Virtual Art Tour

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Can’t make it to the galleries this week or want a preview of what’s on display? Then take our virtual art tour through six new shows:

PRIYANKA CHOUDHARY AT GALLERY MASKARA
Warehouse on Third Pasta Lane, 6/7, Third Pasta Lane, Colaba. Tel: 2202 3056.
Dates: Until Friday, November 18.
For her previous show at Gallery Maskara, New Delhi-based Priyanka Choudhary created a menacing explosion of bamboo sticks that looked like it could maim the viewer. For her second solo, she uses equally hostile-looking material—rusted steel, shards of glass, concrete and wire—to fashion a body of work likely to give you tetanus if you stand too close (which partly explains the title of the show “Tetanus Midas”). Not all the works emanate malevolent vibes: in “Womb Alimentary”, a series of narrow paper cut-outs mimic a chasm albeit one that is invitingly lit; whether of female or the geographic kind, is up to the viewer to decipher.

THE SINGH TWINS AT SAKSHI GALLERY
Tanna House , 11-A Nathalal Parekh Marg, Colaba. Tel: 6610 3424.
Dates: Until Monday, October 10.
Even if you remain a firm skeptic about the powers of astrology (or became one after watching episodes of Simi Selects India’s Most Desirable), you’ll still be able to enjoy this show titled simply: “The Art of Tarot: New Work by The Singh Twins”. The twins in question are a pair of British twin sisters Amrit and Rabindra, who prefer to be identified as a single creative entity. For this exhibition, they were commissioned by astrologer Roopa Patel to draw a pack of 22 tarot cards in their signature miniature style. Ignore what The Emperor or Temperance might foretell for your future and marvel instead at the incredibly intricate and breathtakingly labourious process, much of it done with a single strand of a paintbrush.

JONATHAN JONES AT GALERIE MIRCHANDHANI + STEINRUECKE
2 Sunny House, 16/18 Mereweather Road, Behind Taj Mahal Hotel, Colaba. Tel: 2202 3030.
Dates: Until Thursday, November 3.
Jones, an Australian artist with Aboriginal ancestry, boils down colonial history and its weighty ties to Australian and India, to create minimalist visual metaphors. The elegant works—thick iridescent graphite lines, a criss-cross network of fluorescent tubes—evoke none of the tangled mess of history and politics that one associates with say, the salt march in India or the destruction of farm land in Australia. What we’re left with (mostly just lines and light) force the viewer to reckon with the space—and stories—in between.

ERROL PIRES AT ARTISANS’ CENTRE
52-56 Dr. V. B. Gandhi Marg, behind Rhythm House, Kala Ghoda. Tel: 2267 3040.
Dates: Until Thursday, October 6.
For its inaugural show, Artisans’ Centre, an exhibition space dedicated to arts and crafts, has brought down Professor Errol Pires of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Pires, an expert in the technique of ply-split braiding, a weaving technique used traditionally to fashion camel belts in Northern India, has made thousands of objects over the last 25 years, from multi-coloured containers to sexy seamless dresses. Though none of the 60-odd pieces are for sale, Pires’s evident skill with the material and form demonstrate how best to preserve ancient techniques and keep them relevant in the 21st century.

SAMMLUNG LUDWIG: ART OF THE SIXTIES & HANS HAACKE: THE CHOCOLATE MASTER AT MUMBAI ART ROOM
Pipewala Building (back gate), opposite Navy Children School, Fourth Pasta Lane, Colaba. Tel: 97699 50136.
Dates: Until Saturday, November 5.
You’d do well to read the printed explanation given out at the gallery before you look at the wall display or thumb through the two books on the table. The first book, Sammlung Ludwig: Art of the Sixties, is a catalogue documenting the impressive Pop Art collection of German chocolate manufacturer and millionaire Peter Ludwig, which has become something of a collector’s item in the US and Europe. What you see on the wall is a selection of pages from one of the editions of the catalogue (there are five in total). The second book, The Chocolate Master by Hans Haacke is a less favourable exposition of Ludwig’s chocolate empire and the sometimes unsavoury means through which he built up his art collection in the 1960s and ’70s.

THE ART OF DRAWING AT THE GUILD
02/32 Kamal Mansion, Second Floor, Arthur Bunder Road, Colaba. Tel: 2288 0116.
Dates: Friday, October 7 until Saturday, October 15.
In these installation and multi-media loving times, we might forget that drawing is the bedrock of most artistic endeavours. See a selection of charcoal, pencil and water colour sketches by heavy-weights like K. G. Subramanyan, Krishen Khanna, Sudhir Patwardhan and Tushar Joag at this “Art of Drawing” show.