#Vibha Galhotra

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Vibha Galhotra - Flow

Nickel coated ghungroos, fabric, polyurethane coat, 129 x 93 1/4 x 112 1/2 in., 2015

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‘Ephemeral Utopia’, from ‘Climaterics’ exhibition, 2018 (left), and ‘Absence Presence’, 2011 (right), by Vibha Galhotra

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There were a lot of studio visits in June; it was interesting to see how the artists’ practice was reflected in the design and architecture of their studio.

For example, Subodh Gupta’s studio (not pictured here) was a multi-storeyed building that had once been a factory. Seeing the scale and sweep of his process, one that involved many hands on deck constructing massive objects, it made sense. On the other end of the spectrum was Manisha Parekh’s wide, airy single room workplace - apt for her spare, minimalist works. Even this was recent - she spent years working off her dining room table.

Your art and the space in which you make it determine each other. But which comes first? The Dharti studio is an opportunity for our resident artists to find out.

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Art through a biodiversity lens

Art through a biodiversity lens

How more and more artists are working with themes like climate change and depleting natural resources, and connecting with audiences Long before the elite left India in their private jets, abandoning the country in its pandemic distress, visual artist Vibha Galhotra had touched upon this raw nerve — of the privileged leaving the planet after depleting its resources. In December 2019, she…

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Vibha Galhotra is a New Dehli based artist who was born in 1978. Her pieces and sculptures address many problems with the environment and her opinions about fixing the environment based on her beliefs. Galhotra hopes that her art can be used to address the problems about the environment and the economy.  

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Rhiannon Zergiebel - Artist Talk - VibeGalhotra

           I visited the artist talk given by Vibha Galhotra, who is a New Dehli conceptual artist. Her works were in response to the negative evolvement of our global status. She’s travelled to places like Yamuna, in order to do work on the water pollution there. In her pieces for this project, she took samples from the river every single day for a year and also made a series of paintings using the dirt and mineral pollution from the water to create abstract, black paintings pictured above. She spoke about how she employed a family business to create traditional, authentic glass beads that she could use for her pieces. She talked about how important it was for her to do that because this family was going out of business due to manufacturing of these beads but cheaper in china, and Vibha tried very hard to sustain these very traditional crafts, so even though the family wanted to stop because of sales she solely supported them as a customer in order to create her art.

[artmakescbus-blog]

Weekend Warriors: Keep Calm and Enjoy Art

7/19/17

By Em Hammett

There’s a big, blue Art Shark sign on the wall across from my desk that says, “Keep Calm and Enjoy Art.” Lately I’ve had problems keeping calm, mostly because my summer break is over in a month (less than that!) and I have a lot to do before going back to my senior year of college in August. So I can’t keep calm. But the second part of that sign is applicable: I can still enjoy art this summer. Thanks, Art Shark.

Over at Columbusmakesart.com there is a whole list of artist performances, classes, festivals, and more to check out this weekend and in weekends to come. Here are some that stood out to me for this weekend:

On the visual art front, New Dehli based artist Vibha Galhotra is giving an artist talk about her life and work. Her artwork focuses on the environmental impact of industrialization and overpopulation. She creates large-scale pieces made out of ghungroos (tiny bells). The photos I’ve seen are really intriguing. Definitely hear her talk at the Pizzuti Collection on Thursday evening.

There are at least two plays going up this weekend that I put on my must-see list. The first, Crimes of the Heart opens on Thursday evening at the Columbus Civic Theatre. It’s a play about three sisters from Mississippi who confess various “crimes of the heart” to their dying granddaddy…but don’t worry, it’s a comedy!

Over in Schiller Park, Actors’ Theatre of Columbus is opening their third production of the summer. Emperor of the Moon starts on Thursday at 8 p.m., and I for one am excited to see it if only because my friend Michelle directed it. Trust me, she wants you to come out and see it, too.  Shows are always at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, weather permitting.

