A guest post from Melody.
A: More than you can imagine!
Photographs taken at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, the annual art festival in Mumbai housing “Gallery and pavement shows, exhibitions, literary events, film screenings, music concerts, dance performances, theatre shows, workshops, heritage walks, a food fiesta, and a buzzing street festival bring in audiences and participants from all over the city” (cf Kala Ghoda Association)
At the core of the KGAF, every year, is the street art. From the bizzare to the thought provoking, from the quirky to the cute…. each year the street exhibits manage to get the crowds gawking. And, this year was no exception.
At the centre piece of the KGAF exhibtion was a giant ferris wheels of cycles with dabbhas….
Mumbai Masti - from the exhibition:
If the world is your playground, then Mumbai is certainly a giant ferris wheel. And one that carries everything with it, as it goes around its axis going about its daily business.
(Click here to read the whole post)
Bae Chang-Ho’s My Heart shall be screened today at the Max Mueller Bhavan at 1830 hours i. e. 6:30 in the evening. The director is considered the foremost exponent of the Korean New Wave cinema. In a stark departure from his usual style of film-making, My Heart is set in the Korea of 1920’s.
The movie is shot amidst the beautiful scenery of Korea. It tells the story of Sun-Yi (played by Kim Yoo-Mi, the director’s wife), who is married off to a ten-year old spoiled brat. When her husband grows past adolescence, he brings home a mistress much to the petrifaction of Sun-Yi. The movie tells the story of how Sun-Yi leaves home and searches for an identity of her own. In a way, the movie mirrors the struggle of Korea to find its identity in a shrinking world. (Click here to read the whole post)
Two of the gems of experimental cinema - Manhatta and The Man With The Movie-Camera - were screened at the Gallery Beyond yesterday. Since I missed the first one (I watched it on the internet anyway), I shall review only The Man With The Movie-Camera.
Made in 1929 by Dziga Vertov with cinematography by his brother Mikhail Khaufman, The Man With The Movie-Camera captures the Russian life in all its avatars. The movie has no story as such, yet one could call it the story of a people and a time.
The movie shows the Russian way of life in minute detail, and not often in the sad way that directors of art movies are wont to perceive. The camera captures in a most natural way the beautifully uncertain smiles, the lips that make unheard whispers, basking ladies, the victories and the excitement, the routine and the indifference - all captured with the devouring eye of a greedy voyeur and the detailed panache of a keen observer. The result is a movie which speaks of life without judgment and the consequent pitfalls that a jaundiced eye brings to the task of film-making. (Click here to read the whole post)
The third session of Experimental Cinema screenings (and my second), Gallery Beyond showcased the last four of Avant-Garde movies they had chosen to screen. I say chosen to screen because the Avant-Garde Collection (from which the movies are being shown) is a much wider collection comprising many more movies than time would have allowed them to show.
The four movies screened were:
I was lazing around in the afternoon and almost on a whim, I decided to attend the Avant-Garde movie screenings held at the Gallery Beyond. And it was so good that at the end of it, I cursed myself for being lazy and not attending on previous days.
The map for the festival does not pinpoint the location of the Gallery. And nobody except the a man standing outside Max Mueller could tell me where Gallery was. As a result, I arrived at the Gallery a full one hour late. To add to my woes, the watchman there told me that games were being played at the Gallery (Yahaan toh khel khila rahein hain).
Just as I was about to leave thinking that the event had been shifted to some other venue at the last minute for which notifications could not be put up on the website, a man told me that movies were indeed being screened at the Gallery and directed me to a door. I entered a darkened hall where the movies were being screened. It was only when my eyes adjusted to the light and I spotted paintings hanging on the walls around me that I realized I’d been ushered into the gallery itself.
(Click here to read the whole post)
Submit lanterns of any material, shape and size, and compete for the top three prizes. (All entries will receive certificates.)
All entries will be displayed from Saturday 2nd to Sunday 10th Feb; 08, at the Tenth Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, 2008.
Multiple entries are welcome.
No age restrictions
Group entries welcome (maximum 4 persons in a group)
Electrical fittings at our cost during the festival
Lanterns to be submitted latest by: 10th Jan, 08 Deadline extended to 28th January.
