Made in Italy

Think of Italy and you see visions of sunshine, sea, sartorial perfection and, of course, spaghetti! Switch on a modicum of sanity and seriousness and you get more classic visions of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Canaletto, rapidly updated with images of works by Gaspare Manos and Clementina Crocco. And almost anything Italian is a perfect match for all that is Indian, from the warmth and drama of the music to the intense flavor and brilliant colour of the food and the passion and spirit of the people. So a show of Italian art in the Indian city of Mumbai only follows a kind of logic, right? Curator Caterina Corni certainly thought so, which is why she brought Made in Italy to the commercial capital. As she says, “I love Mumbai and I think that this city has an absorbing energy.”

Corni has brought to India the work of three artists - Azelio Corni, Antonella Aprile and Giovanni Frangi. Having graduated “in Indology at the University of Milan. I am an art curator specialised in Modern and Contemporary Indian art. I have done many conferences focused on it in Italy,” Corni says in her delightfully accented English. “I was thinking about this show since a long time. I am very interested to show Italian art in India and vice versa. I am working with these artists from 2004 and I am following and promoting their works around the world. All of them have created the artworks specifically for this show.” And as she explains using a quote from Rabindranath Tagore in her curatorial note, which is rather more grammatically conventional, “Images transcend languages limits, embodying that sense of universality which poetry cannot offer.” She explains, “Images doesn’t need any translation, neither any middle passage or filter; they are clear and go straight to everybody, as they speak a universal language. Nowadays, globalisation made this thought even more actual, either in its positive and negative meaning….’Made in Italy’ doesn’t underline artist’s geographical origins, but it recall that sense of universality which is essential in images language. A game of words and meaning which delete any attempt to classification.”  

Like much that is Italian, there is a lovely stark simplicity to the works on display, though their implication and meaning is as mysterious as the lack of vibrant colour. Most pieces are in shades of black-white-grey, with the occasional lick of pastel peach or blue. According to Corni, “Aprile, Corni and Frangi prefer to use black and white, it has not a specific meaning. I can say that in Italy we have a strong tradition of this uncoloured painting.” One large work stands out for being not ‘uncoloured’; It is brilliant red, with shades and shadows, suggestions of underlying pattern emerging with time and gaze, almost like an archaeological site map slowly being unearthed. It is a favourite, Corni admits, “The artist is Azelio Corni, he made fabulous works on felt. He likes to experiment with various materials such plastic, saari, metal, glass and now felt! The red one remembers something atavistic. Yes, he is attracted by the archeological field. The plastic strength of the sign is an essential element in Corni’s work, a sign which cuts the canvas, the paper, the fabric and that sometimes becomes a chromatic mass sending to an ancestral universe.”

One work, video-animation ‘The Happening Beyond The Time’ by Aprile, tells of the Lord Śiva explaining the quantum theory while performing his cosmic dance. “Śiva embodies the dynamic and protean universe where matter can no longer be apart from its activity, as in quantum theory where subatomic particles aren’t made by any “essential matter”, but they are dynamic lines turning one into another,” Corni says.  “Even if we go through the matter, nature shows us that that there isn’t an isolated and ‘essential brick’, but it shows itself as a net of relations between those different part composing the whole cosmos.” But doing anything with Indian mythology is always risky, even for Indians; did the artist understand sensitivities in doing this piece? “Antonella Aprile is started to work on the video animation before knowing about the show at Sakshi. She was interested in the connection between Eastern religion and Western scientific thought. She is looking for how these two different worlds converge on the same point.” There is a charming naivete in that quest, a delightful lack of awareness of how politics can and does interrupt creative inspiration in the city that is purportedly secular and all-embracing.

A couple of the works seem to edge closer to nature, like a gentle walk through the woods after rain. The air smells fresh through a misty landscape, the colours, if any, are subtle, even the rocks feel newly washed. Everything is merely suggested, nothing is fully defined. Frangi’s work, Corni shows off, is all about exploring an underlying ‘holy dimension’. “In images there is always something infinite”, a dimension that is not expressed through a spiritual or allegoric concept, but through incarnation, via bodies of rocks, stones, trees, rivers. Is there a spirit peeking through the leaves? Or was that your own face, peeping at you as you try to find your own soul? 

Whether a show like this one will get the larger audience that it deserves is not clear, since the works defy categorization and elude interpretation. But the delicate charm and subtle beauty of the art on display leaves behind a soft feeling of something timeless, something waiting to be known.

