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Himali Singh Soin
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Child's Play
by Himali Singh Soin
Hema Upadhyay at Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati
February 9th - May 5th
Posted
2/21/13
Like nursery rhymes about the black plague or fairy tales about dictatorial empires, here is a site-specific installation that employs a colorful playfulness in form to access dark and grave content. Galerie Espace Typographie in Paris, where Hema Upadhyay first recreated this dioramic view of miniature slum dwellings in Bombay, is a former textile godown, with natural lighting from a roof made of glass, with echoes from walls made of stone and appearing as a construction or storage site with con... [more]
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The Anti-Mail: An Interview with Kiran Subbaiah
by Himali Singh Soin
2013-01-27
New Delhi, Jan. 2013: Kiran Subbaiah was not born in 1971 in Karnataka, India. He did not complete an MFA in sculpture at The Royal College of Art in London, and neither did he graduate with an undergraduate degree in sculpture from The University of Baroda. He hasn’t shown all over the world, especially not recently at the Centre Pompidou, Serpentine, Bose Pacia, Thomas Erben, among others. He did not receive the Unesco Aschberg Bursary or the Inlaks scholarship. And lastly, he has not been writte... [more]
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GEOslant with Himali Singh Soin: "Come as you are, Leave as you will be": In Memory of Georgia Fee
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
1/4/13
I once imagined what it would be like to disappear. From the earth, society, my self. To be a hole. And what it would be like to exist so completely, that I could be omnipresent, on earth, in society, to my self. Whole. And it was with Georgia that I experienced this.
We went, along with Jim Benn, a fellow ArtSlant writer, to see Yayoi Kusama's retrospective at the Pompidou while I was visiting Paris, but we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. We had no idea that we would swim... [more]
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Interview with Astha Butail
by Himali Singh Soin
2012-10-28
India, Oct. 2012: When I met Astha Butail, the contemporary visual of her red angular shirt, her poofy blue skirt and her lime green architectural clutch popped and played mischief with those around. But when we spoke, our words had little to do with fashion, though that is how Butail’s career began. Having encountered the realm of the conceptual, Astha Butail, an emerging artist with a keen eye for design, ventured into the ancient book of Vedas and the symbols and stories that fill their pages.... [more]
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GEOslant with Himali Singh Soin: The H of How: A Part of You and Your Partial Self at Sleep No More.
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
10/1/12
No sleep till Brooklyn, I chanted all summer, racing against the night, elbow and index finger at right angles to the page, the arithmetic of the numbers on the top corners of Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ teasing me as they ascended, stopped, and started again with each volume. In shedding notions of linear or real-time, and therefore morality, I was forced to exist outside—the landscape, the book, myself, you.
The last volume is called Time Regained, arrived at after, of course... [more]
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Someone Else’s Home Alone
by Parni Ray
Gautam Bhatia, Niyeti Chadha, Zuleikha Chaudhari, Abir Karmarkar, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Prajakta Potnis, Mithu Sen, Praneet Soi, Hema Upadhyay at The Loft At Lower Parel
May 23rd, 2012 - July 14th, 2012
Posted
7/17/12
What is it that makes me ‘me’ and you ‘you'? Broken down to the basic unit, rounded off to the last decimal point, what of us will remain if our being, this Sisyphean burden we bear daily, is removed quite out of the blue? A few strands of hair on the bed we sleep in, the smell of skin under the sheets, our well dug footprints on the soles of shoes, tossed indelicately once beyond the familiar threshold of home.
And perhaps a note. Poignant in its brevity and aptly mystifying.
But will these... [more]
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26 Down
by Himali Singh Soin
Sathyanand Mohan at The Guild Art Gallery
April 13th, 2012 - May 26th, 2012
Posted
4/23/12
Sathyanand Mohan’s series of twenty-six playful photographs, Abecedaire, 2012, evoked this story of childhood crossword puzzles and intangible life lessons. The artist’s photographs are about the simultaneous beauty and danger that the world of words evokes: each image delves into a colorful universe of constructed and natural landscapes with a childlike block letter, A to Z, in the foreground. The letters come to signify the paradoxes of meaning, and the symbols of a psyche that are disorderl... [more]
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In Other Words
by Parni Ray
Prayas Abhinav, Sarnath Banerjee, Zuleikha Chaudhari, Raqs Media Collective, Vibha Galhotra, Sonia Khurana, Hanif Kureishi, Sachin George Sebastian at Exhibit 320
November 25th, 2011 - December 25th, 2011
Posted
1/2/12
WORDS: A USER'S MANUAL begins with the word, keeping the implicit promise in its name. Simply put, the driving concept at the core of this ambitiously curated show is this: words, as we know them, denote specific reality, whereas ‘art’ is essentially devoid of any such intrinsic meaning and is appreciated in terms of individual inference and interpretation.
