Latest news with #ArpitaSingh
Mint
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Rahul Jacob: A political shadow lengthens over London's South Asian summer
Earlier this summer, an unusual depiction of a zebra gifted to Mughal Emperor Jahangir drew attention to the Iranian artist Mansour, who had painted it. A white nephrite jade cup that was part of Shah Jahan's collection and subtly embossed with his titles was also much remarked upon. A good bit of the exhibition was on loan from the Al Sabah royal family of Kuwait. If asked to guess in which city this art appreciation crash course on Mughal India was being conducted, most of us would have picked London. Indeed, The Great Mughals exhibition, which ended on 5 May, offered a foretaste of a particularly South Asian flavour to London this summer. Also Read: Rahul Jacob: Liberals must combine compassion with aggression The British Museum currently has a show that pays tribute to the art and sculpture of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism between 200 BCE and 600 CE in a show titled 'Ancient India: Living Traditions.' And ramblers through West London's mystically beautiful Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park would encounter both a retrospective to artist Arpita Singh and a temporary summer pavilion, a prestigious commission done annually that was designed this year by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum. The vaguely Cubist exterior of Tabassum's creation provided shade during this unusually warm past week. It featured a pop-up reading room, featuring books by South Asian authors. But whatever visitors made of the puzzling structure, it was yet another emblem of London's multiculturalism. The alternately moving and arresting Arpita Singh retrospective was thoughtfully put together by the Australian curator Tamsin Hong. At the National Theatre, publicity has already begun for staging Shakespeare's Hamlet in a couple of months, starring Hiran Abeysekera, an impishly gifted actor of Sri Lankan origin who also starred in Life of Pi. Also Read: The political divide is no longer left versus right but centrists versus populists The National Theatre is headed by another Briton of South Asian descent, Indhu Rubasingham. London has long been a trailblazer of what Salman Rushdie once described as a 'melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that." This, he added, 'is how newness enters the world." But, in this very Indian summer of high culture and high temperatures, at the forefront of the UK's paradoxical politics, populist leaders are gaining support by stoking anger against immigrants. This summer was also heralded by an unprecedentedly strong showing by Nigel Farage's Reform Party in May, when it won 677 of about 1,600 seats it sought to fill in local council elections, eating into support for the Conservative Party but also the ruling Labour party. A YouGov survey last week showed that if parliamentary elections were held today, Reform would win the most seats but not an outright majority. This is an alarming prospect at many levels, given that this party was the most vociferous proponent of Brexit, which has led to a loss of the UK's momentum in economic growth. Also Read: Ajit Ranade: What Mamdani's rise in New York tells us about welfarism versus populism The UK's Labour government led by Keir Starmer has had a lacklustre first year in office after winning what was aptly described by commentators as a 'loveless landslide" a year ago. On Wednesday, the bond market's nervousness over the government's policies resulted in a jump in 10-year bond yields. This was after the government had to water down proposals for welfare reform that seemed tone-deaf to demands for equity among Labour Members of Parliament. It was also an unfortunate reprise of a plan to cut winter fuel subsidies for pensioners, which was announced last year and contributed to the government getting almost no political honeymoon period at all. The rollback this week means the government will forgo £5 billion in savings. It required a forceful backing of Chancellor of Exchequer Rachel Reeves by Starmer for calm to be restored. Indifferent leadership in London creates more space for populists to gain power—just as we saw in Washington. And this will almost certainly put London's vibrancy as a cultural capital at risk. Can the centre hold? I am not sure anymore, but that is all the more reason to treasure London's melange of cultures. On Monday, friends hosted a sumptuous dinner that included plump English asparagus with a Middle Eastern touch to the dressing. One of the guests spoke authoritatively about Indian handloom; her company, Robe de Voyage, features khadi and 'ahimsa silk'. Another guest told me about a magical haveli in Rajasthan. In the vast variety of food options at Wimbledon, a sandwich filling startlingly included an onion pakora. I remain in awe of it all. The author is a Mint columnist and a former Financial Times foreign correspondent.
