Beyond the art gallery

Cafe Samovar, started in 1964 inside Jehangir Art Gallery, served as the watering hole and meeting place for intellectuals and artists, offering Mumbaikars an incubator.

Great artists are not always produced in the academies and great art is not always found in the galleries. In fact, a great deal of art in the last few centuries has been produced by robust interaction spaces of artists, which, often in hindsight, can be called the incubators.

Cafe Samovar, started in 1964 inside Jehangir Art Gallery, served as the watering hole and meeting place for intellectuals and artists, offering Mumbaikars an incubator.

It is these incubators and spaces that nurture art where the practitioner thrives without professional pressures and responsibilities or the restrictions of an institution that will be discussed by a panel curated by culture theorist and poet Ranjit Hoskote at the event, Incubators of Creativity: Where Great Artists Are Made. Assad Laljee, CEO Avid Learning, the organizers of the event, says that idea is to re-imagine and question the established notions of art education. "This is the second session of the event, Beyond Contemporary Art. We usually do not repeat a programme. But given the tremendous support we got last year, we decided to do another event under the theme," he says.

He adds that the discussion will also bring up how the spaces of art like the museum have transformed in the last century from just displaying art to becoming more engaging and even political. Hoskote informs that his talk will explore the journey of the artist residencies. "The first residency started in Germany in 1880. Over the years, several residencies have emerged across the globe, including the Khoj residency in India," he shares.

Know the speakers:
Ranjit Hostoke is a cultural theorist, curator and poet. Since 1993, Hoskote has curated 30 exhibitions of contemporary art, including two monographic surveys of Atul Dodiya (Bombay: Labyrinth/ Laboratory, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2001; and Experiments with Truth: Atul Dodiya, Works 1981-2013, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 2013), Nothing is Absolute (with Mehlli Gobhai; CSMVS/ The Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, 2013), and a survey of 150 years of art by Parsi artists within the narrative of an emergent Indian modernism, No Parsi is an Island (with Nancy Adajania; National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay, 2013-2014).

Devieka Bhojwani born in Mumbai, studied Textile Design at Sir JJ Schools Of Art. Her mother, Usha R Khanna, started the iconic Café Samovar in Mumbai in 1964, inside the Jehangir Art Gallery. Café Samovar served for over five decades as the watering hole, salon, dining hall and meeting place for intellectuals, artists as well as ordinary Mumbaikars.

A Mumbaikar, Kaiwan Mehta, he is a theorist and critic in the fields of visual culture, architecture, and city studies. He recently submitted his doctoral thesis at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru, under the aegis of Manipal University; and has now published as well as exhibited his research work and ideas internationally. He authored Alice in Bhuleshwar: Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood (Yoda Press. New Delhi, 2009).

Eve Lemesle is a graduate of La Sorbonne in arts management and holds a diploma in South-Asia studies from INALCO (Paris). In 2013, she launched WAA residency, a not-for-profit artists' residency in Mumbai that offers individual studio space, accommodation, professional networking opportunities and an intellectually stimulating environment for dialogue on visual arts practices for artists and curators.