Revisit India's artscape

This Saturday, Mumbai's art aficionados can head to Pedder Road for the screening of two movies on India's art movement. It includes MF Husain's film Through The Eyes Of A Painter (1967) and Volume 2 of the film project, To Let The World In (2013), which looks at significant events in the history of contemporary Indian art.u00a0

Through The Eyes Of A Painter is an experimental film that artist MF Husain made for The Films Division of India for the celebration of the 20th year of India's independence. He visited Rajasthan and filmed landscapes, faces, architecture and water; everywhere he sought abstraction. His recurring motifs were a lantern, an umbrella, a cow and a shoe, that appear in the most unexpected of places. In the midst of all this are Husain's iconic images of the Indian peasant - a man and a woman, united by Vijay Raghav Rao's sound design.

To Let The World In features three generations of celebrated Indian artists who share recollections, reminiscences and concerns about their practice. The film includes interviews conducted by art historian and curator Chaitanya Sambrani and filmed by filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore.

It starts with the context of art practice on the cusp of India's economic liberalisation and the re-assertion of religious fundamentalism in Indian politics. The altered context for art making in a globalised environment and the crisis in art education in the 1990s is focus of certain contemporary artists who need to reinvent to adjust to a changing world.

The artists featured in this volume are Anju Dodiya, Archana Hande, Benitha Perciyal, Sharmila Samant, Parvathi Nayar, Riyas Komu, Tushar Joag, Shilpa Gupta, Josh PS, Gargi Raina, Sumakshi Singh, TV Santhosh, Nataraj Sharma, Anandajit Ray, Gigi Scaria, Reena Saini Kallat and Jitish Kallat.

The film was produced by Art Chennai, to accompany the show To Let The World In: Narrative and Beyond in Contemporary Indian Art, curated by Chaitanya Sambrani, held in Chennai in 2012. Abhay Sardesai, art critic and editor of Art India Magazine, will comment on the films and the screenings will be followed by a Q&A session.

On July 13, 4 pm onwards
At RR Theatre, tenth floor, Films Division, Pedder Road.u00a0