Mint
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
‘Remembering': Spotlighting the healing voice in Arpita Singh's art
The works of Arpita Singh— considered one of the country's leading contemporary artists—draw you in with their multi-layered narratives. Over the years, her paintings have been included in major collections across the world, and also been part of significant group shows. In 2019, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi, celebrated the 87-year-old artist's practice through the retrospective, Six Decades of Painting. And now, an ongoing show, Arpita Singh: Remembering at the Serpentine Gallery— her first solo at a major institution abroad—takes six decades of her work to London. The exhibition features a mix of large-scale oil paintings and small watercolours and ink drawings on paper. Many long-term friends and collaborators like Nilima Sheikh, Geeta Kapur, Gayatri Sinha and Deepak Ananth have contributed their perspectives on her practice through essays. Art historian and curator Kapur, for instance, in the essay titled Iconoclast, offers two theoretical frameworks for aesthetically examining Singh's works—feminist psychoanalysis and philosophy. 'Much of Arpita's work, world and ideology is history compressed into fables and allegories; what we witness are diverse imaginaries," she writes. Singh was born in 1937 in Baranagar, Kolkata, just before World War II. The period of her early childhood was marked by famine, riots and the final thrust for independence. The artist believes that our memories transcend our lifetimes, and carry imprints of our ancestors. This retrospective brings alive those traces of memory in repetitive, frenetic bursts of expression, through repetitive motifs and symbols and questions the cycle of exploitation and erasure. You enter the show with Searching Sita through Torn Papers, Paper Strips and Labels (2015). The large painting encapsulates Singh's focus on the impact of external sociopolitical events on women. The repetitive ticker that runs through the top of the canvas, Sita. You. I. Us is telling, as are the words 'Abducted, Abused, Slandered, Oppressed, Abandoned, Cursed, Lost", which occupy the edge of the painting towards the bottom right. The torn strips of paper, which traverse the painting like futile paths, reveal her anxiety and hopelessness, as she is tormented by her quagmire (of being forsaken). Also read: Artistic encounters: How animals contemporary artists Another work, My Lily Pond (2009) is far removed from the idyllic water lily ponds that would have dotted bucolic Bengal during her early childhood. Rather, it alludes to the toxic cesspool of power and geopolitics. Helpless figures in red with their arms raised are confronted by soldiers in army fatigues, and the word 'water" fills up the background like a deluge of helpless emotions. The American naval base Guantanamo Bay on the map of Cuba, painted prominently, points to the source of the oppression. 'Whatever I tell you three times is true" stencilled at the top right of the work speaks to the posttruth propaganda that normally accompanies such action. Through both visual and written motifs, she speaks to the collective disenchantment. My Lollipop City: Gemini Rising (2005) is a testament to the city of Delhi. She moved there just before independence and has called it home since. At its heart, the painting is about the labyrinthine palimpsest of Delhi which takes a lifetime to navigate, but where millions of refugees and migrants have found a sense of belonging. It is teeming with figures and familiar motifs that pervade her oeuvre— like swarms of airplanes flying above, gerrymandering bureaucrats and politicians, historical monuments, and serpentine roads. At the very bottom of this large painting, she writes 'You are here", perhaps implying the uphill task migrants face when they aspire for a better life in the city. In the show, the viewer can observe several inflection points in Singh's career. The period between 1974 and 1982 is referred to as the 'black-and-white" one in her practice. Singh, when queried about this phase by art curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist in an interview in August 2024, commented, 'At some point, I couldn't move easily across the canvas. I had to pause and think every time: 'What shall I do next? So, I gave up everything and made the basic elements of art—dot and line, dot and line. They became abstract works because nothing is recognisable in them. But it gave me a certain freedom." It is this freedom of expression that is reflected in the larger oil paintings that she made subsequently— many of these are featured in the exhibition. The other significant shift is observed in works such as My Mother (1993), heavily influenced by communal riots