Minneapolis College of Art and Design, President’s Lecture Series : Manav Gupta , November 12, 2015
BLOUIN ARTINFO, Manav Gupta at his musing best , April 14, 2015
May June 2016 | India Perspectives | MEA MAGAZINE, GOI Taking art beyond boundaries | Maverick Genius.
June 30, 2016 The Hindu “Khorshed Deboo , ”Breaking The Mould” – artist Manav Gupta articulates how objects of clay can be adapted to address environmental urgencies.
June 30, 2017 | INVITATION | PRINCE OF WALES MUSEUM | Museum Society of Bombay and Prince of Wales Museum invitation lecture, ‘Excavations in Hymns of Clay’ takes place today at the CSMVS auditorium, Fort, at 6 p.m.
July 06, 2016 | Indian Diplomacy Twitter Web India | MEA | Ambassador Of India’s Soft Power.
July 07, 2016 | The Times 24 | KS Rao & Team | Ambassador Of India’s Soft Policy Manav Gupta has showcased Indian Pottery.
August 10th, 2016 | Hi Blitz | Volume 14 | Issue 9 | Cover Feature | Manav Gupta- A President’s Artist | On the Waterfront.
Hindustan Times, Eco-friendly: Art goes from earth to earth, April 10, 2015
Matters of Art, Exploring the Holy Ganges in Clay, March 15, 2015
The Pioneer, Message in Clay, December 23rd, 2015
Public Art Review, Manav Gupta repurposes local pottery, Issue 53 : Leading the Way | Fall/Winter, 2015.
Forecast Public Art, Weaving spirituality and environmentalism in public art, November 11th, 2015
The Indian Panorama, From Ganga to Mississippi , January, 2016
August 4th, 2016 Architecture Update Volume10 | Issue 7 | Allegoric Innovations | Manav Gupta | Installation Art – Manav Gupta has reinvented the language of clay with true originaility of thought.
October 23, 2016 | NAWRAS Mohona Banerjee “His enthusiasm and refined conception of art makes it evident why he is one of the leading contemporary authorities in the art-world.
Outlook, Excavations in hymns of clay, June 1st, 2015.
Millennium Post, Exquisitely etched in clay, April 21st, 2015.
The Statesman, River of Clay, April 2, 2015.
Deccan Herald, Magnificent Public Art Installation, April 2015
For his work Rain, the Ganga Waterfront along the Time Machine, Indian artist Manav Gupta reused thousands of earthen cups. The installation appeared on three continents in 2016. Photo courtesy the artist.
Manav Gupta at his installation, Rain, the Ganga Waterfront along the Time Machine. Photo courtesy the artist.
Detail from Manav Gupta’s Rain, the Ganga Waterfront along the Time Machine. Photo courtesy the artist.
In “Rain, the Ganga Waterfront along Time Machine,” a river of clay objects streamed across the steps of the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi in early 2015. Previously installed in South Africa, the latest in Manav Gupta’s Excavations in Hymns of Clay series calls attention to the use of global resources, makes a nod to spirituality, and references the relentless power of water. The installation is slated to appear in the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia in 2016.
Flowing across the architecture en masse, pottery poured over the steps, embracing the staircase like water and, according to Gupta, “denoting the symbolism of the passage of time as the river flows.” The pottery also offers a metaphor about how we use resources like water: “Taken for granted. Anointed when needed. Only revered when in use,” says Gupta. “And after its purpose is served, discarded and thrown and another one bought to serve the desires of the soul yet another day.”
A poet, painter, and filmmaker as well as an installation artist, Gupta says the Time Machine in the title recalls “the mechanized lives we lead without respecting sustainable living and resources.”
Gupta draws attention to resource use by choosing as his raw material diyas (earthen lamps), chilam (clay pipes), and kullar (earthen cups). Purchased from poor potters at roadside stands, then used for prayer, these vessels have historically been used only once. According to the artist, the humble cups gain meaning through worship and to this day are still discarded after use, “to be immersed in the Ganga.”
