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Email PageTales from the Edge
February 28, 2007- March 17, 2007
Vidya Kamat
The Guild, NY
45 W 21st StVidya Kamat, who lives and works in Mumbai, India, presents a collection of Photomontages in her first solo exhibition in New York. Her latest exhibition ‘Tales From The Edge’ deals with the popular representations of gods, goddesses, holy men and women. 1. She articulates her ideological positioning within this discourse of ‘holy-ness’ by superimposing her own portraits with the popular holy representations, using digital manipulations. If not understood within the theoretical framework she sets for it, re-articulation or re-presentation of Tales From The Edge could amount to vandalism and desecration, considering the counter positioning adopted by the religious fundamentalists on the aesthetical issues in our recent art historical past.”
In the artist’s own words, “‘Tales From The Edge is an attempt to understand personal/political/social iconographies articulated through popular/religious posters of gods, goddesses and political personalities. Term ‘Holy’ holds a place of great fascination in our collective imagination. It signifies the longing for a time or state that transcends the conflicting nature of everyday reality existing only in tales handed down from generation to generation as a collective memory. The Indian public imagination keeps reclaiming this state through constantly inventing holy men and women who operate as beacons that once again herald such transcended states. In my work I have used the visual props gathered from popular poster art that are usually employed to suggest holiness and then superimposed them on self portraits.” “I believe that Kamat’s position on the scared is interestingly unique, among contemporary Indian women artists, because she is invested in the deep structure of Hindu religious life. She is both participant and observer, not a neutral, iconic or behalfist intervener empathizing with another’s experience. However critical or adversarial her position is towards the milieu of her origin, she knows, both intuitively and intellectually, what the location signifies and demands.” 2.
1. www.artconcerns.com 2. From Re-write - Vidya Kamat, by Nancy Adajania
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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