The News Review:
- Jim Dine Tony Labat and Ruth Eckland: wrecks lies and videotape
- A photo-pilgrimage by the faithless
- Kahawa has some cool haute stuff for the festive season
- Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
- Reiss up to some monkey business
Jim Dine Tony Labat and Ruth Eckland: wrecks lies and videotape
San Francisco Chronicle – Dec 15, 2007
The pointless performance reads as an incantatory exercise perhaps futile but morally necessary in circumstances of political frustration and deadlock. “TIR (After Niki) AK47″ (2007) stands for the release of that frustration in terms just as futile. It presents a photo-collage made from a bullet-riddled shooting range target bearing the image of an imaginary armed hijacker with a flight attendant hostage. The adjacent “Target Painting (To be shot at)” (2007) refers to Jasper Johns’ famous “Target” paintings and the economic and cultural realities that make them definitively not to be shot at. The reference to Johns’ “Flag” paintings in Labat’s “Designated Area” paintings – small square monochromes each with a phallic flagpole holder attached – does not lift them above facile political statement. The “Day Labor” series – videos and stills in which Labat captured the boring suspense experienced by day laborers waiting for pick-up jobs on a corner nearby his studio – makes for a disheartening study in the difficulty of waiting for fate to play itself out. It also forms an ambivalent exercise in the aesthetics of surveillance for which Labat knows he has to answer.
A photo-pilgrimage by the faithless
Economic Times – Dec 15, 2007
If the title suggests an ideological itinerary this set ofphotographs has more to do with the universality of faith rather than itsdwarfed divisions. Step into the dim-lit recesses of Palette Art Gallery inDelhi and you are faced with the microcosm of a full-fledged choice ofabstinence in an era of modernism. From the Khadauns to theSadhus your gaze turns from stare to stirrings ? it?s about theinner instinct and the outer somber fashioning of a peopled terrain that setsyou thinking about the paths chosen by individuals ?monks sadhus placesof worship the tree in its solitude and the road taken. The name Tirtha of courseregisters deeper intonations and goes beyond age-old definitions and nestlesitself into cohesive and kinetic connotations. Dinesh Khanna?scolour-splattered images contrast paradoxically against the dark timbered Kumbhshots of Panjiar. Whether he captures the two Jain monks on the road to amillennium or the little Ganesha stone Dinesh reveals once more the seamlessnessbetween the yesteryear and today… Whether he captures the two Jain monks on the road to amillennium or the little Ganesha stone Dinesh reveals once more the seamlessnessbetween the yesteryear and today. But Dinesh?s finestimages perhaps are those of the trees ? that of Madhurai tree and turmericand Benares in Black Tree. The image of the Benares in Black Tree has acombination of authority and austerity even as it personifies an elusivedarkened soulfulness. The chromatic understanding and affinity that Dinesh hasfor colour is indeed an evolved side of his sensibility and is represented hereby Mathura Pillars but he gives us this meditative restrained mood in PalitanaContemplation. The influence ofsurrealism to which the Kumbh mela responds with alacrity is evident in theKumbh shots of Prashant Panjiar. Panjiar?s prowess is a magnificentmélange of images that go beyond the mundane or the superficial.
Kahawa has some cool haute stuff for the festive season
Hindu – Dec 15, 2007
Whether they are clothes home accessories like ceramic ware photo frames slippers or gift boxes the entire range is hand-crafted and made from natural fabric. Says Nishi Rahman of Kahawa: “We even assist budding artists in materials or free space to display their works. ” At the Gallery you will find upmarket Bollywood inspired clothes like long tops and saris and footwear with a lot of sequins and bright colours. n the shelves are also pretty gift options ranging from candles paper products like gift boxes river grass table and floor mats diaries agarbhatti stands and more… Whether they are clothes home accessories like ceramic ware photo frames slippers or gift boxes the entire range is hand-crafted and made from natural fabric. Says Nishi Rahman of Kahawa: “We even assist budding artists in materials or free space to display their works. ” At the Gallery you will find upmarket Bollywood inspired clothes like long tops and saris and footwear with a lot of sequins and bright colours. n the shelves are also pretty gift options ranging from candles paper products like gift boxes river grass table and floor mats diaries agarbhatti stands and more. The ceramic wares like bowls are of sober earthy hues like greys and browns.
Tehelka:: Free. Fair. Fearless
Tehelka – Dec 15, 2007
But that is not the true story of this picture. “The original photograph was her standing on a ship against the sea. It was nice but just an ordinary scenic photo quite boring and pretty” he says laughing quietly. It is this refusal to sentimentalise that has characterised Broota’s fourdecade- long career as an artist… Though the forms that appear in his paintings and photos are based in realism Broota shies away from realistic or naturalistic representation. “I am not interested in what is already there. You may start with the camera the subject the scene but that’s not the end of it — 95 percent of the photos have to be manipulated” he says. Straight photography has never appealed to him either.
Reiss up to some monkey business
Toronto Star – Dec 15, 2007
Artist Vivian Reiss’ latest show Satoyama Story at the Reiss Gallery 500 College St. 31 incorporates some of the snow simians she encountered during her three-month stay last year in Hachi a Japanese village of 150 people. The creatures are appropriately called snow monkeys given that the area gets some four metres of snow a year. Because of her affinity for things Japanese ? and because of her diminutive size ? Reiss likes to shop at the Pacific Mall in Markham at Steeles and Kennedy… "In March they have a great vintage show at Enoch Turner School House. Susan Dicks makes clothing for me for special occasions and I have an apartment in New York where I shop in boutiques in NoHo and SoHo and of course Century 21. "Finally we arrive at Pacific Mall where Reiss looks at bags for the photo op ? which she finds strange since she never shops for purses ? including a knockoff of the fabled Anya Hindmarch "I Am Not A Plastic Bag" for $35. "I need one of these to go to Whole Foods" she mugs. "I have my Hello Kitty knapsack I’ve travelled the world over and it’s falling apart. "She hits the motherlode at Three Degrees where 80 per cent of the goods are from Japan and the rest from China Hong Kong and Korea. There are masses of garments in this tiny kiosk some layered three deep on hangers.