in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. It heralds a sharper focus on the horrors of violence and their impact on society. Against this backdrop stands the solitary figure of her mother dressed in mournful white sari worn by widows. It is revealing of the tragedy and loss that families, and women in particular, are left to cope with in the aftermath of violence triggered by patriarchal, colonial or capitalist overreach. Also read: 'Something like Truth': Staging four monologues around truth and justice Works such as Woman with a Boat (2002) or For Fenugreek (2005), are testament to her sensitive portrayal of the ageing female body—thereby elevating both the fragility and the resilience of a woman, who has survived patriarchy, marriage, childbirth, body shaming, depression, and more. Ultimately, her paintings are significant because they capture the precarious lived realities of post-independence India profoundly. Her repetitive motifs work despite their overwhelming presence, because they leave room for interpretation. Critically, the intergenerational traumas that women carry both from their collective pasts and uncertain futures, find a healing voice in her paintings—creating room for contemplation, support and empathy. At Serpentine North Gallery, London until 27 July. Anindo Sen is an independent art writer. A spotlight on South-Asian artists Aarti Lohia first discovered her passion for collecting art while living in Indonesia years ago. Today, she is a trustee of the South London Gallery and the Kochi Biennale Foundation, and serves on multiple councils such as at the Tate Modern. Through the S.P. Lohia Foundation—an international notfor-profit established in the UK in 2016—she backs South Asian artistic voices on the global stage. In 2022, she supported London's National Gallery's modern and contemporary programme, followed by a collaboration with the South London Gallery to bring Nairy Baghramian's Misfits series to London. Most recently, Lohia has supported Arpita Singh's major solo at the Serpentine. In an interview with Lounge, the Londonbased philanthropist reflects on the significance of Singh's practice and the broader role of philanthropy in strengthening South Asia's cultural ecosystem. Edited excerpts: How significant is Arpita Singh's exhibition at the Serpentine? Arpita Singh's works trigger emotions in the audience. Her works blend form and style with cartography, imagined and continued characters, and are done with a flourish in colour that is authentically Indian. We consider it a matter of pride to be able to bring Arpita Singh's solo works to one of the most impactful global art galleries. The fact that it is taking place during the London summer makes it a great opportunity to present her work to people from everywhere, and from across age groups and cultures free of cost. It is amazing that it has taken six decades to bring Arpita Singh's works to the world stage in a solo institutional exhibition. This has become a valuable opportunity to open doors for more artists from India and South Asia on globally relevant platforms What role has philanthropy played in strengthening the art ecosystem in South Asia? The Global South has emerged as a fluid and evolving concept, especially as colonial histories are being re-examined through contemporary voices. Artists from these regions offer alternative perspectives on recent history, young democracies, and social change. Philanthropy plays a key role in amplifying their work globally—but there's still much ground to cover. Arpita Singh, for instance, offers a deeply personal and powerful view of India's evolving society, especially through the experiences of its women. The S.P. Lohia Foundation is committed to supporting artists from or connected to the Global South, and Singh's work aligns closely with that mission. Also read: Lounge Loves: Vodka sodas, a musical time machine and more Are there intersections between your collecting and philanthropic journey? My interest in collecting began in Indonesia, surrounded by its rich traditions of art and craft, and deepened in Singapore, where I engaged more closely with Indian contemporary artists. I noticed a clear philanthropic gap in supporting this space. While my collection is personal, my philanthropic work—through the foundation and engagement with institutions like Tate and the Museum of Modern Art—is focused on amplifying South Asian voices globally. I was among the early supporters of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and continue to champion it internationally. For me, collecting is a hobby; philanthropy is a passion rooted in creating visibility and impact for Indian artists. What leads to the decisions to support particular artists/ organisations/ museums? Art institutions hold lasting value—they preserve cultural memory beyond shifting governments or politics. I'm drawn to organisations that share our foundation's values and aim to broaden representation. Personally, I connect with artists whose work is consistent and meaningful over time. At Serpentine, for instance, I appreciate how Hans Ulrich Obrist highlights underrepresented female voices. Supporting Nairy Baghramian's Jumbled Alphabet aligned with our belief in championing immigrant narratives. We're drawn to institutions that embrace diverse, progressive perspectives beyond the mainstream. —Avantika Bhuyan
