The work of Esther Brinkmann is characterized by the meaning she bestows on the ring, its relationship to the hand and, perhaps most surprisingly, to its case. The Swiss artist prefers processed and textured materials, which now also include new component forms, techniques, and substances since her time living in China and India.
She established a further education training program in jewelry design — a unique undertaking in Switzerland — at the Haute École d’Art et de Design (HEAD) in Geneva. Here, her knowledge and autonomy in her work have already shaped several other artistic careers.
This publication presents Esther Brinkman’s oeuvre from the past 30 years and highlights for the first time the remarkable strength and the freedom that distinguish the artist’s rich career.
Text in English and French.
Pushtimarg, a Vaishnava sect founded by Vallabhacharya in the 15th century, lays great stress on worship of the deity Shrinathji through the joys of life and living and devotion through kirtan (devotional poem-songs), bhog (offerings of sumptuous food and beverages), shringara (offerings of adornment, through dressing and ornamentation), and decoration and painting. The paintings constitute the Nathdwara school, so named because the image of Shrinathji is enshrined in a temple in Nathdwara, Rajasthan.
Shringara of Shrinathji catalogs a set of previously unpublished miniature paintings of the Pushtimarg tradition from the collection of late Shri Gokal Lal Mehta. These 60 splendid artworks were executed by Sukhdev Gaur, the mukhia (chief artist) of the temple, during the dynamic stewardship of Tilkayat Govardhanlalji (1862–1934 AD). Documenting the high degree of skill in draughtsmanship, portraiture and in composition, expositions by artist Amit Ambalal accompany the exceptional, high-quality photographic reproductions of these beautiful paintings in this captivating volume.
Having set up practice a couple of decades after independence, Namita Singh belongs to the generation of architects who participated in the country’s rapid development, providing a range of infrastructure projects for a society in the making, its institutions and cities. A Chandigarh-based practice, her firm has delivered a range of buildings, including educational institutes, offices, commercial projects, housing, heritage and restoration works, private homes and interiors across India. While much of her work is in tune with a contemporary modernism, Namita Singh has always drawn on local values and technologies for its generic expressions.
A volume long overdue, the publication includes works that illustrate principles the architect uses to build and as well as those that are part of the stylistic consistency of the firm. Accompanying photographs and drawings tell a parallel story and lend value to the breadth of the varied projects presented and of a practice informed by inquiry.
Ganesh Haloi, born in Jamalpur, Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh), moved to Calcutta in 1950 after the Partition of India. Witness to India’s resilient culture, its freedom and struggle for its secular modernism, Haloi is among the artists of the generation who have played a significant role in the shaping of Indian modern art.
Haloi has cultivated a singular vocabulary of abstraction and landscape. This painterly world is textured with knowledge references that the artist is attuned to over decades — from archeology, ancient architecture, art history to sacred philosophy and poetry. His works are exercises in bringing life to the genre of landscape painting through the assembly of disparate symbolic forms.
With extensive essays by eminent art critics interspersed with folios of many previously unpublished works from throughout his life, this monograph documents Haloi’s earth-toned abstract vocabulary that has drawn over time on a vast breadth of iconography, ideas, and movements.
Published in association with Akar Prakar, Kolkata & New Delhi.
After an early stint in Bombay in the 1940s, with the Progressive Artists’ Group, S. H. Raza moved to France, where he spent the next 60 years. This volume explores Raza’s artistic trajectory from the time of his arrival in Paris, as well as his contribution to the development of modernism in the Indian subcontinent.
Raza’s strong thrust towards non-figurative art, and subsequent influences from European and American modernism, combined with his memories and impressions of India, led him to a skillful negotiation between Indian spirituality and Western abstraction. Beginning with early works developed in India before 1947, the essays in this volume analyze Raza’s later abstraction processes and landscapes. An anthology of previously unpublished letters offer glimpses of the master at work, and a detailed chrono-biography situates him within the transcultural dynamics of the 1950s to the 1980s.
Accompanying the S.H. Raza exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2023, this monograph presents a compelling overview of Raza’s work and the highlights of his journey.
Published in association with the Raza Foundation, New Delhi and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
‘Janamsakhis’ are stories about the life of Guru Nanak (1469–1539). They have been circulating orally, in writing, and in paintings and illustrations. B40 is one such documented artistic expression held at the British Library in London. Its 57 beautiful iconotexts narrate the life of the first Sikh Guru from his first day at school to his final moments. The talented artist Alam Chand Raj illustrates Guru Nanak’s sensuous feel for the all-inclusive Divine, his interior and exterior journeys, his manifold inter-faith conversations, his environmental aesthetics, and his marvelous actions. In the language of vibrant colors Guru Nanak’s transcendent materiality and world-affirming existentiality are exquisitely written out. The stylistic infusions of Punjabi art, Chaurapanchasika style and folk-art style of the Rajasthani Malwa School bring the historical Guru close to the viewer. Along with the artwork there is the rich text by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh explaining the stories from a 21st-century perspective. She insightfully explores the question – how are the Janamsakhis relevant to the political, societal, economic, and environmental state of the world at present.
