Art

Le Macchine E Gli Dei

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Machines and Gods: Dionysus at MCCM

The Musei Capitolini Centrale Montemartini is an interesting place, to say the least: it combines Italian machinery of mammoth proportions from the Industrial Revolution with ancient Roman statuary. These statues include the monolithic “Fortuna Huiusce Diei” (“Fortune of This Very Day”), various Greek gods (Venus, Dionysus as pictured above, and others), Roman emperors, famous statesmen, and lesser known wealthy citizens; the machinery, on the other hand, consists in titanic pieces of metal that when whirring generated tens of thousands of horsepower. Continue reading →

Temple Art – Sculpted Panels

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Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor

The history of  worship in Indian is difficult to chronicle with certainty because the recorded history depends on oral traditions handed down through generations. Hindu religion is beautifully preserved in southern India. The art of temple building made its transitions from temporary structures in wood to more enduring stone edifices that have stood through the ravages of time. Continue reading →

The Tate Modern Happens To Be In Kochi

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Only 24 Days left for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2012.

Nada Raza, writer and curator currently working at the Tate Modern in London, speaks about the site-specificity of the works and how history and culture plays a huge part in the works exhibited at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Take her advice and be there!

Figuring Out What Is Important

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A wall in the studio of artist Ellsworth Kelly. Photo by Alex Majoli and Daria Birang/Magnum

A wall in the studio of artist Ellsworth Kelly. Photo by Alex Majoli and Daria Birang/Magnum

From Aeon, which we continue to enjoy each time we visit (yes we will eventually stop being so explicit in suggesting you visit that site, but for now we cannot resist the recommendation):

Sparks will fly

Infatuated by celebrity, stuck in dreary work, addicted to consumerism. Only a creator culture can save us from ourselves

by Damien Walter

I arrived in Leicester in the late ‘90s as a student, a year after losing my mother to cancer. Having little support, I worked my way through university as a street sweeper, a factory worker, a waiter, a barman, a door-to-door salesman, a cleaner, recycling operative and grill chef. I wanted to be a writer but that seemed like an unattainable dream at the time. A few years later I began working for Leicester’s library service as a literature development worker. Continue reading →

Katrina, Come To Kerala!

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Thanks to this book review in the New York Times we see Katrina in a light similar to that of several other remarkable people we have strongly urged to visit our neck of the woods.  Katrina’s work is illustrated above and in these images from her website.

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From the description of her new book we would find some of this work challenging (as anatomical renderings can sometimes be), but from an artistic, craft/technical and scientific point of view, phenomenal:

There is more to a bird than simply feathers. And just because birds evolved from a single flying ancestor, doesn’t mean they are structurally all the same. With over 300 stunning drawings representing 200 species, The Unfeathered Bird is the most richly illustrated book on bird anatomy ever produced and offers a refreshingly original insight into what goes on beneath the surface. Continue reading →

Engaged In The Temple Of Abstraction

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Searching for the truly authentic image: Gerhard Richter’s paintings invite a deep engagement. Abstraktes Bild 809-4. Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

We are finding more reasons to pay attention to this publication each time we dig deeper into it. This artist, his art form, this writer, and the intersection of these ideas are all worth the 30-40 minutes this article grips your attention for:

I was in my teens when I first started to really look at paintings. Although I didn’t just look, I bathed in them, and I was perpetually teased by my friends for the tremendous length of time it took me to navigate an art gallery. This pleasure of looking and of being completely absorbed in painting has remained constant; whether ancient or modern, figurative or abstract, and whatever the style, I am prepared to give every work the chance to lure me in.

What is so compelling? When art was an adjunct of religion, its power was clear. But from the Renaissance on, painting, at least in the Western tradition, has preoccupied itself as intensely with secular as with overtly religious subject matter, or else with no subject at all. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In Brooklyn

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In anticipation of Raxa Collective’s collaboration with colleagues in Ghana starting this month (more on which soon), we are particularly susceptible to any mention of Ghana in the news and El Anatsui has been on our radar recently.  There is plenty to make us optimistic about Ghana’s future, not least its contributions to fine arts.  This show just opening at Brooklyn Museum looks worthy of a visit:

The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction. Continue reading →

Obelisks in Rome

/ James Zainaldin / 1 Comment

The Obelisk at Piazza Navona

Rome is renowned for (among many other, er, more important things) its vast “collection” of obelisks. These obelisks, most featuring hieroglyphics running their length, typically came to Rome through conquests in Egypt. Victorious generals and emperors Continue reading →

Tiffin Oeuvre

/ Amie Inman / 2 Comments
Subodh Gupta, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland, 2011Photo: Jussi Koivunen

Subodh Gupta, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland, 2011
Photo: Jussi Koivunen

One thing that the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kochi-Muzuris Biennale 2012 have in common is the artist Subodh Gupta.

