India News | Art Shows, Lectures to Mark 35 Years of Gallery Espace
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A new exhibition featuring works by leading Indian and international contemporary artists will mark the beginning of a series of shows and lectures to celebrate 35 years of Gallery Espace in contemporary Indian art space.
New Delhi, Oct 10 (PTI) A new exhibition featuring works by leading Indian and international contemporary artists will mark the beginning of a series of shows and lectures to celebrate 35 years of Gallery Espace in contemporary Indian art space.
'Ancestral Futures', curated by Swiss curator and historian Damien Christinger, will examine the history of the gallery and how it connects to today's art practices.
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Running from October 18 to December 12, the show will reflect on the gallery's past while exploring contemporary art practices that look to the future.
The show will feature gallery artists along other eminent names, some of them Europeans, including Arunkumar HG, Ashish Sahoo, Ashok Ahuja, Harendra Kushwaha, Ishita Chakraborty, Nandini Bagla Chirimar, Maze Collective, Michael Guenzberger, Ravi Agarwal, Sharad Sonkusale, Sonia Mehra Chawla, Ujjal Dey and Ursula Biemann.
“The concept of ‘Ancestral Futures' intertwines the past, present, and future, positing that ancestral histories profoundly influence our understanding of time and identity. In the realm of art, this idea provides a rich tapestry for creative expression, prompting artists to engage with their heritage while imagining the possibilities that lie ahead,” Christinger said in a statement.
He added that the exhibition explores the significance of ancestral futures in art, reflecting on “how artists utilise their cultural narratives to challenge contemporary issues and envision hopeful trajectories”.
Talking about the upcoming show, Renu Modi, founder-director of Gallery Espace said that Christinger's curatorial premise offers an outside view of the gallery's history and that of contemporary Indian art over the last 35 years.
"Take Harendra Kushwaha, who works with paper – a medium that the Gallery has long championed. His artwork in the show is a large mobile that hangs in the atrium space, which extends his practice in new directions.
"Similarly, Arunkumar HG will showcase in the new ‘project space' on the floor above his new body of work featuring a series of lenticular prints that address the environmental degradation of the Western Ghats,” Modi said.
The 35th anniversary show, titled 'Memory Fields', will open at Bikaner House from November 29 to December 12 and will continue at the gallery from December 18 to January 15, 2025.
Curated by art critic Gayatri Sinha, 'Modern Fields' will feature leading modern and contemporary artists who have been seminal to the gallery's journey, such as MF Husain, Manjit Bawa, Nilima Sheikh, Manjunath Kamath and GR Iranna, among others.
The exhibit is a retrospective of works from the artists who are represented by the gallery or have shown with it sometime in their careers.
A series of lectures will continue the discourse and reflection on art, starting with the Inaugural Gallery Espace lecture by Mallica Kumbert Landrus on February 3, 2025.
Another lecture celebrating artist Zarina Hashmi will be held in July 2025.
Gallery Espace opened its doors in 1989 with an exhibition of autobiographical watercolours by legendary Modernist painter MF Husain, who also designed the gallery's galloping horse logo.
The Husain imprimatur drew attention, marking the fledgling gallery as a significant new entrant in the world of Indian art. In the 1990s, Gallery Espace hosted several ambitious, large-format exhibitions such as 'Drawing '94', 'Sculpture '95', 'Miniprint '96', and 'The Self and The World' (1997), which brought together 16 Indian women artists from Amrita Sher-Gil to Anjolie Ela Menon, and was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
Among other important shows at the Gallery were 'A Cry from the Narrow Between' (2010) – a two person show of Tejal Shah and Han Bing, contemporary artists from India and China, respectively; 'Drawing Show' (2014), 'Diary Entries' [2016], the India-Sri Lanka joint project ‘A Tale of Two Cities' (2016).
It has also showed significant practitioners such as Bhupen Khakar, Amit Ambalal, Atul and Anju Dodiya, Krishna Reddy, Anupam Sud, Nagji Patel, Ganesh Haloi, and Jeram Patel.
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