Not long ago, there was just one private art gallery in the city and that too was interested more in framing pictures than in organising art shows, recalled veteran artist Paritosh Sen at the launch of the new art website, www.contemporaryart-india.com at the Bengal Club on Friday.
The two-day show featured the current ensemble of 47 artists available on this website. Curators Roshmi Raychaudhuri and Baidehi Chatterjee said that the site would, apart from functioning as a sourcing and sales outlet, play an active part in disseminating information on trends in modern Indian art, artworks and artists.
The show is mainly meant to focus on upcoming and unrecognised talents but there are several big names keeping them company. From the sketches of Rabindranath Tagore to Nikhil Biswas’s Migrators and Storm Horses, from Paritosh Sen’s Girl Eating Corn to Reba Hore’s Friends, they all mingle with the experimental and often refreshing works of the young and not-so-young artists.
The moon in Prakash Karmakar’s Landscape has dropped like a golden ball under the palm tree, Paresh Maity’s Courtyard depicts an old north Calcutta home, Chhatrapati Dutta’s untitled work celebrates the experience of coming apart through torn books and loose clothes’ hooks, Sajal Roy captures the First Step a child takes with his mother’s support, lines and contrasting colours bring out the sense of emptiness and space in Subhra Chatterjee’s Solitary, Munindra Rajbongshi’s Profile, Malay Saha’s Outside the Window... all catch the eye.
“It was not so easy for artists. It was once difficult to find buyers even for a Paritosh Sen or a Nikhil Biswas. Now, the artists are struggling to meet the tremendous demand,” said Baidehi Chatterjee, whose sister Roshmi had been forced to close their gallery Artage due to the depressed market.
This time round they are not going in for a permanent display area. The website, they hope, will introduce the world to “the creative energy in Bengal”. The sisters also have a store in Alipore and plan to host more than four big shows a year.
