Rossi & Rossi is proud to present Stargazing – an exhibition bringing to London a discriminating body of works by five prolific Indian women artists: Anita Dube, Chitra Ganesh, Mithu Sen, Nida Abidi and Jaishri Abichandani. Provocatively addressing issues of gender, race and power, Stargazing is a fantastical contemplation on hidden realities at the personal and cosmic level. The exhibition includes installation, sculpture, drawings and prints, with new works created for the show and a full-colour catalogue featuring a critical essay by Stargazing’s curator Jaishri Abichandani.
Applying a Hindu tantric lens, the artists approach their work with a sensual, subversive and dark femininity akin to the energy of Kali, the fierce goddess associated with empowerment. Chitra Ganesh, recently awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, exhibits Performing in Paradise, a portrait of the iconic Grace Jones pulsating with raw, visceral energy. Envisioning herself as a male Borg drone in Cyborg as Self, Jaishri Abichandani alludes to the androgynous iconography of Ardhanarishvara, which highlights the goddess as the source of divine power. With a hint of black magic and science fiction, Stargazing’s works reverberate between the mortal and mythic, seductive and repulsive, personal and political, interrogating the body, transformation and fantasies of power.
From the body of work that won her the prestigious Skoda Prize for Indian contemporary art, Mithu Sen’s You Owe Me pries into the male psyche, presenting hermaphroditic male bodies pregnant with impossibilities. Nida Abidi’s Weatherproof examines the intersections of fashion, power and identity at play in the Muslim hijab. Meanwhile, Anita Dube's installations provide an abstract counterpoint to the show’s figurative works. Her constellation Neti Neti envisions a blueprint for revolution, overlapping outlines of a traditional pattern, a map and a random doodle to represent the collision of tradition, place and spontaneity. Bringing these provocative works together, Stargazing is a rare insight into the acute and bold visions of five outstanding international artists.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Chitra Ganesh received a Guggenheim fellowship for 2012. She has an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and has exhibited at MoMA PS1, The Andy Warhol Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Mithu Sen won the Skoda prize for Indian contemporary art in 2010. Educated at the Glasgow School of Art, she has exhibited extensively in India as well as at MoCA Shanghai, SoMA Seoul and MoMAT Tokyo. Anita Dube is an art historian and critic turned artist. Since her involvement with the Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors Association (1984-89), she has exhibited at The Centre Pompidou, Haunch of Venison, Espace LouisVuitton, and the Venice, Moscow and Prague Biennales. Nida Abidi is an emerging artist with a MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. She has exhibited at C24 Gallery, Cuchifritos and MoCADA in New York. Jaishri Abichandani founded the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective in 1997 and received her MFA from Goldsmiths College in 2005. She has exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery, MoMA PS1 and the Guangzhou Triennial.
