24 Exhibitions


THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION Modern Art for a New India


Te year 1947 was more than a watershed period for India. It was freedom from being part of the British Empire created a ‘freedom from – freedom to’ time that could be tumultuous socially, politically and culturally. Writers, and artists in particular, felt relieved of what many considered the morality, restrictions and social rules of the British were now things of the past.


It was in 1947 that the emergence of a modern art


movement in India called the Progressive Artists’ Group, which formed in Bombay, now Mumbai. Asia Society is showing more than 80 works by members of the group in a single-subject exhibition that examines what their overall ideology was and how artists from all sorts of different social, cultural, and religious backgrounds worked in their individual fashions under the one banner of Modernism. Tey disbanded in 1956, but the flames of their movement


Mahisasura (1997) by Tyeb Mehta, acrylic on canvas, 149.9 x 121.9 cm, Rajiv and Payal Chaudhri


News of Gandhiji’s Death (1948) by Krishen Khanna, oil on canvas, 85.1 x 85.1 cm, Radhika Chopra and Rajan Anandan


Haut de Cagnes (1951) by SH Raza, gouache on paper, 68.6 x 72.4 cm, Te Darashaw Collection


continued for many years to give vibrancy to exploring the identity of modern India, with many of the Group’s artists creating their most iconic works after this period. Some of the characteristics of this Modernism were intense, often using unnatural colours. Free use of the brush, the use of generous impasto and texture. Te spread of this new world of painting was like a tsunami that touched every nook and cranny of the 20th-century art world. Te movement lasted, changing along the way, until its closing


days with Neo-Expressionism in the 1980s. Tis international movement of rejection and radical change was not limited to painting, but included architecture, philosophy, poetry and literature.


Te paintings in the exhibition from the 1940s to the 1960s show how the artists manifested, in multiple styles, the message of India of a nation that is secular, heterogeneous, international, and united. Tese artists found inspiration and a wide range of sources, not for the purpose


ART OF THE MOUNTAIN Through the Chinese Photographer’s Lens


Even though the Chinese wrote about the idea of a pinhole camera in the 5th century, photography as we know it today had its origins over 175 years ago. It began with silver nitrate-based images through time exposure, the daguerreotype invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839 in France, continued with William Henry Fox Talbot in England in the 1840s (the inventor of photography on paper) and progressed to the invention of celluloid film in 1887 and colour film in 1907. Te 19th century saw the age


of adventure captured in photographs by people such as John Tomsen and Felice Beato. Te 20th century was rife with famous photographers: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Alfred Steiglitz, Richard Avedon and many others. Black and white was often their palette of choice and the subject matters could range from awe-inspiring views of the natural world to images transmitting a gamut of human emotions. However, the world of


photography was changed forever with the invention of the digital camera and the introduction of computer- generated manipulation where what one saw was not necessarily real. Te one great advantage of all of this was that photography as an art form could expand, ad infinitum, and


ASIAN ART SEPTEMBER 2018


this exhibition of the work of some contemporary Chinese photographers follows this inventive trend, often using state-of-the art inkjet printers, as is the case with most in this exhibition at China Institute. Te exhibition of some 60


images by 20 contemporary Chinese photographers has been divided into three thematic sections: ‘Te Revered Mountains of China’ dwells on mountains as vital components of Chinese history and culture as brought into visual proximity by the photographs of Hou Heliang, Kang Songbai and Kang Liang, Li Daguang, Lin Maozhao, Li Xueliang, Lu


Hao, Zhang Anlu, Xiao Chao, Yan Shi, Wang Jing, Zhang Jiaxuan, Zhang Huajie, and Zheng Congli. Mountains have held a place


of spiritual importance to the natives of the Chinese landmass since the beginning of time. Tey have been worshipped, admired and feared and, like rivers and waterfalls, were both abodes of spirits and symbols of the workings of the universe. Essentially, the Chinese landscape is a dynamic cosmology in which humans participate by being embedded in landscape, rather than being a mere spectator. ‘Landscape Aesthetics in


Photography’ is devoted solely to the works of Wang Wusheng (1945-2018) who has spent much of his career photographing Mount Huangshan, also known as Yellow Mountain, probably one of the most beautiful and revered mountains in China. To the Chinese, Mount Huangshan is le plus ultra. Originally named Yishan, it was renamed in 747 by imperial edict. Tis was done in honour of Huang Di, the legendary Yellow Emperor, who supposedly used Yishan to ascended to heaven. Another legend states that he ‘cultivated moral character and refined Pills of Immortality’ in the mountains. Regardless, Huangshan is not just one mountain, but 250 square-kilometres comprising 72 different peaks, clearly explaining the extraordinary amount of years Wang Wusheng has devoted to recording the mountains and waterfalls of Huangshan in different times of day, weather conditions, light, mists and composition. His signature works are generally of two types – misty landscapes in colour and misty landscapes in black and white with the dark areas intentionally darkened to a degree that turns the mists into compositions that seem to glow from light from below. Te third section, ‘New


Huangshan A124: Disciples of Buddha and Fairy Maiden Peak (2004) by Wang Wusheng, inkjet print, 40 x 32 inches


Landscape Photography’, shows how artists such as Hong Lei, Lin Ran, Lu


of copying, but for adding to the pot-pourri of other influences and self- inspirations that comprised their individual palette and style. Because of this, the exhibition includes classical works of art from South and East Asia to demonstrate sources of influence to this radically new concept of capturing human emotions which carry the messages of human conditions. Te exhibition comprises


important and visually arresting works from the Group’s core founders:


• Asia Society, from 14 September to 20 January 2019, New York, asiasociety.org. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Tere is a special season of public programmes, for information visit the website


KH Ara, S K Bakre, HA Gade, MF Husain, SH Raza, and FN Souza, as well as later members and those closely affiliated with the movement: VS Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee, and Mohan Samant. Martin Barnes Lorber


View of Autumn Mountains in the Distance (2008) by Yao Lu, inkjet print, 26.5 x 26 5/8 inches


Yanpeng, Shao Wenhuan, Taca Sui, Xiao Xuan’an, Yan Changjiang Yang Yongliang, Yao Lu, Zeng Han, Gao Hui and Feng Yan have used photography with new techniques as the vehicle by which their thoughts on the role of mountains in society can be manifested in visual form. One would suppose that trompe l’oeil comes to mind in some of their photographs, especially so with Yang Yongliang’s Peach Blossom Colony No. 1 from 2011. Using a long, rectangular format, he has created a Surrealist landscape using a tight cluster of towering Guilin peaks that rise threateningly from a flat, desolate landscape with dead


trees in the left foreground, a lone figure of a woman walking away and dressed in white Tang- style robes. Yao Lu’s View of Autumn Mountains in the Distance from 2008 appears to be a traditional landscape with areas of light colour, but under closer inspection, one finds that the small cove with rocks in the mid foreground is in fact a rubbish heap. Essentially, this exhibition is a panoply of subtlety, artistic refinement and imagination.


• China Institute Gallery, to 17 February 2019, New York, chinainstitute.org. • Te symposium Photography in China takes place on 22 September


Martin Barnes Lorber


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