Artmania

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With more than a half dozen art shows either opening or already opened in the city, which one to see? Our handy guide to helping you pick.

HOMAI VYARAWALLA AT THE NGMA
The NGMA breathes to life after a spate of less than impressive shows with this comprehensive and surprisingly well curated retrospective of India’s first female press photographer. Split across three levels, the show examines three phases in Vyarawalla’s colourful career, starting with key moments during and around India’s Independence, moving on to Parsis and old Bombay and ending with documentary-like stills of Delhi high society. In this age of minute-to-minute documentation, it’s hard to imagine a time when visual record of anything historic was timely, lucky and rare. It’s for this that we are thankful to Vyarawalla who manages to capture everything from a joyful Nehru riding a carousel at a flower show to Christmas celebrations at the homes of British expats.
When: Until Sunday, April 10. Tuesday to Sunday, from 11am to 6pm; Monday closed.
Where: National Gallery of Modern Art, Mahatma Gandhi Road, near Regal Cinema, Fort. Tel: 2288 1969. www.ngmaindia.gov.in.

MAYA BURMAN AT ART MUSINGS
Like her father, famous artist Sakti Burman, Maya Burman’s watercolour and ink drawings are ethereal and explosively colourful. Burman, who splits her time between France and India, says she favours figures of the classical mould. Voluptuous though her figures are however, their almost transparent execution (her outlines are needle thin) makes them  incidental to the real visual draw—the wild prints and patterns that Burman uses to colour in most of what she sees. From Japanese miniatures to Mughal patterns, Burman absorbs and eventually re-interprets all that she sees around her, resulting in a chaotic but strangely harmonious blend of curves, stripes and blocks.
When: Tuesday, March 1 to Saturday, April 9. Monday to Friday, 11am to 7pm; Saturday, 11am to 5.30pm; Sunday closed
Where: Art Musings, 1 Admiralty Building, Colaba Cross Lane, Colaba. Tel: 2218 6071/2216 3339. www.artmusings.net.

ZARINA HASHMI AT LAKEEREN GALLERY
If you’re not familiar with Aligarh-born, New York-based Zarina Hashmi’s works (some are in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London), it won’t be long before you hear her name more often. The eminent printmaker is one of the chosen few who will represent India during the Venice Biennale when it begins this June. In the meantime, for an introductory glimpse of her works, pop into Lakeeren to see this small and little seen collection of woodcuts, lithographs, etchings and threadworks from the 1970s and ’80s. Hashmi’s works are minimalist but forceful—sharp geometric forms and a sparing use of colour that reference everything from Western abstraction to Sufi poetry.
When: Until Saturday, April 9. Monday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm; Sunday closed.
Where: Lakeeren Gallery, 6/18 Grants Building, Second Floor, opposite Basilico Restaurant, Arthur Bunder Road, Colaba. Tel: 6522 4179. www.lakeerengallery.com

RUBEN BELLINKX AT GALLERY MASKARA
We first came across Belgian artist Ruben Bellinkx’s animal videos when he showed them as part of a group show at Gallery Maskara last year. Vaguely sadist though they were (one in particular, which is back here, featured four tortoises shifting around a wooden table strapped to their shells), his works were also strangely compelling. They blurred the edges between “familiarity and estrangement” which is why you came away feeling unsettled but not knowing entirely why. In this latest body of work, Bellinkx once again uses animals to create a surreal dimension, one where three dogs silently rip apart a chair, and a seemingly dead stuffed deer moves into eerie life. Shot on 16mm black-and-white film, the videos are displayed without sound in a seemingly endless loop, almost to question whether it’s all just a figment of our own perverse imaginations.
When: Until Sunday, March 13. Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm. Monday closed.
Where: Gallery Maskara, Warehouse on 3rd Pasta, 6/7 Third Pasta Lane, Colaba. Tel: 2202 3056. www.gallerymaskara.com.

ALAIN PAIEMENT AT MATTHIEU FOSS GALLERY
What would you look like if shot from above? It’s not a question most of us have to consider, but for Canadian photographer Alain Paiement, that is the preferred angle of choice. In this immensely fun show, Paiement will display two series of works: the first, of apartments and other interiors, is composed of hundreds of individually shot images mapped one on top of another to compose an urban palimpset of sorts; the second is of people showering, each made up of just a single shot. Voyeuristic though they might make you feel (particularly the shower ones), the interior shots have a doll-house charm akin to peering down at a city from atop a skyscraper.
When: From Friday, March 4 to Saturday, April 2. Monday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm; Sunday closed.
Where: Matthieu Foss Gallery, Hansraj Damodar Building, Ground Floor, Goa Street, Ballard Estate. Tel: 6747 7261. www.matthieufossgallery.com.

MEERA SETHI AT BOMBAY ELECTRIC
Even though three images do not a proper exhibition make, it’s worth popping into Bombay Electric to see the life-sized acrylic works of Canadian graphic artist Meera Sethi. Her heavily stylised and beautifully quirky illustrations offer an inventive yet cheeky take on the traditional Indian woman. See the entire series here.
When: From Tuesday, March 1 onwards. Open daily, 11am to 9pm.
Where: Bombay Electric, 1 Reay House, Best Marg, Colaba. Tel: 2287 6276. www.bombayelectric.in.