There’s certainly no escaping the outdoor music scene, not even with all the rain we’ve had this month. As per usual, there’s live music this Thursday at the Columbus Commons. This week features Conspiracy, opened by Reganomics. If you’re looking for something a little jazzier, make your way over to Upper Arlington for Jazz in July with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, conducted by Byron Stripling. Also keep in mind that the rock band Three Dog Night is performing on Saturday night in the Columbus Commons.

As you wind down the weekend, consider going to brunch at Bleu & Fig and checking out some very fashionable interpretations of the little black dress. You could even walk home with one; there will be an auction to benefit Fabric Columbus Design Resource Center.

Be sure to share all the art you enjoy this weekend by using our favorite tag, #artmakescbus.

Em Hammett is the summer marketing intern for the Greater Columbus Arts Council. She could use a stress ball or a cup of tea at any given time.

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Hyperallergic: The Future Is (Still) Female: Feminist Art for the 21st Century

Michele Pred, “Reflections (Powerful)” (2015), resin, mirrored glass and enamel, 21c Collection (all images courtesy 21C Museum Hotel)

LOUSVILLE, Ky. — It’s hard to describe the surreal feeling of going to see The Future Is Female at 21C Museum and Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, at this particular moment. While it was planned before the 2016 election, the exhibition opened in its immediate wake, at a time when the idea of a “female future” seemed very far from the sure thing many had dreamed of before November 8. Yet even within the current social and political climate, the exhibition is a far cry from an elegy to feminism past. In many ways, the show is an illustration of the intersectional and interdependent issues that comprise women’s lived experiences, through which it offers hope for a feminist future that is still to come. The female future it proposes is not reserved for the coastal enclaves of New York and California, but has taken root in other parts of the United States — including the South and the Midwest — and within the global system on the whole.

It seems only fitting, then, that such a show exist in a space like 21C Museum and Hotel. Simultaneously a hotel and an art museum, 21C has an expansive contemporary collection that presents thought-provoking art from both local and global artists, challenging viewers to think critically about the nature and function of art, and in many cases, to consider pertinent social and political issues.

Monica Cook, “Phosphene” (2014), aqua resin, urethane resin, plaster, steel, acrylic paint, urethane, urine, salt, barnacles, sea grass, copper, silicone, train model turf, powder pigment, blood, bleach, Magic-Sculpt, wax, plastic skeleton, ceramic teeth, silver tooth cap, wire, oil paint, soot, buoy, 21c Collection

This is especially the case with The Future Is Female. The exhibition focuses primarily on the work of women artists who came of age after the Women’s Art Movement. As curator Alice Gray Stites notes, many of the works on display are derived from the interventions pioneered by feminist artists during the Second Wave, “Artists like Judy Chicago, Mira Schor, Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, and others merged art and activism, elevating everyday materials, methods, and experiences to challenge conventional notions about how and why and where art is created or consumed.”

Emblematic of this legacy, many of the works examine traditionally feminized objects, actions, or materials, presenting them in the contemplative space of the gallery in order to raise public consciousness to the experiences of lived womanhood. The Future Is Female also clearly illustrates a new understanding of feminism and its relationship to women’s artistic production. The works address women’s experiences and identities, to be sure, but they also tie those elements to larger global and social issues.

Indian artist Vibha Galhotra’s film Manthan explores the implications of industrial pollution on water sources and communities. The 10-minute film focuses on the extreme the pollution of the Yamuna River in India by, as the artist notes on her website, invoking “a legend from Hindu mythology in which the gods churn the ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality.” Panning along the river, we see industrial run-off, both as white foam and tar-black slicks of pollution, churning as it flows. The pollution will eventually enter the Ganges River, which is both sacred and vital to the communities along its banks.

