Rachid KoraÏchi
Laxmi Yantra
Early 20th c.
Natural pigment on paper
9.5 x 10.5 in.
Checkerboard Hari Hari Yantra
Early 20th c.
Natural pigment on paper
13 x 13.5 in.
Yantra
Early 20th c.
Natural pigment on paper
6.75 x 5.75 in.
Om Yantra
Late 19th c.
Natural pigment on paper
13.25 x 11.5 in.
Muruja Painting: A Place to Worship the Moon
19th c.
Natural pigment on paper
16.5 x 12.5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (5)
c. 1990
Natural pigments on paper
11.25 x 5.75 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (4)
c. 1990
Natural pigments on paper
11 x 5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (3)
c. 1990
Natural pigments on paper
11.25 x 5.75 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (2)
c. 1990
Natural pigments on paper
11.25 x 5.75 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (1)
c. 1990
Natural pigments on paper
11.5 x 5.5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 35)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
7 x 6 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 33)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
5.5 x 5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 22)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
5.5 x 5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 11)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
6 x 5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 1)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
5.25 x 4.5 in.
Anonymous
Untitled (Tantric 45)
ca. 1980 - 2014
Natural pigments (hand-ground colors: including minerals, mother of pearl, coral, tree resin, vegetable pastes) on vintage paper
6 x 5.5 in.
Badrinath Pandit
Untitled (1)
1960s
Pigment on paper
5.5 x 4.75 in.
Badrinath Pandit
Untitled (2)
1960s
Pigment on paper
7 x 6.25 in.
Badrinath Pandit
Untitled (3)
1960s
Pigment on paper
6.25 x 6.25 in.
Badrinath Pandit
Untitled (4)
1960s
Pigment on paper
6 x 6 in.
Acharya Vyakul
Untitled (37)
1990s
Pigment on paper
7 x 9 in.
Acharya Vyakul
Untitled (41)
1990s
Pigment on paper
6 x 9 in.
Acharya Vyakul
Untitled (45)
1990s
Pigment on paper
10.5 x 8 in.
Acharya Vyakul
Untitled (46)
1990s
Pigment on paper
10.5 x 8 in.
Acharya Vyakul
Untitled (48)
1990s
Pigment on paper
8 x 11 in.
Biren De
Untitled 5
Crayon on paper
3 x 3.5 in.
Biren De
Untitled 6
Crayon on paper
3.5 x 3 in.
Biren De
Untitled 7
Crayon on paper
4 x 7 in.
Biren De
Untitled 16
Crayon on paper
5 x 4 in.
Biren De
Untitled 29
Crayon on paper
5 x 4 in.
Biren De
Untitled 33
Crayon on paper
3.5 x 2.5 in.
Biren De
Untitled 82
Crayon on paper
4.5 x 4 in.
Biren De
Untitled 38
Crayon on paper
7 x 5 in.
S. H. Raza
Prarthana
2013
Acrylic on canvas
40 x 40 in.
G. R. Santosh
Pyramid
1990
Oil on canvas
42 x 28 in.
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 1)
Ink on paper
15 x 11 in
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 2)
Ink on paper
15 x 11 in.
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 3)
Ink on paper
15 x 11 in.
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 4)
Ink on paper
15 x 11 in.
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 5)
1982-83
Pencil on paper
28 x 20 in.
G. R. Santosh
Untitled (Tantric Drawing 6)
Ink on paper
12 x 9 in.
Prafulla Mohanti
Untitled (Blue Orange Black)
Oil on paper
30 x 22 in.
Prafulla Mohanti
Untitled (Red Black Blue White)
Oil on paper
30 x 22 in.
Prafulla Mohanti
Untitled (Brown and Red)
Oil on paper
30 x 22 in.
Sohan Qadri
Untitled (1)
Watercolor on paper
11 x 7 in.
Sohan Qadri
Untitled (2)
1982
Watercolor on paper
8 x 8 in.
