selfpromo

Channa at Juhu Beach

2010-02-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

Khoj, Delhi

2010-01-06T00:38:00.000-08:00

video from the exhibition Guaranteed to Work 2

2009-10-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

video link

video from the exhibition Guaranteed to Work

2009-10-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

video link

pundole and guild april 2009

2009-07-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

These objects are guaranteed to work. In a future world, new life forms evolve assembled out of the debris of civilization. These fragments are assembled together to make war machines that create a spectacle out of comic juxtapositions and movements; a computing machine bleeds its wires all over the floor as it generates answers; a city is made out of what used to be parts of its most base infrastructure and a garden is created that is both absurd and beautiful. Tiny fragments enlarge to become part of a larger whole through a shift of scale and vice versa. We recognize the pieces that make these machines only for a moment before the stability of signifier disappears into the assemblage.How long will these machines last or how long should they? Once their life is over do these also disappear into what remains of our history- waiting for another purpose, another meaning- an afterlife?

Edge of Nations (at Pundole)A miniature tank assembled out of a car jack, cycle wheels, etc rumbles across the floor. You can control its movement up to a point until a parallel set of controls begins to take over.

The Computing Machine (at Pundole)This machine can answer all the questions of the universe- except that all answers are randomly generated through a circuitry of movements and noises. The only answers possible are ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘cancel’.

The Garden (at Pundole)This is a garden made from the fragments of our everyday lives. In it is a longing for elsewhere. The other place is desire.

Infrared cannot be seen by naked eye (at The Guild)We walk into this city and join a lost car as it tries to navigate a maze like city of high rises and surveillance. A roving eye, a helicopter, a clock, a light house watches over us.

Light Tank (at The Guild)As a turntable makes its perpetual turns a tank spews out light in spectacular patterns that fill the room.

Rohan Shivkumar

installation view at Pundole

At Guild

Infrared Cannot Be Seen By Naked Eyes :It is the same work that I put up at Anant, Delhi. The installation changed a lot. Not only the space was different but too because many architect friends worked to put it up. Rohan Shivkumar, Rupali Gupte, Sonal Sundarajan (my colleagues) students from our college, Jinal Shah, Aparna Parekh, Maitri shah, Kunal Bhatia, Richa Mehta, Amya Gurkar and Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, artist. The show would not have happened without their help. This one was completely Rohan, Sonal, Jinal and Rupali’s display.

Light Tank: Ranjit sat and opened up around one hundred connections and soldered them. This was displayed once before at "Re-visioning Materiality", 19th December 2007 Gallery Espace, New Delhi.

Photographs: Prakash Rao

Girish Shahane wrote about the show at

http://girishshahane.blogspot.com/2009/04/kausik-and-kiran.html

Random Answering Machine

2009-07-13T21:48:00.001-07:00

At Pundole

One set of Rotating switches move another set of rotating switches, connected to three blubs that lit up three words, Yes, No and Cancel. Only one blub is on at one time. The answers are a chance occurrence. During the show answers were mostly negative

Photographs: Prakash Rao

The garden

2009-07-13T21:43:00.001-07:00

At Pundole

The title garden came from Sonal’s idea of arranged, controlled and demarcated space, where fantasy can take shape and also from Hieronymus Bosch’s 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'. Lot of the imageries came from there. I was looking at photograph of Derek Jarman’s set for film 'The Garden' too. Influence of both is evident in the work. Junk from everyday formed the assemblage. It was difficult job to handle so many varied objects next to each other. Electric motors came in as it needed to break the stillness. It created a lot of noise too.

Photographs: Prakash Rao

9th Opening

2009-07-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

9th April 2009 exhibition opened at Pundole and Guild in Mumbai. Having a solo in Mumbai after 2000.
Photographs: Mohua Ray

“Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life”
Parts and pieces come together to form multiple wholes that acquire new meanings in artist Kausik Mukhopadhyay’s recent works
By Kunal Bhatia
At Pundole Art Gallery a tank assembled out of a car jack, cycle wheels and gears greets visitors while traversing the floor space defined by a brightly lit-up ‘line of control’. Visitors can remote-control its movement but only until a point, after which its own circuit takes over. It then becomes disobedient and navigates its own way within the borders of the imagined nation. Right besides it, a variety of objects sit within close proximity to each other. While some are present in their complete form, fragments of others evoke thoughts about everyday objects and their significance. Some objects turn, twist and twirl while others symbolise implied movement. From toy train tracks to a cast of a human leg, the collection suggests desire, domesticity and control. The final exhibit, a computing machine, perhaps tries to answer some of the questions provoked by the objects in the garden. However, as artist Kausik Mukhopadhyay explains, it does so on its own accord. A system of circuitry triggered by movements and back-grounded by motorized noise sets of one of the three light bulbs. “But, all questions of the universe are answered by one of three precise, no-nonsense words – yes, no or cancel,” he adds.

