Silk Route

MF Husain serenaded Madhuri Dixit in his film and art series ‘Gaja Gamini’,evoked the elephant god Ganesha in his ‘Ashtavinayaka’ collection,celebrated the culture and traditions of a green state in the collection ‘Kerala’ and that of the Arab world in ‘Arabic’. Now,an exhibition of serigraphs (silk screen prints of paintings) curated by Dhoomimal Contemporary Art Gallery in Gurgaon,in the National Capital Region,revisits these major works of the late artist. “These serigraphs had been ordered by my father,” says Husain’s Delhi-based artist son,Shamshad Husain. Priyank Jain,owner of the gallery explains,“There are 32 serigraphs,eight from each series. We have tried to show four major collections by Husain under one roof.” The show,titled Gaja Gamini,will be held at Westin Gurgaon hotel from January 9-31. While the paintings themselves could set one back by a neat sum,the serigraphs cost between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000.

Green Gallery

The lush fields of Chattisgarh are transported into the Gallery Shrine Empire in Delhi this month. The walls will be wrapped in fabric sporting jagged green lines depicting paddy and spread across the floor,will be thick layers of soil. A video will show a man tying a turban that keeps getting longer until it turns into a shroud. US-based artist Kiran Chandra’s latest work depicts farmer suicides in Chattisgarh,and is based on her interactions with farmers from the region. “My intention is to activate the gallery space with questions like what will we eat,who are we becoming and what is this disconnect between the urban and the rural?” she says. The objective is not to offer solutions but to nudge viewers to think.