Memorialising
Ganesh Pyne
photographs & photo collages by veena bhargava
G
anesh Pyne (1937-2013), one of the foremost artists of post-Independence India, is no stranger to the art lovers of the country. his haunting images of intimations of mortality, the crepuscular light in his canvases, and his brilliant use of his own version of tempera is remembered by connoisseurs and critics alike. But he was a shy, reclusive man, who has left little trace of himself in public memory. Memorialising Ganesh Pyne fills this gap by bringing to life the sensitive artist through a remarkable series of photographs shot by artist Veena Bhargava across two decades. The portfolio of portrait and group photographs that capture glimpses of the artist at work and leisure also provide poignant insights into a very private person. This visual record is anchored by two essays: the first, by Bhargava, recounts her experience of taking these perceptive images; the second, by Ella Datta, analyses the aesthetic value of these rarely seen portraits as well as Bharagava’s artistic experiment on a suite of photo collages featuring Pyne with elements from his works. a detailed timeline of politics and culture during Pyne’s life adds archival value to the book. The volume will be invaluable for Pyne enthusiasts and research scholars alike.
Memorialising
Ganesh Pyne
Memorialising
Ganesh Pyne P h oto G r a P h s & P h oto C o l l aG e s B y V e e n a B h a rG aVa
First published in India in 2020 by Akar Prakar in association with Mapin Publishing in conjunction with the show titled ‘Memorialising Ganesh Pyne— Photographs and Photo Collages by Veena Bhargava’ at Akar Prakar, Kolkata, from January 19 to March 31, 2020.
Captions: Front cover: Veena Bhargava Face to Face–7, 20 x 29.75 inches, 2017 Digital prints on Hahnemuhle Photo Silk archival paper Back cover: Veena Bhargava Face to Face–8, Digital Print on archival paper, 23 x 26.25 inches, 2019
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Foreword I was introduced to Ganesh Pyne through a work that hung in my husband’s grandmother’s home: a deer drinking water from a most beautiful pond surrounded with flowers and shrubbery, with an arrow piercing its neck. The visual had a lasting impact on me, though at that time I could not understand its meaning or its aesthetics, except that there was a sense of pain and poignancy in the work. I have revisited that work at several junctures in my life, often pondering on that image. It is self-explanatory, and I don’t need to explain the message it holds for me or for any viewer. That’s where Pyne’s visual imagery becomes immortal and exceptional. His language is both simple and complex at the same time, and his philosophy universal. G a ne sh Pyne
I knew of Veena Bhargava’s photographs of Pyne from his early days and her collages, which are more of a dialogue between two artists, and about the friendship between them. However, I must credit Meera Pyne, who encouraged me to look at Bhargava’s collection, with a view to memorialising Pyne. This book is a tribute to the master, from all of us who admire him. I am grateful to Veena Bhargava—who is an established and respected artist in her own right, as you will see in the photo collages of Pyne that she has executed with precision and artistic insight and aesthetic—for sharing with us her precious archive documenting, what are probably the only available and surviving photographs of Ganesh Pyne from the earlier days. I take this opportunity to thank Ella Datta for the supporting text, and for being instrumental in commissioning Veena Bhargava for a unique photo shoot. Welcome to the personal world of Pyne!
