GLITCH FRAME LOLLIPOP

Amitabh Kumar | Prayas Abhinav | Siddhartha Kararwal

14th August - 17th September 2012

Press Note Says Bhavna Kakar, Director, Latitude 28: In line with Latitude 28s other experiments with contemporary art, we decided to throw our space open to the diverse practices of these three young artists. Technology, inventive use of material and the unconventional ideas that feature in the work of these artists, along with their sense of irony and wit should turn out to be a unique experience in the gallery. The title of the show was chosen by the trio, as Kumar reveals, to give an edgy, contemporary name to our work, which says a lot about our society and world but in a cheeky, fun way without sermonising. True to the title of the show, the works treat probing realities of everyday life ironically, and bring out contemporary concerns by playing with materials and challenges the viewers sensibilities with quirk and wit. The glitch often opens unexpected doors leading to the whimsical as well as the profound. The show has also managed to reach out to a large community of artists, art enthusiasts and others merely interested in the glitch through a Facebook group called Glitch. This Facebook group is part of the process behind the process of the show where ideas are continually generated, and possible glitches recorded. Starting from 10th August, some of these ideas will get incorporated into the show, as the three artists will collaborate to develop site-specific projects that uniquely respond to the gallery space besides the premeditated artworks that will be shown.

Amitabh Kumar is showing five works in different mediums. The first, a triptych of three ultraviolet prints on raw aluminum sheet, is titled Revenge of the Non, which is about figures, objects and ideas of excess and obsolescence. In the first drawing, for instance, he makes a fly sit on an egg, the other is an inverted spinal cord with pelvic bone and the third is of a rat morphing into a formless mass. The work is based on the concept that the meek shall one day inherit the earth. Its an ode to the powerless who are merely cogs in a so called functional system, and how their time has come to take revenge. Kumar in that sense is questioning democratic systems where all are deemed equal and yet some are more equal than the others. Kumar has also created a limited edition comic book (black and white) of twenty pages called Please Dont Turn Septic which will be distributed free in the gallery. With drawings of distorted human body parts on each page and text running through the comic reading Dont be surprised when its revealed that we really are animals and the brain is much like claws, fangs and talons and hair. Remember that despite our savage fate what saves is no pedicure or porcupines, the comic book is a continuation of his art of graphic storytelling. Kumars third work is a small cake made of dentures and coal tar titled You look silly when you fall. The work will be mounted on a jar of glycerine and as the coal tar melts over a period of time, all that will remain is the denture. Coal tar is symbolic of development and what Im trying to say here is that in the process of so called development, one has to fall. The fourth work by Kumar will be a functioning doorbell with a post-it next to it that has loosely scribbled, "The contemporary has no future" with a standard issue ballpen. The doorbell is a time travelling device, transporting the user into the foreseeable future of a door opening, a space unveiling, an encounter. The doorbell here has no door. There is only the trigger for an encounter, no possibilities. Prayas Abhinav has also worked in mixed media, with the first installation work titled Lack-lustre Narratives and made up of Software, bluetooth keyboard, projector and paper. He explains: If you type in inconsistent rhythms, the narrative keeps getting fragmented and scattered. This is a text-editor which tracks your typing rhythm and responds to it fragmenting the text if the pace is not rhythmic. Abhinavs second work is titled Meri Jaan Tere Daant Me Hai (My Life Is In Your Teeth) and is an interactive video, webcam, screen, glass with mechanical contraptions where the video changes its sequence of edit if the viewer smiles. His third work is a print titled Panic which is about a world in which vision and sight is compulsory. It is necessary to always keep your eyes open and escape is not possible. The Third Star From The Left is another of his works which is made up of jeans, water, text, blower and drawing. Siddhartha Kararwal has made a series of large scale installations which follows his work with plastic and other indigenous materials, this time focusing on powdered and processed fabric. His idea is to break the visual baggage which a viewer brings along every time he sees a work of art. The challenge is to subvert the interference that the potential of a material faces from the culturally charged perception that it already has, the notions it brings with it breaking the meaning of the material to create something new, trigger an unfamiliar reaction. These concerns are evident in his recent large scale installations like Tomato Mashers and Lick Stick.