Abhishek's mails

2009-03-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

Abhishek Hazra has sent me two mails. The mails are themselves exciting and more so because we hardly ever write about other’s work. Thanks Abhishek.

congratulations syar.
tomar blog onek din dekha hoini - ekhon giye to ekta kajer ek jholok dekhei durdanto laglo:
"public sculpture for ants"!
Brilliant!!!
are ei kajta niye to ekta puro uponyash lekha jabe - aha - bheri inetresting.
theoretically very rich and poses some interesting philosphical conundrums:
01. can ants have an 'aesthetic' experience?
02. if they do, how can we know about it?
03. by making a 'public' sculpture to the scale of its intnded viwer it makes a political comment abt human public sculpture
04. also what is interesting, in the sense of suspended motion, that is implicit in these 'sculptures' - potentially they could be carried off the gallery floors by an army of ants. what would such a move say about artwork and viwership?
thank you for such an interesting work! this is precisely in the best traditions of conceptual art - where the formal properties of the work itself is minimal and in a way even banal, but is the discursive and theoretical framing of the work that makes it stimulating.
jiyo....
Abhishek

and forgot this one:
05. and what would a work like this say about "inter species" communication (which incidentally a hot topic in arts+science). can we make art works for a fruit fly?
06. and the how would a fruit fly make an art work for us, or for a nematode worm?
07. in this context, would it be relevant to explore the gift giving aspects of art? are the 'fruits' of genetic research, the fruit fly's unintended gifts to humanity?
08. although question 07 is guilty of being anthropocentric. this is relevant becuase anthropocentrism is something that the artwork itself tries to move away from (although in an ironic register)
to be continued
cheers
abhishek

Home Warming

2008-08-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Metal stand, vinyl cover, electric bulbs, plastic flower vase and dimmers.
Variable

There are 12 bulbs in the vase and connected to dimmers.

The brightness of the bulbs can be regulated individually.

At the Studio: Garden

2008-07-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

I am making a garden. Large amount of bottles, pipes, pots and pans, small pieces of coloured plastic, broken locks, eclectic irons that don’t work, electric fan that works, empty printer cartridge, balls, toys, parts of electronic circuit, broken pieces of wood, metal, plastic, T joins, elbows and U bents, scissors, knives, electric lights, electric motors, coils, springs, baking trays, idli maker, mixi top, iron ghamela, gears, ball bearings, broken specs, pieces of glass, all forming the garden.

public sculpture for ants

2008-03-14T02:16:00.000-07:00

vadehra art gallery, new delhi, 2007

size variable,
no object is taller than 4 inches

edge of nations

2008-02-27T21:23:00.000-08:00

installation view of tank,

Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2007

Infrared can not be seen by eyes

2008-02-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

The work consist of long PVC pipes, L shaped at the base and one pipe extending up, right angle to the base. On top of each of them has a moving object. The L shaped base forms a kind of maze. The objects are connected to a circuit which switches them on and off.
A small car,Cheese made toy, operated by battery, that changes direction when it hits an obstacle, moves in this maze, trying to find its way.The installation size is variable. The largest of the pipes is about 5 feet by 4 feet at the base and 7&1/2 feet tall, the smallest is 2 feet by 4 feet by 1 foot. These measurements are without the object on top.
people can move through the maze too - if it is installed in a passage or something like that.There are 9 structures and around 12 objects, plus the car.

"Mechanisms of Motion" curated by Marta Jakimowicz, 16th, 2008, Anant Art Centre, Noida (Delhi, U.P.)

Light Tank

2007-12-06T00:06:00.000-08:00

Light Tank 48" x 26" x 30"

Rope lights, wood, motors and lots of electrical relays

The device with a spout has these strings of light coming out of it. It has a rather complicated mechanical circuit attached to it and comes on when a switch is pressed by the spectator. All the lights do not come on at the same time but works in a pattern controlled by the circuit.

