Dancing with the Devil is a curatorial project which aims to interrogate and decodes the notions of beauty that circulate in the gallery practices of Contemporary Indian Art.
The title of the show is inspired by the song of rapper Immortal Technique. The song contains a narrative in which Immortal Technique describes the story of a young man named Billy Jacobs who attempts to join a gang, and in order to prove how "real" he is, he steals, gets into fights, sells crack cocaine, and to finally prove himself, rapes a woman. An intoxicated Jacobs completes this task after covering the woman's face with her shirt, and is unaware of the identity of the woman until he takes the cover from her face. He is repulsed to find that the woman in question is actually his mother, which leads him to commit suicide.
The show focuses on a group of artists who who live on the edge of contemporary art, both in terms of art making and 'living as an artist' . It is a curatorial re visitation of questions around an ideal 'artist' . We can ask, what is not contemporary art? what are the trends that have the potential to de stabilise how the the word and the praxis of contemporary culture is understood? This engagement goes beyond 'manner', and focusses into the process of art making itself. Embracing an understanding of art that is almost suicidal in the context of how the contemporary imagines
In this way the show seeks to become a collaboration between the artists Merlin Moli, Chi Muk, Sambaran Das, Moumita Ghosh, Aditi Chitre, Rishi Dharia and Varnita Mahajan) and the curator.
In this way the show seeks to become a collaboration between the artists Merlin Moli, Chi Muk, Sambaran Das, Moumita Ghosh, Aditi Chitre, Rishi Dharia and Varnita Mahajan) and the curator.
There is definitely an engagement with darkness...but what kind of darkness is the show looking at-
- The praxis of contemporary art has created this structure inside which contemporary artist hood exists. home, studio, gallery, (s), residencies, biennales, fairs and so many things have begun to define the lifestyle of being an artist. But if art has to become independent of market forces, we need to look at artists who survive on the tangents of structure of contemporary artist-hood.
- as we explore the political and the personal (and spaces in between)- it is important to interrogate the Contemporary's marriage of politics and beauty. What is the zone beyond that. We will be (re) exploring the content-technique-form-
presentation dialogue in New Media Art.
- We do see a return of analogue in terms of taste and demand. The formal face of contemporary art is changing. Digital polished surfaces seem to have be out of fashion- but this post digital analogue, is still very 'consumable' - : still working within the mainstream idea of beauty.Darkness here is the edge of practice; emerging painting styles that are formally very rooted to the 'painterly' yet extremely resistant to becoming a 'beautiful object on the wall - as we search for a post contemporary directions, right now it is important to focus on the borderline between the beauty and and the ugly.
The show will be held at the NINE Schools of Art for a period of twenty days starting on the 23rd of April 2016.
