Galerie 88

'Lyric, Still', our retrospective on the late artist Sushen Ghosh.

Born in 1940, Sushen Ghosh grew up in Silchar, Assam, wherein he received a Government Scholarship to pursue his studies in Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, in 1959. At this pivotal juncture, Ghosh trained under his illustrious mentors, Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij, paying careful attention to both materiality and notions of form. Seen here are archival images of his journey, beginning from Santiniketan to his studies in London.

Upon completing his studies, In 1969, he was awarded the British Council Scholarship to study art at Goldsmiths, University of London – a crucial moment in his career, exposing the artist to stalwarts from the Western canon, as he learned from Henry Moore, and took inspiration by experiencing works by Matisse, Paul Klee, and Cezanne, amongst others, and remained specifically indebted to Modigliani and Brancusi.
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# Sushen Ghosh with his sculpture of Ramkinkar Baij, his teacher and mentor

# Sushen Ghosh receiving his diploma of Fine Art and Craft from Shantiniketan in 1963 from Jawaharlal Nehru

# Sushen Ghosh in London in 1970 where he pursued his Masters at Goldsmith University

# Sushen Ghosh with sculptor Kenneth Armitage

# correspondence between Henry Moore and Sushen Ghosh
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Our ongoing retrospective, ‘Lyric, Still’ on Sushen Ghosh runs till 30 November 2023.
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Galerie 88 is pleased to present ‘Lyric, Still’ - a retrospective of the reclusive sculptor, Sushen Ghosh (1940 – 2023), in collaboration with Project 88, Mumbai. Renowned for his colossal sculptural installations at Santiniketan, out here, viewers will notice how this ‘monumentality’ unexpectedly emerges in the late artist’s smaller, more intimate sculptures.

With curated excerpts of the last five decades of Ghosh’s practice, this exhibition will be the first in-depth analysis of the artists’ oeuvre, one that has largely remained elusive to the public eye. Here, one will grasp the beginnings and making of Ghosh’s unique visuality, a language that unsettles existing binaries within the art historical canon; for the artist’s abstraction can neither be termed as emerging from ‘Western’ influences, nor purely from the ‘East’, rather, they become meticulous (and formal) interventions on concepts of universal significance, thinking through science, poetry, philosophy, and most crucially, the lyricality of sound.

We look forward to welcoming you at our space this Saturday!
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Galerie 88 is pleased to present, ‘Lyric, Still: Sculptures by Sushen Ghosh’, a selected retrospective on the artist, opening at our gallery on 07 October 2023.
Watch our space for more details in the days to come!
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Marking Maqbool Fida Hussain’s 108th birth anniversary, we look back into our archive; recollecting incredible and rare moments in our experience working with the artist - a legend and radical luminary of his time.
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Image 1: M.F Hussain at Galerie 88, 2003.

Image 2: M.F Hussain with our gallery Director, Supriya Banerjee, captured in Singapore, 2005.

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Project 88 is pleased to present ‘Lyric, Still’ - a retrospective of the reclusive sculptor, Sushen Ghosh (1940 – 2023), in collaboration with Galerie 88, Kolkata. Renowned for his colossal sculptural installations at Santiniketan, out here, viewers will notice how this ‘monumentality’ unexpectedly emerges in the late artist’s smaller, more intimate sculptures.

With curated excerpts of the last five decades of Ghosh’s practice, this exhibition will be the first in-depth analysis of the artists’ oeuvre, one that has largely remained elusive to the public eye. Here, one will grasp the beginnings and making of Ghosh’s unique visuality, a language that unsettles existing binaries within the art historical canon; for the artist’s abstraction can neither be termed as emerging from ‘Western’ influences, nor purely from the ‘East’, rather, they become meticulous (and formal) interventions on concepts of universal significance, thinking through science, poetry, philosophy, and most crucially, the lyricality of sound.

This exhibition will be accompanied with an essay by art historian Dr. Anshuman Dasgupta. We look forward to welcoming you at our space this Thursday!

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Photographs From Edna Lorenz Pvt. Ltd

The exhibition "Stitched Paintings" of Meera Mukherjee has been extended till Saturday, 15 July, 2023 at Galerie 88

“পঁচিশে পাঁচটায়/25th@5” Session on Stitched Paintings at Galerie 88

Stitched Paintings | The Exhibition Celebrates the Centenary of Meera Mukherjee

The Kantha as a form of stitched picture-making was a brainchild of the veteran artist Meera Mukherjee (1923 -1998) who formed it into a collaborative project and worked on it for almost thirty years of her artistic life. The Kantha has been referred to as “stitched painting” by Shri Nirmal Sengupta, the artist’s lifelong friend. Working with the children and women at Elachi and Nolgorhat in South 24 Parganas, then the outskirts of the city, the artist initiated a unique conversation that led to an unparalleled creative journey. The Kanthas (hand stitched and embroidered quilt made out of old saris) emerged from the drawings of a group of underprivileged, rural children. These drawings then found a distinct body as embroidery in the hands of local Muslim women to finally claim an aesthetic fulfilment under the nurturing supervision of the sculptor. She too often laid her hands on the Kanthas to usher their appearance as evolved visual designs. From the Kanthas again, Abu Taher, a traditional carpet weaver, weaves an exotic pictorial surface. Thus

“Kanthas from children’s drawings and paintings and carpets from these Kanthas are experimentations to show how creativity could be made to flow harmoniously among groups of people. Each person in a group and each group in the project contributing to the entire process make a rich, vibrant and lively language of art evolve.” These are most familiar lines to the friends and acquaintances of the late sculptor Meera Mukherjee. Meera’s consistent effort to explore creative potential of individuals and her ability to effectively direct them to one integrative whole open up some very important avenues enlivening the spirit of a craft form and modification of its purposes. In this project, the artist leads the way of the collective creative force, from child-art to more pronounced art forms involving traditional pictorial registers and complex technicalities. It was not only a major part of her artistic pursuit, but also amply reflected on the way she realised the social significance of art and its role in community life.

