URBAN MANNERS contemporary artists from India

A new and important event will be inaugurated this autumn at the Hangar Bicocca Spazio di Arte Contemporanea in Milan. URBAN MANNERS. Contemporary Artists from India will open on 18 October. This project, staged at the Hangar Bicocca in collaboration with ART for The World Europa, has been devised and curated by Adelina von Fürstenberg.

The exhibition presents the works of 15 emblematic Indian artists - SHEBA CHHACHHI, ATUL DODIYA, ANITA DUBE, PROBIR GUPTA, SUBODH GUPTA, RANBIR KALEKA, JITISH KALLAT, REENA SAINI KALLAT, BHARTI KHER, NALINI MALANI, RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE, RAGHUBIR SINGH, VIVAN SUNDARAM, HEMA UPADHYAY and AVINASH VEERARAGHAVAN - and proposes a path that reveals all the striking contradictions of contemporary India.

For the preparation of URBAN MANNERS - and in particular for the selection of the works of Raghubir Singh and Vivan Sundaram - Adelina von Fürstenberg has collaborated with Deepak Ananth, the Indian curator of the exhibition Indian Summer, staged at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 2005.

The artists who have been invited to Milan are sculptors, painters and video artists whose works are inspired by the issues that distinguish Indian society, such as immigration, environmental protection, the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, the loss of traditional values, and poverty and wealth in a globalised world.

Modern India is no longer merely a poverty-stricken country that shed colonial domination or an area known exclusively for exporting its philosophical and religious ideas. Indian metropolises have been experiencing powerful modernisation and, alongside pre-modern local structures, there is a postmodern and urban society that diverges from the one in which ancient India - primeval and superstitious - still survives.

Likewise, postmodern Indian art is a response to an underlying contradiction that juxtaposes city and country, modernity and tradition, spirituality and the material world, underdevelopment and state-of-the-art technology.

Curated by Adelina von Fürstenberg Exhibition design by Uliva Velo Exhibition executive project by Angela Comin e Lorella Pucci

URBAN MANNERS
contemporary artists from India
Kurator: Adelina von Fürstenberg

mit Sheba Chhachhi, Atul Dodiya, Anita Dube, Probir Gupta, Subodh Gupta, Ranbir Kaleka, Jitish Kallat, Reena Saini Kallat, Bharti Kher, Nalini Malani, Raqs Media Collective , Raghubir Singh, Vivan Sundaram, Hema Upadhyay, Avinash Veeraraghavan