Amitabh Kumar Revenge of the Non Size: Three panels of 6x4 feet each Medium: Ultraviolet Print on Raw Aluminium Sheet Year: 2012

Amitabh Kumar Revenge of the Non Series Size: 72" x 48" Medium: Print on Rubber Sheets Year: 2012

Prayas Abhinav Panic Medium: Print Year: 2012

Siddhartha Kararwal Untitled Size: 60" x 72" x 36" Medium: Powder coated stuffed Garments Year: 2012

Siddhartha Kararwal Tomato Masher Size: 7.5 x 4 x 2 feet Medium: Processed Satin, Cotton and Wood Year: 2012

Siddhartha Kararwal Untitled Size: 72" x 72" Medium: Processed Fabric Year: 2012

Siddhartha Kararwal Lick Stick Size: 120" x 36" Medium: Processed Fabric and Wood Year: 2012

Siddhartha Kararwal Untitled Size: 18" x 14.4" Medium: Doormat and Hanger

Siddhartha Kararwal Funny Bone Size: 180" x 12" x 12" Medium: Foam and Candy Floss Year: 2012

INSTALLATION IMAGES

FIRST FLOOR INSTALLATION IMAGES

Sound artist Hemant Sreekumar's audio-visual performance at the opening night of 'Glitch Frame Lollipop.
August 14, 2012

Amitabh Kumar is an artist based in Delhi. He has graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda, has been part of the Sarai Media Lab, Sarai-CSDS (2006-2011) and is an initiating member of the Pao Collective, a Delhi based group of comic book artists. Over the past few years he has been practicing the art of graphic storytelling and through it he has been exploring his relationship with space and time. He has produced events and has operated as a designer+researcher during his tenure in Sarai and is a visiting faculty to the Srishti College of Art and Design. The artist also operates in a curatorial capacity, having curated a year long experimental art space in Sarai-CSDS and an exhibition in the Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw, Poland. He is working on a series of performances, a video, a few collaborations and a sculptural+spatial translation of his drawings. Siddhartha Kararwal has completed his BVA and MVA in the discipline of Sculpture from M.S.U, Baroda in 2006 and 2009 respectively. He has participated in group exhibitions including Size Matters or Does it? Latitude 28, New Delhi; First Look at Project 88, Mumbai; The Matter Within: New Contemporary Art of India at the Yerba Buena Centre of Arts in San Francisco (2011); Beauty and the Beast at Mathieu Foss Gallery in Mumbai (2011)and fairs like India Art Fair 2012 with Latitude 28 and will be represented by them at Art Gwangju:12. He was showcased at the Sculpture Park at India Art Fair, 2012 (curated by Diana Campbell Creative India) He has also participated in several workshops like Comic Strip workshop with Sarnath Banerjee, Sarai, New Delhi in 2007, Sound Art, KHOJ, New Delhi, Traditional Dogra Casting with Shivkumar Verma, MSU, Baroda in 2004 and Wood Workshop, MSU, Baroda in 2004. Siddhartha has been an artist- in-residence at Kashi in Kochi. The artist currently lives and works in Baroda. Prayas Abhinav is a Bangalore-based writer, occasional artist and infrequent teacher. He has worked in the last few years on numerous pieces of speculative fiction, some of which are now graphic-novels-in-progress, software, games, interactive installations, public interventions and curatorial projects. He is interested in politics, pedagogy and the interaction of the humanities and the digital. Presently he is a Research Fellow at Lucid, A studio for speculative art and an artist-in-residence at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. He also contributes to research and projects at northeastwestsouth (n.e.w.s) (Amsterdam, NL). He teaches irregularly at Center for Environmental Planning Technology (CEPT) (Ahmedabad) and Dutch Art Institute (Arnhem, NL). He has in the past developed his research and practice with the support of fellowships by Sarai, Openspace, the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA) and TED. He has been in residencies at Khoj (India), Coded Cultures (Austria) and dis-locate (Japan). He has shared his work at festivals including Transmediale, 48c, Futuresonic, ISEA and Wintercamp.

Hindustan Times 14th August 2012

The Asian Age 13th August 2012

The Indian Express 18th August 2012

The Pioneer 21st August 2012

View the show online : http://www.latitude28.com/index.php/exhibitions/view/38/current

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