Made in Italy

APRILE – CORNI – FRANGI, curated by Caterina Corni

Sakhi Gallery, Mumbai, 

On view till 8th September 2012

Looking ahead

Art is a funny creature – what is created today may not find favour for many generations, while sometimes what was painted, sculpted or installed years ago becomes a perennial favourite. This could be one reason that retrospective shows are popular, attracting large audiences and pulling in buyers and the media alike, refreshing memories and providing a new perspective on a not-as-new work. Every now and again galleries pull out pieces stored in their warehouses and re-present them to an always-avidly-interested public. And as the artists gain fame – or perhaps notoriety – the value of their work, intrinsic or intangible, changes, the increase or decrease reflecting the original manifold. But this is a tag so difficult to define that tax laws and auction base prices are calculated in what seems to be a completely arbitrary manner. That apart, what is interesting to see is how these random works culled out of storage are clubbed together in one  exhibition…as has been done in the group show at the Sakshi Gallery in Mumbai, in Looking Back, Looking Forward, described as “revisits seminal work by some artists while charting the roadmap for others…both retrospective and prospective”.

It begins with a step into what seems like anywhere in the Islamic world. You walk into the gallery and suddenly you are on the roof of a mosque, a madrassa, maybe a Mughal palace with a modern twist. Riyas Komu’s The Last Resonance (2005), from his Blood Red Series in wood, automotive paint and metal is a sprawling metropolis in minaret tops and calligraphy, boldly, almost defiantly inked around the walls of the room. Listen carefully to the sounds of the space and you hear the echo of the muezzin, the soft swish of robes and the sparking bubble of oil frying kebabs on a hot tawa. And then comes the peace of an enormous prayer hall, its walls etched with exquisite inlay, the curves and swoops of letters signifying more than man can endure.

 Maybe it is the scale of Komu’s piece, perhaps it is the mystery of the sweeping swathes of lettering, maybe it is even the close-up and hugely magnified filigree of the onion domes – the rest of the collection of seven artists’ work pales in contrast. The tops of buildings do a reprise in Zarina Hashmi’s Roofs (1982, mixed media, gold leaf), this time seen through the eyes of a passing eagle. The geometric regularity of the prismatic rooftops glimmer with the sheen of gold leaf, as if the sun was setting over the metal of a thousand tiny homes far below. And perhaps putt-putting through that crowded, imaginary, gilded city you could see Valay Shende’s scooter (Untitled, 2007), glittering with gilt-plated metal disks like a fashion statement that tries to outdo itself in its bling quotient. The kickstart pedal moves, though the storage bin does not open, and you almost see the pizza boy ride up to deliver his order in a world that could be called Oz.

And as this small world edged with sunshine and tinged with glimmer goes about its business a baby totters on, out of Chintan Upadhyay’s imagination (Untitled, 2009) and into the visual space. It too is gold, composed not of flesh, blood and bone, but made of fiberglass, gold leaf, paint and wood. The child may be looking for its mother, wandering through the streets of the gold city and stepping back to avoid the gold scooter. And there she is, a lady all green and gold, waiting by her colourful pushcart. Rekha Rodwittiya’s Dream Text (2011-2012, fiberglass, popular stickers, varnish, stainless steel rods, green Meera lace thread, paper with digital printing; go-cart – teak wood, waterproof plywood, popular stickers, varnish, acrylic paint, metal, rope) is a delightfully feminine woman, the artist’s first installation, a verdant Rama green lady wearing a metal cage-skirt. Her body is covered with gold henna – butterflies, paisleys, all filigreed forms children would stick on their textbooks or bedroom walls. Her small carriage is bright, playful, perfect to hold her shopping, her cat or even that child…

Looking on is a man playing God. He gazes out from behind glass and from a photo, in Nandini Valli Muthaiah’s work (Reassured + Ornamental, 2006; Effervescent 1, 2003; all inkjet print on archival paper), his skin blue like the Lord Krishna, his robes orange-yellow, his jewels a-gleam as he prepares for his act on a stage that could be the city itself. And as we wait for the performance – or is it the prayer? – we feel the beating of the heart of the child, the woman, the city that exists under the roofs and minarets. Sunil Gawde’s hearts (Still Alive II, 2008, teak wood, nails, gas tourch) take on a life of their own, studded with nails or smoothly polished wood, inviting a touch, throbbing with a pulse that could be that of all of us, an entire civilization. 