Six women, six stories. They make cartoons and graphic work in the besieged Syrian city of Idlib or unfree Egypt of President al-Sisi, they fight fat shaming and homophobia in Mexico, are on the run from president Putin, criticize Hindu nationalism and misogyny from Indian Prime Minister Modi or defy the powers that be in The Washington Post. Whether they are from Mexico, the USA, Syria, Egypt, India or Russia, they all belong to the absolute world top. But the way to the top was not an easy one for any of them.
Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.
This issue focuses on the topic of Architecture Writing and Literature, and features five essays and ten projects that elaborate on this topic. The five essays, separately, introduce Writing Architectural Pedagogies, Indian Architectural Literature in UKs Academe, Architecture of Writing and Criticism, How to Believe in Architecture becoming Author of History and Writing Habitation and Inhabiting Writing. The ten projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, highlight various types of architectural works from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, showing how architects show their projects through words, depending on the types of architectural work.
If there is one grand tale that has impacted Asia, it has to be the Ramayana, the great Indian epic. From India, the Rama tale is presumed to have traveled along three routes — by land, the northern route took the story from Punjab and Kashmir into China, Tibet, and East Turkestan; by sea, the southern route carried the story from Gujarat and South India into Java, Sumatra, and Malaya; and again by land, the eastern route delivered the story from Bengal into Burma, Thailand, Laos, and to some extent, Cambodia and Vietnam. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the epic has been incorporated into the Islamic tradition; Theravada Buddhism in Thailand and Cambodia adopted Hindu divinities from the Rama story into its fold.
With stunning original art, this sumptuously illustrated volume celebrates this all-inclusive tradition of the epic, foregrounding it as a cultural phenomenon across time and space.
Indian Summer presents a group of skillful and expressive figurative paintings in oil on canvas and linen by artist Raghav Babbar (b. 1997) that include intimate portraits as well as large-scale group compositions. Babbar’s sitters span friends from his childhood in Rohtak, a city north-west of Delhi, pan-sellers, dancers from the south of India, family members, as well as himself.
Indian Summer is the first publication on Babbar, which features reproductions of over forty works created from 2020–23 and views of his 2023 exhibitions at Nahmad Projects, London, and Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice. Lock Kresler, Senior Director at Helly Nahmad Gallery, London, introduces the book, explaining his first encounters with Babbar and his practice. An essay by art historian, broadcaster, and commentator Dr Cleo Roberts-Komireddi examines how Babbar uses his materials, treats his subjects, and delves into his sources of inspiration, classic Hindi and Tamil cinema and the School of London artists.
Babbar celebrates the individual as he showcases the diversity of his country in his textural, rich, and joyful portraits that teem with life.
This lavishly illustrated book, the second volume in the series Orchha,Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850),deals with the second and third periods of Orchha painting, which span the years 1605 through 1675. A central theme of the paintings presented in this volume is the love between the archetypal couple Krishna and Radha, which is both mystical-religious and secular-playful in nature. Indeed, it is the confluence of sacred and profane love that gives India’s culture and art its unique spirit. The images were created to illustrate poetic works such as the Rasikapriya, whose author, the Orchha court poet Keshavdas, invites his readers to savor the aesthetic and religious delight of Radha-Krishna love through his riti lyrics in the vernacular language of his era. Through stylistic analyzes and interpretations of over 100 paintings from his collection, many of them published here for the first time, the author brings to light the accomplishments of the Orchha school during its heyday in the seventeenth century.
Wabi-sabi, that ancient philosophy which embraces imperfection, lies at the very heart of Japanese traditions—both artistic and societal. Today, it is being diluted by modernity. Worse still, this timeless aesthetic—nourished by the slow passage of time and enriched by the patina of age—is being cheapened by the mass-market home décor industry. Reducing wabi-sabi to what it once was, or to a fleeting “lifestyle” trend, is to confine it within a box. From their encounter with architect Kengo Kuma, the authors have retained—and illustrate here—his vision of “modern wabi-sabi. Through their travels in India, Europe, and Morocco, they have witnessed the transcontinental ripple effect of wabi-sabi and, through this aesthetic, the subtle yet powerful influence of Japan. While journeying through the Japanese archipelago, they met with a new generation who is preserving, revealing, and carrying forward this philosophy: the new ambassadors of wabi-sabi. From a shared moment with a monk in a teahouse to a thousand quiet joys, they experienced the wabi-sabi feeling… They summon it here, and invite you to experience it too.