Contemplating the 'Persimmon', an exhibition of sculptures and drawings by Sandip Chakraborty - The show will be on view until 31st December 2022

# Opening Reception #

Galerie 88 is delighted to present Contemplating the 'Persimmon', an exhibition of sculptures and drawings by Sandip Chakraborty. The show focuses on a dialogue between an informed perspective and a refined sensibility leading to an expression that is insightful and aesthetically fulfilling. The sculptural pieces effectively combine the natural with the nurtural. Professor Sandip Chakraborty (born 1961) is currently a faculty with the Department of Sculpture, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

Opening reception is on Friday, 25th November from 6 pm onwards. The show will be on view until 31st December 2022 .

At the ongoing exhibition, "Meera Mukherjee: Photographs by Arun Ganguly",
marking the launch of the centenary year of the artist,
Galerie 88 is honoured to host a talk,
"Meera Mukherjee: In her studio beyond the studio", by
Samik Bandopdhyay,
Eminent theatre and film scholar, cultural critic, editor-publisher and bibliophile.
The talk will be introduced and moderated by the exhibition curators, Adip Dutta and Tapati Guha-Thakurta,
Venue: Galerie 88, 28-B Shakespeare Sarani, Kolkata 700017
Date and time: Saturday, 23rd July, 2022, 5 pm

'A Pensive Meera at the end of a day at Elachi', December 1990. Arun Ganguly.

Galerie 88 is honoured to mark the beginning of Meera Mukherjee’s centenary year, by announcing the forthcoming exhibition “Meera Mukherjee: Photographs by Arun Ganguly”. A selection of extraordinary photographs from the archives of Arun Ganguly on Meera Mukherjee, the exhibition is jointly curated by Adip Dutta and Tapati Guha-Thakurta, and is now scheduled to open at the gallery on Friday, 17th June, 2022.

At the centre of these photographs is the theme of work and labour - and the intricacies and enormity of both in Meera Mukherjee's techniques of making sculptures in the cire perdue (lost wax) metal-casting technique. Her indebtedness to the method learnt fin Bastar flowed over to the community she lived and worked with in Elachi, on the outskirts of Kolkata, where she seasonally carried out the collective work of casting. Redefining what it meant to be an artisan cm artist, she recognized the critical role of collective work and bodily labour in the particular form of art-making to which she dedicated her life and being.

Unfamiliar neighbors at first, Arun Ganguly first met Meera Mukherjee in January 1978 at her Paddapukur home in Bhowanipur when he came to make colour transparencies of her work process for her upcoming lecture in Baroda. Setting up a parallel process of black and white photography for his own archives, he began extensively photographing Meera Mukherjee at work over several seasons of her sculpting, beginning in 1978 and resuming in full flow in the 1990s. His photographs poignantly carry over into the months after her death in 1998, when he ended his series by documenting the completion of her last unfinished work, a monumental seated Buddha, by the community she had trained and nurtured.

We look forward to welcoming you at Galerie 88 in a few weeks for the exhibition and other programmes for this centenary year, leading to the publication of a long-planned book on Meera Mukherjee, to be compiled and edited by Tapati Guha-Thakurta.

MEERA MUKHERJEE (12th May, 1923 - 27th January, 1998):
CELEBRATING HER CENTENARY

The immense intricacy (often referred to as 'technicality' by the artist herself) and labour of her process of sculpting became the defining identity of Meera Mukherjee. Her work became for her a way of life, an alternative chosen mode of existence, as she carried the lost-wax technique of metal-casting that she had learnt from traditional metal craftsmen of India into new orders of scale, innovation and creativity, and as she simultaneously moved her individual practice into a place of collective community work. This image of her working in the small verandah of her rented home on Paddapukur Road in Bhawanipur in south Kolkata was taken in 1978 by the professional photographer, Arun Ganguly. As her neighbour in Bhawanipur and a committed observer of her work processes and their end-products, Arun Ganguly photographed Meera Mukherjee over several seasons of her sculpting, in her Kolkata home and at her work place at Elachi (a rural suburb of the city). He began photographing her in 1978, resuming in the 1990s, and poignantly carrying over into the months after her death in 1998, when he ended his series by documenting the completion of her last unfinished work, her monumental seated Buddha, by the community she had trained and nurtured.

Galerie 88 is honoured to mark Meera Mukherjee's 99th birthday and the beginning of her centenary year, by announcing a forthcoming exhibition of a selection of these extraordinary photographs from the large Arun Ganguly collection. Jointly curated by Tapati GuhaThakurta and Adip Datta, the exhibition is scheduled to open at the gallery on Friday, 11th June, 2022. On the anvil are other programmes for this centenary year - lectures, conversations, films screenings, leading to the publication of a long-planned book on Meera Mukherjee, that will be compiled and edited by Tapati Guha-Thakurta.