Looking Back, Looking Forward - group show - 9th to 30th June 2012, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai

It has to be 'it'!

INFIDELITY
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
Pan Books
417 pages
Rs235

Appearances can indeed be deceiving. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, It girl, known for her fun-loving, hard-drinking, cocaine-sniffing, party-going and throwing socialite image, made even less appealing by the collapse of her nasal cartilage after too much drug ingestion via that route, has cleaned up her act…and her nose, too. And pretty successfully too! As television presenter, reality show contestant and host, as well as pianist and magazine and newspaper columnist, she turned writer with all the elan that she showed in everything else she did. Her first book, the non-fiction The Naughty Girl’s Guide to Life, published in 2007, led to her first novel, Inheritance, which was sort-of-autobiographical, telling the story of Lyric Charlton, the good girl who took a turn into the wild side of life and finally came out the other end, not unscathed, but better than before.

Infidelity takes off where Inheritance stopped. Lyric has found real love in the man who worships her, Philippe, a gardener who has made it big in the world of green. And she has another very important man in her life, her twin brother Edward, who was kidnapped by their uncle Quentin, who has since become a Tibetan monk in the mountains in India. The tangled tale wanders briskly along, with race meets, horses, cocktails and extravagant parties and gentle emotion, with not much significant happening. Until the murder. Which comes as a shock to all connected. It starts long before it actually happens and with all the various characters going in and out, no one can be sure who did it, once it is established that there was in fact a suspicious death. But gradually, delicately, it all comes unwound and the end comes logically, painlessly, elegantly.

This one may not be steamy-sexy or wildly sensationalistic, but it is well written, fairly absorbing and very easy to digest, with no gory details, explicit lovemaking or anything even remotely unpleasant. A good read for a not-too-long flight, a stint in the salon or a dull Sunday afternoon waiting for the painters to finish in the kitchen.

Book of The Boys

They are often referred to as The Boys. Known for exquisite, elaborate and over-the top creations, each a piece of rococo art rather than a garment that could be worn with the same casual flair as a pair of jeans – at one end of the sartorial spectrum - or an heirloom sari, at the other, they are favoured by the filmi frat and the celebrity coterie. Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla have been partners for 25 years now, working on fashion for the individual and the home, on their television show, on the occasional film and on the revival and rejuvenation of classic crafts. To celebrate this anniversary they have put together a two-volume book that speaks eloquently of their design sensibilities and their meticulous striving for perfection. The duo has dressed everyone who is anyone in India and abroad, their styles being seen on the likes of Bollywood royalty (from the Bachchan clan to the Khans and Kapoors who light up the silver screen) and Hollywood luminaries, including Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Frieda Pinto and Sophie Marceau.

It began in 1986, when Bombay-born Abu, who started his career designing costumes for films, met Sandeep from Kapurthala, the young man who worked in his family’s leather business. They had no money, no qualifications, just talent and determination. The collaboration began almost immediately after, with a first collection called Mata Hari being shown off four months after the partnership was formed. They were passionate about all things Indian; as Abu said some years ago, “We are unabashedly Indian in our aesthetics. And passionately in love with the rich cultural, historic and design legacy of our Land. Design is our way of paying homage to that beauty. By taking it into the 21st century.” Classic elegance, fine fabrics, exquisite hand-work and superb finish characterize their garments, which incorporate ancient techniques and craftsmanship of chikankari, zardozi, tharad and mirrorwork.

And to celebrate this quarter-century of togetherness, Abu and Sandeep have conceived a book, India Fantastique, that Sandeep explains with “Abu and I thought long and hard about how we wanted to celebrate our milestone, and also about how we would use this celebration to set the vision for our creativity and ourselves in the next twenty-five years. It soon became clear that a book, or rather two as it turned out to be, was the ideal vehicle.” Volume one includes dozens of designs the duo has created, with closeups of details. Volume two zooms in on their interior design concepts. Sotheby's London will be hosting an exhibition on the 25-year-long relationship and its results, called India Fantastique, September 3-5, which sets Abu-Sandeep’s landmark fashion against a backdrop of images from some of their most fabulous interiors. 

It really does not matter who answers, Abu Jani or Sandeep Khosla, because the two minds think so alike and the two sensibilities are so finely co-tuned. One speaks, the other voicelessly echoes. They are fluent – albeit distracted by the hustle and hurry of having a launch, a party and so much more that goes into a celebration of this kind of life and work – and clear about what they say.