Part travel journal, part photo book, and part collection of testimonies—Anne-Emmanuelle Thion, a nomadic photographer, and Thierry Grundman, a traveling antiques dealer and founder of Atmosphère d’Ailleurs and the Wabi-Sabi Lab—offer a cross-cultural, contemporary vision of wabi-sabi through encounters with those who embody it today.
Text in English and French.
The famed Bengal textiles which once ‘clothed the world’ have received little scholarly attention. With the systemic destruction of Bengal’s textile industry, prompted by the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the muslins and Balucharis of Bengal were lost in obscurity. The partition of the Indian subcontinent and the consequent varieties of cultural and social identity in present-day India and Bangladesh have contributed to this neglect. This pioneering publication explores in depth the lost textile traditions of Bengal from the 16th to the 20th century and traces its impact on the historical and cultural aspects of the region.
Supported by superb illustrations of textiles, maps and trade documents from the past, most of which have never been published before, the book serves as a public history, with engaging chapters presenting a unique perspective on the textiles of wider Bengal. This volume will inspire the reader, reorient scholarly attention and provoke a rethinking of the nature and history of Bengal textiles.
Ammi’s Kitchen: Heirloom Recipes from Rampur is a tribute to all grandmothers who have been the torchbearers of saving and passing on the legacy of classic traditional family recipes. Pernia Qureshi’s grandmother, Mussharaf-ul-Nissa Begum, originally from Chandausi in the United Provinces, was married at a young age into the princely state of Rampur. With the influence of her hometown, now combined with the newfound exposure to Rampur’s more modern and eclectic cuisine, she created a food language that was uniquely her own.
This book is a collection of recipes she mastered over the years, which still carry the aromas of the treasures of history.
Following the publication of The Bundi Wall-Paintings in Rajasthan, Hilde Lauwaert photographed hundreds of wall-paintings, across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. In her new book, she introduces readers to the great stories of Hindu mythology, as depicted in refined artistic wall-paintings found in centuries-old temples, palaces, forts, cenotaphs and wells, as well as more popular examples in the havelis, the wealthy merchant houses from the 18th to the 20th centuries. These richly decorative wall-paintings, a unique form of cultural heritage in India, bring the principal Hindu myths vividly to life in visual form. Taking these paintings as her guide, the author aims to make the stories of Hindu mythology recognizable and understandable to a wide audience. She also explores the ways in which the gods are worshiped today, through rituals at home, in temples, and during festivals.
It had been a desert, its dunes languorously meeting the lapping sea which has played its part in world trade since the beginning of time. There had been the gold and spices from nearby India, and the petroleum of today, extracted from its sands or brought from elsewhere, from off the shores of its coasts. It is difficult to imagine that these seven Emirates have a history, as understood in Western canons. Here, the past seems to have been dug away with excavators, drowned in concrete, built over with metropolitan motorways. This does not prevent it from seeming to surge forth at the slightest provocation, at the smallest of solicitations. Proud of what the world acknowledges as his country’s achievements, the most insolent of Emiratis grows less arrogant when recalling his father’s fathers. Fathers who, hardly more than four decades ago, were Bedouins, traders, camel drivers, almost all pearl fishers. It is in this way that this modern history was written. Twenty centuries of hard seasonal migration of their livestock, intensive trade, fierce competition, destructive setbacks and creative imagination forged mentalities that have made this desert into one of the richest and most envied places in the world. What seems a modern miracle is no more than the culmination of an ancient culture having survived mishap and change to forge a modern economy.
Tsha-tsha are terracottas, or unfired earthenware figures, in the form of cast-sculptured stupas/chörten (reliquaries) or reliefs, which are decorated in a variety of religious motifs in bas-relief or half-relief. These votive offerings in earth or loam are produced by hand by believers or monks with models (casts) and serve many different purposes in every day religious life. With the depiction of over 360 objects, this book offers an outstanding review of the diverse manifestations and the extensive iconography of these exceptional ritual objects from the Buddhist cultural sphere. Text in German.
The Mughals established a mighty empire that dominated India for two centuries. With their passion for nature and art, the Mughal emperors laid out verdant gardens, built splendid monuments including the Taj Mahal, and commissioned beautiful books. Books were precious to the Mughal kings. Expensive and laborious to produce, they were symbols of royal wealth, power and intelligence. At the height of Mughal power, the imperial studios hummed with the activity of hundreds of papermakers, calligraphers, painters and bookbinders, all producing books for the royal libraries. Many manuscripts were illustrated with exquisite miniature paintings, in which the Mughals took a special delight. Today these books and paintings, treasured by museums around the world, offer us unique perspectives into Mughal lives.
