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Optical
Collusion
The
Kitsch Quest
 Anjolie
Ela Menon seems happy enough to be caught by the high-riding kitsch wave
sweeping the subcontinent. At a lively one-evening-only show at Delhi's
Vadehra Gallery which saw the aggregation of all the artsy high-fliers
in the city, Menon gave a sampling of her calender-inspired art, now on
its way to New York for a show courtesy Apparao Galleries. The novelty:
lots of gods and goddesses, both pruned and intact, placed like patterned
applique on the artist's trademark mawkish background. "I don't know
how long I'll continue doing this," says Menon who began her kitsch
quest way back in 1994, "but right now I'm also working with film
kitsch." Wait for that show at the end of 2001.
-Anshul
Avijit
Culture
Walk
 They
call it a "walk-through art magazine". You know, like actually
smelling those sunflowers in Van Gogh's masterpiece. The idea? To provide
a glimpse of Mumbai's dynamic artistic traditions. It's on at the National
Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). The first level of ngma's sleek interiors
have been devoted to works by Mumbai's creative New Brat Pack: Sheetal
Gattani, Anant Nikam, Sejal Kshirsagar and Pandit Kairnar. Level Two features
Art in the Family, a look at art as a domestic tradition and features
M.F. Husain with sons Shamshad and Owais, K.K. Hebber with daughter Rekha
Rao, and N.S. Bendre with wife Mona. Another sweep and you're on Level
Three for a retrospective of the inimitable K.H. Ara, founder-member of
Mumbai's Progressive Artists Group. Level Four is filled with interactive
installations, multimedia paintings and grotesquely beautiful metal sculptures.
"The entire exhibition is an exhaustive tribute to Mumbai's vibrant
art scene over the past 150 years," says Saryu Doshi, NGMA director,
who conceptualised and executed the entire show.
-Farah
Baria
Making
A Point
Not much cash, no sponsors, bare-bones sets, but Delhi theatre group Antara
still managed to pack a punch with their adaptation of Swiss playwright
Max Frisch's Andorra at India Habitat Centre last week. The anti-Semitism
masterpiece was first published in German in 1961. In Hindi in 2000, "it
is still relevant because it fits in with the manner in which communal
forces are trying to suppress the minorities," declares director
Vishwa Bhanu, 25, who came up with a rough translation of the original
during sessions with scholar friends at the School of International Studies
in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, then let his cast loose to improvise.
Nice. Adapting it to an Indian setting would have been nicer.
-Anna
M.M. Vetticad
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The
Government should encash at least a part of its stake in LIC and GIC before
its too late, suggests INDIA TODAY associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar
in 
