with foreign and Finnish art institutions. Visit the museums website at ...http://www.hel.fi/hki/

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