She has been curating some of the most significant and unique shows in the recent past. Like all other times, Alka Pande is enjoying working out the details of her latest assignment—curating the second edition of the United Art Fair, scheduled from September 14 to 17 in the city, along with Peter Nagy, Ram Rahman, Meera Menezes, Heidi Fichtner and Mayank Kaul.
For the curtain-raiser of the main event, the team has assembled a diverse group of artworks by some of the most promising up-and-coming talents of the country in an exhibit titled, Media Flourishes. Starting today, the show will go on till May 4. Alka says she is committed towards bringing a ‘museum-like’ feel to the show this year, making it extra special.
To be held at Lalit Kala Akademi, Media Flourishes will have artworks from different genres apart from the usual showcase of paintings, sculptures, photographs and ceramics. This time, there will also be a generous display of fashion, textiles, furniture, architecture, folk, tribal art and more. Presenting an assorted mix of works will be 16 contemporary artists from different parts of the country.
“As New Delhi-based Nidhi Agarwal paints aggressive, muscular abstractions that harbour figurative passages and landscape tendencies, Anand Jaiswal from Kurukshetra has beautifully used different objects and images from historic time symbolising them in contemporaneity. Continuing with our radically new model of an artist-driven fair (opposed to a gallery-driven fair, as most in the world are), we will continue to expand on the parameters of contemporary art by looking at a wider variety of disciplines, practitioners, media and materials,” says Alka.
An artist duo to particularly look out for are Manil-Rohit from Lucknow who are now based in Delhi. The two have re-defined ‘quirky’ as they use various iconographies sourced from the surroundings and popular media: graffiti, comics, packaging and animation. As they successfully conquer the age-old battles between figure and ground, abstraction and figuration, Manil and Rohit’s art boasts skill and technique magnificently.
“We hope to break boundaries between various genres and disciplines with exciting combinations of materials to challenge our preconceived categories of artistic production,” says Alka.
The Sunday Standard