Coke Tales
The arrest and interrogation of a peddler in Delhi reveal that at glitzy parties in faraway farmhouses, money and power go on high with the kick of cocaine. It's the haute drug for the stylish people in black. A peep into the world of the cocaine-users.

Invisible Dialogue
Vajpayee has promised a solution by March next year. But who is he talking to? Nobody knows.

Gunning For Arun
Jaswant Singh's special adviser is again at the centre of a controversy. This one though is not of his own making.

New Metro Hotspots
Establishments combining a rash of activities have taken over from the one-dimensional discos in urban India.

ARTS: GRAPHIC EXPRESSIONS

Passions In Print

Printmaking begins to excite artists and buyers alike as a mammoth exhibition tours the country

By S. Kalidas and Labonita Ghosh in Kolkata

	MASTER'S CHOICE: M.F. Husain at the exhibition
	THE (FROM above) IN THE WOODS: Savitri Pal's etching plays on subtle tonalities TOUCH STONE-2: Ved Nayar's serigraphs contrasts nature, ritual and urban junk FAITH: Colour and movement freeze into form in R. Loganathan's serigraph

Part art, part technology. Part skill, part enterprise. Despite the directness the term conjures, graphic art has been the epitome of ambivalence. Are graphics bona fide works of art or mere mechanical or commercial prints? How "original" and "exclusive" are they? Are prints affordable art or over-valued versions of footpath kitsch? With Graphic Expressions, a large exhibition touring Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai in August and September, questions such as these are being debated by art buffs and buyers nationwide.

What some may call ambivalence, others can label as virtuosity. "From the simple woodcuts to the sophisticated computer and video-generated prints, the techniques of creating graphic art are at once expansive and inclusive," gushes the well-known Bhopal artist and printmaker, Yusuf. "I even foresee the possibility of a bio-print in the near future."

Indeed, the techniques of printmaking are many and varied. Spanning the gamut from woodcuts to computers, the most popular methods are engravings on metal plates (intaglio), stone (lithograph), resin (aquatint) and a host of other processes which use acrylic, linoleum and photography.

Graphic Expressions-a collaborative effort of Mumbai's Cymroza Art Gallery with Delhi's Art Today and Kolkata's cima-opened in the capital last week. Including no less than 183 works by 96 Indian artists, it can be seen as a virtual bulletin board for graphic art in the country. The exhibition has been curated by Siddhartha Ghosh and R.M. Palaniappan and India's exclusive printmaker Dakoji Devraj with the veteran artist Akbar Padamsee as chief adviser.

That more than half the artists are from eastern India is telling in itself. Art historians agree that even though printing was introduced to the Malabar coast by Portuguese missionaries as early as the 1590s, it morphed from boring documents and similar tomes to exciting visual narratives only much later in Bengal. Save for stray evidence (like a set of recently unearthed Punjab woodcuts), graphic art never quite took root anywhere else on the same scale.

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Delhi Restaurant:
Kootub Restaurant

Delhi Dance Festival: Abhinaya Sudha

Delhi Restro-bar:
Buzz, Get It Here

Bangalore Exhibitions: Cinnamon