Reena and abhijit Lath diRectoRs, akaR PRakaR
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Introduction Way back in 1984, my foray into photography and the darkroom as a student at Chitrabani, a media institute, led me to the portals of Ganesh Pyne’s home, at Kaviraj Row in Central Calcutta. My interest in photography was kindled during an artist’s workshop at Max Mueller Bhawan in the early eighties, where the mediums specified were collage, photography and screen-printing. A complete novice, I borrowed a camera and set about clicking city images. I was curious to learn how film images were transformed into prints. thus began my brief apprenticeship at the Chitrabani darkroom, run by Father Gaston Roberge S.J. The experience revealed to me the mysteries of dodging and burning of light, the delicate balance of chemicals with water, and the magical metamorphosis of film into visual images. The preference to shoot in aperture priority and manual mode with black-andwhite film was an instinctive choice for me. Black-and-white enhances the subtleties of tonal variation, texture and chiaroscuro. It was during this period that journalist ella Datta requested me to do a photo feature on Ganesh Pyne for The Illustrated Weekly of India. Though unsure and inexperienced, I accepted the challenge. Equipped with an Olympus OM2N camera and a Sekonic light meter, I embarked upon my assignment. I had never had the opportunity of meeting this much-acclaimed, gifted and reclusive artist. A dignified and reserved Pyne received me on the appointed morning and led me to his small
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and carefully arranged studio. An unfinished tempera lay on his table by the window. Initially self-conscious and shy, he gradually relaxed as we chatted, while I clicked away, intermittently thrusting my light meter at him! To get a sense of the neighbourhood, we went up to the terrace. Pyne pointed to a playful sketch of a skull and crossed bones on a dark, weathered wall. His lurking obsession with mortality was apparent even 35 years ago! Later, we climbed up a worn wooden staircase to his crumbling Mandar Mallick studio in Cornwallis Street, his retreat. Here, he sketched and contemplated in solitary silence. A diffused afternoon light cast a glow on his drawing table, dissolving into ominous shadows. A perfect setting for a secluded alchemist, his private universe of myth and make-believe, fantasy and fable, memories and imagination. The small room with darkened, flaking walls led through a shuttered door to an open terrace, where a heap of abandoned metal pipes and twigs lay neglected. It created a mysterious and surreal ambience, in tandem with Pyne’s imagery. A few weeks later, eager to show him my photographs, I caught him unawares. He introduced me to his mother and brother, Bijoy. A few days later, courteous as ever, he invited me to the Coffee House to thank me for the photo feature. Some 10 to 15 years later, Pyne disapprovingly said to me in Bengali, “Why did you come to the Coffee House in, “purushder jama (men’s clothing)?” Evidently, he was most embarrassed to be seen with me in what he considered the unsuitable attire of slacks and a top! In 1987, HelpAge India organised the first-ever Christies Art Auction in India, in erstwhile Bombay. The organisers and M.F. Husain were keen on Pyne’s participation, but he adamantly refused, being firmly against the concept of art auctions. As a participant, I was asked to persuade him to co-operate. He did not have a telephone, so I sent him a handdelivered letter. I quote from his reply: “Being a friend of mine, can’t you help me to get out of the Help Age hazard? Yes you can. I have written and explained … Their cause is great but my capacity is very much limited … mine is not a stationary shop and I don’t have ready articles all the time. So please tell them with your usual firmness, ‘Please don’t ask me to pounce on that poor mouse!’”
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Several years later, a much-married and visibly relaxed Ganesh and his wife, Meera, visited my home. I asked him what he would like to drink. He replied in jest, “Ja deben ami nebo. Bish deeleo aami khabo! (Whatever you give me, I’ll have. Even if it’s poison, I’ll drink it.)” Though introverted and introspective, Ganesh had an impish, playful side to him that surfaced when he relaxed with family and friends. More often than not, though, even in the presence of others, he had the ability to retreat into his private world, lost in thought, though outwardly attentive and smiling. In 2004, I participated in a CIMA Art Gallery exhibition entitled, Portraiture, Face to Face. My subjects were Ganesh Pyne and M.F. Husain. I decided, for the first time, to experiment with photo collage, using multiple images of Ganesh with appropriations from his work. For me, this was an unknown journey, an adventure; the sole intention was attempting to bring out the spirit and persona that was Ganesh Pyne. After several reminders, he granted me an appointment to photograph him at his south Kolkata home in Dakshinee. Ganesh was now a more self-assured man, a friend with superstar status. I clicked away with my old Olympus OM2N in his living room and in the confines of his private studio. I selected 12 images, along with Ganesh’s painting Queen. I enlarged the photographs and cut them manually to recreate and compose a collage that culminated in the composition, Face to Face 1. The collage was then photographed and printed by Bikash Bose, an accomplished photographer who excelled in darkroom work. The entire process was slow and tedious, perforce involving multiple visits to his darkroom, to enable me to achieve the desired tonal quality. However, film was becoming scarce and darkrooms were shutting down. The digital era had begun. I invested in a digital camera and set about learning Photoshop, so I could be in total control. With the able assistance of my patient teacher, Gopal Saha, I composed the remaining photo collages. These were then digitally printed on archival paper by the accomplished photographer Bivas Bhattacharjee.
