Press Clippings (Indian Colours)

Press Clippings

News coverage for CARD-O-LOGY

INDIA TODAY
August 31, 2009

MID-DAY

August 28, 2009

Will you mail a postcard that costs Rs 8,000?

Bombay Times

September 10, 2009

PICTURE (POSTCARD) PERFECT!

Card-O-Logy, a group show where artists demonstrate their skills on picture postcards, is a move towards making art less intimidating, writes Nicole Dastur

    What’s different about this one, you ask? Sixty artists come together for a group show, but hold it, it’s not canvasses or photographs that they are presenting, but original picture postcards instead! Curated by Jasmine Shah Varma, here’s an exhibition that celebrates the
spirit of picture postcards, an idea that was borne from Varma’s interest in the same. “In today’s age of e-cards, SMS and video-chat, postcards seem obsolete. Yet, they remain a charming, popular souvenir. The beauty of a postcard lies in the fact that it communicates much more than just a picture — there’s so much culture, history and tradition attached to it — and it’s all brought out in an easy, accessible, affordable and visual format,” explains Varma. Art itself, she continues, is a testimony of time, of a bygone era, of history itself. Vintage postcards are just a miniature version of the same. And through this interesting exhibit, Varma merges two visual means of communication — art and picture postcards — in an effort to make art more affordable and less intimidating to the common man, because, art, she says, is still often viewed as “elitist”.
    And the range of artists, that include names like Jehangir Jani, Lalitha Lajmi, Babu Xavier, Abir Patwardhan, Nikhileswar Baruah, Sunil Padwal, Dhruvi Acharya, Brinda Miller, Debraj Goswami, Soumen Das, Alok Bal, Kiyomi Talaulicar, Prajakta Palav, Naina Kanodia, Kim Kyoungae,
    Prabhakar Kolte and many, many more from Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Baroda, Bangalore, Goa, Canada and New York, adapted to this “visual precis writing” as Varma calls it, beautifully. The task of presenting subjects and images that preoccupy them at this point in time, in a compact picture postcard format not larger than 6"x4" and 5"x7", was no doubt challenging, but the result is nothing less than a visual treat. Jehangir Jani, for instance, found this project highly testing, since he’s always been working in larger formats. “This intimate scale called for a completely different approach,” he says. His work having always revolved around the human figure, this time too, he didn’t deviate, although “the space constraints made me change my approach – I looked beyond the figure into the frame, creating a kind of depth,” he explains. Kiyomi Talaulicar found this concept “appealing” and the format highly “interesting and intriguing” – she took her task to a
    more literal level incorporating her vision of
    Portugal (a place she
    recently visited) onto a
    picture postcard. Prabhakar Kolte, however, has a different approach to this art form; while on one hand he agrees that the structure and mood of the painting is different because of its small size, on the other he believes that for an artist, art is art, whatever the format or size. “An artist’s job is to interpret his thoughts and observations everyday and put it down, the medium is secondary,” feels Kolte. From drawings to colourful paintings to simple sketches to etchings to printed photographs, this exhibition has it all - different styles of art, diverse subjects and a range of talents.
(The exhibition is on at the Hacienda gallery till September 18)

OUTLOOK PROFIT
Issue date: October 2, 2009