Avinash Veeraraghavan: Difference between revisions

{{Multiple issues|{{Notability|date=February 2020}}

Born in 1975 in [[Chennai]],<ref name="artfortheworld">http://www.artfortheworld.net/wwd/2007/urban_manners/Artists_biographies.pdf</ref> Tamil Nadu, Veeraraghavan did a post-school programme at the Centre for Learning<ref name="mybangalore" /> in [[Bangalore]] under the guidance of Andrea Anastasio in 1995.

Using digital as well as manual cut-and-paste techniques, Veeraraghavan 'collected pictures from all over and reconstructed an imaginary, generic city'.<ref>http://chngyaohong.com/blog/contemporary/avinash-veeraraghavan/{{Unreliable source?|date=July 2011}}{{Dead link|date=June 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The book is divided into three sections – Billboard City, Weak Architecture and Remote City, the book juxtaposes images without any evident hierarchy.  ''I Love My India'' was printed on uncoated stock paper, with one commentator describing it as a bright [[pastiche]] of images born of everyday urban [[aesthetics]].<ref>De, Aditi, A City in the Mind, http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/life/2005/04/08/stories/2005040800130300.htm</ref>  

''I Love My India'' has been described as a visual journey through Indian cities from a rare non-western point of view.<ref>Dewi Lewis Publishing http://www.dewilewispublishing.com/PHOTOGRAPHY/ILMI.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928220752/http://www.dewilewispublishing.com/PHOTOGRAPHY/ILMI.html |date=28 September 2011 }}</ref> (It) celebrates [[billboard]]s, street-life, [[kitsch]] and popular culture.<ref>Ravindran, Shruti, The Self, Out There http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?235001</ref>  

The material comes from city streets, construction sites, [[traffic]], and film posters.  It also references literary images,  [[myth]]s and [[signboards]].<ref>Jakimowicz, Marta, Collage Comes Alive http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/jan172005/ar1.asp {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004205430/http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanherald/jan172005/ar1.asp |date=4 October 2012 }}</ref> According to one commentator, the book moves through the spaces and signs of the city — both imaginative and physical — commenting on the complex and often surreal forms of human arrangements.<ref>Asian Photography Blog http://chngyaohong.com/blog/contemporary/avinash-veeraraghavan/{{Unreliable source?|date=July 2011}}{{Dead link|date=June 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>  

In 2008, Veeraraghavan exhibited his work ''Gate Crash''  at Krinzinger Projekte in Vienna.  

In Gate Crash, Veeraraghavan created heavily collaged images.<ref name="preview-art">Johnson, Mia http://www.preview-art.com/previews/04-2009/contemporaryindia.html {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.is/20130131173536/http://www.preview-art.com/previews/04-2009/contemporaryindia.html |date=31 January 2013 }}</ref> The prints consist of two layers each:

The first layer is images of the artist's old clothes and toys, and [[Multiple exposure|double exposed]] on top are appropriated images of [[dollhouse]]s.  According to one analysis, the dollhouses and toys reference an aspect of childhood that is at times [[childlike]] and at others childish. They also highlight a desire to live and function in a [[Make believe|make believe world]], one that imitates and duplicates the world outside but is in reality a private one.  

A second opaque layer of clothes and toys on the surface, according to the analysis, prevents any further [[insight]], annulling the illusion of depth carried by the photographs of the dollhouses. They are described as “psychic shimmers devoid of narrative, but derived from the images of the [[Flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict|flotsam]] and jetsam of everyday lives.”<ref name="preview-art" />  

In 2009, Veeraraghavan presented his solo exhibition ''Toy Story'' at GALLERYSKE, comprising prints, a video, objects and a little book<ref>Interview with Jaideep Sen, Time Out Bengaluru</ref> cArt critic and curator, Marta Jakimowicz wrote,<blockquote>“Avinash Veeraraghavan's new exhibition at Galleryske again brings a fascinating layering of images and sensations that ambiguously oscillate between reality and fantasy, childhood atmosphere and adult perception, between literal roughness and poetry, innocent beauty and morbidity, its many elements permeating and reflecting one another with some clash or merely gap and some complementary qualities.”<ref>Jakimowicz, Marta, ''Deccan Herald'', http://www.deccanherald.com/content/18813/art-talk.html</ref></blockquote>Veeraraghavan used cheap, plastic toys that are commonly found on the streets of India as a central reference. In addition to the ten photographic prints of staged sites of destruction using plastic toys that have been set up, there were also two object pieces  

* an unmade bed, with a pile of tiny cheap toys spilled over  

== Selected Exhibitions ==

* Urban Manners 2, curated by [[Adelina von Fürstenberg|Adelina Von Furstenberg,]] Art for The World at [[SESC-Pompeia (São Paulo Metro)|SESC Pompeia]], São Paulo, Brazil

* Still Moving Image, Curated by Deeksha Nath, Devi Art Foundation, [[New Delhi]] (<nowiki/>cat)

* Indian Summer, Curated by Henri Claude Cousseau, Deepak Ananth and Jany Lauga [<nowiki/>[[École des Beaux-Arts|Ecole de Beaux Arts,]] Paris]