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Business Standard
04-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
India's top women artists: 87-yr old Arpita Singh tops with Rs 23 cr sales
The 2025 Candere Hurun India Women Leaders List not only celebrates business acumen and philanthropic spirit but also shines a vibrant light on a powerful collection of women artists who are profoundly reshaping the contemporary Indian art landscape. With their combined turnover exceeding Rs 40 crore, these artists are not just creators of beauty; they are cultural architects, transcending traditional gallery spaces and market dynamics to spark crucial conversations on identity, history, and the intricate tapestry of human experience. Through their diverse styles and compelling narratives, they are painting and sculpting the future of creativity and innovation in India. Leading this illustrious group is Arpita Singh (87, Delhi), a remarkable figure who transitioned from banking to become a modernist painter. Her figurative storytelling continues to captivate, achieving an astounding total sales figure of Rs 22.9 crore. Singh's artistic prominence is underscored by the sale of six lots of her artwork, with her most expensive painting, "Watching" (2004), significantly contributing to her status as a leading contemporary artist. With a combined turnover exceeding INR 40 crore, they are not merely creating art; they are shaping the future of creativity and innovation. Joining her in the realm of figurative expression are other formidable talents: Bharti Kher (56, Delhi), generating Rs 4.7 crore, masterfully uses the bindi as a contemporary political statement, delving into themes of transformation, identity, and gender. Anjolie Ela Menon (84, Delhi), with Rs 3.7 crore, crafts ethereal figures, influenced by Renaissance art, that reflect profound themes of solitude and memory, often drawn from her childhood in Bengal. Celia Paul (65, London), achieving Rs 1.3 crore, offers intimate portraits of herself, her mother, family, and her lover, exploring self-identity and solitude with a delicate touch. Rekha Rodwittiya (66, Vadodara), grossing Rs 0.4 crore, channels her powerful feminist activism directly onto her canvases, depicting not just women but their inherent struggles and unwavering resilience. Beyond figurative narratives, a cohort of artists pushes boundaries into abstraction and innovative forms: Nalini Malani (78, Mumbai), with an impressive Rs 4 crore turnover, is a trailblazer in abstraction. She pushes artistic boundaries with immersive installations and video art, powerfully addressing war, displacement, and violence against women, deeply shaped by her experiences during the Partition. Arpana Caur (70, Delhi), generating Rs 1 crore, distinctively fuses historical themes with contemporary social issues in her abstract works, often drawing inspiration from Sikh traditions. Madhvi Parekh (83, Delhi), also at Rs 1 crore, seamlessly blends folk traditions with modern abstraction, using her instinctive approach to express themes from childhood memories and storytelling. The list also celebrates sculptors who bring unique perspectives to their craft: Ranjani Shettar (48, Bengaluru), earning Rs 0.9 crore, creates captivating abstract sculptures that ingeniously combine manmade and natural materials, including wood, beeswax, cloth, thread, rubber, PVC pipe, wire, steel, and beads. Jayashree Chakravarty (69, Kolkata), also with Rs 0.9 crore, infuses ecological consciousness into her layered canvases, reflecting the fragility of nature amidst rapid urbanization.
Hindustan Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Drawing Room: Ritika Aurora loves how Arpita Singh uses pink
Arpita Singh's vibrant, vivid oil paintings often focus on female figures traversing the vagaries of age and the weight of societal expectations. She uses bright colours and packs her visuals together to cover every inch of her canvas, taking inspiration from Indian miniature. This is in stark contrast to the Western concept of showcasing depth through perspective and the strategic placement of figures. And yet, Western abstractionist movements such as Surrealism are also evident in her work.
