Art, India and Information

Today’s blog is dedicated to my dear cousin Shobhana who wishes to be a gallery/ museum curator and has been pestering from long to write a piece on it !  To begin with, the word “ curate” simply means this -the preservation and acquisition of works of art in a gallery or personal collection and keeping an  indepth knowledge of each piece! So as you can see it is a lot of work and an eye for detail and organisation is a must-have in this profession ! What  exactly does a gallery or  a museum curator do? A museum curator (sometimes also called a gallery curator) manages collections of works of art and artifacts.  Day-to-day work includes-  ·          care and display of items, such as artwork, collections, historical or scientific items,  ·          acquisition of new works of art, usually with the aim of educating the public ·     ...

Well, with the COVID- 19 lockdown , I have been thinking of new ways to take my art places and that’s when I stumbled upon Hair art”- literally making embroidery art with human hair. Ya, you heard it right ! Human hair . My sister thought that was creepy but can you believe that it is actually an art- form in Buddhist ,tantra practice and also in Hindu Shakti traditions. Some might scoff at it but it is no joke or an eccentric modern art – it’s an ancient craft, based on deep meaning , symbolism and spirituality. And I too, tried it out too ! It is actually amazing and the result is unique and different to say the least and it is also eco friendly . If only we could use all our hair for art instead of clogging our sewages with tonnes and tonnes of human hair, it would be so nice! There is a guy in England who actually makes mold-able furniture from waste human hair . This guy, Ronald Thompson is an eco entrepreneur, who thought about this crazy idea and it actually ...

The “gaze” is a term that describes how viewers engage with visual media. Originating in film theory and criticism in the 1970s, the gaze refers to how we look at visual representations. These include advertisements, television programs, paintings and even cinema. When film critics talk about the gaze, they are often referring to the “male gaze”. But what does that really mean? The male gaze simply means that – the men staring at a female body. Gaze- to look intently, that is what the dictionary says but mostly the artists and other art mediums have used it to objectify women.  In fact the word in art circles is that “making nudes” is the fastest way to “catch the attention of art curators”…but why? History…                          The film critic Laura Mulvey, a British film theorist and critic, coined this term in the late 1970’s in her essay entitled, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. It b...

Imagine seeing into the far recesses of the past and reconstructing the reality through the visual senses only and being stunned by the glory, grace and grandeur and mysticism of the sight. Well, that is Rara Jonggrang or Prambanan for you; the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia and the third largest in South Asia. More than just an architectural and art feat of the 9th century, this temple is a mystical cultural site with a rich and intricate history and a story so mesmerising that is continues to enthral the masses that visit it one thousand years after the Sanjaya kings of Java, built it to show off their power and dominance over that area. This temple complex is spread over 17 kilometers and is almost 1163 years old now, commissioned to be built by the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty kings as a symbol of their return to power after almost a century of Buddhist Sailendra Dynasty domination. The construction of this massive Hindu temple signified the shift of the royal patronage from M...