it’s one sketch for a good time

Celebrating 25 years of success, Gallery Escape has organised a show titled Drawing 2014: Seven Decades of Indian Drawing, featuring drawings by over hundred Indian contemporary artists spanning over seven decades. The show is co-curated by Prayag Shukla along with Annapurna Garimella and Sindhura Jois DM from Jackfruit Research and Design, Bangalore. The exhibition  will display works dating from 1947 to the present in which drawing is presented as a broad and inclusive practice. Along with works on single sheets of paper, there will be artists’ books, studies for other projects, multiples, laser drawings, animation and more. This breadth allows curators and viewers to understand how an academic practice moves between the pedagogic and the conceptual realms and between established and experimental ways of working. The exhibition spans a broad expanse of time and seeks to evaluate modern and contemporary art through the medium of drawing. It is to perceive how Indian artists have adopted and experimented with ideas and materials which are brought from elsewhere. It also questions about art practices. What is Indian art today? What are the possibilities that drawing offers? How does an artist perceive drawing as a work of art and how does he or she distinguish drawing from any other work of art? By asking such questions, the exhibition seeks to document, analyze and celebrate several art historically distinct Indian approaches to drawing.Gallery Espace was started in 1989 by Renu Modi at the suggestion of the Husain himself and was one of the first art galleries in India to introduce variable lighting and sound systems, in recognition of the crucial factor that is the environment within which a work of art is displayed. Apart from this expansive show, there will be several collateral/outreach events that will reflect on the significance of drawings in art and other disciplines.