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The Guild Art Gallery
is delighted to present Conditions of Infirmity, a solo
exhibition of Rakhi Peswani at The Guild, Alibaug, with
the preview on Saturday 24 November 2018.
In 1971, Guy Debord through his concept of “sickness”
provided us a succinct understanding of the dangers of
capitalist expansion with regard to the degradation of humanity,
cultures, climate, environment, and the planet.
“Today ‘pollution’ is in fashion, exactly in the same manner
that revolution is: it takes hold of the entire life of society,
and it is illusorily represented in the spectacle. (…) It
reveals itself everywhere as ideology and it gains on the ground
as real process."
-Guy Debord, A Sick Planet (1971)
Conditions of Infirmity
is a body of works exploring various trajectories of degradation
and “sickness” as an inherent condition of our society
and our times. The show brings together a series of reminders
and concerns that critically examine the individuated body in a
disjointed social system.
The body of works frame the discourses of Crafts within the
practice of Everyday life through the fragile figure of the
craftsman and his mutated version- an exhausted figure of a
labouring, urban body.
The works explore our association with labour and craftsmanship
and the consequences on mundane objects, materials, experiences
and many aspects of our environment. The reminders in the
exhibition intend to renew our deteriorating relation with our
surroundings and to enrich our changing relationships to our
everyday life.
The works use various strategies of representation: sheer
materials, the painted form, built or sewn forms, and
materiality of historic images. Through an amalgamation of
spatial experience, sculptural tactility, painterly and literary
viewing, the works bring forth certain abstracted elements of
the everyday to highlight the importance of remembrance and
requirement of critical reflection in the experiences of the day
to day.
The exhibition outlines the changing nature of a society and
traces the precarious nature of our everyday life due to a
devalued connection to crafts. The degradation or “sickness” is
shown to reveal the larger environment, the animal, insect, and
plant worlds that are affected by the capitalist systems and
visualises the seemingly invisible phenomenon within our
changing everyday life.
Rakhi Peswani
Born in 1977 Rakhi Peswani received her M.F.A (Sculpture), and
B.F.A (Painting), from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda.
She is the recipient of Emerging Artist Award, presented by
Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) 2007. Rakhi
received the Inlaks Scholarship for the UNIDEE in residence at
Cittadellarte, Fondazione Pistoletto in 2006.
Peswani’s solo shows: Anatomy of Silence at The Guild,
Mumbai 2013; Matters Under the Skin, Art HK – Asia One
represented by The Guild, Mumbai, Hongkong 2011; Intertwinings at
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2009; Sonnet for Silent
Machines at Jehangir Nicholson Gallery and the Guild Art
Gallery, Mumbai, in 2007; and at the Birla Academy of Art and
Culture, Mumbai, in 2006.
Her Museum/institutional participations include Here and
Beyond at Aomori ContemporaryArt Centre, Aomori, Japan,
2017; Trans-Feminism. Alternate Perspectives and Beyond at
Korean Cultural Centre, Delhi, 2016; Making History Colombo
Art Biennale (2014); Ghar Ghar Ki baat, Tales from Two Homes at
Margaret Lawrence Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia;
Hangzhou Triennale of Fiber Arts, at Zhejiang Art Museum,
Hangzhou, PRC; Zones of Contact: propositions on the Museum,
co-curated by Vidya Shivadas, Akansha Rastogi, Deeksha Nath,
KNMA, Noida, 2013; Generation in Transition: New Art from
India, at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw,
Poland; Vilnius Art Centre, Lithuania, in 2011, Bring me a
Lion at Webster University, Missouri, 2010.
Other select shows being - Analytical Engine at Bose
Pacia, Kolkata, and Gallery Seven Art Ltd, New Delhi, in 2009; The
Ego, The Persona, The Shadow and The Wise Old Man (or was it The
Great Mother?) at the Guild, New York, in 2008; Parables
of the Thread at the Loft, Mumbai, in 2008; Through a
Glass, Darkly; Reflections on the Self Portrait at the
Guild, Mumbai, in 2008; Inner Vision at The Guild Art
Gallery, New York, in 2008; and Beyond Images at the
Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in
2007.
In 2003 Peswani was awarded a National Scholarship from the
Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and in 2006 an Inlaks
Scholarship for a residency at Cittadellarte, Fondazione
Pistoletto, Italy.
She has previously taught at Hyderabad Central University,
Hyderabad; Ambedkar University, Delhi. She is currently working
as a Visiting Faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and
Technology, Bengaluru.
We look forward to seeing you at show.
Copyright © The Guild, 2018 | All rights reserved
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