Vibha Galhotra, “Manthan” (2015), single-channel digital video projection, running time 10:43 minutes, 21c Collection

Galhotra further dramatizes the extent of this pollution by focusing in on men in scuba suits attempting to cleanse the river by submerging white sheets in it, which results in the blackening of the sheets. Their gesture seems fruitless in relation to the massive pollution that has accumulated in the river. By emphasizing this futility, the artist confronts the viewer with the urgent need for environmental protections, and demonstrates that such efforts are essential not only for the land, but for the wellbeing of the people who inhabit it.

Like Galhotra’s film, Alison Saar’s Hades D.W.P. ties together issues of water conservation and social justice. The work — comprised of five large jars on a shelf, each filled with different levels of murky water, with rusted ladles and cups hanging below them — brings together elements of both Greek mythology and African American history. Curator Alice Gray Stites explains that each jar is labeled for one of “the five rivers of the underworld, which … guide the dead to the afterlife,” and is tagged with lines of poetry. Examining the precariousness of life and death from this mythological referent, each jar is etched with a woman’s figure, whose fate is determined by the water level of the jar. One stands with only her feet submerged, another is directly at eye-level with the water, and three of the figures are in the active process of drowning.

Alison Saar, “Hades D.W.P.” (2016), etched glass jars, water, dye, wood, cloth and ink transfer, electronics, found ladles and cups, 21c Collection

The work refers specifically to the devastation of the Great Mississippi flood of 1927, which was responsible for the displacement of more than 200,000 members of the Black community. At the same time, it evokes the devastation of more recent environmental and ecological disasters; the murkiness of the water alludes to the ways in which poor communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by water contamination.

Carrie Mae Weems directly addresses the interconnected issues of race and the environment and their impact on women in particular. In her work from The Hampton Project (2000), Weems aligns the struggles of Native Americans and the Black community. A sepia-toned photograph shows Weems’s silhouetted figure standing before an image of buffalo falling from a cliff. The piece is overlain with text that reads “From a great height I saw you falling/Black and Indian alike/And for you I played/A sorrow song.”

Weems renders herself part of a history that encompasses the decimation of the buffalo and by extension the Indian communities who depended on the animals, as well as the colonial legacy of expansion, slavery, and segregation linking her community and that of American Indians. Yet her role as empathic witness is also gendered in nature, having described the impetus for the project to the curator as a meditation on the notion that “Women are the weepers of history.”

Nandipha Mntambo, “Umfanekiso wesibuko (Mirror image)” (2013), cowhide, resin, 21c Collection

Other works in the exhibition focus more explicitly on gender-based issues, addressing sexual differentiation and women’s labor. In “Umfanekiso wesibuko (Mirror Image),” a cast of her own body, kneeling on all fours in rawhide leather, South African artist Nandipha Mntambo considers the limits of the body in relation to gender differentiation. The form of her body is created in negative space, with the leather standing in for her own skin as an imperfect metonymy. Mntambo’s ambiguous work can be read as an illustration of both the power of womanhood, the quadripedal pose suggesting wild beasts, and the patriarchal view of women as subservient and — particularly in the case of colonized women — subhuman. It reflects the complexity of womanhood, that women’s actions are often met with a double meaning.

The outward portrayal of femininity as something affirmed by enhancing the physical body through cosmetic products is complicated in such works as Michele Pred’s 2015 series Reflections, a series of pink hand mirrors with the handles reshaped to form the Venus symbol and the glass etched with words of empowerment (“Equal,” “Feminist,” and “Powerful”); and Frances Goodman’s “Medusa” (2013-14), a mass of eleven tentacles, whose scaly surface is constructed from acrylic nails. Goodman’s brightly colored tentacles, made of a synthetic material meant to enhance femininity, illustrate how womanhood is and always has been derived from a mythical notion that can only be achieved through the incorporation of nonhuman traits.