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the images reproduced in this publication have been sourced from my bank of photographs shot on film in 1984 and 2004. The images that I refer to as “the other side of Pyne� were clicked at social occasions when Ganesh was relaxed, down to terra firma and away from his other-worldly perch! Over the years, both Ganesh and Meera have shown me great affection and generosity. Despite achieving fame and success, Ganesh remained modest, principled, dignified, disciplined and, above all, a fine human being with upright values. His single-minded passion and dedication to his work never left him. He was a rare combination of genius, character and commitment. Ironically, in a strangely serendipitous way, three and a half decades later, we have come full circle. Ella Datta and I have come together to pay our humble tribute to the memory of amader Ganesh Pyne at Akar Prakar.
V e e na b h a Rg aVa
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Memorialising Ganesh Pyne Writer and critic John Berger had once remarked that photographs are nothing but a record—important tools of identification and evidence. But photographs can be much more than visual records shot at a particular point of time, in a particular space. Invested with an ineffable quality, photographs become keepers of our personal memories, as well as the cultural memories of a community of people. the emotional charge that photographs generate by evoking the past is especially relevant to portrait photographs. Portrait photographs of eminent personalities stir up a complex set of feelings. For one, they exude a hint of sadness because they recall a person who is irretrievably lost. Susan Sontag, in her seminal essay “In Plato’s Cave”, describes portrait photography as an elegiac art. Notwithstanding the air of melancholy associated with portrait photographs, there is also a feeling of joyous recognition that the image of a well-loved, welladmired person is permanently frozen in time. These thoughts struck me as I saw the corpus of photographs of Ganesh Pyne (1937–2013), the outstanding artist of the post-sixties generation, shot by artist Veena Bhargava over the decades since 1984. Bhargava insists that she is not a photographer, nor even a chronicler. Her foray into photographing Pyne was merely a matter of chance. Nonetheless, she has collated a valuable archive of exceptional quality. These portrait photographs and photo collages will go
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a long way to bolster up the cultural memory of a people. During his lifetime, Pyne had already entered the popular culture of the city. In the early 1990s, the Bengali urban folk singer Kabir Suman sang “Ganesh Pyne shudhu amaderi janya … (Ganesh Pyne is only for us …)”. Pyne’s name appeared in the fiction published in the (Durga) Puja numbers of mass-circulating Bengali magazines. On a more selective level, this collection of photographs of a great artist will add freshness to his memory. Why do I call Ganesh Pyne “great”? Why does he excite the Bengali imagination so? There are many reasons embedded in his persona and his visual language. For one, his Modernist experiments did not reject the past entirely. He always acknowledged that Abanindranath Tagore was a source of inspiration. At the same time, he made radical experiments with figuration (the way he used skeletal elements in his forms), texturization, use of shadows and a subtle use of colours. His imagery offered an exciting experience. He could evoke with his skilled drawing intimations of vulnerability, danger and death. The mysterious shadows, the areas of crepuscular light in his picture space offered a moving experience. Then, of course, there was his persona. Known to be a shy recluse, he could be seen occasionally at the College Street Coffee House in the eighties, and more often at the evening adda at Basanta Cabin, where a number of writers, poets and theatre persons met regularly. The fifties and the sixties of the last century, when Pyne was evolving as an artist, Calcutta (now Kolkata) was abuzz with creative experiments. Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen were experimenting with a new cinematic language. In theatre, Sombhu Mitra, Utpal Dutt and a number of others were exploring the possibilities of a proscenium stage, and others such as Badal sircar were rejecting its illusion of reality and the physical constraints the space imposes. Tapas Sen was showing his wizardry with stage lights. A new generation of writers and poets—Mahasweta Devi, Samaresh Bose, Sunil Ganguli, Sakti Chattopadhyay—was stretching the limits of Bengali language and literature.
