External | New Indian Express: Art goes digital: Galleries from India, Dubai collaborate to present online exhibtions in COVID-19 times
Ten galleries from India and Dubai come together to launch a collaborative online exhibitions platform.
By Medha Dutta Yadav
Ranbir Kaleka’s Guardians of a Dystopic Garden
Art survives all. And it helps humanity survive everything. Keeping this in mind, galleries from India and Dubai have come together to initiate a digital exhibitions platform—In Touch.
This unique platform, which will grow organically, brings together a diverse range of programmes and artists. In its first edition, In Touch presents 10 galleries from India and Dubai.
With an unprecedented physical closure of public spaces, these online editions will be a way to connect artists and viewers, believe the presenters.
Participating artist Sujith SN, who is known for his reactions to the urban landscape, brings together a world that is poetic, narrative, abstract and evocative all at the same time, says, “Landscape is a crucial element in most of my paintings. What makes them so central in my works is their ability to overcome their defined boundaries by making themselves vulnerable to the mundane aspects of everyday life.”
The website—www.artintouch.in—will host dedicated sections for each gallery’s exhibitions. Viewers will be able to check the works on display and directly reach the participating galleries.
The platform will additionally host collateral online programming, including artist talks conducted digitally. Renu Modi, founder-director, Gallery Espace, Delhi, says, “With this, each of us are assured of a stronger, cumulative voice and greater viability. Collaborating with each other is the only strategy that will work in these difficult times.”
In Touch will be on view for a month with each gallery presenting an exhibition that will keep changing. The participating galleries in the first round are Chemould Prescott Road, Experimenter, Gallery Espace, Nature Morte, PHOTOINK, GALLERYSKE and Vadehra Art Gallery from India, and Green Art Gallery, Grey Noise and The Third Line from Dubai.
Roshini Vadehra, director, Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi, says, “The theme of our presentation, No Man is an Island, is borrowed from Arpita Singh’s drawing.
"Works from Anju Dodiya and Shilpa Gupta are being offered to collectors for the first time. Special attention has been paid to pricing and scale.”
Anju Dodiya’s ‘The Weaver’ takes inspiration from a photo of a Kashmiri woman, during unrest, rendering her emotional turmoil yet wanting to free her of it. The artist placed a grid over her face—like a weaver’s loom. She explains, “To carry on weaving is to continue the fabric of life.”
To look at art, start conversations with artists and put it all together across borders have been the highpoint of the initiative.
Hetal Pawani and Umer Butt, directors, Grey Noise, Dubai, say, “We are pleased to participate as one of three contemporary art galleries in Dubai. These are strange times that we have entered. The only way forward is to keep on moving towards the light, to nurture hope and to share creative thinking.”
This article appeared on May 31st on www.newindianexpress.com