"Re-visioning Materiality", 19th December 2007 Gallery Espace, New Delhi

Nancy wrote beautifully about the work :

Artworks seem to have an inflated ego today, big enough to burst, glossy enough to fall into place in an interior designer’s manual. And of course, they unfailingly make a specious nod to international politics or national crisis. Hoping, presumably, that the grimness of the political catastrophe will make up for their lack of imagination and integrity. As more and more packaged and branded art circulates with assembly-line precision, imagine works that are differently abled. That blink nervously and pull your leg even as they themselves limp into action. Artworks that are guided as much by the DIY ethic of the hackers and the thrifty innovations of the scavengers who service the recycling economy; that solemnly adopt poor materials only to take the piss out of them Dadaist style. Mukhopadhyay’s extended sculptures are marked by a deviant materiality sourced from the rejects of high art.

In this show, Mukhopadhyay who is in the habit of overturning all seats of power (recall his split and splintered chair thrones, 2000), topples a stool and places the rudiments of a tank on it. A nest of wires lie tangled between its legs while a bare wooden dome unleashes a gun fashioned from a handy piece of PVC pipe. Rope lights anticipating a festival swirl around the stool and stream out of the PVC spout. A switch activates the complicated and rather precarious circuitry put together by the artist. When the tank is ‘fired’ light gallops through the serpentine tubes and rebounds. Mukhopadhyay paradoxically invests light with the properties of darkness, a light that carries the threat of a graveyard but projects the look of a luminous Diwali or Durga Puja.

This phallic toy is a comment on the devastating military games played by cretinous little men. Imagine Bush rocking on a hobby horse, hurling ‘smart’ bombs at unsuspecting villagers in Afghanistan. The artist shoots his absurdist fantasies at us, at the speed of light. But wait for the quintessential Mukhopadhyay breakdown, communication is not as simple as switching on a light. Especially so, in this world of negative vibrations where an artist has to make a strong effort to transmit his energies to a viewer.

Nancy Adajania

krvia toilets

2007-08-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

Found some old photos -

2007-08-14T01:41:00.000-07:00

26th April - that was the last time I wrote anything on the blog. The promised installation photographs did not turn out to be good enough and there is no video.

NEWS

2007-04-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

The show opened at Vaderha.
The installation was titled ‘Edge of Nation’, a war tank, made out of other objects. It is more like a toy, small, about 2x2x2 feet. It can be moved in any direction the spectator wants to by operating the controls kept on a stand. There is an electrical circuit (almost as big as the tank), which randomly takes over and changes the course of the tank. There is a chain of lights forming a boundary. The tank stops operating if it crosses the boundary. All the electrical circuits are large and can be seen operating when the tank moves.
This is almost like one of those video games. I mixed up names of various video games and called it ‘Edge of Nation’.
The other one is a collection of assemblages of tiny objects displayed in a row along the edge of the wall. It was titled ‘Public Sculptures For Ants’.
I am waiting for the images to come.

lost fragment of the city

2007-04-10T00:27:00.000-07:00

Lost fragment of the city

Lost and found, college computer, April 10, 2007

tank images

2007-04-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

more images

here it is

2007-04-05T02:17:00.000-07:00

in studio now

2007-03-14T02:19:00.000-07:00

The tank is almost complete . Hope to put up images next week.
Also made a video ---

booklets of Assisted Readymades: Alternative Solutions 2003 -2004

2007-03-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

for more>>

2007-03-05T19:11:00.001-08:00

Posted some more works at UNBOOK .They were made in 2005. The objects were made for 'Edge of Desire' exhibition. Some of those objects were used to make these posters

bang

2007-03-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

wood, metal, cycle bell

Assisted Readymades: Alternative Solutions 2003 -2004

2007-02-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

Objects made from readymade objects, promising to solve problems of everyday life, displayed on a cart, attached to a tricycle.Each object has a booklet explaining the object and their use in simple language.

in studio now

2007-02-26T20:18:00.000-08:00

Took the motors to the mechanic. Nice guy. There is nothing wrong with them. The heating is normal. It is all my paranoia.

Video of 'City of Spectacle'

2007-02-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

click on the text
'City of Spectacle' was exhibited at Tamarind Art, New York, 14 December to 3 February

in studio now

2007-02-21T22:43:00.000-08:00

The new work that I am working on since last year June, a war tank, ran into trouble as the motors are heating up. The work is almost complete expect this trouble.

kalaghoda project

2007-02-20T00:51:00.000-08:00

This started as a proposal to public space sculpture and ended as a web-blog, an 'adda', a place to meet, not having any particular agenda but having a rather gray and oscillating boundary.