Frances Goodman, “Medusa” (2013-2014), acrylic nails, foam, metal, 21c Collection

Addressing how femininity is outwardly performed or written into appearance, Kiki Smith’s etching “Ballerina (Stretching Left)” (2000) draws on the long legacy of womanhood as portrayed through the dancerly physique, from Degas’ 19th-century ruminations on dancing girls to Eleanor Antin’s complex feminist performances as her alter ego Eleanora Antinova. Smith’s work highlights the delicacy of the feminine body through the materiality of the work, as well as the delicate and highly feminized materials of glitter and tissue paper.

Conversely, Sanell Aggenbach’s “Rumours” (2011) highlights the emotional toll of lived womanhood, particularly in relation to experiences of shame or misunderstanding. A photograph of a white woman looking downward with her face in her hands, her apparent distress is further highlighted by the gold cords that stream down from her hands like free flowing tears. Here we see a woman succumbing to her emotions, and yet her emotions are accompanied by a sense of shame and necessity to hide her reaction.

Naomi Safran-Hon, “WS: Pink Sweater (with other trash)” (2016), cement, lace, acrylic and archival inkjet print on canvas, 21c Collection

On the whole, the exhibition — which also includes works by Jenny Holzer, Monica Cook, Gaela Erwin, Nina Katchadourian, Tiffany Carbonneau, Hanna Liden, Naomi Safran-Hon, E.V. Day and Julie Levesque — illustrates the myriad and complicated ways that womanhood is experienced and understood in today’s global world. Drawing on the works of feminism past, the artists envision a female future that involves understanding the intersection of gender with all aspects of daily life, and womanhood as a multifaceted entity. At a politically fraught moment such as this, wherein women’s rights feel consistently imperiled, The Future Is Female serves as a reminder of the current state of feminism, while offering us a vision of a future that could still be.

The Future Is Female continues at 21C Museum Hotel (700 West Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky) through June 4.

The post The Future Is (Still) Female: Feminist Art for the 21st Century appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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Gallery Talk: The Darkened Mirror

Gallery Talk: The Darkened Mirror #sanjoseevents

Tour the exhibition "The Darkened Mirror: Global Perspectives on Water" with Curator Lauren Schell Dickens. "The Darkened Mirror: Global Perspectives on Water" includes works by Vibha Galhotra, Gerco de Ruijter, Khvay Samnang, Jesper Just, and Amy Balkin. In their videos and installation work, these artists address such themes as water access and ownership in Cambodia; agricultural irrigation in…

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▪️ Beehive Vibha Galhotra 2006-2008 ▪️▪️▪️ Untitled Sudarshan Sherry 2008 ▪️▪️▪️ Bahia Peacock Mithu Sen 1986 (at Pizzuti Collection)

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Vibha Galhotra at Jack Shainman Gallery / The Armory Show.

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I found the third city of Tripura!

Vibha Galhotra "Majnu Ka Tila", 2015 in Absur -City -Pity -Dity at Jack Shainman Gallery. October 29 - December 05, 2015

To see more photos from this exhibition visit ArtBlogDogBlog.com!

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This shimmering sculpture of a hammock with a world map made up of glass beads by Vibha Galhotra is one of the highlights from NURTUREart's Multiplicity (through August 25).

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Vibha Galhotra/ Chair/ 2011

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Hyperallergic: Existential Musings from Nashville’s New Hybrid Museum Hotel

Katja Loher, “Butterfly Rainbowmaker” (2016), acrylic, projector, media player and speaker (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

NASHVILLE — The 21c Museum Hotel chain represents a new model for art in the public sphere. The flagship location opened in Louisville, Kentucky, just 11 years ago and has since expanded to six operating locations in Southern-Midwestern population centers like Cincinnati, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; and Lexington, Kentucky, with the newest addition slated to open in Nashville, Tennessee, by mid-May. With the developing location comes a fresh opportunity for 21c to introduce a new community to its unique approach to contemporary art.

“We’re a hybrid, but still, what is it?” said Chief Curator and Museum Director Alice Gray Stites, who took a break from installing the inaugural exhibition in Nashville, Truth or Dare: A Reality Show, to speak with Hyperallergic. “It’s very hard to understand until you come here. So we want to use the inaugural exhibitions to express something that’s really seminal to the character of the whole organization and what it wants to do.”