The Bihar born sculptor/painter/installation artist has been at work for twenty years but is currently at the vanguard of modern Indian art. He has taken the ubiquitous metal articles of India and followed the tenets of the 19th century conceptualist artists who elevated the ready-made and everyday into objets d’art. 

As Gupta describes his work

“All these things were part of the way I grew up. They are used in the rituals and ceremonies that were part of my childhood. Indians either remember them from their youth, or they want to remember them… Continue reading →

Falling Stars

/ Milo Inman / 1 Comment

Starry Night is one of the world’s most iconic paintings and this isn’t the first time we’ve shared unorthodox reproductions of the work.

This rendering may be considered iconoclastic by some, but I challenge you to find a more kinetic one!

Murals – Kerala’s Temple Art

/ Salim.E.I / 1 Comment

Kerala’s Temple Art is rich, vibrant and tells vivid stories. Most of Kerala’s temples built during the 15th and 16th centuries have murals depicting gods and goddesses, sages and episodes from Hindu mythology. These are mostly painted on the outer walls of the sanctum sanctorum. Continue reading →

Happy 75th Anniversary Caldecott!

/ Amie Inman / 3 Comments

I’ve always loved books, and in many contexts those with fine illustrations are all the more powerful. That’s why I’m so grateful for the American Library Association’s Caldecott Medal for honoring the most distinguished American picture books.

The beloved titles are timeless – many are the same books that were read to me as I child, which I in turn read to my own children. I am confident this pattern will continue.

Listen to the story about this year’s winners here…

Gravity and Grace

/ Amie Inman / 1 Comment
Arsenale installation from the Venice Biennale

Arsenale installation from the 2007 Venice Biennale

During a recent visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City I was struck by a 3-dimensional piece that combines the opulence of a Gustav Klimt painting and the earthy elegance of Ghanian Kente cloth. The comparison isn’t as bizarre as it might appear when it’s understood that its creator is the Ghanian artist El Anatsui. Over a decade ago the sculptor found a bag of thousands of colorful aluminum screw tops discarded by a local distillery. The artist began by cutting and folding the bottle tops into flat pieces then used copper wire to stitch them together, creating patterns inspired by his country’s iconic cloth. Continue reading →

Sculpture And Animation In The Interest Of Nature

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Art or craft, we are inclined to sculptures and animation for reasons we cannot quite explain–sometimes just for fun, sometimes for contemplation, sometimes both simultaneously. What it means is best left to those experiencing it.  We categorize it as friendly to the themes we care about on this site, so hope to see more of his art. From the Asia Society’s website we learn that

U-Ram Choe is a Korean artist born in 1970 in Seoul. He is best known for his meticulously designed kinetic sculptures made of acrylic and stainless steel, each animated by robotics developed and programmed by the artist. Continue reading →

Zen, Mathematics, and the Art of Rock Relationships

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Robert Krulwich, always finding and sharing wonders we might otherwise miss, has a post on the process demonstrated in the video link below:

But how? How does he do it? First he says, you’ve got to “know the rocks.” I think this is a zen thing. Or maybe a sculptor’s thing. On his website, he says he is hyperaware of possible nooks on the rock’s surface: Continue reading →

Rendering Climate Change With A Camera

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Climate change is not only a major issue for scientists and politicians but for artists as well. Here are ten examples of photographers and other visual artists who are challenging viewers to consider the dangers of inaction by capturing the effects of extreme weather and a warming world.

Read the text to this slideshow, valuable for understanding the context, at the New Yorker website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Classical Dance – Kerala

/ Salim.E.I / 2 Comments


Kerala’s dance traditions are not merely living traditions but cultural documents that reflect the socio-cultural surroundings. The  story reflected in the dance forms are rooted in the rituals of the indigenous people. Continue reading →

Come To India, Alan Moore!

/ Crist Inman / 3 Comments
The wedding of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Photograph: Neil Gaiman/Writer Pictures

The wedding of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. Photograph: Neil Gaiman/Writer Pictures

Please bring your bride, too.  We extend this type of invitation to the too few happy few who clearly work for the pleasure of their craft (or so it seems, observing them), rather than the money.  In our own small way, 180+ full time members of Raxa Collective in Kerala–not to mention contributing photographers, interns and other friends to our purpose–are all attempting the same. For whomever might have missed it, this profile is worth the read:

…Moore has a complicated relationship with money. “Pure voodoo,” he says now. “Only there as long as we believe in it.” Challenged, during a television interview this year, about why he would sign away the movie rights to a comic such as Watchmen if he didn’t ever want it to become a movie, Moore said he gave up the rights because he never expected any adaptations to happen; he called it making money for old rope. Continue reading →