• Samit Das / Pernod Ricard Fellowship 2017
  • Events
  • Publication
    •

    Samit Das / Pernod Ricard Fellowship 2017

    In residency in May, and from October to December 2017

    Samit Das (1970, Jamshedpur, India) studied fine arts at the Santiniketan Kala Bhavan before attending a post Experience pro­gram at Camberwell College of Arts in London through a British Council Scholarship. As an artist, he spe­cial­izes in painting, pho­tog­raphy, inter­ac­tive art­works, artists’ books as well as in cre­ating multi-sen­sory envi­ron­ments through art and archi­tec­tural instal­la­tions. He also has a deep interest in archives and doc­u­men­ta­tion.

    Samit Das had sev­eral solo shows as well as group shows in India and abroad. He was notably part of the Dakar Biennale, Senegal. He has doc­u­mented the Tagore house Museum In Kolkata (1999-2001). Samit Das started his research on Santiniketan Architecture during his MFA studies, which resulted in a book titled Architecture of Santiniketan : Tagore’s con­cepts of space (Niyogy Books, Delhi). He has curated a few his­tory-based exhi­bi­tions like The Idea of space and Rabindranath Tagore and Resonance of Swami Vivekananda and Art of Nandalal Bose. He was awarded a BRIC schol­ar­ship to visit Italy. His artist’s book, Hotel New Bengal, was released in 2009 (Onestar Press, France). He was recently awarded a Research schol­ar­ship from ProHelvetia New Delhi to visit Switzerland.

    Installation project inspired by Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Villa (details), Chandigarh Museum, 2001.

    STATEMENT OF INTENT

    "Through the Pernod Ricard Fellowship, I intend to inves­ti­gate the visual vocab­u­lary of Indian modern art in res­o­nance with Paris as world cul­tural cap­ital. I am inter­ested in reassessing the idea of mod­ernism in India and the role of Western Art, with a spe­cial focus on the numerous Indian artists who vis­ited and stayed in France. The his­tory of col­o­niza­tion in India is long and com­pli­cated, making it dif­fi­cult to find rel­e­vant archives, in par­tic­ular doc­u­ments which have had indi­rect effect on the arts. Indeed, fusion of dif­ferent styles has been observed at dif­ferent points in time in India, giving rise to a new imagery during the late 40’s. The legacy of this mixed style is still rel­e­vant today and one ought to be familiar with its form to under­stand con­tem­po­rary art prac­tices in India.

    I have observed a his­tor­ical vacuum at the expense of the mod­ernist era in India after the Bengal school art move­ment. This mul­ti­faceted move­ment not only included painting but also the­atre, art crit­i­cism, music, sculp­ture, inte­rior dec­o­ra­tion and so on. However, much of it remains undis­cov­ered. There is a cru­cial need for a better expo­sure of this period in order to under­stand Modernism as well as modern and con­tem­po­rary art in India. The study of sources col­lected in French museums, pri­vate col­lec­tions or jour­nals would lead to a better under­standing of Indian artists who stayed and studied in Paris in the 40’s and 50’s such as Nirode Mazumdar, Krishna Reddy and Akbar Padamsee could be con­sid­ered."