To illustrate this point further let us consider the word ‘Cat.’ When I say the word ‘Cat’ I refer to the furry purring creat... [more]
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The Year in Time
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
1/2/12
Even as the clock is a constant, K, ticking away, Time itself varies with the meridians, the stars, the oceans and its tides. It is hardly ever measured with numbers or needles: it is the sweat on a wrist, that which will indicate the state of the person rather than the false clasp of a wristwatch.
Time is measured in personal histories, and written through the narrow lens of the history of the historian--that time when you were in love flew by, that time when you doubted yourself stretched elastical... [more]
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Yayoi Kusama
by Himali Singh Soin
Yayoi Kusama at Centre Pompidou
October 10th, 2011 - January 9th, 2012
Posted
11/1/11
At once dark, cold, full of light. Then warm, uncanny and familiar, controlled and free, asexual and erotic, lonely and loving, Yayoi Kusama's retrospective at the Centre Pompidou is not merely an exhibit of an artist's work. This is like landing in a new dimension filled with color and polka dots and long, radish-like growths, like being inside a brain, exploring the complexity of a strong and vulnerable mind, of a woman who made metaphors concrete, and illusions into reality.
(Image: Yayoi Kusama, Self-Obli... [more]
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Pretty in Pink
by Himali Singh Soin
Kapil Das at PHOTOINK
September 17th, 2011 - November 12th, 2011
Posted
10/9/11
In 1946, after the world wars, Edith Piaf sings La Vie En Rose, calling out to her lover to give his heart and soul to her, so that her life will always be in "pink." In the late 90's, a relatively pink time in America that saw the rise of information and the settling modicum of the cold war, the song Pink by Aerosmith lifts the tiny and the everyday (lips, cherry, umbrella, crayon, flamingo) and the ascending octaves to imply that "everything is going to be alright."
Here is a photographer who recreates his own li... [more]
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Interview with Princess Pea
by Himali Singh Soin
2011-09-18
New Delhi, Sept. 2011: Princess Pea's art is her life, dramatically heightened by her intriguing performed persona (whilst we corresponded, she was often taking her ‘beauty sleep,' much to Agent Bob’s chagrin) and outrageous and surprising body of work.
I emailed her asking if I could interview her for ArtSlant. Here is the response I received:
The Princess is in Tokyo right now; amazed at the speed of the trains. She wonders why peple make high rises what they do all day sitting there.... [more]
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Feroz Shah Kotla
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
8/21/11
As a young child, I was taken into thick forests on safari where I listened to the crickets and waited for that ominous rustle of leaves; I was put on a camel’s back to sway with its pendulumic rhythm in the deep desert dunes; I was left in castles to explore the secret drawers of kings, I climbed mountains and crouched in caves and swam in seas and fished in rivers and through all these adventures, I prayed.
I wasn’t given religion, but I was made to believe. In all my explorations, I met w... [more]
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Seeing in Time
by Himali Singh Soin
Prayas Abhinav, Amitabh Kumar, Tahireh Lal, Umesh P N, Amitabh Pandey, Kiran Subbaiah, Eelco Wagenaar, Asim Waqif at The Guild Art Gallery
July 18th, 2011 - August 28th, 2011
Posted
8/21/11
Imagine that Time was born wearing a frock, morphing, as he grows older, into a dress, then a gown. The frock is simple, the dress has a few studs and some intricate cuts, and the gown is bedecked with lace and beads and zippers—all the frills that a society will impose upon that which began simply with itself.
The Sidereal is that tangential reality at the centre of the circle of Time had the frock not turned into a gown: On the Sidereal ponders the nature of Time were it stripped of the value... [more]
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Urban Gaze
by Himali Singh Soin
Sandeep Biswas at Ashna Gallery
March 31st, 2010 - April 17th, 2010
Posted
5/24/11
Polished, shiny, plastic, glistening, steel, luminous, Sandeep Biswas’ almost life-sized polymorphous photographs glow lucent within the bright, spacious walls of Ashna Gallery. Depicting exaggerated, blown up images of light bulbs, mannequins, plastic water bottles, curtain holders, funnels and other such ‘material objects… that glitter and need no effort in maintenance’, Biswas offers the viewer a meditation on the transient psyche of city life.