It has been 25 years since your partnership began. Has it been a smooth ride right through?

We were fortunate to receive instant accolades and sell out with our debut collection, but of course it hasn't been smooth. Blood, sweat and tears are the ingredients when you choose to dream big. And our dream was no different. Financial constraints, setbacks like a fire which destroyed everything, refusing to change or compromise or downsize - none of these things is easy. But the disappointments and struggle have been the most valuable teachers. And when things have seemed impossible, the belief of others in us has enabled us to always believe in ourselves. Along with the hard graft there has been much magic and many miracles.

From Jashan to Abu-Sandeep – what has changed, evolved, developed in your design sensibilities?

An artist is evolving in a continuum. You finish something and are compelled to create again. We have always been maximalists. Our couture has always been classical rather than trendy. What is merely fashion will always be transient. We aim to transcend the limitations of now and create something which will always be current. You hone, you evolve, you set new standards and then break them but ultimately you retain your original sensibilities because they ARE your core.

How has the market for your kind of couture changed in the 25 years since you started working together?

It’s become bigger. We are blessed that we have always found an appreciative audience. One that continues to grow. At the end of the day, if you have the goods, there will always be a buyer. We believe in allowing our work to speak. And it seems to reach the 'ears' or rather the wardrobes of a diverse audience.

Why did you choose chikankari and zardosi to concentrate on?

Because chikankari had disintegrated into its crudest form, as had zardozi. And it irked us to see the down-gradation of a such regal and impossibly beautiful techniques. It was painful to see what these crafts had been reduced to. And so we made it our mission to bring them back to their rightful state. We have dedicated ourselves over the years to revival and reinvention. India has an unsurpassed legacy when it comes to textiles and craft. We incorporate that history and fashion it for the future. Apart from chikan and zardozi, we have refined mirror work, resham, tharad and rabadi. Taking things to new heights is one of our passions.

Is there an abiding clientele and use for couture? Or is prêt slowly taking over, with easy-to-wear rather than ready-to wear being the bon mot?

Couture will always have a market in India. We are not only au fait with luxury, but accustomed to it; we are inclined towards made to measure, addicted to living large. Of course, fashion must extend to the masses and pret will be the way forward for that.

Has fashion in India come of age today? Is there original work being done, or are we still aping the West?

There is a lot of talent out there. But there is also too much derivative or borrowed design. The ones who last beyond flash in the pan success will be those who are original.

You have a lot of big name celebrity clients, many from Bollywood. Are their demands/needs any different from anyone else’s?

Every client is important. A celebrity client is merely much more visible, so any mistakes/accomplishments make news beyond cocktail party chatter. Every man and woman we dress deserves to look and feel their best.

You said two years or so ago that you would like to design a whole Bollywood film. Is that going to happen?

It will. When the right project comes along.

Your goal was cited as being ‘to build a worldwide brand with shops all over the world - to put India on the creative fashion map of the world’. Do you think you have done that with all your work and the clients you dress – internationally and at home in India?

That is the dream, for sure. One we have begun to live. We do want to put India on the global map. And whenever we have created, it has been without compromising our sensibilities or ourselves. When Judi Dench or Sarah Brown or Princess Michael, or any of our many international clients have worn us, it has been US they have worn. We want global success, but it must come without diluting or warping who we are. There is a long way to go. And it is something which requires big bucks or funding. We need corporate India to believe in Brand India. Only then can we or any other Indian fashion house hope to make it on the global front.

You won a lot of female hearts (mine included!) when you said that “We are a culture and a body type that is made for curves. It's Ajanta Ellora [ancient caves containing paintings depicting voluptuous goddesses] not Twiggy that floats our boat and our fashion. The sari is made to be draped against rounded hips and the swell of a bosom. It sits better.” Do you still believe that?

Of course we do! One doesn't change one's beliefs according to what is fashionable. And nothing is more beautiful than a woman comfortable in her own skin. Sexiness isn't a shape or a dress size. But if it were we would like to think it was voluptuous with a capital V!

This fabulous book – why a book? Why not a film or a multimedia presentation? How did it happen? What did you not use when you put it together over the last two years? There must be so much more….!

Because a book is forever. It combines both language and visuals. This moment, our journey, couldn't be encapsulated in a presentation. A movie is again didactic. It dictates what the audience sees. There is a certain beauty to a still image. It allows you to dream, to read between the lines. To create your own relationship with the content.