Leandro Erlich, “La Vitrina Cloud Collection (Venice)” (2011), wood, glass, acrylic

Stites has worked with 21c since its inception, first as an independent curator and eventually as the leader of a dedicated museum team when the flagship branched into multiple locations, developing the collection of some 2,500 art objects with co-founders and contemporary art enthusiasts Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson.

Pedro Reyes (Mexican, 1972), “Lady Liberty (as Trojan horse)” (2016), Ed. 1/3 + 1AP wood, on display in the sub-level gallery

“One of the goals has always been to expand the audience for contemporary art and to erase what have been the traditional boundaries, whether those are physical boundaries or the imaginary boundaries of the velvet rope or the grand processional,” said Stites, “not to mention the ticket or membership price that also keeps people out. So we can collapse those boundaries by making space that’s publically accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, by educating our entire staff to share their knowledge and passion about art with the public, by continually presenting exhibitions.”

After a stay at the 21c’s Cincinnati location during the 2016 FotoFocus Biennial, I was familiar with some of the practices of the museum hotel, including their iconic penguin mascots, whose location-specific color scheme is matched to the custom cotton candy that’s served with the check at their onsite restaurants. At risk of damaging my credibility as a person who values principles over material comforts, I admit that I do like a fancy hotel getaway now and then, and, like everyone else, I do what I can to live my best life on Instagram.

Vibha Galhotra ((Chandigarh, Punjab) Indian, 1978–) “Earth 1978” (2015), nickel-coated ghungroos, fabric, polyurethane coat, on display in the corridor outside the museum-side entrance to Gray & Dudley

Beth Cavener Stichter, “The Sanguine” (2010), stoneware, one in a series based on the four humors, among numerous works by Stichter on display within the restaurant, Gray & Dudley

What unexpectedly emerged, however, was a legitimate existential crisis about the nature of the relationship between museum and hotel. Because, as of my visit, the 21c Museum Hotel in Nashville was not completely finished. There were many things a hotel requires already in place: walls, a restaurant, furnishings, an elevator, and a small village of contractors, service professionals, maintenance staff, and art handlers working as hard as possible to hit the line on opening day. But there were also many things not quite in place yet, like a functioning lobby, television service, in-room amenities, and more than one working elevator. Dozens of pieces in the inaugural exhibition had been installed upon my arrival, some two weeks before the official opening; many still were not. This presents something of a conundrum in terms of my ability to accurately reflect the aesthetics or intentions of the finished exhibition: I find myself unable to offer more than evaluation or appreciation for those individual works that I was able to see. However, as a person with a healthy curiosity about the workings of the world — not to mention one to whom it is typically a high priority to present a finished product — it was fascinating to see the work that goes into an environment that is usually presented as a seamless experience, and to get to know some of the people behind the process.

Artist Sebastiaan Bremer, in the process of installing a custom guest suite, within which visitors will be able to listen to records and make live recordings of their own. Bremer has an ongoing relationship with 21c, with other works included in their collection.

The museum side of 21c is supported by the hotel and restaurant revenue, and as such, Stites has created a scrappy and efficient team. Based in Louisville, the overarching museum management includes Director of Museum Operations Eli Meiners and Registrar Deanna Taylor, as well as site-based museum managers for each of the locations — in Nashville, this is Brian Downey, who left his position as Director of Exhibitions & Associate Curator at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art to throw in with 21c. The art team is a convivial, fraternal bunch, with all hands on deck to help prepare for the new location rollout.

“Nashville has great museums, great contemporary art galleries,” said Downey, taking a brief aside from installation to speak with Hyperallergic. “But I think it’s very exciting that Nashville now has a museum that’s devoted strictly to contemporary art.” As operations get underway here, it will be among Downey’s responsibilities to schedule site-specific programming that is responsive to the needs and interests of the location, such as the popular film screening series at 21c Lexington, the brainchild of Museum Manager Alex Brooks.

