New Delhi, July 29: The seventh edition of Delhi Contemporary Art Week (DCAW) will showcase some of the finest art and contemporary voices at Bikaner House from August 31 to September 4. A creative alliance forged by six galleries, DCAW is anchored in the foundation of amplifying the voices of creative artists and celebrating their works that reflect contemporary times with many themes and techniques.
Six Delhi-based art galleries Blueprint12, Exhibit 320, Gallery Espace, Latitude 28, Shrine Empire, and Vadehra Art Gallery are showcasing a selection of works by established and emerging artists from India and the broader subcontinent, with each gallery bringing its unique curatorial vision to the event. Also, there will be a group exhibition curated by Girish Shahane featuring artists from each participating gallery. Titled ‘A Bold Step Sideways’, it challenges traditional notions of art history and originality. Embracing a generation of artists unencumbered by the anxieties of influence, this exhibition showcases a diverse array of works that freely traverse styles and mediums.
While Blueprint 12 will be exhibiting works of artists including Divyesh Undaviya, Meghana Gavireddygari, Zoya Chaudhary, Aravani Art Project, and Anila Govindappa, among others, Exhibit 320 will showcase contemporary art from India and the subcontinent, creating a platform for new thoughts and ideas. This year, the emphasis of the exhibition space is on new media, and its structures as a place for creative endeavour, aesthetic exploration and furthering visual dialogue. The gallery will be exhibiting the works of Deena Pindoria, Deepak Kumar, Jayati Kaushik, Kaushik Saha, Kumaresan Selvaraj, Priyantha Udagedara, Gopi Gajwani, Gunjan Kumar, Rahul Kumar, Sareena Khemka, among others.
Gallery Espace will be showcasing a varied collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures by leading artists across generations and graphic mediums. A highlight of the presentation is a drawing installation by Soma Surovi Jannat (‘Time without Birth and Death’), a young artist from Dhaka, Bangladesh who has recently signed up with Gallery Espace. The gallery will also showcase a new set of paintings by Baroda-based Rashmimala, Ravi Agarwal’s photographs of an abandoned office, and Tanmoy Samanta’s luminous canvases of liminal shapes.
Other exhibiting artists include Amit Ambalal, Ishita Chakraborty, Sharad Sonkusale, Sheetal Gattani, and Sonia Mehra Chawla. Continuing to spotlight emerging artists from the Global South, Latitude 28 will reflect South Asia's evolving contemporary art scene through a textile collection. This showcase features artists using weaving, crochet, embroidery, Zardosi, and Kantha techniques to manipulate fabric and integrate it with other art forms and textures.
Highlights include Khadim Ali's tapestry work influenced by his Afghan heritage, debut artists at DCAW, Veena Advani (her mixed media paintings with hand embroidery), Al-Qawi Nanavati (infuses her late mother's belongings into her art, creating a sense of mystery and deep contemplation) and Viraj Khanna (whose narrative-based embroidered works are focused on eye-catching moments shared on social media). Inspirations from texture and form of Indian textile handicraft are evident in Sanket Viramgami and Shalina Vichitra’s works. Sudipta Das transforms paper into sculpture or fabric.
Other artists whose work will be showcased include Ankush Safaya, Anupama Alias, Chandan Bez Baruah, Farhat Ali, Harisha Chennangod, Harman Taneja, Jahangir Asgar Jani, Prajjwal Choudhury, Shubham Kumar, Sudipta Das, Waswo X. Waswo, Yogesh Ramkrishna and Zahra Yazdani.
Shrine Empire will be showing the works of Hema Shironi and Natasha Das for the first time. Both artists work with textile and through this medium, they explore various contexts that relate to their personal histories, politics of the region and sustainability. Artist Amitava Das will be showing several of his recent works. Other participating artists include Anoli Perera, Arun Dev, Awdhesh Tamrakar, Divya Singh, Sajan Mani, Samanta Batra Mehta, Sangita Maity, Shruti Mahajan and Tayeba Begum Lipi.
Featuring an ensemble of exciting South Asian artists practising within the Subcontinent and beyond, Vadehra Art Gallery will show works by Anita Dube, Anju Dodiya, Atul Bhalla, Atul Dodiya, Faiza Butt, Gigi Scaria, Jagannath Panda, Jasmine Nilani Joseph, Joya Mukerjee Logue, Praneet Soi, Sachin George Sebastian, Shailesh B. R., Shilpa Gupta, Sudhir Patwardhan, Sunil Gupta, Treibor Mawlong, Zaam Arif and others, The curation will include works across mediums, with a focus on painting and photography, ushering in reflection and discourse on topical narratives growing out of contemporary South Asian culture.
Some of the works on display will include installation works by Anita Dube, activating text and the gaze that turns upon them as sites of resistance; portraits by Faiza Butt layered with multi-cultural, art historical and technological inspirations as seen from an autobiographical lens; photographs of protest by queer communities in London shot in the 1980s by Sunil Gupta; drawings by Jasmine Nilani Joseph elaborating on ideas of property, ancestry and displacement; poetic explorations of the human condition in one’s relationship to self, time and place in paintings by Zaam Arif; the complexity of intimacy in interpersonal relationships in a suite of recent drawings by Sudhir Patwardhan; and mixed media collage works by Shailesh B. R. that form a repository of observations, moods and imaginations through objects, elements and landscapes among others.