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returning to Calcutta from Bombay (now Mumbai) in the mid-seventies, I tried in my own small way to map the city’s hyperactive cultural space. Drawn as I was to Pyne’s work, it was in December of 1983 that I did an in-depth interview with him, for my sunday column in Business Standard. Pyne was still recovering from the untimely death of his older brother some three years ago. he answered my questions frankly but spoke in a measured way. Everything he said was tinged with a note of melancholy. It was clear that he had a sharp intellect, and at the same time, he had created a private world of fantasy within himself. The interview prompted Pritish Nandy, the editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, to commission me for an even longer interview. He made a special point that the portrait photographs accompanying the piece should be distinctive. As a dynamic editor with a sharp eye for details, he knew that in mass-circulating publications, images have a very limited shelf-life. A quick shot from midrange by a bored and uninvolved press photographer can get easily jaded from repeated use. Hence his request for a fresh series of images. And this is where Veena Bhargava entered the project. She has written about the assignment at length. My reason for recommending her to Nandy was that I knew that she was experimenting with photography and that she would look at her subject with an artist’s eye. And, of course, the results of the assignment yielded an amazingly sensitive portfolio of portrait photographs, as well as an archive of immense value to the cultural history of the city. These photographs
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were taken during different phases of Pyne’s life, and out of these emerged a group of photo collages composed with great ingenuity and depth of feeling—the focal point being Pyne, the remarkable artist, and his laboratory of lines. The corpus of photographs and photo collages may be broadly divided into three parts, according to the time periods in which they were composed. These are the 1984 photographs; the 2004 photographs, including images of Pyne’s wall drawings; and the photo collages that Bhargava has been working on since 2004. The first lot includes eloquent portraits shot at Pyne’s ancestral residence at Kaviraj Row in central Kolkata and the building at Cornwallis Street, the location of Mandar Mallick’s studio for animation films, where he used to work as a part-time illustrator. When Mallick died and the studio was shut down, his widow invited Pyne to continue working there and so Pyne would go there in the afternoons and do his drawings in this old, dilapidated place where the marks of passing time could be seen everywhere. The second group of portraits were taken in 2004 at his apartment near Southern Avenue, in south Kolkata. There are also photos of Pyne relaxing in the company of others. Of particular interest in this set are those that capture the wall drawings made by the artist in the small studio in his apartment. These wall drawings, bearing Pyne’s unmistakable imprimatur, are compelling. In his new residence, for the first time in his life, he had his own studio, and it is exciting to see how he appropriated the space by leaving his signature on the walls, so to speak. This is a rare suite of photos, which gives a glimpse of Pyne’s private hideout. The photo collages have been an ongoing process since 2004. Pyne’s portrait photos have been used ingeniously by Bhargava, often along with elements from his temperas and mixed medias, to explore the mindscape of the artist. In the first set of the 1984 photographs, both Pyne and his photographer/artist are much younger.