Sohan Qadri
Untitled (3)
Watercolor on paper
8 x 8 in.
Sohan Qadri
Untitled (4)
Watercolor on paper
15.5 x 7.5 in.
Sohan Qadri
Untitled (5)
Watercolor on paper
11 x 11.5 in.
Vijay Shinde
Untitled (Grey and Black Abstract)
Oil on canvas
27 x 27 in.
Vijay Shinde
Untitled (Red Abstract)
1994
Oil on canvas
30 x 26 in.
Manisha Parekh
Untitled (Calligraphic 21)
1994
Ink on paper pulp
11.5 x 8.5 in.
Manisha Parekh
Untitled (Calligraphic 22)
1994
Ink on paper pulp
11.5 x 8.5 in.
Manisha Parekh
Untitled (Calligraphic 23)
1994
Ink on paper pulp
11.5 x 8.5 in.
Manisha Parekh
Untitled (Calligraphic 24)
1994
Ink on paper pulp
11.5 x 8.5 in.
Ranbir Kaleka
Untitled (Make Eyes Five)
Watercolor on paper
10 x 7 in.
Ranbir Kaleka
Untitled (Blue Abstract)
Watercolor on paper
10 x 7 in.
Ranbir Kaleka
Untitled (Three Leaning Men)
Watercolor on paper
8 x 11.5 in.
Ranbir Kaleka
Untitled (Two Orange Men)
Watercolor on paper
11 x 8 in.
Shobha Broota
The Living Core
2007
Oil and acrylic on canvas
48 x 48 in.
Shobha Broota
Engulfed in Brilliance
2007
Oil and acrylic on canvas
48 x 48 in.
Mohammad Kazem
Untitled (White on White 3)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
10 x 10 in.
Mohammad Kazem
Untitled (White on White 10)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
10 x 10 in.
Mohammad Kazem
Untitled (White on White 12)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
10 x 10 in.
Mohammad Kazem
Untitled (White on White 14)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
10 x 10 in.
Mohammad Kazem
Untitled (White on White 17)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
10 x 10 in.
Alexander Gorlizki
Stained Glass
2008
Pigment on paper
11 x 6.5 in.
Alexander Gorlizki
Puzzled
2008
Pigment and gold on bookprint
9 x 8.25 in.
Alexander Gorlizki
Colour Study
2007
Pigment on paper
8 x 6.25 in.
Alexander Gorlizki
Northern Lights - Study
2007
Pigment on paper
6.25 x 4.5 in.
Alexander Gorlizki
Plucking Petals
2008
Pigment on paper
6.25 x 9.5 in.
Mohammed Kazem
Untitled (Red)
2015
Acrylic on scratched paper
58 x 44.5 in.
Rachid Koraïchi
Love Side by Side with the Soul
2016
Acrylic on canvas
78.5 x 59.5 in.
Rachid Koraïchi
From the Series La Priere des Absents - III
2015
Soft porcelain paste with blue and white oxide
39 x 21.5 x 21.5 in.
Rachid Koraïchi
From the Series La Priere des Absents - IV
2015
Soft porcelain paste with blue and white oxide
39 x 21.5 x 21.5 in.
Anil Revri
Pages from a Manuscript 2
2015
Mixed media on handmade paper
12 x 9
Anil Revri
Pages from a Manuscript 3
2012
Mixed media on handmade paper
12 x 9
Anil Revri
Pages from a Manuscript 3
2015
Mixed media on handmade paper
12 x 9
Anil Revri
Pages from a Manuscript 4
2015
Mixed media on handmade paper
12 x 9
Anil Revri
Pages from a Manuscript 5
2015
Mixed media on handmade paper
12 x 9 in.
Aicon Gallery New York is pleased to present Tantric | The Corporeal and the Cosmic, an exhibition exploring the parallel yet intertwining evolutions of Tantric abstraction in Modern South Asian art, inspired by the painting traditions of the 17th through the 19th centuries. In tracing this path both backwards and outwards, however, one must first understand that the wide scope of Tantric-inspired visual art practices are themselves derived from complex and diverse interpretations of Tantric texts, rituals, and ideologies, which weave together elements from religious and meditative traditions traversing major religions such as Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism and spanning across centuries.