Submit to: ABM Architects, ‘Millernium’, 665, Veer Savarkar Marg, near Shivaji Park, Mumbai 400028. Tel : +91 22 24444401
The Kala Ghoda area has always an art enthusiast’s delight. The area is dotted with galleries - and of course some of the best art is found in the open air pavement exhibitions.
The main display of the KGF was a giant white sukhoi like aircraft right outside Rythm House. I am sure that there was deep underlying meaning to it, but it somehow escaped me!
At the pavement art gallery - there was the very interesting “This revolution is for Display” - a kind of fond look back memory lane - with posters, slogans and images of revolution. The “in Dog we Trust” was an artisitic comment on the of the killing of street dogs in Mumbai - little stuffed dogs on the pavement representing their real life counterparts.
The foot by foot exhibition put up by the Tao Art Gallery was striking. 50 artists given a canvas, a foot by a foot, to paint. And the gallery itself, prices art by the foot. An interesting marketing concept. And, this is mainly stuff that will look good on walls -I am not so sure about the ‘art’ part of it, but it is ‘pretty’ stuff.
The exhibit that struck me most was the sculputer “She Smoker” - for obvious reasons. A set of hands holding a variety of smokes - from beedis to cigarette butts - it seemed to be a comment on the attitudes towards women smoking.
The Bodhi Art Gallery carried a lovely set of prints by Zarine Hashmi in an exhibition entitled “Weaving Memory” . A US based artist, her medium is paper. And she uses a of lines and calligraphy in her work. In this particular exhibtion she explores living spaces - there are a set of wonderful floor plans and maps that she has has created.
visitors seeing a set of exhibits at the “weaving memory” exhibition
The “Alternate Shapes of Earth” exhibits - was a set of 5 large, blue differently shaped globes. A call for a more tolerance in dealing with differences.
My favourite caption on an exhibition, however, was that at the “Only Tangibles” display. It said that the display is “aimed at showcasing two and three dimensional works, which are not only restricted in size and can fit an average apartment of an urban home or office”. Straight and to the point - and they didn’t even use the word art.
a pencil for your office or home
The street exhibition around Jahangir was interesting. My favourite exhibit was a giant painted umbrella. Very Gauginesque.
Art Quest had a striking display of very retro and filmy furniture. Lots of reds and earths in their work. Very bright and attractive display. They had a lovely little bar that i coveted from afar !
All in all - good stuff all around. Pictures will be up soon.up now.
So the black horse races around the Islands again. The one big problem with the Kala Ghoda Art Festival is the fact that it is held where it is, right at the other end of town. I suppose that’s most easily (or at least equally) accessible for everyone in Mumbai and besides if they didn’t have it at Kala Ghoda, what would they call it? The ‘All over Mumbai’ festival doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it? :-)
I was at Kala Ghoda on the 5th February. The event I was looking for was Rural Rhythms, to be performed by a group of young dancers under the tutelage of Ms.Rajee Narayanan. They were performing a series of rope-dance sequences. Each girl had a pair of wooden sticks, from one of which was attached a long coloured rope. The other ends of all the ropes were fastened to a metal ring hovering over the stage.
I entered as one dance was in progress, the girls clacking their sticks together and weaving smoothly in and out of circles around each other. As we watched, the coloured ropes wove together in a symmetric design, all done, as the commentator pointed out, without looking up or missing a beat in the dance. And when the rope weaving was complete, the music stopped for a minute for the audience to admire the girls’ handiwork. Then they began again, this time in a different set of steps, to a different pulse and un-weaving the ropes. When they finished, every coloured rope hung individually as it had when they began, no knots, tangles or twists visible. Just perfectly synchronized to come apart in time to the end of the song.
The group performed 3 sequences, each one peaking with a different design of weave on the ropes and ending, as always with the girls impeccably in place and the ropes hanging gracefully separate. My camera-phone proved to be woefully inadequate in capturing some stills of the dance but I did manage a few shots of the girls after the dance was over.
I have been rather disappointed with the festival in the past couple of years…last year was more like an ‘Expo’ sale than a real festival of culture. It’s a precious enough time in a city that runs on clockwork precision number-like efficiency to spot colour, music, dance, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and generally anything that qualifies as art here. I was starting to miss it and wonder if KGAF had succumbed to the hard reality of mundane Mumbai too.
