Up, close and personal

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Are you an art lover who never misses an art show? Have you always wanted a one-on-one interaction with the artist to know more about his/her work, but never got the opportunity? If yes, then help is here in the form of Blueprint 12, a new art venture by entrepreneurs Mandira Lamba and Ridhi Bhalla.
Blueprint will not have a permanent gallery space in its nascent stages, but as a pop-up gallery will host art shows that will have special private previews. The previews will be held at private venues, where artists and viewers/collectors
will have a chance to closely interact with each
other.
The inaugural pop-up show of Blueprint — a group show called Moving Matter — concluded on September 5 at Anand Niketan, New Delhi. The show is currently on for public viewing at Alliance Française in the capital till September 11, after which it will move back to the Anand Niketan premises for the public till September 20.
The idea of a pop-up gallery is an extension of Lamba and Bhalla’s similar concept in fashion called FabConnection, where garments from leading fashion designers are previewed at a private venue for select clientele even before the clothes are displayed on the ramp or for further retail business. According to them, the idea of FabConnection was well received by those who wanted to see an entire fashion line much before it was offered at regular stores. “We wanted to extend this concept to art as well. We found that most art galleries rarely offer the time and opportunity to buyers to spend hours with the artists for an interaction. Our intention behind starting this pop-up gallery was to fill the void,” says the duo, who are also sisters-in-law.
Moving Matter is being curated by Deeksha Nath and showcases works in various mediums, including installation, video, photography, textile, canvas, paper and sculpture. The participating artists include Arun Kumar HG, Lavanya Mani, Masooma Syed, Sandip Pisalkar, Martand Khosla, Akash Nihalani, Sukanya Ghosh and Amina Ahmed.
To an Indian art market, which is otherwise saturated with established artists, the launch of this pop-up gallery makes way for young and/or little known artists. While the former marks the coming of age of contemporary Indian art, it is the young artists who provide the most discursive opportunities by pointing out current and future considerations.
“At this emerging stage we are looking at knowing our clients and interacting with them. We want to encourage more one-to-one appointments. Selling art is just one aspect; it is educating the client about the art that is more important. During the week-long preview of our inaugural show, we had as many as 30 serious buyers coming to see the work and interact with the artists. I think that’s a great start,” adds Bhalla, who has an MA in science from Oxford University.
Speaking on the pop-up art concept, artist Sandip Pisalkar says, “It was a unique experience to interact with serious buyers personally even before the show went for public viewing. To talk about one’s work in an informal, yet exclusive setting was most relaxing.”
For Pooja Ahluwalia, a viewer at the preview, the idea of a pop-up gallery is fascinating at the level of an art lover and collector. “I visit several shows, but the whole ambience sometimes gets very intimidating as I never get to meet the artists personally. In this show, I could connect to the art when the artists explained their works,” she says.
The artworks exhibited in Blueprint include non-traditional materials like synthetic hair and X-rays. The themes range from human experiences like migration to medical investigation, placing the human body at the centre of individual and collective concerns.
Pakistani artist Masooma Syed, who now lives in New Delhi, has made an installation with animal forms like deer, which has been made out of human hair. “It’s a story of my times, a place where flowers are made of silver, where a bird perches on the tip of a knife and drinks poison, where the most precious jewel is the necklace of human nails and where old monks and red chillies are man’s best friends,” she says. The artist has been working with human hair for the last five to six years. “Human hair is the most natural and rich material…this work depicts a running deer, which is the most poetic creature in nature and yet reminds us of a time gone by,” she adds.
Born in East Africa and living in New York, artist Amina Ahmed’s work is based on the concept of repetition, both intended and inadvertent. One of her works is a text-based, wall-mounted print titled “Pukaar: Pillar to Post”. This work on national anthems has been a subject of discussion and collection of the artist for many years. “I am fascinated by how all national anthems sound so similar. In these anthems, we hear words of pride, love and war; of strength, courage and honour, and of homeland and exile. National anthems always seem to be filled with a sense of longing. Putting the anthems together in a repeated pattern is one way to present how in our yearning we all call out,” the artist explains.
Her second work in ink and pigment is titled “It looks a bit like graph”. “This work began as a work about water, until my daughter walked in, looked at it, and said, ‘It looks a bit like graph,’” Ahmed says with a smile.
Delhi-based Arun Kumar H.G. makes an installation of sugar cubes and white wax titled “Home Sweet Home”. “This work is about nature versus greed. The materials employed can evoke our emotions more than words,” he says.
Akash Nihalani, another New York-based artist, has made digital prints titled “Inside Out and Platforms”. “My street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. I selectively place these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city. I am trying to offer people a chance to step into a different New York…My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives — sidewalks and doorways, buildings and bricks. I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture,” he says about his work.