Each of his images are knotted, stacked-up and multiple; no object is seen singularly, instead as a cloud of mass produ... [more]
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The Third Dimension
by Himali Singh Soin
Sandip Biswas, Pratul Dash, Ravi Kumar Kashi, Sunil Padwal, Sachin George Sebastian at Exhibit 320
April 1st, 2011 - May 6th, 2011
Posted
5/22/11
Paper Tongues is cleverly curated: though seemingly dictatorial in form and medium, it does not limit its artists to employing paper simply as a medium. It extends into paper as a function of the preservation of manifesto, and an 'exchange of ideas’. The concept note refers to the work growing from a desire to Change, and whilst the decay of society is commonly an artist’s inspiration, the exhibition did not strike me as socially charged or created by 'revolutionary dreamers’. Rather, it stru... [more]
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A Book Review
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
5/19/11
Queer launched in Delhi on the 2nd May at Max Mueller Bhavan, and lauches in London on 31 May 2011, Autograph ABP, Rivington Place.
Written by Sunil Gupta, Saleem Kidwai and Keith Wallace.
Published by Prestel and Vadehra Art Gallery.
In Sunil Gupta's book titled Queer, we travel the world — beginning in Montreal and landing in Delhi — imagining the lives of his ‘documentary’ portraits of gay men and women. Amongst the larger collection, however, is his series of photograph... [more]
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Space, History, Invasion
by Avni Doshi
Bard Sandemose, Ismael Sanz-Pena at The Loft At Lower Parel
March 5th, 2011 - March 19th, 2011
Posted
3/28/11
With regards to what might be called a deficit of the continuity of seeing, “¡Space :: Invaders!” taps into the cuts and pauses which make up the condition of viewing, specifically drawing out examples of cultural coagulation which are alternately random, disturbing and funny. The show comes as part of an initiative by the Loft, a gallery in Mumbai, to promote young curators. Curator Himali Singh Soin brought together Spanish artist Ismael Sanz-Pena and Norwegian artist Bard Sandemose. Both art... [more]
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Summit Snippets
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
2/14/11
To Judge a Canvas by its Title
How does one unearth the Archeology of Spectacle?I call upon you, Fragile herand from *1934: Wear a Bulletproof vest for this is a battleBetween Black vs black but.Even War Has Limits.What you will find is An Epic Act that ends with Afternoon Tea and Love Cakes.Your Afterlife turns out to be merely an Accumulation of Cock Dump 2011 aka Study for monument to Folly.Careful now, Science is Fiction and what you think is real is merely an Epic Act Sans Titre. The tiger i... [more]
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Pill Appeal
by Himali Singh Soin
Jaishri Abichandani, Sarnath Banerjee, Ayesha Durrani, Kaif Gaznavi, Tushar Joag, Abir Karmakar, Swati Khurana, Nandita Kumar, Tazeen Qayyum, Mithu Sen, Vito Tumbarello at Latitude 28
January 22nd, 2011 - February 22nd, 2011
Posted
1/31/11
The Pill is a Personification. The Pill is a Hyperbole, an Archetype, a Symbol. It’s tiny, systematic, circular self has flirtatiously traveled across the globe, morphing old wives tales about women’s cycles, reproduction and sexual intercourse.