I’m so glad to say it hasn’t. The festival this year is remarkably back in shape. I’ve only managed one visit and 1.5 events but I know its back…you can virtually smell the spirit of the festival in the air again! At the entrance to the triangle, you are greeted by a huge lemon-and-green chillis (sculpture?effigy?stuffed something?). Right next to it is a glass case full of smaller replicas of the city’s most famous good luck charm.
Furthur up ahead is an ‘auto-copter’. Based on the fantasy of a person who got caught in Mumbai’s traffic and wished he could just lift up in the autorickshaw and fly away. Ah….wouldn’t we all wish that?
To the right, you spot a large, sparkling white model of a plane. What strikes you is…how very WHITE it is. Shining in the backdrop of the night sky, this is mounted on a base that on closer inspection, has some portraits barely visible but come to light, once you notice them. They’re all faces of people, virtually indistinguishable by gender or age. But they all look asleep…in a disturbed sleep. Does that signify the onslaught of war, terror and violence on all of as we ‘blissfully slumber’..or perhaps not? Maybe. That’s how I read it.
Art outside the galleries and out on the roads. Art for someone who can’t name the greats of art history. Art for those who appreciate beauty and music and ideas, simply for themselves. Art of all of us. I’m so glad the Kala Ghoda Art Festival is back in form.
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by Dilip D’souza
The Kala Ghoda Festival was bonanza time for one of my favouritest hobbies: looking at things written on T-shirts. Here are just a few:
Pepe Jeans London Champions 1973
Your boyfriend says hi!
America’s Finest. Too Hot to Handle. 2nd Division League Life Be A Sport
The Deco & Style of Fashion
Hot Vibration! Uniform Original Design House. 45 MPR. A very fashionable wear collection. 100 % fresh designs. 7-86459-09889
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by charukesi
I come back from Kala Ghoda Saturday night and find that most of what I want to say has already been written here. Food, stalls, literature, dance. Here are pictures instead.
Grand old VT from inside the car, waiting for the signal to turn green.
The artists not featured in the festival but part of Kala Ghoda always.
Photographing the photographer!
Splashes of colour from the stalls selling extremely pretty, tempting and now-what-do-I-use-them-for kind of things.
And these extremely striking weird, wired faces. I wonder whether people really buy such things to keep in their homes. imagine waking up to see such a face staring at you.
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by Harini Calamur
One of the first organised exhibits that you come across at the Kala Ghoda festival is the Art Quest exhibit. A series of poster, graphic, art - with the theme Bollywood bole toh Jhakaas - that takes a tounge in cheek look at, not just Bollywood but the whole mass media. Its penchant for extravaganze and over the topedness (if such a word exists) and a basic level of crassness (aapko kaise lagta hai - from a earthquake to a rape victim and everything in between) - is reflected very well in the exhibition.
As the blurb says:
using Bollywood as a launching pad, the artists from Artquest will be recreating scenes from popular entertainment in mixed media.
The one on Rajat Sharma’s over the top interrogation style - shoot first and worry about answers later - was quite apt. The term a sledgehammer to crack a walnut springs to mind.
There was great one on sting operations. Ultimately everything in the media is a commodity used gainfully to attract eyeballs. The truth be damned:). The use of ratty methods to catch the rat!
Now, no media satire can be complete without a tribute to kekta kapoor - of the kserial ksoap fame. Check out “kaun karega kachra serial ki safai“.
There was a lovely little “koffee with karan” tribute. Cute Hindi film poster art feeling that they managed on a fairly traditional coffeee set.
And of course the rickshaw from filmdom - a modified basanti ka tanga. I wonder if RGV’s sholay will have basanti as a rickshawali - if so then this is the rickshaw :)
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by Akshay Mahajan
This is some of the results of a Visual Art Workshop carried out by the National Center of Performing Art. The underlying theme this installation art is Mumbai: the environment and issues.This visual art set-up is on display in the foyer of The Army Navy Building.