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Pyne was just becoming famous and acquiring both national and international acclaim. But he responded and opened up to the photographer, who was also a fellow artist. The photographs indicate that it had been a warmly collaborative project. this collection of photographs turned out to be one of the most memorable set of portrait photographs by any photographer. Bhargava framed her shy, reserved subject in a number of ways—close-ups, medium-range shots, where the subject is shown against the background of his built environment. For these photographs, Bhargava used a hand-held camera with a light meter. She developed those photographs herself to achieve the right effect. All this effort produced a series of remarkable photographic portraiture. Perhaps the most outstanding of them is the three-quarter face with fingers cupping the chin and mouth, shot in the so-called studio facility at Cornwallis Street. In this shot, Pyne looks thoughtful, lost in the world of his imagination. Bhargava has captured the artist’s skin tone and the texture of the shawl wrapped around his shoulders. Pyne allowed Bhargava to capture a moment of his rarely revealed inner life, and of course, the artist/photographer was alert enough to seize the moment. Indeed, the unselfconscious moment between the subject and the photographer, who freezes the instant, is almost epiphanic. In this series of photographs taken in 1984, there is an informal, collaborative interaction. Pyne has not created an insurmountable distance between himself and the photographer. An
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example of this is noticed in the set of Kaviraj Row photographs. Pyne took Bhargava to the terrace of his residence to show her a panoramic view of the neighbourhood. And there, as one photograph shows, he pointed out to her a drawing of a skull and crossbones on the moss-encrusted wall of the terrace, which he had done. This sense of easy exchange can be seen in many of the images, such as Pyne making tea for Bhargava at Cornwallis Street. There are photographs where Pyne is laughing candidly. There is one portrait where Pyne is leaning against a door frame at the entrance of his Kaviraj Row home. The axis of his body is slightly aslant. There is a great deal of insouciance expressed in these works. In contrast, there are also a number of portraits that capture the pensive artist deeply immersed in his thoughts. These are the Pynes that are evocative of his public persona. One exclusive set of photographs show Pyne working on a tempera in a secluded corner of his Kaviraj Row home. The unusualness of the images lies in the fact that Pyne was a very private artist and would never make a display of his creative process. There are also shots of him with his drawing at Cornwallis Street. During that first photoshoot done at two locations, I think the ones taken in the crumbling mansion at Cornwallis street are more expressive. Bhargava has intuitively caught the signs of erosion caused by time—the broken plaster baring the old brickwork, the paint on the French windows bleached dry with passing years,
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water pots and other ageing paraphernalia of everyday life. These signs of decay and erosion have left their mark on the range of textures in Pyne’s paintings. The second group of photos, taken some 20 years later, is a contrast to the earlier series. By 2004, Pyne had become famous. Collectors were queuing up to acquire his works. He had moved into this spacious, modern apartment near Vivekananda Park. Starkly unlike his earlier residence, here everything was smooth, polished, glistening, well-ordered. Pyne had acquired an added gravitas with age, and presented a distant, aloof demeanour. The only photograph in which he looks a little relaxed is the one with his wife, Meera. In sharp contrast to the photos of Pyne by himself or of Pyne at work. The photos of Pyne relaxing alone or with others do not provide much insight into the artist’s character. They reveal no intensity. The photo collages are another matter. Bhargava’s ability to explore the possibilities of a new medium is impressive. The collages show her originality and ingenuity. Initially, with Pyne’s photographs juxtaposed with elements from his paintings, Bhargava attempts to conjure up his interior world. She also seeks to crystallize the emotions that Pyne expresses in his work. Like some outstanding stage designer or scenographer, she creates memorable settings. Being an artist, Bhargava’s own sense of composition comes into play in these collages. She uses a range of props to heighten the atmosphere. Take, for instance, the collage where Pyne is seen standing intently. Overseeing the artist at work is the anthropomorphic insect from
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Pyne’s painting called Queen. To intensify the mood, Bhargava has introduced a lantern often seen in Pyne’s temperas and white driftwoods that look like bleached bones. In another collage, she has used the bust of the priest-king from Mohenjo-Daro. In most of the collages, Bhargava evokes the element of mystery often found in Pyne’s works, as seen in the photo collage where she has juxtaposed two portraits of Pyne and coloured the image a lurid red. It signals an anticipation of danger. As the collages progress, Bhargava demonstrates a confident grasp over her medium. She engages in a dialogue with Pyne where his portrait encounters her images. For instance, the portrait of Pyne with her drawing of goddess Kali dancing on a field of skulls brings into focus the artist’s obsession with death. In another collage, a horned figure drawn by Bhargava plays chess with a Pyne portrait. Bhargava has explored what is for her a new medium and scored an immense success. Visually both intriguing and dramatic, they throw fresh light on Pyne’s persona and present his imagery in a new light. Altogether, this collection of photographic portraits is an artistic project of immense value. It is an unparalleled archive, which memorialises Ganesh Pyne, one of the foremost artists of postindependent India. It also foregrounds Veena Bhargava’s sensitivity towards her subject. Her representation of Pyne as a thinking person with a great deal of emotional empathy arouses a rush of nostalgic memories and prompts us to see him as the cultural icon that he is. ella Datta All paint ings an d d r a win gs in t h is essa y a r e b y G a n e s h Py n e .
