A magazine that features the art of the possible

MUMBAI, AUG 23: It's an art magazine that you cannot read but can browse through, that you cannot feel but can finish from cover to cover...

MUMBAI, AUG 23: It8217;s an art magazine that you cannot read but can browse through, that you cannot feel but can finish from cover to cover. No binding fastens its pages and its contents are untramelled by space constraints. From Thursday, Ideas and Images: The Mumbai Art Magazine will be up for grabs for the city8217;s art lovers, not on any newsstand but at the Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Public Hall, which houses the National Gallery of Modern Art NGMA.

Like articles in any magazine, aspects of Mumbai8217;s art will be exhibited under five themes at the gallery8217;s five levels. On Wednesday, Dr RRV Ayyar, secretary of the Department of Culture of the Government of India, will slice the ribbon and thrown open the exhibition, which is as much an exercise in innovative curating as it is in space usage. Grounding, literally, the levels is the first feature Critics8217; Choice, which will display the selections of six city-based critics 8211; Manmohan Saral, Kannun Nayak, Abhijit Tamhane, Dynaneshwar Nadkarni, RoshanShahani and Ranjit Hoskote. The next level displays Voices, works in which artists have splattered their dissent on canvas. The third level profiles the late Mumbai-based artist Prabhakar Barve. Bollywood Nostalgia, which promises to draw capacity crowds, documents the art of cinema hoardings that is slowly and surely being edged out by the glossier real-look digitally designed posters. And new and promising artists get their place in New Images, the last level at the very top of the gallery.

Around August-September every year, the gallery curates an exhibition that showcases Mumbai8217;s artscape; the theme of the first exhibition in 1997 was 50 Years of Art in Mumbai, while The Collector8217;s Eye the year after focussed on city-based collector Jehangir Nicholson. This year, the Mumbai Art Magazine encapsulates around 100 works of art. While space is certainly no bar at the gallery, with its rounded roominess and soaring ceilings, imagination could be, something Dr SaryuDoshi, honorary director of the NGMA and curator of the exhibition, has been keen to avoid.

8220;The exhibition has subjects which could not have been dealt with separately as a complete exhibition,8221; points out Dr Doshi. The parallel to a magazine has been stretched to include a classifieds8217; section, where art galleries will put up their posters. And sponsorship by corporate houses will be treated as advertisements,8217; a staple in most journalistic ventures.

Like an earlier exhibition on artist Dashrat Patel, the emphasis at NGMA has been on innovatively presenting concepts that could have been killed simply by bad display. 8220;A couple of factors made me arrive at this decision: that I8217;ve been an author, I8217;ve also been editor of a magazine, plus I read a lot,8221; observes Dr Doshi. The idea fell into place when she visited London recently and met the curator of the Victoria Albert Memorial there. 8220;It was there that I got the idea of organising an exhibition like a magazine,8221; she says.

Ever since it openedin Mumbai three years ago, the NGMA has aspired to become an indelible stop for any patron of the arts. 8220;If I8217;m not innovative as a curator, I have no business being here. No institution can be static, it must push the frontiers of imagination,8221; feels Dr Doshi. Several related events are also being planned during the six-week long exhibition, including poetry reading by Ila Pal, also an artist, as well as an interactive session with cinema hoarding artists.