Peter Sarkisian (1965–), “Puddle 9” (2002), video projection and mixed media, DVD on projector, on display in the second floor corridor.

Still from Mulas (2014), by Miquel Angel Rios, one-channel video with stereo sound, runtime 6:25, on display in the first-floor video lounge.

“All the 21cs have community partners and do programming, whether it’s poetry or film screenings, hosting events that would be a good tie-in with what we do here,” said Downey. “We’re always looking for more opportunities like that, and to bring that programming to Nashville.”

“I find 21c’s greatest gift is that of accessibility,” said Meiners, in a follow-up email interview. Meiners has worked for 21c for five years, having come to the position from the Cincinnati Art Museum. “As citizens of a smaller city like Cincinnati, we would never have a chance to gain access to works like those in the shows we put together. Our model gives us the flexibility to bring the zeitgeist to smaller cities. And we don’t keep bankers’ hours, so you can literally come and see the exhibitions when it is convenient for you.”

Carlos Garaicoa ((Havana) Cuban, 1967–), “El Mapa del Viajero II” (2005), detail view, 680 metal pushpins and 100 pieces of paper

Oliver Laric (Austrian, 1981–), “Versions” (2010), polyurethane

Indeed, the greatest question that arose was, when it comes to the 21c Museum Hotel, where does the art end and the hotel begin? As 21c has defined itself as a museum hotel, does that make the hotel experience nearly as important as the art itself? These are the kind of existential musings that arise in the mind of an arts writer when she does not have cable television in her hotel room — let alone the 21c art channel, which greets visitors as the default channel setting, and which I confess I was very much looking forward to watching. The experience of getting to watch video art in bed is an unparalleled luxury.

Brian Dettmer ((Chicago, IL) American, 1976–), “Funk & Wag” (2016), detail view, hardcover books, acrylic varnish

Daniele Papuli ((Maglie) Italian, 1971–), “Centrica” (2016), detail view, hand-cut paper

Certainly the art does not stop in the corridor or the lobby, which is outfitted with commissioned artworks and selections from the 21c collection. Nor in the elevator, which, I’m told, will eventually run video art segments, nor in the upper-floor corridors, which will showcase the work of Nashville artists, nor even in the rooms themselves, which feature photographs from annual trips made by Laura Lee Brown (who paints and takes photographs, in addition to being one of the co-founding partners). So it became complicated for me to try to decide how much of a museum hotel should be part of an art review. But in a way, this is the essence of the 21c mission: to dissolve the distinction between art places and life places.

The author takes herself on, with Trong Gia Nguyen’s interactive work “Win Win (Flamingo’s Dream)” (2015), acrylic paint, vinyl, wood, and mirror

Jane Hammond ((Bridgeport, CT) American, 1950–) “All Souls (Bielawa)” (2006), detail view, gouache, acrylic paint, organza, mica, and metal leaf on assorted handmade papers with graphite, colored pencil, archival digital prints, and horsehair

“It’s a humanist perspective on contemporary art,” said Stites of 21c’s collection. “It’s about the human experience, both lived and dreamed in the twenty-first century �� so, very much contemporary, but very much about what people are experiencing. The founders were driven to collect art and to create 21c largely because they’re very curious people, and I think curiosity is an important quality for everyone to have, but particularly today, with our dearth of empathy for others. When you’re curious about others, you’re much more likely to think about walking in their shoes.”

21c Nashville is taking its first steps into the scene, and like all first steps, things are a little wobbly. But if the other 21c locations are a telling precedent, it will soon hit its stride.

Truth or Dare: A Reality Show at the 21c Museum Hotel, Nashville is slated to open on May 9.

Editor’s note: The 21c Museum Hotel in Nashville paid for the author’s accommodations and travel expenses.

The post Existential Musings from Nashville’s New Hybrid Museum Hotel appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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