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kaviraj and cornwallis
A t t he e n t ran c e t o M an dar Mal l i ck’s st udi o at t he de c re pi t man s i o n o n C o r nwal l i s S t reet , u se d by Py n e as a w o rki n g spac e. 20
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Py n e w i t h an u n f i n i she d t e mpe ra at hi s Kav i raj R o w st u di o. 23
Fac i n g pa g e : Py n e st andi ng at t he ent ranc e o f hi s ho me at Ka v i raj Ro w. 24
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Pyne at Mandar M allick stu dio: “ H e re, he sk etched and con te m plate d in solitar y silenc e. A dif fuse d af te r n oon light cast a glo w on Pyne’s dra w in g ta ble, dissolvin g in to om in ou s sh ado w s.” 27
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M andar Mallick ’s stu d io: Pyn e reading by the af te r n oon light. 29
E n t ran c e t o M an dar M al l ick’s st udi o. 30
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART
Memorialising Ganesh Pyne
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART Photographs & Photo Collages
by Veena Bhargava
A Jubilant Quest for the Chromatic
Veena Bhargava Ganesh Pyne and Ella Datta Veena Bhargva and Ella Datta 96 pages, pages,35 88photographs b&w photographs 96 and 9 x 8” (228.6 x 203 mm), pb with 53 illustrations 9gatefold x 8” (228.6 x 203 mm), pb with gatefold ISBN: 978-93-85360-83-1 978-93-85360-83-1 ISBN: ₹1500||$37.50 $37.50| |£23 £23 ₹1500 2020 •• World Worldrights rights 2020
Veena BhargaVa studied fine arts at the Government College of art and Craft, Kolkata, and the art students League of new york, and photography at Chitrabani, Kolkata. She has held several individual exhibitions in Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and participated in several group exhibitions in India and abroad. She has also worked in several interactive and collaborative artists workshops. Bhargava has received several awards for painting and drawing by the Birla academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata, and in 1986 she received the national award from Lalit Kala akademi, new Delhi. Her works are in several public collections, including national Gallery of Modern art, new Delhi, The Alkazi Collection, New Delhi, Birla academy of art & Culture, Kolkata, Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore, Madhavan Nayar Centre For Visual Arts, Kochi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and the Masonori Fukuoka & Glenbarra Art Museum, Hemeji, Japan, and several corporate and private collections in India and abroad. Bhargava lives and works in Kolkata. ella Datta has been tracking the Indian art scene for more than thirty years. she is a writer and journalist who has been published by nearly all the national and business dailies. she is the author of Ganesh Pyne: His Life and Times (CIMA Gallery, Calcutta), The Art of A. Ramachandran (Roli Books, New Delhi), A Walk in the Woods: The Art of Paramjit Singh (Yoda Press, New Delhi), Face to Face: Art Practice of A. Ramachandran (Guild art Gallery, Mumbai), and Jamini Roy: Journey to the Roots (national Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi). She has also written a book on art for children, Lines and Colours: Discovering Indian Art (National Book Trust, New Delhi). Datta was the Tagore National Fellow for Cultural Research, attached to the national Gallery of Modern art (2011–2013). For the NGMA, she curated the exhibition Circle of Art: The Three Tagores (2011) and Jamini Roy: Journey to the Roots (2013). she also curated an exhibition of Arpita Singh’s work for Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi (2014).