And yes, there is plenty that didn't make it into the book. Like curation, one chooses that which best represents one's vision. We do have a lot of beautiful excess which will be incorporated in other media and also serve as a catalogue of our work.

You design for yourselves, you have said. What gives you the most pleasure – creating the garment or seeing the smile on the face of the person who wears it?

For any artist, to create is their life force. It isn't something one controls, but rather that which takes you hostage. It is both pleasure and pain, beauty and torture. So of course it is the prime mover. To see that creativity bring joy to the recipient is a source of immense pleasure and joy to the artist, but it is not what they create for. Our work isn't merely a product to us. That would make it a business. And as you know, business has always been a by-product of our work, never its raison d'être.

Garments, interiors, a television show, international exhibitions, now a book. What next?

More. More. More! More, taking it global in a much bigger way. Creating bigger and better. Expanding our field of vision to include other lifestyle verticals. There is no rest and no limits for the inspired mind.

What makes Abu-Sandeep truly happy?

To create without constraints. To live life on our own terms. To be there for those we love. To make a difference.

EXHIBITION

An exhibition of the designers’ work will be held at Sotheby’s, 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1, from 3rd to 5th September, to coincide with the launch of India Fantastique.

India Fantastique

Fashion: 402 illustrations, 300 in colour Interiors: 167 illustrations, 162 in colour

£95.00

Body bags it all!

I AM AN EXECUTIONER

Rajesh Parameshwaran

Bloomsbury

259 pages

Rs 499

A book of short stories is never easy to review. Each one has a different story, presented in a format that is succinct and easy to digest, so cannot be dissected for too long. Each should ideally have a slightly different style, so as to keep the reader riveted and happily so. All this, without the writer losing his or her identity and - most of all - voice, even though that could take on various tones according to the character in centre-focus.

I Am An Executioner as a title echoes with visions of bodies, hangings, maybe even a guillotine or two, some blood and much grief, all spiced with some drama and a whole lot of background history. The tag line of ‘Love Stories’ makes it rather confusing, since you as a reader would expect a little romance gone wrong perhaps, or even a little honour killing or trans-racial weeping and wailing. But none of this happens. There is an amazing array of pictures created with the words and concepts boggle not just the mind, but any perception of reality as well. Along the way you, as reader, need to stop, adjust those glasses that bring into focus 3-D, an alternate universe, a past-present tesseract and a huge heaping helping of madness that filters from each page into the imagination. And the emotions swing wildly from laughter to devastation, even as you marvel at the strange kink in the writer’s head that produced such work.

There are nine stories in this collection, with interesting, intriguing names. Four Rajeshes, for instances, invites reading. It tells the story of a memory of someone, somewhere – or was it I, here? The images are fuzzy, the emotions clear, somewhat like the paint on a building spelling out letters that read Rombachinnapattinam. You stop, you think, you suddenly get it – very small town, it says in a language you learned from your mother. And then you race through the narrative, through stops in the line that is the road to the world that is all about trains, routes, railway timetables, sexual impropriety and clerks who are eerily familiar, still fuzzy, like experiences never fully lived. And the story never ends…”Don’t leave off the story here, blame you! Conclude it!” You echo the author’s words flavoured with frustrated need, almost like the station-master who wants to go to a new level with thoughts of his junior in his…err…mind.

The title story is tinged with an oddness of language that feels awkward, interrupts the flow of the narrative, not quite reaching its goal of being true to the character of the unusually inept executioner and the way he thinks/speaks. It is perhaps too deliberate, inducing stop and starts that are labored rather than natural. Of course, there are gems hidden within, like “But one time there had been a bad happening in the friendly house. Madam had a new lady, one short plumpy girl with whom I liked to do squinchy squinchy.” A quick giggle later, any likely faults are forgiven.

Just like the ‘friendly house’, there are innumerable pictures created by the writer that populate his strangely bizarre universe of the imagination. Some of these are fodder for some new nightmare – the oversized butterfly floating through a dystopian landscape, a Bengal tiger who redefines the concept that is ‘love’, the Thanksgiving feast in America that takes on a new meaning that the hick wife cannot imagine would change her life, the spy who spends forever trying to figure out who he is and so much more. The characters are all peculiarly, idiosyncratically Indian, people we have all met before – perhaps even in the mirror – but now see through a new prism.

This may not be the most sophisticated debut writing there is, but Rajesh Parameshwaran certainly ranks among the most interesting minds that created it!