The exhibition takes as its starting point a set of historic tantric drawings and diagrams from the 18th and 19th centuries and examines their links to two sets of Anonymous Drawings made by artisans working in Rajasthan from the 1980s onwards. These anonymous works, along with works by better known tantric masters Badrinath Pandit and Acharya Vyakul, have been inspired by centuries old Tantric visual traditions, yet appear radically modern in their geometric abstraction, particularly given their derivation from traditions pre-dating the advent of European Modernism by more than a hundred years. However, the existence of such a tradition may be less surprising in its origins than in its uncannily modern abstract compositions, when one understands that the motivation behind their creation is an expression of the spiritual and mystical as opposed to the formal academic explorations that would take place in the West. Indeed, the forms in these works act as visual conduits towards transcendence, born of intense meditation on the inner-spirituality of the human condition as it relates to the mythical and cosmic, rather than exercises in intellectual modernism.
The exhibition’s second anchor point begins with the 1960s revitalization of neo-tantric modernism pioneered by artists like G. R. Santosh and Biren De, both widely acknowledged as founding figures in modern Indian Tantric painting, but both of whom have their artistic origins in semi-abstracted figural work.
The early works of Santosh, rooted in his interest in applying the principles of cubism to abstracted Indian landscapes and figures, soon gave way to a fascination with the merging and combining of the male and female forms and energies, a central focus within Tantric traditions. In a series of large drawings representative of this period one can see the beginnings of what would become Santosh’s iconic neo-Tantric style, where fully merged male and female figures are depicted almost completely as abstract shapes, comprised of geometric lines and colors, representing what he considered the combined and pure cosmic energy lying beneath the physical human form. Similarly, although he came to reject the Tantric label, Biren De’s evolution can be seen as a journey from semi abstract figuration to completely non-representational works of intensely luminous shapes and patterns, which also seek to depict the combination of masculine and feminine energy that some Tantric traditions identify as the birth of the cosmos. The work of artists Sohan Qadri and Prafulla Mohanty continue these artistic attempts at capturing Tantric energies, while having largely been freed from the modernist transition through figuration pioneered by the generation before them.
Additionally, the exhibition seeks to include the work of a new generation of Contemporary artists working, in one way or another, with the repetitive and meditative energies and techniques, which can be traced back to the mystical and ritualistic pre-modern origins of Tantric practice. Perhaps this aesthetic evolution is most readily embodied in the work of Anil Revri, whom Donald Kuspit, in his quote above, considered an example of an artist working towards a revitalized ‘universal abstraction’ in the sense that he has drawn inspiration from Indian musical sources for his gestural forms, much as modernists such as Kandinsky drew upon western musical sources in their abstractions. The works of Shobha Broota, rooted in geometric compositions reminiscent of bindus and other fundamentally mystic forms, pulsate with the energy of their underlying tensions, addressing the balance between inner and outer reality, and echo the similar expressive tradition begun by Biren De. Whereas a set of early drawings by the now well-known video artist Ranbir Kaleka, and part of the important Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, speak to the same syncretic merging of the figurative and the elemental, which can be seen in the transitional drawings of Santosh. Other contemporary artists whose work can be viewed through the lens of tantric traditions include Manisha Parekh, Alexander Gorlizki, Vijay Shinde, and Mohammed Kazem, all represented in the forthcoming exhibition. Similarly, Rachid Koraichi, winner of the 2011 Victoria & Albert Museum Jameel Prize, from a family of Quranic scholars and copyists in a Sufi tradition, has made the written word, as a conveyor of spiritual philosophy, poetry and politics, his primary repetitive act in his paintings and tapestries. The usage of repetitive calligraphy as a means of interpretive transcendence evokes the mark-making of early Tantric mandalas.
