“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time,” said Thomas Merton. But in the ongoing chaos, can it really help us find our hopes and values – and lose our apathy and hostility?
As the year 2020 unfolds in front of our eyes with something sinister gnawing in the background, the world is seemingly going through a period of catharsis. The COVID-19 pandemic has left us shaken and warped but has given us ample moments of great introspection.
An Opportunity to Introspect
The unwanted news of precious lives lost pouring in from all corners of the globe and how events continue to cripple us with every passing day with no signs of Mother Earth healing anytime soon, this period of introspection holds out hope for us.
Our lives after this cannot go back to the old normal and since change is the only constant, we will have to brace up for the new normal, rather we have started adjusting to it. The realization that Mother Nature sits at the epicentre of our existence and sayings like ‘Let’s save the planet’ acting as the boomerang now because we are at the mercy of Mother Earth- we need to pause, take care of our actions, be more considerate, compassionate and not just aim to fulfill our own life goals but think of the planet too– this should, and must, be the foremost takeaway from this pandemic.
In such times, art can be a mirror to centre our emotions. It can make us introspect in multitude ways. Visual art is one of the most important tools to make us realize that while we individually cannot change “the world”, we can certainly change “our world”.
Art and BAAC
One of the most enduring legacies of Art in South Asia is the Birla Academy of Art and Culture’s permanent collection.
The BAAC is committed to the acquired legacy of classical antiquity, contemporary renditions of visual art, traditional and modern styles of visual art, the intermixing of analog, and digital art. All the while, we are committed with equal zeal and passion to restore folk art forms and its varied nuances.
What do You get?
We present to you a selected visual extravaganza from our extensive collection of masterpieces.
This carefully curated selection by well-known curator Mukherjee. P will include different genres of visual art including painting, sculpture, photo-performance, photography, etching and even a journey rendered in the triptych. It is like the precious treasures that needs deft handling!
There will be works of more than 100 artists that we will be sharing with you offering visual treats and sensory overload. This will include artists from different generations and genres, whose style of work, concerns, and views towards art practice vary based on their own flavours of personal experience. So the whole experience will be laced with different moods, themes, concepts as variety is said to be the spice of life.
Our motto is not to seek chronological documentation. Instead, it is to facilitate an inter-generational and intra-generational art dialogue that will make all the enthusiasts think, ponder, discuss, deliberate and get enriched with knowledge about the various layers of art!
You can check out and enjoy the images of the artworks on the Facebook of the Birla Academy of Art and Culture. Each image accompanied with a brief insight about the artist.
Link: https://www.facebook.com/BirlaAcademyKolkata
Let the Art Heal You
Spend some time with the images. A few minutes of your time with the piece of art can spark a seed thought, paving your conscious and subconscious to newer dimensions that you didn’t even know existed!
So, can art heal the world? Yes, it can – as long as you allow it to heal yourself and the journey begins with YOU!
Here’s a list of artists on view:
Broadcast 1: Rabindranath Tagore and Satish Gujral
Broadcast 2: Nandalal Bose and Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde
Broadcast 3: Asit Kumar Haldar and Francis Newton Souza
Broadcast 4: Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ram Kumar
Broadcast 5: Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Shibu Natesan
Broadcast 6: Nicholas Roerich and R. M Palaniappan
Broadcast 7: G. R Santosh and B. Manjunath Kamath
Broadcast 8: George Keyt and Sudhir Patwardhan
Broadcast 9: Jagdish Swaminathan and Prodosh Dasgupta
Broadcast 10: Gaganendranath Tagore and Meera Mukherjee
Broadcast 11: Ramkinkar Baij and Sanjay Bhattacharya
Broadcast 12: Sudhir Khastagir and Veer Munshi
Broadcast 13: Gopal Ghose and Ranbir Kaleka
Broadcast 14 :Dipak Banerjee and N. Pushpamala
Broadcast 15: J. P Gangooly and Somnath Hore
Broadcast 16: Prabhas Sen and Tyeb Mehta
Broadcast 17: Louise Bourgeois and Sanat Kar
Broadcast 18: Angela Trinidade and Balan Nambiar
Broadcast 19: Elizabeth Brunner and Prafulla Dahanukar
Broadcast 20: S.H. Raza and Hormaz Narielwala
Broadcast 21: Sunil Das and Atul Dodiya
Broadcast 22: Noni Borpujari and Parvathy Nayar
Broadcast 23: K.K. Hebbar and Piraji Sagara
Broadcast 24: Rabindranath Tagore, Manishi Dey and Satyajit Ray
Broadcast 25: Raja Ravi Verma and R. K. Chandrajitsana Singh
Broadcast 26: Elizabeth Sass Brunner and Amina Kar
Broadcast 27: Kishori Kaul and Akhilesh
Broadcast 28: M. V. Dhurandhar and Shijo Jacob
Broadcast 29: Antonio Xavier Trindade and Ganesh Haloi
Broadcast 30: Sunil Madhav Sen and Manu Parekh
Broadcast 31: K. G Subramanyan and S. Pranam Singh
Broadcast 32: Kalipada Ghoshal and R.N.V. D Dhurandhar
Broadcast 33: Shiavax Chavda and Ambadas Khobragade
Broadcast 34: Pramod Kumar Chatterjee and N. S Bendre
Broadcast 35: Haku Shah and Shyam Kanu Borthakur
Broadcast 36: Dhirendranath Brahma and Dharmanaryan Dasgupta
Broadcast 37: Ajit Chakraborty and Dhiraj Chowdhury
Broadcast 38: William and Edward Finden and B. Prabha
Broadcast 39: Kshitindranath Majumder and Sailen Mitra
Broadcast 40: A.A Almelkar and Bikash Bhattacharjee
Broadcast 41: William Simpson and Walter Langhammer
Broadcast 42: Madan Lal and Gauri Gill
Broadcast 43: Madan Lal Gupta, Ramkumar Manna and Navendu Sen
Broadcast 44: François Balthazar Solvyns ,Anju Chaudhuri, Sudhi Ranjan Bhushan
Broadcast 45: Ganesh Pyne , Paritosh Sen, Jogen Chowdhury,Amitava Dhar , Praneet Soi, Munindra Rajbongshi, Jayshree Chakravarty, Jayashree Chakravarty
Broadcast 46: Archibald Herman Muller , Pravat Niyogi , Jamini Roy, Lalit Mohan Sen , Prabhakar Kolte, K. T. Mathai, Bijan Chowdhury, Hiran Mitra