Nasreen Mohamedi, unititled, Courtesy of the Glenbarra Art Museum Collection, Japan
'Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes
Reflections on Indian Modernism (Part 1)'
on view at Kunsthalle Basel
From 07 February to 04 April 2010
Kunsthalle Basel
Steinenberg 7, Basel, Switzerland
www.kunsthallebasel.ch
First shown at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway in Oslo in spring 2009, the exhibition 'Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes – Reflections on Indian Modernism (Part 1)', is currently on view at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. The exhibition, which is guest-curated by Suman Gopinath and Grant Watson, and initiated, organised and travelled by Office for Contemporary Art Norway, is the first solo exhibition in Europe of Nasreen Mohamedi. Kunsthalle Basel is the fourth exhibition venue to host this exhibition, after OCA, Milton Keynes Gallery in the UK and Lunds Konsthall in Sweden.
'Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes – Reflections on Indian Modernism (Part 1)' is part of 'Reflections on Indian Modernism', a comprehensive programme of public projects and residencies undertaken by OCA in 2009 and organised by Gopinath and Watson for OCA and CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. OCA's programme aims to revisit recent Indian art history, recuperating legacies of avant-garde practice and archiving lesser-known bodies of work that slip between genres and schools. The collaboration also comprises a residency programme for Norwegian artists at CoLab. The programme has been supported by O3–funds as underwritten by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for enhancing collaboration in the contemporary art field with professional artists in countries designated by the MFA.
Naseen Mohamedi (1937-1990) is regarded as one of the most important Indian artists of her generation, and her paintings, drawings and photographs, produced from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, constitute a key body of work within the modernist canon. This exhibition brings together for the first time Mohamedi's rarely seen drawings, paintings and photographs with archival material from her studio, and provide the occasion to further position her practice both within the history of Indian art and in relation to an international avant-garde. The exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel will include additional materials to the original exhibition, with works from the artist's estate and other international collections.
Previous exhibitions of Nasreen Mohamedi's work include the Third Indian Triennale (New Delhi, India, 1975), Jehangir Art Gallery (Mumbai, India, 1991), 'Drawing Space: Contemporary Indian Drawing', inIVA (London, UK, 2000), 'Nasreen Mohamedi: Lines among Lines', The Drawing Center (New York, USA, 2005), documenta 12 (Kassel, Germany, 2007) and 'Nasreen Mohamedi: The Grid Unplugged', Talwar Gallery (New York, 2008). The exhibition includes important loans from the Sikander family, Mumbay, India, the Glenbarra Art Museum Collection, Japan and Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, India.
About the Guest-Curators
Suman Gopinath is a curator and the founder and director of CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore, India. Grant Watson is a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium. Gopinath and Watson, together with Anshuman Dasgupta, organised the exhibition 'The Santhal Family: Positions around an Indian Sculpture' at MuHKA in 2008. Gopinath and Watson have been collaborating on exhibitions of modern and contemporary Indian art since 1999.