Art auctions held under the aegis of international auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christies have always generated a lot of interest as well as speculation whenever a European or South Asian arti

Political satire and commentary is becoming rather rare in the art world with few artists like Ved Gupta taking up the cudgels against the political system, otherwise relegating the political to either news or cartoons. Younger artists prefer to take the abstract and experimental route where songs of discontent and anti-establishment agenda need to be excavated.

In the digital age, photography is perhaps the most difficult medium because every image echoes in the memory as stale, old, already viewed. It is a challenge to produce something new and exciting. In a solo show of Rami Dagar’s photographs, Oasis of Colour, presented by Gallery Ensign, the pictures range from the

Chittaprosad remained a struggling artist all his life, partly because high principles did not allow him to compromise his ideology and his selfhood and partially because he was overshadowed by various ‘isms’ in art movement. Though he was perhaps the most ‘progressive’ in terms of what the term stands for in literature,

Maqbool Fida Husain is perhaps one of the best known faces of contemporary Indian art, with an equally well-known human interest story of rags to riches and death in exile angle to match his iconic stature.

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, ‘created’ in 1917, consisted of the display of a urinal bought at a hardware store at a 90-degree angle instead of its normal position. This is considered as one of the most influential pieces of 20th century art. The original was lost, but about eight replicas of the same signed by the artist in the 1960s are displayed in important museums all over the world.

The search by a group of artists, for happiness and sense of joy in colours and lines is reflected in the show Carpe Diem at Gallery Nvya. Carpe Diem, meaning ‘seize the day’, brings to the fore emotions, thoughts, feelings, longings of the artist. The artists are united by a commitment to vibrancy, energy and colour.

As the summer descends, artists head towards art camps and galleries towards group shows and displays of their gallery collection. Though this brings a lull in the exhibition, preview and party circuit, it is actually a breather that allows the galleries to assess the response to their artists’ and plan their schedule.

A selection of photographs, photomontage and digital works by eight photography artists (lens based artists) was exhibited in ‘Lens-ing It’ curated by Johnny ML. The show focused on the works of artists who use photography as photography; they are lens based artists and often use their photographic prints as their final product. In

The term and concept of modernism in art, especially Indian art, is interrogated by the curator Rajan Purohit in Home Alone: Modernist Visual Confirmations. The show brings the works of some well-known but mainly lesser known artists to the fore. The show explores the very individual and lonely pursuit of the art and honing of their craft by artists within the confines of their comfort zone of home and the studio,