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Coming Soon: The Indian (Sub)Way, 21 September - 9th October 2010

21st September 2010

Grosvenor Vadehra is pleased to announce the Indian (Sub)Way, an exhibition curated by the leading Indian art critic and curator Yashodhara Dalmia. In 2008 the Serpentine Gallery organized the Indian Highway. The Indian (Sub)Way highlights the ‘Indian Way’.

The broad parameters of day-to-day existence in the India of the present with its opulence and its seamier underside forms the edgy, subterranean theme of the exhibition Indian (Sub)Way. The traditional way of being, formal yet feisty, altered with the modernization process which gained pace after India's independence. In recent decades the high-tech onslaught brought about by globalisation has introduced sweeping changes within cities and has not left villages untouched. The uneven form of development creates bizarre, somewhat comic situations where an eclectic internationalism jostles with the local, even archaic modes. The artists seem to ask 'Where indeed is the 'Indian Way'
heading?'

While the relatively stable economic situation has brought the country into international focus, its weak infrastructure, glaring gaps between wealth and poverty and the failure of governance are the flip side of this progress.In this show contemporary Indian artists scan with an ironical eye, the new glittering towers and glitzy malls conjuncted with the slums, cesspools and other detritus of existence. The extreme well being and cringing deprivations now largely provide the binaries of existence.

The group exhibition curated by the art critic and curator, Yashodhara Dalmia based in New Delhi, consists of paintings, installations, photographs and digital works made by contemporary artists which articulate in a forthright manner their experiences of living in present times. It is Ravinder Reddy's sensuous head, both iconic in its gaze and yet punctuated by hubris which characterizes the undercurrents of this show. This could be underlined by the large digital work by Gigi Scaria which in a humorous yet poignant vein speaks of the metropolis with its ever growing business districts and pleasure zones. The high-rise buildings, however, rest on either side of a completely damaged flyover with traffic flowing smoothly below, creating a dramatic interface. The artists invent devices which hone in on the glaring contradictions of existing in a country which despite its problematics is moving ahead on a curvilinear highway.