by NR INDRAN

Mumbai: Distinguished art historian B N Goswamy inaugurates The Harmony Art Show 2011, Fabular Bodies: New Narratives in the Art of the Miniature, on 5 August 2011, at Coomaraswamy Hall, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly The Prince of Wales Museum of Western India).

The show, which has been curated by independent art critic and curator Gayatri Sinha, showcases the works of contemporary artists that interpret and absorb the heritage of one of the most enduring and striking art forms: the miniature. The show will run from 6 August to 14 August 2011, open all days.

Tracing its history to the royal courts of Central Asia and India, the influence of the miniature as an art form can be felt right through the 20th century and beyond.

Twenty-four artists who are defining the new explorations of a traditional technique, including Nilima Sheikh, N S Harsha, Arpita Singh and B Manjunath Kamath, engage with drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, comics and computer graphics to adapt the Indian miniature to a present-day world view.

This brings into play aspects like the city and urbanism, concerns of the body and social identity, mapping and cartography, history and news, often with overtones of wit and irony.

Highlights:

This is the first show focusing on how the miniature has moved out of its association with the court and bazaar into the present day. This assessment of the Indian miniature and its movement into the contemporary was long overdue.

Different generations of artists with a different understanding of the miniature, from the more classicist approach of Nilima Sheikh to the edgy global references of T Venkanna, or the intense application of Suhasini Kejriwal, reference the miniature.

The miniature is used to refer to different aspects of the form—and issues of living in a city, gender, race, and so on. In this way it has come a long way from its conventional subjects of gods and goddesses, the court and the hunt.

The show demonstrates how the form has flowed and moved. From the formal stylistics of the miniature (Nilima Sheikh) to popular images (Dhruvi Acharya), quotations of textbook illustrations (Manjunath Kamath), and comics (Orijit Sen, Chitra Ganesh). In this way, the form reveals its dynamism and mobility.

A particular highlight of the show is the use of the miniature form in sculpture to speak of a variety of issues and concerns.

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