Art meets fashion in unique fusion showcase

NEW DELHI - Ten top fashion designers and as many acclaimed artists of the country will merge art with fashion in a unique exposition starting here Wednesday.

The artists will create two works each - one representing their own oeuvre and the second a fashion design or work to adorn the human body - at “Convergence: Art & Fashion” in the India Habitat Centre till Nov 30. The show will move to Art Positive in Lado Sarai Arts Village Dec 1.

Likewise, each fashion designer will present one work from their signature style and a two or three dimensional art work straddling genres like painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, performance as well as fashion design.

The participating artists are Seema Kohli, Manu Parekh, Satish Gupta, Dileep Sharma, Ravi Kumar Kashi, Sujata Bajaj, Yusuf Arakkal, Baba Anand, Viveek Sharma and Paramjit Singh.

The fashion fraternity will be represented by designers Manish Malhotra, Ritu Kumar, J.J. Valaya, Manish Arora, Himanshu Dogra, Malini Ramani, Little Shilpa (Shilpa Chavan), Rajesh Pratap Singh, Gaurav Gupta and Varun Sardana.

The show will be curated by Sushma Bahl and Vidyun Singh and presented by Art Positive, a unit of the Bajaj Capital Art House.

Bahl said: “The exhibition will try to explore how contemporary Indian art is marked by its rich cerebral and conceptual undercurrents as reflected in its bold experimentation and play with forms, materials and ideas.”

“As in the pop art movements of the 1960s in the west, Indian art too is increasingly seen to embody design and fashion within its folds,” she said.

“Fashion designers and their creations are finding pride of place in museums and art exhibitions. This crossover between artistic genres since the 1990s has opened up people’s perceptions of what art stands for,” the curator said.

Artist Ravi Kumar Kashi will present a set of six T-shirts, hand painted with waterproof ink and a paper work, “Doubting Thomas”.

“The T-shirts for the show are called ‘Inside out’, as they reveal what we cover or hide by wearing clothes. I have painted them with water proof ink. The art will represent regeneration of the body,” he said.

Similarly, artist Satish Gupta has made two works called “Shwe De Gong”, a canvas composition and a silk and wool shawl with painted Buddha images to cover the body.

“After a recent and inspiring trip to Myanmar, I have created two works of art. The take-off point for the silk and wool shawl was a fabric specially created by craftspeople of ‘INDIA, INDIA’ in maroon and black which compliments the painting,” Gupta said.

“Superimposing the Buddha images on the fabric came naturally. I believe that creativity cannot be restricted to any one medium,” he added.

Artist Baba Anand is making a rock-star styled gold jacket for the show, apart from an installation of 22 boxes, “Life Box”, painted in glossy laboratory white.

“The jacket and the installation were a clinical examination of the western society to probe the first artistic anthropology of the habits of the Global Village at the dawn of the 21st century,” he said.

Fashion designer Manish Arora has made swarovski embellished animal toys as his work of art besides a fashion garment, while J.J. Valaya’s work will include an ornate garment on an aging dummy that has seen years of use and disasters.

Ritu Kumar will present a dress and a painting for the show.

Gaurav Gupta will present an installation exploring the functionality of a “perceived” non-functional medium along with his designer attire.

Anu Bajaj, director of Art Positive, said the showcase is an initiative to “celebrate the cross fertilisation between two diverse worlds, having an interestingly similar backdrop”.