The Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) announces the first solo exhibition in Europe of Nasreen Mohamedi, as part of a wider programme tracing alternative modernisms. Mohamedi (1937–1990) is regarded as one of the most important Indian artists of her generation, and her paintings, drawings and photographs, produced from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, constitute a key body of work within the modernist canon.
Mohamedi's austere, small-scale drawings and use of minor gestures contrasted with the figurative narrative works produced by many of her contemporaries. In art-historical terms, Mohamedi's practice can be seen in relation to an earlier generation of Indian abstract artists such as V.S. Gaitonde, and from an international perspective to works on paper by Agnes Martin or, through its invocation of utopian abstraction, to Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists. While her drawings from the late 1970s onwards tend toward the resolutely abstract, they intimate cultural references which become explicit in her photographs – in which historical architecture suggests an aesthetic link to both modernisation and an Islamic heritage.
This exhibition, curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, will bring together for the first time Mohamedi's rarely seen drawings, paintings and photographs with unique archival material from her studio, and provide the occasion to further position her practice both within the history of Indian art and in relation to an international avant-garde. "Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes – Reflections on Indian Modernism (Part 1)" is part of a comprehensive programme of public projects and residencies organised by Gopinath and Watson for OCA and CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India.
Suman Gopinath is a curator and the founder and director of CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. Grant Watson is a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium. Gopinath and Watson, together with Anshuman Dasgupta, organised the exhibition 'The Santhal Family: Positions around an Indian Sculpture' at MuHKA in 2008. Gopinath and Watson have been collaborating on exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art since 1999.
Mohamedi's austere, small-scale drawings and use of minor gestures contrasted with the figurative narrative works produced by many of her contemporaries. In art-historical terms, Mohamedi's practice can be seen in relation to an earlier generation of Indian abstract artists such as V.S. Gaitonde, and from an international perspective to works on paper by Agnes Martin or, through its invocation of utopian abstraction, to Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists. While her drawings from the late 1970s onwards tend toward the resolutely abstract, they intimate cultural references which become explicit in her photographs – in which historical architecture suggests an aesthetic link to both modernisation and an Islamic heritage.
This exhibition, curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, will bring together for the first time Mohamedi's rarely seen drawings, paintings and photographs with unique archival material from her studio, and provide the occasion to further position her practice both within the history of Indian art and in relation to an international avant-garde. "Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes – Reflections on Indian Modernism (Part 1)" is part of a comprehensive programme of public projects and residencies organised by Gopinath and Watson for OCA and CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India.
Suman Gopinath is a curator and the founder and director of CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. Grant Watson is a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium. Gopinath and Watson, together with Anshuman Dasgupta, organised the exhibition 'The Santhal Family: Positions around an Indian Sculpture' at MuHKA in 2008. Gopinath and Watson have been collaborating on exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art since 1999.
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