While a dip in the sacred Ganga is still seen as a purifier of sins, a river of disposable clay vessels speaks to how we choose to use (and sometimes misuse) the earth for our own purposes.
BY HEMANI BHANDARI
Ganga Water Project Along The Time Machine by Manav Gupta
(India Habitat Centre)
“Sacred,
If you believe
I lie wrapped in a heap of nothingness
Unsung, Unlit, Unheard
Till the end of time.”
That’s Manav Gupta at his musing best. Forever challenging his comfort zone even in the physical world, Gupta has created another work of art to marvel at. Thousands of earthen lamps are placed inverted along several rows and chillums hang from the wall down the columns to create an illusion of the Ganga waterfront. When dusk falls and the area is lit up, one can almost hear the sound of the waves.
Titled “Rain, the Ganga Waterfront Along The Time Machine” from the series “Excavation in Hymns of Clay”, the installation represents a waterfall wherein Gupta has used the Ganga, the revered river in India, as the idiom and earthen lamps and chillums as metaphors to draw home the point: “If you consider me sacred, I am pure, else mere water, it flows.” Gupta says it’s the maverick inside him that inspired the project. The installation is on view at the Plaza steps at the India Habitat Centre where people can engage with it, understand it and absorb its calm.
The most striking thing about the installation is the optical illusion that Gupta has succeeded in creating with the earthen lamps and hanging chillums. The architectural engagement of the pottery with the walls where it is placed transforms the regular venue into a riparian landscape. “The architectural engagement of art with space and construction is something which is a matter of concern for me and is very important for art to belong there,” says Gupta. According to the artist, the earthen lamp and chillums have a negligible existence and are discarded once used, and so is the case with the Ganga and other natural resources that mankind uses and discards with alarming nonchalance.
A first of its kind Indo – US project is being initiated by one of India’s top ten eminent contemporary artists, Manav Gupta, that builds multiple linkages at different venues in the USA and India between the countries and the people via the great and sacred rivers of India and the USA and their waters, through art. The global project engages different other art forms as well as people from all walks of life, with the river of clay waterfront, created with the quintessentially Indian potters produce, engaging with cutting edge installations and signature paintings, with America’s people.
Connecting the River Ganga with the River Mississippi, through the signature ‘umbilical cords series’ paintings that have been auctioned by Christie’s, Bonhams’ ,Philip de Pury and by deploying the humble Indian potter’s produce to form avant garde cutting edge installations series “excavations in hymns of clay”, the project stands to serve as an excellent tool to spread awareness on earth’s precious resources specially water and sustainable living through “healing of the rivers” with an engagement of people with a ‘little of their heart, soul and mind space‘ ;besides building bridges between India and USA through the unique first of its kind conceptualization and idea of ‘Ganga to Mississippi” that it brings with itas the humble contribution of the artist culminating from the two decades of his experience of taking art beyond art to seek consciousness on environmental issues through his paintings, Public art, collaborative, performance and may other art initiatives beyond boundaries between nations and beyond just himself.It strives to reach new heights in a first of its kind initiative ever as an engagement with the Mississippi and the people of the land by the Indian artist via dialogues through art and literature, dance, music, poetry, theatre in a language that is contemporary, a vocabulary that’s global, art that’s avant garde as well as first of its kind in deploying Indian pottery to create cutting edge large scale art and a concept that’s as unique as its universal.With the New York Consul General of India organizing a grand preview of the project exhibition at the Consulate, the artist is working hard towards a run up to World Earth Day on 22nd of April 2016 in New York followed by multiple chapters of the project shaping up at multiple venues in different cities.
to take charge of a space
and create;
infuse it with new thought,
energy and vibrance,
Redefine it.
and then leave,
in such a way
that you leave
the space abundant,
replenished, nurtured,
revitalized, contributing more
than taking away,
and leaving it in a way that leaves
no pollution behind
but a legacy of creation
and positive addition
that brings new meaning and memories,
that create a legacy of value –
this was/is my simple message and thought,
my endeavour and vision,
my purpose of public art practice
as an artist and a human being.
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