The Guardian
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I spent six years just repeating dots and lines': the great painter Arpita Singh on a lifetime in art
When Arpita Singh's Remembering opened this week at the Serpentine in London, despite being one of India's leading artists, it was her first solo institutional show outside her native land in her six-decade-long career. It also marked the first time the Serpentine has given over its main galleries to a show by a south Asian artist. But Singh, who spends most of her waking hours in her Delhi home studio, is muted in her reaction. 'Serpentine is a known gallery, so it is a prestigious thing for me,' is about as effusive as she gets. At 87, Singh is reluctant to give her time to anything that might take her away from her canvas – and that includes this interview. Her vivid, unhinged paintings, chock-a-block with adrift figures, motifs and text often structured by narrow borders crammed with ornament, have won her a devoted following. In an epic Mappa Mundi-like piece, My Lollipop City: Gemini Rising, perspectives jar and scales switch in a way that jauntily recalls storytelling scroll paintings and lavishly detailed miniatures. These splashy, discordant canvases are also stacked with influences from the European modernists Singh encountered during her fine art studies at Delhi Polytechnic in the late 1950s under modernist legends Biren De and Sailoz Mookherjea. 'In our third year, our professor took us to the library and introduced us to western art,' Singh recalls. 'I was so impressed by Der Blaue Reiter and Kandinsky. More so than the French artists.' At the time, international art could be seen only in printed reproductions. India was a recently independent country, and although Nehru, then prime minister, had just opened the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, it was not – and isn't today – a space for touring shows from the west. But the little that Singh saw deepened her curiosity, and she went on to read those artists' writings. She singles out Paul Klee as her favourite. Forty-eight years after absorbing his written output, she finally stood face to face with his original paintings during a trip to Switzerland. The experience was revelatory. Singh tells me that she wanted to say: 'Master, I have come back to you.' Klee's influences are particularly apparent in one of Singh's earliest watercolours, a patchwork of lightly painted shapes of colour that opens her Serpentine show. For many, this will be strikingly at odds with the figurative imagery that has made her one of India's most highly valued female artists. Singh's style fluctuated after art school, when she was also a consultant at the Weavers' Service Centre, a government co-op tasked with preserving and promoting India's textile traditions. One can see her testing different styles in off-kilter scenes where Chagall-like waywardness is crossed with surrealist eccentricity. Being given her first solo show in the centre of Delhi by Kekoo Gandhy, an esteemed art dealer, plunged her into a period of doubt and introspection. Feeling that she was 'not moving naturally on canvas' she decided to give up 'painting figures' and turned to the fundamentals – dots and lines – in an effort to retrain herself. 'For six years, I kept repeating these dots and lines,' she says. 'It naturally became an abstract form.' When she did return to figuration, in the 1980s, the social and political experiences of a country reeling from Indira Gandhi's imposition of emergency rule suffused her ostensibly whimsical worlds. And yet, even as Singh's paintings make allusions to state violence, most often through the inclusion of a lurking military figure, her work from this time can seem curiously dulled and undramatic. Look closely and amid the chubby flowers and squat aeroplanes, most of her subjects seem forlorn and apathetic. As Atul Dodiya, a fellow artist who is close to Singh clarifies: 'The work is superficially childlike and naive, but it comes from deep experience.' It would be wrong, however, to consider her work an articulation only of her life. Women take up a large portion of space in her paintings, usually eclipsing men. But their colouring, often a chalky pink or pale, distances them from Singh. The goddess figure brandishing a small pistol in the painting Devi Pistol Wali is not a stand-in for Indian society. Neither is it a statement of female power in the face of victimisation. 'It is nothing like that,' Singh tells me. 'Why must I see her as a source of power? Neither do I see a man as a source of power. Both are the same for me.' When I gently ask her about the maternal figures that recur in her works and how her experience of motherhood (Singh's only daughter, the artist Anjum Singh, died of cancer aged 53 in 2020) might have affected her practice, she replies with a question: 'How can that change my work?' Singh has never allowed herself to feel limited. She stayed clear of the artistic debates that consumed others such as the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group and Group 1890, and has avoided being dogmatic about her process. That might be why, over her illustrious career, she has been reluctant to speak to the press. She has, it seems, been protecting the freedom of her vision. Singh's stimulus is varied, her practice porous and her paintings animated by their time. As Nilima Sheikh, another of India's visionary artists who has written on Singh's work and exhibited with her extensively, told me, Singh 'has a way of seeing things completely, which I have tried to emulate'. This comprehensive vision is fed by newspaper stories, text from books and exhibition catalogues, aspects of theatre and dance that mix with her memories. 'Things happen on their own,' Singh says. 'The affairs of political and social life come into my painting like the way light comes as colour and breeze comes as movement.' Ultimately, Singh is concerned with form and visual drama. And she realises these with apparent ease; her paint glides – from areas where it looks like sheets of paper to patches of thick impasto – so effortlessly that, she says, it feels as if the paintings are painting themselves. Arpita Singh: Remembering is at Serpentine North gallery, London, until 27 July
