Until 20 May 2023, one is invited to attend Notations on Time, a group exhibition featuring 20 contemporary artists from South Asia and its diaspora. The show has been supported by Taimur Hassan, a Pakistani art collector. Artworks for this exhibition have been loaned from the Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection. There are also works from the private collections of Taimur Hassan himself; Shweta & Vikram Puri; and Lekha & Anupam Poddar, founders of the Devi Art Foundation which is the first contemporary art museum in India.
The show sheds light on South Asian artists’ perspective on aesthetics, existence, memory, and futurity. It represents a dialogue between different artistic generations to emphasize entangled connections between the past, present and future. There are so many ways where and how one can “read” time: on bodies, machines, landscapes, and stars, within ancestry, oral traditions, and science fiction… Notations on Time raises such complicated questions as “What happens when remnants of the past are reincarnated into the future? Where does the jurisdiction of the present end? What is the future of the past?”.
At the Notations on Time show, the artworks by following artists are displayed:
Soumya Sankar Bose (b.1990, Midnapore), an Indian documentary photographer. He uses photography, archival material, and text to explore desire, identity, and memory.
Sheba Chhachh (b. 1958, Harar, Ethiopia), a photographer, women’s rights activist, writer, film-maker and an installation artist. Most of her works are dedicated to issues which focus on women and impact of urban transformations.
Shezad Dawood (b.1974, London) whose art practice includes painting, film, sculpture, performance, and digital media. Reflecting his British and Pakistani roots in his art, the artist captures the moments when knowledge, culture, and tradition meet together.
Ladhki Devi, a skilled Warli artist, and Gauri Gill (b. 1970, New Delhi, India), an Indian contemporary photographer.
Rajesh Vangad (b. 1975), a Warli artist. Since 2013, he has collaborated with Gauri Gill to create the Fields of Sight series. Vangad draws over Gill’s photographs of Ganjad and Dahanu villages and thus connects local community rituals and oral history with the photographs’ narrative of urbanisation, industrialisation, and ecological issues.
Aziz Hazara (b. 1992, Wardak, Afghanistan). Using photography, video, sound, language programming, text, and installations, he explores questions of identity, memory, archive, conflict, surveillance and migration.
Amar Kanwar (b. 1964, New Delhi), a visual artist, film-maker, and social activist. He documents oppression, sexual violence, poverty, and the appropriation of land and resources.
Ali Kazim (b. 1979, Pakistan), a painter and sculptor. His watercolors and ink drawings are mostly of desolate landscapes and figures in isolation.
Mariah Lookman (b.1973), an artist, writer, and speaker. Her research and artistic interests lie in the history of ideas in art, science, and politics.
Haroon Mirza (b. 1977, London), a British visual artist of Pakistani descent, who is famous for his installations generating audio compositions.
Anoli Perera (b. 1962, Colombo, Sri Lanka), a self-taught artist. Her work is focused on such topics as women’s issues, history, myth, issues of identity, and colonialism.
Lala Rukh (1948 – 2017), a Pakistani teacher, women’s rights activist and artist. Being inspired by Indian classical music, in her drawings and print-based works, many references to music and musical notations can be found.
Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962–2001), an Indian artist and the creator of a new school of Indian art “Jangarh Kalam”. The subjects of his vibrant paintings are Gond deities, animals, birds, and trees.
Dayanita Singh (b. 1961, New Delhi, India), an Indian photographer whose format is the book. In her art, she reflects on the ways in which people relate to photographic images.
Ayesha Sultana (b. 1984), a Bangladeshi Asian artist who works in different mediums and techniques. Sultana’s hometown, Dhaka, serves as a source of her inspiration and is a direct reference in her art.
Jagdish Swaminathan (1928 – 1994), an Indian artist, painter, poet, and writer. He sought to renew tribal and folk art in a contemporary context.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara (b. 1960, Sri Lanka), an artist and activist whose work is dedicated to exposing political corruption in Sri Lanka. His practice features sculpture, painting, drawing, public monuments, lectures, collaborations, and curatorial projects.
Zarina (Zarina Hashmi) (1937 – 2020), an Indian-American artist and printmaker. Her drawings, prints, and sculptures evoke and explore the idea of home, distances, and trajectories influenced by her extensive travels.
To get more information about the exhibition, please visit its official web page.
You may also be interested in visiting MRK Contemporary Art Gallery in Dubai.
