Erasing Borders 2009

I'm going to be in this show:

http://www.iaac.us/erasing_borders2009/index.htm

The opening is tomorrow at the Dowd Fine Art Gallery in Cortland, NY. Later it travels to several other venues:

INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL



in collaboration with



DOWD GALLERY




is delighted to present



IAAC ERASING BORDERS 2009

EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ART OF THE DIASPORA

OPENING RECEPTION

Sunday, March 1st 2009 2-5pm

DOWD GALLERY CORTLAND NY, Special Guest: Consul General of India Prabhu Dayal



Participating artists: Niyeti Chadha Kannal, Nandini Chirimar, Khalil Chishtee, Neil Chowdhury ,



Pritika Chowdhry,
Anjali Deshmukh, Anujan Ezhikode, Indira Freitas Johnson, Asha Ganpat, Ina Kaur,

Adil Mansuri,
Divya Mehra, Samanta Mehta Batra, Indrani Nayar Gall, Jagdish Prabhu, Antonio Puri,

Alka Raghuram, Gautam Rao,
Amin Rehman, Tara Sabharwal, Pallavi Sharma, Preet Srivastava,

Mumtaz Hussain,
Reeta Gidwani Karmarkar, Haresh Lalvani, Alakananda Mukerji, Veru Narula,


Prince Varughese Thomas



Curated by Vijay Kumar

About Dowd Gallery & Directions

State University of New York
College at Cortland,


Dowd Fine Arts Center, Room 162
Cortland, New York 13045

Exhibition Dates Feb 27 - April 30 There will be several public programs and events related to this exhibition, The exhibition will travel to other venues immediately after the Dowd Gallery.



Please see schedule for details.

The Indo-American Arts Council is a 501 ©3 not-for-profit arts organization passionately dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of South Asian artists in the performing arts, visual arts, literary arts and folk arts. For information please visit www.iaac.us



Indo-American Arts Council Inc. 517East 87th St, Suite 1B, New York, NY 10128. Phone: 212 594 3685


Email: admin@iaac.us. Web: www.iaac.us

Gershwin Hotel hosts India Pop Art Festival

Here's an article about the Gershwin India Pop Festival in the Indian Star Online!

http://www.theindianstar.com/index.php?uan=10144

New York: The Gershwin Hotel and owner Suzanne Tremblay hosted New York India Pop from February 5-8. The cultural event showcased the vibrancy of pop art in an emerging market while also unveiling the new Kama Sutra Suite at the Gershwin Hotel.
Over 20 artists from India and the USA participated in the event.
Indie-rock group, Alms for Shanti headed by Uday Benegal with guest Naren Budhakar on tabla, and a dance performance by Sonalee Vyas Dance Company kicked off the celebration.
The art exhibition included James Banta, Neil Chowdhury and Asha Ganpat, while artists (Tara Misra, Kevin Robinson and Asha Ganpat) added their unique mark to the new Kama Sutra suite in the hotel. Actress Geeta Citygirl served as a host-emcee.
On Feb 6 at the Punjabi Punchlines Evening, comedians Dan Nainan, Vidur Kapur and Anu Kalra judged amateur comedians. On Feb 7, Mira Nair presented her 1996 movie Kama Sutra, The Tale Of Love followed by a Q&A where she discussed her work as a filmmaker.
The New York City Bhangra Club dancers led by Megha Kalia, with DJ Troy and Dhol player Madan Madi brought the packed house to their feet with their inspired performance.
The hotel's artist-in-residence program has assisted over 60 artists from around the world. Some of the more famous artists include Andy Warhol's Factory People.
In 2007, Suzanne Tremblay, owner of the Gershwin, organized a reunion for these superstars including Ultraviolet, Lou Reed, Eric Anderson, Mary Woronof, Susan Bond, Taylor Mead and Brigit Berlin.
The Gershwin Hotel also accepted voluntary donations to support the work of two organizations - Project Nanhi Kali www.nanhikali.org and the Polaris Project www.polarisproject.org.

Video about Alms for Shanti

They played at the Gershwin India Pop Festival where I showed my work this past month, along with many other artists of the Indian Diaspora. Watch carefully for the cameo appearance of me and my art!

video in progress.....

This is a rough clip from a video piece I'm working on. The final version will be in HD resolution for projection, and will be 9-12 Minutes long. I shot all the images in this clip this summer in Mumbai. The finished video will also include scenes from many other parts of India, as well as lots of graphics, popular commercial and religious imagery, postcards, etc. from around India. Much editing to do!

fast India clip

fast India clip, originally uploaded by scoopneil.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between photographs and memories. The thing that has stopped me really about writing a blog has to do with the specificity of both. Rather than talk about the things that are on my mind, or post the images that I capture from day to day, I wonder about the appropriateness of sharing private memories in a semi public forum. Some of my favorite readings are in the journals of Anaïs Nin, but I can't help but wonder how the subjects of those narratives would have felt had their most intimate moments been splashed out on the internet for all to see. Images are so much more personal than that, and so much less as well. So what we do in a public forum either becomes a formalist exercise in light and color, or else a sort of professional selection of images that are deemed appropriate, and somehow express our feelings in a general way, or tell a story of what we have seen of others' lives, without revealing too intimately our own in a specific way. This is called art, or documentary photograpy, a poetry of images, done in good taste. I wonder about this. Of course the boundary of good taste is ever shifting. Now it's fashinable to post images of whomever you've just slept with, even mid act. Thanks to Nan Goldin and your many spritual children for sharing your memories, and giving me the opportunity to ponder the nature of trust, and privacy, and its relation to intimacy. I've always loved that work, and sure, I have my own photostream of a similar nature. It's just that you are not going to see it. We are going to have to stick here to the things that I remember seeing and was lucky enough to capture in film or pixels, that bring about the atmosphere and memories of those more personal moments, which I'll try to keep to myself, thanks, as much as possible in the narcissistic environment of a personal blog. My photography has been largely more about the places and people to which my curiosity about others brings me, anyway. The camera has given me a way to look at the world that is outside of myself, and freeze it long enough to ponder.

_DSC5917

_DSC5917, originally uploaded by scoopneil.

I don't know this spam guy on the scooter, or the woman behind him with the camera, or the smiling dude on the right in the hat. It's just a bunch of strangers at the NY State Fair, and quite random that this should be my first blog posting.