Handmade and handcrafted objects are a part of daily life in Gujarat. The crafts of Gujarat demonstrate the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature and offer meaningful lessons in sustainable living for future generations. The ingenious use of natural and locally available materials is combined with a unique aesthetic, bringing together form and function in each magnificent product. With simple tools, adherence to norms set by tradition and with their imagination, the artisans of Gujarat have embodied human potential. Traditional skills are now applied to create products for the contemporary world, demonstrating convincingly that natural and handmade products are adaptable over time, and, that tradition continues to be relevant in modern times.
Before any sound critical framework could be evolved around the phenomenal artist Jangarh Singh Shyam as the originator of an extraordinary individualistic idiom of painting, ruthless market forces regrettably came to dominate his art and Jangarh himself became their first casualty. While trying to finish a large commission at a museum in Japan under adverse circumstances, Jangarh committed suicide in 2001. He was 40.
A whole range of conditions, events and mediations associated with Jangarh’s life and his art practice has since remained underexplored. This book is a first attempt to construct an equitable account of the formation of his prodigious artistic body of work that founded his legacy and grew into a movement. As a prime critical analysis of Jangarh Singh Shyam’s oeuvre, this book also serves as a model framework for the study of a contemporary individual folk and tribal artist.
The book probes the efficacy of extra-cultural interventions into an individual artist’s operative and relatively well-grounded indigenous cultural tradition, and asks how the latter interacts with the new, while intentionally reinventing itself.
This volume is published in association with the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Bangalore.
This volume is the first to bring together the V&A Museum’s collection of 19th-century temple hangings from South India, made in the kalamkari style of hand drawing, mordant-dyeing and painting. This is the first time they have been fully illustrated with complete translations of their inscriptions, accompanied by detailed analyses of their narratives. Published in association with the V&A Museum, London, this volume features original research and lavish illustrations.
Introduction: The Ramayana: Contructed, Killed and Brought; Ramayana Chirala; Ramayana Machilipatnam; Ramayana Srikalahasti; Ramayana Srikalahasti (English captions); Ramayana Sri Lanka; Ramayana: Selected Scenes; Balakanda Madurai; Yuddhakanda Madurai; Krishnacharita Coastal Andhra. Two Episodes from the Mahabharata; The Killing of Shishupala Madurai; The Duel between Karna and Arjuna Madurai. Two Ganga Hangings; Ganga Dupatti Machilipatnam; Ganga Dupatti Machilipatnam; Mahalakshmi Pithakam Machilipatnam. Introduction to Holy Sites; Sri Subrahmanya Temple, Tiruchendur; Sri Subrahmanyaswami Temple, Tirupparankunram; Sri Ranganathaswami Temple, Srirangam; Alagar Koyil Chittirai Festival; The Life of Christ Srikalahasti; Bibliography; Glossary; Acknowledgements.
This publication emanates from an exhibition by the same title, displayed for the first time at the Alliance Française de Delhi. It is an attempt to trace the development of photography and the other allied visual arts in Pondicherry spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn exclusively from The Alkazi Collection of Photography, at the core of this initiative is the unpublished album by renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, co-founder of Magnum Photos, who visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in April 1950. He took the last pictures of Sri Aurobindo Ghose in the company of his spiritual companion, the Mother. In addition, he meticulously penned his observations almost daily, creating a meta-text around the images, which presents a biographical and anecdotal supplement for his photographic endeavour. The visual material is further enhanced by some extraordinary images of Indian photographers from the same period such as Tara Jauhar and Venkatesh Shirodkar at Aurobindo Ashram, published here for the first time.
In this catalogue a conscious effort has been made to bring out a non-linear, yet credible history of how Pondicherry has been witness to the development of a unique visual trajectory. The use of images as evidence and document create a subtle interplay between cultural context and artistic intent, a conceptual linking of mannerisms and tropes those of landscape, architectural and portrait photography.
The Jeypore Exhibition of 1883 was regarded as among the most important industrial exhibitions of 19th century, where specimen of the best art work of India was curated. Credited to the arduous efforts of Thomas Holbein Hendley, a British officer in the princely state of Jaipur, the Exhibition was primarily an attempt to showcase local skills. A permanent ‘memorial’ of the Exhibition was produced as a four-part set of illustrated volumes, authored by Hendley and commissioned by the visionary Maharaja of Jaipur. The first volume contained a number of chromo-lithographs and a general description of the plates in the first three books of the set. The second and third volumes contained 100 photographs of Indian art work, while Volume IV also included reproductions in platinum of the illustrations of Emperor Akbar’s own copy of the Razmanama, the Persian epic. Published by W.H. Griggs, some sets were presented to leading museums of the world, and very few copies were sold. This facsimile edition of a rare copy of Volume I, preserved at Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, is now published to recreate those splendors documented by Hendley, for modern-day scholars and connoisseurs. Co-published with Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur.