‘GenNext’, the annual show of the Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata was recently held in the month of October with a gala endeavour and splendid package of artworks, symposium and many other events not only unifying the artists, historians, critics, connoisseurs, collectors and art lovers of the country but also evolved into a plural anecdote of expression at a global level. This year Aakriti Art Gallery celebrated its fourth anniversary and GenNext stepped into its fourth exhibition. GenNext IV as all previous GenNext shows was conceived with the same philosophy of promoting young artists of the new generation below forty years of age from all around the globe. Entries had come from artists of different corners of the world and were finally evaluated to be selected for the show by the gallery’s own decision. But the major criterion of evaluation was solely regarded as the work of art and not the artists or their credentials. Vikram Bachhawat, the owner of the Aakriti Art Gallery took particular care and concern in this matter of selection and hence, the GenNext show this time sailed through a much enriched showcase of artistic manifestations.
A panoramic creative carnival of international stature with the generation of new discourse, debate, ideation and thought process through interactive sessions, symposiums and so on were all stored in the mixed bag of the GenNext package this year. Thirty-four artists from India, Pakistan, South Korea, Hungary and USA came in close assignation for the creative expedition in the forms of paintings, sculpture, printmaking, interactive sculpture, video art, textile art, photography and installations in the GenNext IV. The participating artists were Aharon Rothschilel (USA), Amit Kumar Debnath (Kolkata), Atul Mahajan (Baroda), Barun Pramanik (Kolkata), Debasish Datta (Baroda), Debasish Sarkar (Kolkata), Dipta Bhattacharya (Kolkata), Huma Mulji (Pakistan), Jaishri Abichandani (USA), Kondor Valeria (Hungary), Mansoor Ali (Baroda), Mantu Das (Assam), Nabanita Dutta Guha (Kolkata), Nantu Behari Das (Kolkata), Oli Ghosh (Mumbai), Paltu Barman (Tripura), Partha Guin (Bardhaman), Piyali Sadhukhan (Kolkata), Prafull Singh (Mumbai), Prandeep Kalita (Assam), Priti Kahar (Baroda), Priyanka Lahiri (Howrah), Pramod Kumar Singh (Mumbai), Punyo Chobin (Arunachal Pradesh), Romicon Revola (Bangalore), Ruth Avra Kleinman & Dana Lynn Kleinman (KX2) (USA), Sagar Bhowmik (Kolkata), Sanhita Banerjee (Kolkata), Siraj Saxena (Delhi), Soma Das (Kolkata), Sujit Karmakar (Kolkata), Sukanya Ghosh (Kolkata), Tushar Kanti Pradhan (Kolkata) and Youn MiOck (South Korea).
A cross-cultural interactive zone was formulated with the gamut of creative exercise these thirty four young and dynamic artists welcomed for reaction and reciprocation with comparative study of the evolution of such art from diverse contexts, social and cultural realities of the artists belonging to different parts of the world. Experimentations with mediums and working pattern could be seen at every level of execution among the young artists. The sculpture section was the most vibrant with brilliance of ideas and their manifestations. Every work reciprocated with a novel dimension in ideation as well as with as invoking spree at the level of execution.
Apart from the showcasing of the art works, the GenNext IV also saw the celebration of new generation thought process in the form of a seminar with learned participants from different parts of the country. A two-day symposium broadly based on the idea “Radicalizing thoughts, renovating structures – Ground Plan for battle of two ways of life: Global and Romani” was organized at the Emami Chisel Arts, Kolkata as a part of this major event. This topic was further divided into sub-topics where the speakers picked up different areas of art, history, politics, social science, filmmaking and tied together building up a different dialect to show their intersections, cross-connections and diversions. The new generic syntaxes of the post-modern and global era were probed across the platform where debates were oriented with plural visions, array of objectives and prepared for extensive thought process.
The speakers were Adip Dutta, sculptor and faculty of Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata; Anshuman Dasgupta, art historian and faculty of Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan; Amrita Gupta Singh, an art historian, the Program director at the Mohil Parikh Center, NCPA; Clausio Maffioletti, photographer and co-founder of Art Oxygen, Mumbai; Dhrupodi Ghosh, a contemporary practicing artist; Gitanjali Dang, Bomabay-based curator and critic; Baishali Ghosh, faculty of Fine Arts, Hyderabad University; Frank Barthelemy, contemporary art collector from Paris; Oindrilla Maity, independent critic and curator, Moushumi Kandali, fiction writer, Nanak Ganguly, independent curator and critic; Kavita Balakrishnan, poet and faculty of Art History, Govt. College of Fine Arts, Kerela; Moumita Sen, research scholar Centre for Studies of Social Sciences, Kolkata; Sajjad Hamdani, a contemporary artist; Sarmistha Ray, Director of Bodhi Art; Sarmistha Maiti, art journalist; Vrushali Dhage, contributing editor of the Guild Art Journal; Sujoy Mukherjee, artist; Siddhartha Tagore, editor of Art & Deal magazine and gallery owner; Sheba Chhachhi, freelance artist; Saikat Surai, artist; Sovan Tarafder, art journalist and works for Anando Bazaar Patrika; and Vaishnavi Ramanathan, freelance writer and researcher.
Thus, in a nutshell GenNext IV was a prolific profusion of novel ideas in the art scenario both theoretically as well as in practice. With an exciting package of execution, we look forward that the organizers will maintain this legacy with the same aura in the years to come and GenNext will evolve as a historic revolution in the art world. |