City of Spectacle 2006

2007-02-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

This video of 'City of Spectacle' is taken by Vinita Gatne, a student of KRVIA, when the work was still incomplete. 'The cities' were kept at a lower height and the electric connection being tried out. Other people in the video, are Prachi Patel, Vinod Sewlani, Sujata Chitlangia, all student of KRVIA and were helping me with the work. The older person in the video is me.
Other students, Tapan Maharishi, Arjunan Sanjayan and Anshu Tibrewala not in this video, also worked on the project.

The name, ‘City of Spectacle ’, is borrowed from Guy Debord’s book ‘The Society of the Spectacle’.

Placed on top of three stands, with ladders, each eight feet high, the ‘cities’, each two feet by two feet, are like models used for Architectural Design studio in our college, where the whole city shrinks to the size of a toy. Each building in the ‘city’ is made from digitally render images used to advertise real estate in Mumbai newspaper supplement. Within this arrangement of buildings, made from wooden blocks with printed images pasted on them, are electrical devices and lights, animating the ‘city’.

The ‘city’ can be reached by climbing up the ladder. Each ‘city’ has a glass basin in the center filled with water. From below, the ‘cities’ look sleek and glossy. Once up on top of the ladder the ‘cities’ reveal the exposed wooden blocks and electrical devices.

Mumbai is going through a frenzied state of urban development. The exclusive areas with its malls and housing societies, highly protected and polished, stands a little away from the rest of the city. This thickly populated city can have these development only by pushing away the less privileged others out.

The city looses its gloss when looked from a closer quarter It revels wooden blocks with pasted paper and mechanical devices.

books

2007-02-13T02:56:00.000-08:00

Some of these were made in 1992, some later. I made a blog just for the drawings but drawings became fewer.

Home 2005

2007-02-13T02:41:00.000-08:00

I made a work with Mohua. We thought of keeping an account of the process. So we made a blog.

Balwan Video

2007-02-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

BALWAN

Balwan 2006

2007-02-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

Two plastic G.I. Joes float in a blue tub and set in motion by a underwater pump. It has music with it, composed out of fragments from a computer game called "Rise of The Nation ". The movement of the toy soldiers keeps changing from one chasing the other to one trying to climb up the others back. Though the music is not synchronized our perception unites them and we look at it as choreographed motion.

Toofun Mail 2002-2003

2007-02-08T01:28:00.000-08:00

Toofun Mail

click on the text

Discarded household objects, electric motor, lights, metal fabrications and paint. Contrary to its name it moves very slowly. The train, started from the fascination with the small roadside workshops� adaptability to use simplest machines to achieve complicate results. The train is made of assemblage of various pots and pans and have an electric motor. It moves on a circular track and switches on and off other activities. The train itself has parts that are motorised and move making a steady rhythmic beat. Train is the first colonial machine to come to India apart from printing press. It has a spell of power. To make it with a know-how which does not need an expert and making it small, almost like a toy, kind of neutralise it.

Size: about 12x12x9 feet.

Assisted Readymades : chairs 2000-01

2007-02-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

These are definitely not my earliest work.

These works I think are resent enough and also important as a shift from my earlier years. These objects claim a use value and stand at the threshold of becoming something else than art.

These chairs were supposed to sat on during the display which unfortunately did not happen.

Chairs were an assemblage of other mass produced chairs that are commonly used in all institutions. Every year a whole lot of these chairs, damaged, are thrown away, in the college where I work. I collected them and started repairing them. My ideal was the chairs or seating arrangements used by the watchmen of the multistoried buildings or the street side tea stalls. The randomness of the choice of objects that come together and the bare minimum of its structure that serves the purpose interested me. But the marks of repair stays back and needed other objects to cover it. So the chairs evolved as I repaired the chairs and tried to hide the mark of repair.

old works

2007-02-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

Once started, it is difficult to hold back.
There is a pleasure in time travelling. I will put up some of my old works. As there is nothing much happening just now, I think I will indulge in this narcissist activity or should I call it a research?

idea

2007-02-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

Earlier I use to post slides but the time changed and I started emailing images. Why not put them up in a blog ?
Keep adding stuff as I work -- in this way the images would not be just of the finished work.