The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Metro | Timeout

Recent measures of globalisation have allowed for an intensity of distribution, creating a shared database of ideas, images and location. Yet, they have also strengthened the flow and distribution of iconography from which has developed a visual vernacular and an international language with readings regulated by reference and ethics. Amrita Sher-Gill (1913-1941) was perhaps the first modern artist who employed cross-cultural references in her works. Besides Paris, the ongoing exhibition, brings together the work of 18 artists of Indian origin who currently live and work in Paris. It offers a chance to investigate the language they have developed, its metaphysical resolve and the intensity of the connection that stretches between France and India. It also marks a necessity to address art history and to examine the long and historical art relationships shared between Europe and India. Sacred Modernities (Participants: Narayanan Akkitham, Sujata Bajaj, Anju Chaudhuri, Rajendra Dhawan, Lakshmi Dutt, Bhawani Katoch, S.H. Raza, Inderjeet Sahdev and Viswanandan Velu), the first section of the show, displays a range of making and mark-making that have restrained varieties and hues but are continual visitations to specific notations on abstract and symbolic forms that allude to various philosophical speculations. The works in Celestial Bodies (Participants: Sakti Burman, Maya Burman, Madhu Mangal Basu, Utpal Chakraborty, Debesh Goswami, Gadadhar Ojha, Sharmila Roy, Nitin Shroff and Jiwan Singh) display the development of a terse language that borrows and haunts the Indo-European traditions. Curator: Shaheen Merali.