13-Mar-2014 12:00 AM
2075
The Raza Foundation through its series ‘Art Matters’ provides a platform for open discussion on such issues. It endeavors not only to release the true essence of art from the clutches of definitive modernist approach in order to grasp myriad ways of extolling art, but also to stir up debate on the changing meanings of social and political theoretical concepts like rights, justice, liberty, citizenship, etc. Well known, renowned scholars and practitioners from all the diverse fields of arts, dance, music, social science, poetry, and so on are invited for this purpose.
Here, we publish the nineteenth panel discussion of ‘Art Matters’, titled ‘Urban Chaos and the Arts’ featuring Ina Puri, Ranjit Hoskote and Ravi Agarwal.
Ina Puri is a writer, biographer, art curator and collector. She is the author of several books, including Faces of Indian Art and Journey with a Hundred Strings. She produced Meeting Manjit, a film on Bawa, which won the National Award. She currently occupies the position of editor at Art Varta and has recently published a pictorial memoir on Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma entitled The Man and His Music. Her latest book is Raghu Rai's Kolkata, the distinguished photographer's fascinating narrative of the city and its people. Ina's three-decade-long engagement with the arts embraces everything from tribal art and folk theatre to contemporary performing arts, visual arts and literature. She lives in Gurgaon with her husband, Ravi, son, Arjun, and canine soulmate, Leyla.
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. He is the author of 19 books. These include the poetry collections Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Die Ankunft der Vögel (Carl Hanser Verlag, 2006), as well as nine artist monographs, the most recent being Zinny & Maidagan: Compartment/ Das Abteil (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/ Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010). Hoskote’s essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, including, most recently, ‘Biennials of Resistance’, in Elena Filipovic, Marieke van Hal and Solveig Øvstebo eds., The Biennial Reader (Hatje Cantz, 2010). Hoskote and Hyunjin Kim co-curated, with Artistic Director Okwui Enwezor, the 7th Gwangju Biennial (Korea, 2008). Hoskote is curator for India’s first-ever national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
Ravi Agarwal has an inter-disciplinary practice as an artist, photographer environmental campaigner, writer and curator. His work explores key contemporary questions of ecology, society, urban space and capital. Photography has been a prime medium for him for over four decades, which has expanded over time to include video, public art, installations, and recently also printmaking. His key projects have long engagements for several years, and are often accompanied by published diaries and writings. His work has been shown widely including at the Yinchuan Biennial (2018), Kochi Biennial (2016), the Sharjah Biennial (2013), Documenta XI (2002) amongst others. He co-curated the Yamuna-Elbe project, Indo German twin city public art and ecology project (2011), and Embrace our Rivers an Indo- European project in Chennai (2018), and has been appointed photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa, India, 2018). His work is in several private and public collections, and he has served on several art juries and committees.
The event was organised at the Indian International Centre on 20th of March 2014.