And how the tiny tablets find themselves in an art gallery in Delhi only hints at their locomotive stamina. Particularly fascinating, across the exhibition, is the number of artists that chose to employ the shape of a circle, in image, metaphor and meani... [more]
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Meditation on Kapoor's Optic Antics
by Himali Singh Soin
Anish Kapoor at National Gallery of Modern Art - Delhi
November 27th, 2010 - February 27th, 2011
Posted
1/17/11
Anish Kapoor’s deep well of color and shapes make your eyes burn. The outside is inverted with the inside, images are miniaturized and hyperbolic, too close or too far, lateral, converse, perverse, and incongruous with any rational imagination. You feel these things that frustrate and exhilarate you. You wonder about the universe, you wonder about yourself. You think about love, about loneliness, emptiness and character. You wonder how such artificial, solid structures could evoke such visce... [more]
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A Poem
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
12/28/10
Calder's Model Universe
There is no better model for me to choose Sense of motion space volume
Than the universe: Knowledge of the cosmic
Sympathy for the human
Variation between the elements of life
Not extractions but abstractions
Resembling the real only in its manner of reaction
A... [more]
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Life Insurance to Dance On
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
11/29/10
Project BandaloopSeher India/American CentreLIC BuildingConnaught PlaceNew Delhi 110001November 26th 2010
It’s a life-affirming day: the sun is out, the air is chilly, and the centre of Delhi is buzzing like a cicada. There are folks eating from street stalls, some hop busily on and off the metro, others shop, or simply walk. Music emanates from the Life Insurance Corporation’s building as five dancers from San Francisco prepare themselves to dance, parallel to the surface of the b... [more]
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The Black Spot
by Himali Singh Soin
Kazi Nasir at Latitude 28
November 20th, 2010 - December 12th, 2010
Posted
11/29/10
Tiny black specks spread like wild multiplying ants, across desolate landscapes, up pillars, into oceans, swarming the canvases and seemingly leaping up the walls of the gallery Latitude 28 till it sinks to the equator-- in the jarring glare of the sun the voice of truth, an alarming illumination of the violence and isolation that has consumed the world and left it brittle and crumbling. Kazi Nasir’s foreboding art utilizes a man-made medium—acrylics—to portray the destruction of man and... [more]
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Report from the Bangaluru Artist Residency
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
11/8/10
Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called ‘The Pledge’. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called ‘The Turn’. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret...... [more]
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Art Celebrates 2010!
by Himali Singh Soin
Yusuf Arakkal, Jayasri Burman, Arpana Caur, Jogen Chowdhury, Apurva Desai, Pooja Iranna, Krishen Khanna, Gopi Krishna, Paresh Maity, Anjolie Ela Menon at Lalit Kala Akademi Galleries - New Delhi
October 3rd, 2010 - October 15th, 2010
Posted
11/2/10
Delhi is an old city; even popular depictions portray dusty streets silhouetted in cycle rickshaws and imperial columns. It is also a quiet city, its air of solemnity punctuated only by the newspaperman’s calls to begin the day with politics, debate and the overheard at yesterday afternoon’s luncheon. A green ridge forms the penumbra of this tree-capped city, its shadows dancing with bygone classical rhythms up the thick stone walls of an old fort, a tomb, a mosque, a ruin. This... [more]
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CWG Grafitti
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
11/1/10
The slick whitewashed walls of the Lalit Kala Academi’s exhibition on ‘Sports and the City’ leaks / between the cracks left by inefficient plumbing / onto the streets. An aggressive agitation bleeds onto the crumbling cement walls of Delhi as pockets of anonymous groups form to publicly subvert—with text—the text that adorns our new, "cleansed" city: Commonwealth Games 2010.
Over the past year, numerous symbolic spaces have been transformed with anti-CWG slogans... [more]
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Performance Manifesto for the 21st Century
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
8/24/10
The stage-- the holy stage-- the suspension of disbelief-- the deliberation of spontaneity-the only space where the intellect contains the body.The body. Molded and contorted and twisted and turned into shape and shapelessness, breath—in and out—and form. The body speaks. The body that endures, that sweats, that tears, the body that is vulnerable to time, the corporeal, the mortal.The fine arts—sculpture, painting, drawing, etching—alone must use objects and implemen... [more]
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Interview with Siddharth Kararwal
by Himali Singh Soin
2010-08-18
India, Aug. 2010: ArtSlant writer Himali Singh Soin currently lives with Siddharth Kararwal at the Bangalore Artist Residency where they eat, drink, ponder, conjure, create, destroy and recreate things. Siddhartha Kararwal is a sculptor who lifts weighty issues with mundane objects using scrap materials like plastic bags, foam sheets, firecrackers, cardboard, bronze, iron, copper. He has upcoming shows at the end of September in Bangalore and at Sakshi Gallery at the Lalit Kala in November. Sidd... [more]
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Prisoners with Vision
by Himali Singh Soin
Posted
7/24/10
Art From Behind Bars (an exhibition of artworks created by incarcerated criminals)
Organized by Kavita Shivdisani
In association with bCA Gallery, Mumbai
The sky above is a navy moleskin. Down below, a drum beats. A clang opens an iron door, a tin bowl of sour lentils is placed near a silhouetted figure. Time swells, scraping like a file on metal. Distant shrieks and heavy boots punctuate the thick cold steel bars that cut and tear the drooping figure into long, bent chunks of flesh, so b... [more]
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