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by Dilip D’souza
Akshay (that photo man again) mentions the exhibit of depictions of crows at the Festival. Crows are among my favourite birds, so I was thrilled to see this exhibit, though I should say I didn’t quite see why it should be there. Nevertheless: some intriguing crows. My favourite was by a Kumar Morey - I see Akshay hasn’t got a shot of Morey’s bird, so perhaps I’ll get one next time I’m down there.
My second favourite got that status because of the words below the painting. These words:
Crow always sit on wire, even in Himalayas. This time he sat on Banyan which one is sturdy and strong. Crow wants stableness, not ZULA.
Crow found place for meditation in cool atmosphere arch of Temple, which gives him stableness & strong foundation. He is not interested in Zula.
Crow is the only bird who cleans city by eating all types of waste food. After his strong effots he wants STABLENESS, STRONGNESS and MEDITATION. Not flicker mind & ZULA.
I’m mulling that one over, I am.
On the edge of the road immediately next to the crows are two bits of installation art. The first are the steel flowers Akshay photographed. The second is by Antje Görner, a Berliner. This is an “installation with rice flour”, writes Antje, and she set it up because she felt “connected to graffiti art which is prevalent” in Berlin but presumably not here; so she combined that connection with rangoli and viola, sorry volia, sorry voila! We have “Bombay Calling (In one single moment)”.
What is “Bombay Calling (In one single moment)”, you ask and it’s good you do. In white rangoli powder, stencilled there on the road in a large grid, is the word “anyway”. Not just one “anyway”, not even two “anyway”s, but.
792 - seven hundred and ninety-two - “anyways”.
Yes, I counted. Well, I counted the rows (33) and columns (24), and multiplied. (Finally, my science-oriented education counts for something).
What’s it supposed to mean? Forgive me Antje, but I’m baffled.
But I believe those “anyway”s are there to be used, and I’m going to do so, and I urge you to do so as well.
Anyway, I walked up the rest of Rampart Row. Anyway, I checked out some of the stalls, and anyway I bought four books (replaced my fallen-apart copy of Martin Cruz Smith’s superb thriller “Gorky Park” anyway). Bought a pair of earrings anyway. Stopped anyway, for a quick bite at a pani-puri seller. And took note of the stall at the far end of the street anyway, with much interest. Slogan on it, anyway, says “For the society, nation and righteousness.”
Yeah, but what about ZULA? Anyway.
Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by Akshay Mahajan
[Artwork by Mangesh Bhayde]
Look out of the window and you will find at least a pair of them. Lazily soaking in the Bombay sun on your air-conditioning unit or the lines of wire that dissect the sky . Birds they are but in their behaviour there is something human about them . No wonder some call Mumbai, the City of the Crows. Good art is always a reflection of its human surroundings and its relevance is only magnified by its expression. The collaborative new media art show at Kala Ghoda, Crow.ds, Meeting of Minds has its underlying theme as the crow.
The show is really hard to miss as it takes up the expansive pavement on the rampant row in front of the Max Mueller Bhavan. For some reason I found it fascinating and every time I was in the vicinity of the exhibition I discovered a different artistic modelling of the common crow. This fascination got the better of me and I decided to find out more. Digital Art is a young medium and as such I wasn’t surprised to find a young curator, Yogi Chopra, who was enthusiastically shepherding the visitors through this well crafted collaborative effort. I chatted with him for some time and found him to be quiet a pleasant chap.
[Yogi Chopra]
One question that troubled me when I took a look at the show was why the crow ? I went ahead and asked this to Yogi. The idea came to him while he was on the terrace of his house shooting pictures and he found that the most common living being he could see from his terrace overlooking the city was what else but the crow. Also a crow in visual depiction is nothing but a silhouette in the sky and its features are all but black. What is a better subject for collaboration ? To express something so expressionless yet so vivid . The end results of the collaboration are 26 different art works , all unique yet all having the same subject - the enigmatic crow.
[Artwork by Harshvardhan Kadam]
Interestingly they have a website you could check out - Meetingofminds.in. Also the show will be on all through the duration of the festival so please do check them out.
2nd–10th February '08
Visit Sulekha Blogs
Want to sponsor this blog? Please get in touch with us at editors at caferati dot com.