Oops, Art Scoops

Take on Art

subcontinentalart — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:22:06 +0000

On 23 November 2009, a new magazine on art was launched in Delhi. The name of the magazine: Take (with a subtitle ‘On Art’). The Times of India, which does not cover art at all, covered the the launch of this magazine. All the so called big shots of art world like Chintan Upadhyay, Bose Krishnamachari and US based duo Thukral and Tagra posed for photograph with the proprietor of this new magazine.

Then the magazine simply vanished.

No sane person has ever seen the magazine, let alone read any of the articles. No magazine shop, no book stall ever had a copy of the magazine. So what exactly happened?

Apparently the magazine was never printed. On the day of the show, only the front and the back covers were printed and these were put over white sheets and distributed in sealed covers. The guests all knew these things and so they too never opened the magazine. The idiotic Times of India, which in the past one year transformed itself succesfully from a news paper to a page3 daily agreed to cover the show for a big sum of bribe. And the magazine “Take” got launched in thin air.

Chintan Upadhyay and Bhavna Kakar: Everybody dancing at their tunes

After people realized the scoop, the magazine’s proprietor Ms Bhavna Kakar went underground. Nothing much was lost except the trust of the art loving people who were given yet another example of the unscrupulous ways of our art galleries, dealers and artists who have been made by these unscrupulous people. Chintan Upadhyay, Chittrobhanu Majumdar and Subodh Gupta: big artists or tricksters?

Copies of "Take : On Art" Magazine. One can see only the covers. Nothing was ever printed inside.

Smart Ass Money Minting

subcontinentalart — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:27:27 +0000

Donkeys sell. What does that mean? it can mean two things.

1. That, donkeys are good at selling

2. That, donkeys are easy to sell.

Both in a way are applicable to the Indian Art Market. The donkeys who do not know how to make a donkey have in the past made abstracts and sold them well. Examples are many. Harshavardhan, the son of ex-artist Swaminathan. Then there is Manish pushkale. Then Manoj Kachangal. Then GR Iranna. Ask these artists to make a clear sketch of a man or woman. Possibilites are that they will produce good quality dung.

But they made abstracts and these abstracts sold for good sum. Why people could not understand how they mixed colours so well. Well for all those donkeys who bought the works of these artists, here are some links in Youtube that tells one how to make a nonsense abstract.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Quugl0hOCQI

While good artists were taking time to make paintings, since such works needed good amount of brain time and then good skills, the abstract artist like the one mentioned above, made works in lots. Manish Pushkale and GR Iranna and Iranna’s wife Pooja made sometime more than 30 works in a month. But they had ready buyers.

Now in the time of recession, the donkeys who bought these stuff are suffering the most. But then why did these people, err donkeys bought them at the first place.

Because they say in India that :if you want Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth, then you must not follow Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge)” So Lakshmi followers in India ignore Saraswati easily and land up buying donkeys. The practice continues because these donkeys somehow always made money.

That is what we call “Ssssssmart Ass”.

Iranna’s Donkey

subcontinentalart — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:42:34 +0000

Iranna made a donkey and turned it on one side at the recently held India Art Summit. Nobody quite understood what Iranna tried to convey. More importantly, none could figure out why this Donkey should be called art. The works was not made by Iranna. Actually Iranna had order-made the donkey from a New Delhi based mannequin makers. He did not even see the donkey before it was brought to Art Fair Ground. Yet Iranna claims that the donkey is made by him. Is he trying to make others donkeys as well? Apparently that is what it seemed to be.

India Art Summit had many such artworks displayed. Ved Gupta displayed dogs, again custom-made by manufacturers. Many other artists also did similar things.
The problem is Indian Art still lags behind Europe even today. The Europeans had experimented with such shock arts at least twenty years back. In England today, Tracy Emin is considered passe. Shock artists do not draw any attention. Entire Europe is again going back to fundamental thinking in art and beyond shock. Artists are again devoting time to inventing new genres, styles, narratives and renderings. In the past few years Europe has seen the emergence of magic realism, new surrealism, strucknon art, superflat art, posse-ism. But in India, we are still doing installations and readymades.

Aping west is bad but aping the west of yesterday is absolutely senseless. Iranna has spent a lot of money in erecting the donkey. We pray that some other donkey buys it so that Iranna can get back his money.

Scoop Creation in Art World

subcontinentalart — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:53:27 +0000

Artist in India are taking to art of stripping and all other forms of shock creating activities. Art they say is all about illusions. But now we are entering a phase where shock and not illusion is becoming cetnre of art-activities. Subodh Gupta as told earlier was one of the first to do this. He stripped, smeared himself with vaselin and then sat on a sofa with the camera man putting his lens close to the his genitals. The image became iconic, shocking and catapulted Subodh Gupta to fame.

Following this contemporary artist Chintan Upadhyay, did the same in Baroda a couple of years back. He stripped and sat in the middle of the gallery and asked viewers to pur water on him. But Chintan was more intelligent and took good care to make sure that no one take the photographs and publish them anywhere.

Chintan with clothes on

Till now stripping is becoming a fad only among the male artists. Both Chintan and Subodh are married to artist wives. These wives are also into shock-making. Like Bharati Kher, wife of Subodh Gupta had taken a photo of herself in semi-nude fashion. But she remained careful in hiding her breasts behind a pair of carefully aranged cup cakes. Complete Stripping is yet to catch up among female artists in India. Nonetheless the art world is becoming increasingly interesting, sleazy and scandalous.

The question is how far are these things art. Subodh Gupta is not selling much these days. His over-priced steel sculptures are big and stainless. But as serious art, their value is doubtful. Chintal Upadhyay’s works are also very repititive and deja vu. By investing in their works, many a buyer has lost millions. Galleries like Bodhi and Sakshi have gone out of business.

Now what else to do? Remember that subtitle for the movie Full Monty: No Job, No Clothes

Subodh Gupta Smears Himself with Cowdung.

subcontinentalart — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:01:29 +0000

When Art does not sell, artists do a lot of things. Subodh Gupta once hailed as the most expensive contemporary artists has done everything from Stripping to Smearing cowdung on body. Subodh Gupta had started his career by stripping full monty and smearing himself with vaseling jelly. Then having himself photographed in that condition, Gupta made a huge printout of the image.

Naked Guptaji. But upto waist

That is how he came to limelight. Now Gupta does the act again by smearing cowdung on his naked body. However this time shame has finally got hold of him and hence one can see only upto the waist.

Hello world!

subcontinentalart — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:55:57 +0000

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