"New Delhi : City of Games" an exhibition of drawings & photographs by Golak Khandual at Visual Arts Gallery, IHC - 1st to 7th December 2009
Time : 10:00 am 7:00 pm
Entry : Free
Place : Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre ( IHC ), Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003
Parking : Gate No. 1 to 3 ( Cars ), Gate No. 2 ( Bikes & Bicycles )
Venue Info : Events | About | Map
Related Links : Lodhi Road Area Events
Parking : Gate No. 1 to 3 ( Cars ), Gate No. 2 ( Bikes & Bicycles )
Venue Info : Events | About | Map
Related Links : Lodhi Road Area Events
Event Details : An exhibition of photographs by Golak Khandual.
Artist's Comment : Planners want to turn Delhi into a ‘world class city’. New Delhi has to shine. By the year 2010 everything should be in order. New stadia, new sewage and water supply systems, shiny bus shelters of steel. The city is going to sparkle like it has never done before.
As Delhi transforms itself from metropolis to megapolis it calls for sacrifices. The city turns on itself and begins to eat its own limbs, its own lungs, its own organs. Historic habitations get replaced by new architecture of steel and spandrel glass. The scale starts changing, spaces get transformed, transmuted. People work overground and underground night and day. Gradually a new creature emerges. A city of light. A city of no night.
I grew up in a village where there was no electricity. Nights were real nights. Waking up in the middle of the night to find oneself soaked in complete blackness—one did not know if it was a dream or reality. Through that intense darkness one saw things. Darkness within darkness. Amidst that all encompassing nothingness within my head neon bright pictures drew themselves. That was another world, another time.
Later in life I started living in a forest village in central India. Sometimes I would go walking in the dark through the jungle. Night transformed the forest into something else. Dawn and dusk wrought their own magic. The changing effects of natural light sometimes create hair-raising illusions. I miss that here in the big city. With the city all lit up, I could not count the stars or chase fireflies. Maybe some of us do not think it is such a big deal. As more and more buildings get blessed with ‘impact lighting’, fireflies are a prehistoric notion of romantic living. One only prays that the Silent Spring is still some distance away. In this surfeit of light, I see deep artificial darkness.
This series of pictures is about transformations of space, of light and of human vision. I find myself yearning for real darkness. This show is about yearning and fear. The New New Delhi way.
Golak Khandual trained as an architect in the Delhi of the 70s. For the last 30 years he has been drifting in and out of the city dividing his time between architecture and painting. The show explores the dramatic transformations that New Delhi is going through.
Artist's Comment : Planners want to turn Delhi into a ‘world class city’. New Delhi has to shine. By the year 2010 everything should be in order. New stadia, new sewage and water supply systems, shiny bus shelters of steel. The city is going to sparkle like it has never done before.
As Delhi transforms itself from metropolis to megapolis it calls for sacrifices. The city turns on itself and begins to eat its own limbs, its own lungs, its own organs. Historic habitations get replaced by new architecture of steel and spandrel glass. The scale starts changing, spaces get transformed, transmuted. People work overground and underground night and day. Gradually a new creature emerges. A city of light. A city of no night.
I grew up in a village where there was no electricity. Nights were real nights. Waking up in the middle of the night to find oneself soaked in complete blackness—one did not know if it was a dream or reality. Through that intense darkness one saw things. Darkness within darkness. Amidst that all encompassing nothingness within my head neon bright pictures drew themselves. That was another world, another time.
Later in life I started living in a forest village in central India. Sometimes I would go walking in the dark through the jungle. Night transformed the forest into something else. Dawn and dusk wrought their own magic. The changing effects of natural light sometimes create hair-raising illusions. I miss that here in the big city. With the city all lit up, I could not count the stars or chase fireflies. Maybe some of us do not think it is such a big deal. As more and more buildings get blessed with ‘impact lighting’, fireflies are a prehistoric notion of romantic living. One only prays that the Silent Spring is still some distance away. In this surfeit of light, I see deep artificial darkness.
This series of pictures is about transformations of space, of light and of human vision. I find myself yearning for real darkness. This show is about yearning and fear. The New New Delhi way.
Golak Khandual trained as an architect in the Delhi of the 70s. For the last 30 years he has been drifting in and out of the city dividing his time between architecture and painting. The show explores the dramatic transformations that New Delhi is going through.
"New Delhi : City of Games" an exhibition of drawings & photographs by Golak Khandual at Visual Arts Gallery, IHC - 1st to 7th December 2009
!["New Delhi : City of Games" an exhibition of drawings & photographs by Golak Khandual at Visual Arts Gallery, IHC - 1st to 7th December 2009]()
Reviewed by DelhiEvents
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Monday, December 07, 2009
Rating:
Good ....: )
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