“Graffiti is about designing a certain combination of letters in various ways at miscellaneous places.”

Graffiti Writers see the world with a different eye. Focus is brought intensely on spots for future works and wherever we walk we are constantly checking for new ones. This worldview is deep inside and will hardly ever go away. Each one of us has their own priorities in the final choice of what is good and what is bad about a wall and if it is finally painted or not. Most tend to share the idea that the best suitable place for the beloved piece is a facility that is most public and can be seen by as much people as possible in everyday life. The driving factor fame and the eternal wish of being literally everywhere is the basic idea behind this perspective, I understand. You gotta be fast, you have to run and sometimes you have to fight to paint those places to earn your portion of fame in our funny little hierarchical society of writers. There exists a variety of laws and attributes to judge “the worth” of a piece and you have to vague each factor carefully before you take action. There is of course those type of spots that involve the above and then there is those, that are the total opposite. Quiet places far away from stress and hassle. Places that have been forgotten by society or never ever even have been discovered in the first place. Urban- and natural areas offer them both splendidly to those who take some time to look carefully and accept the adventure of getting away from the beaten tracks of worn feet. Abandoned factories, – drainage channels, -military bases and long forgotten rotten residences on the countryside and in the city are found in every part of the world alike. Also rocks and smooth stonewalls in mountaineous terrain are most welcome to be redesigned by the ambitious artistic dude. Everyone who has ever roamed around one or more of the mentioned scenarios knows the special atmosphere that inhabits them. Each is host to a mix of features, unique in their composition. Be it the variety of rotten smells, the splashing of raging waves, dripping and cracking noises from decaying construction or the sighing and roaring of wind around it, the setup is special and never to be found again similarily. Most of the time you are the first one to feel those vibes in a long time and probably again for a long time. The remoteness assures a meditative silence in which a stressfree and concentrated artistic process is much more likely to be given. The atmosphere interacts with you and your creative output is affected by it.

For many people abandoned and farout places don’t offer the real deal. Painting them is not what true graffiti is about. They are lacking the action, illegal- and therefore “hardcore”-factors. To most writers they are just good enough for training style and seem to be simply worse halls of fame.
To me they always had an undeniable attraction and surge and seemed perfect breeding ground for graffiti, as I desired to do it. Time and daylight (most times) are factors that I found very valuable to achieve a certain quality in a piece of art and also the unique surfaces and interiors I could discover in the rooms and enviroments I was exploring inspired me in many ways. I always tried to see a piece rather as an installation that corresponded to its surroundings than a kind of sticker, that was quickly patched in. Of course I mostly tried not to forget that it was about letters and styling them. The task of combining those two claims – synthesis and style – is not a simple one and regularly forces your creative chaffer to go new ways. And that is for me a very desirable demand of the better graffiti writer, seen as an artist. The reinvention of ones style. The approach of new methods and new forms on a regular basis. Failure is nearly impossible. The expression “everything´s allowed” counts more than anywhere else in our guilde of art. Spots included. And there are so many out there! The whole world is full with beautiful places that just wait to be redesigned. It does not only stop at your backyard. It speaks so many visual languages that can lead you towards new experiences. The whole world is full with moments of compassion in the act of painting and the range of feelings that it offers. And all of them are waiting just there. If a style doesn’t fit, try a new one. If you fuck up a wall, find a new one. Space is there. Time as well.

Artist info:

Originally born and raised in Hottenrode, Germany, Jonas Ihlenfeldt became involved in graffiti-writing at the beginning of this millennium. Since then he has eagerly committed himself to examining new ways of composing letters and calligraphic ways of expression, as well as modes of fine arts and graphic design. His permanent longing for transformation and variation in terms of material and style is cultivated through extensive travelling as well as the search for environments and sceneries that inspire new pieces interactively.

The artistic map of “Bond” and “TruLuv” (some of his pseudonyms) features works all over Europe as well as Egypt, and especially in the vibrant country of India. There he found social life and culture happening extensively on the streets, offering a public forum where his graffiti would be appreciated by the locals and would adopt the various dominating atmospheres and emotions – be it within the wild atmosphere of urban street life in Delhi, the majestic Himalayas of Kashmir and Tibet, or the Guajarati city of Ahmadabad. Within this street culture of India he found a suitable playground for his ideas and pieces. He currently lives and works in Leipzig (Germany) and Delhi (India) after receiving his MA in Anthropology in 2010.

14^th July  to 23^rd August 2010

This exhibition brings together the work of artists and illustrators from the Pao Collective – a pioneering collective of comic book artists . On the edge of art and literature, this compilation of large-scale ‘pages’ of illustrations, provokes the perception of comic books as being juvenile and fantastical narrative. It looks at the Novel in the true sense, as an extended sequence conveying a narrative and examines the underlying structure and mechanics of developing a Graphic Novel, exposing it as a unique art form.

Brought together in 2008, by their common interest in promoting a culture of reading and creating comics the Pao Collective comprises of Amitabh Kumar, Orijit Sen, Parismita Singh, Sarnath Banerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh. This exhibition brings together over 30 work that present stories of the urban, the political, of a contemporary Indian culture.

Focussing on works without text in it, almost all works are new except the work of Orijit Sen who presents a rare, alluring glimpse into the variety of his pen’s response to the social and political developments over the decade the Nineties.

The Pao Collective is based in Delhi and is currently working on an anthology of comic book/graphic novel pieces by new and established writers and artists.

16^th July 2010, 6:30pm onwards – opening party

Hot Meal, Warm Company

A drawing installation of live, visual conversation between five artists.

Conceived by Sarnath Banerjee

Hot meal, warm company is a drawing installation of live, visual conversation between five artists, conceived by Sarnath Banerjee.

Sarnath received an MA in Image and Communication from Goldsmiths College. He wrote graphic novels, ‘Corridor’ and  ‘Barn Owl’s wondrous Capers’, both published by Penguin India. He has received several awards such as the MacArthur fellowship, Indian foundation for Arts, Egide bursary in Paris, fellowship of Institute of Advanced studies, Budapest, Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and participated in the Sao Paolo Bienalle. He is the co-founder of Phantomville Books that exclusively published graphic novels.

Parismita’s grapic novel Hotel at the End of the World was published by Penguin India in 2009. She is currently working on a graphic novel for young adults.

Ever posted a classified ad in a newspaper?

No? Then you’ve been missing out on a unique experience. You get a form with a box for each letter, but each letter costs money. Grandiose descriptions like “Excellent Quality” and “Superb Condition” will cost you a hefty rupee; trying to write with proper grammar and spelling means being reckless with your cash. You’ve got to embrace the spirit of economy. As long as your ad screams out its message and all the abbreviated essentials are crammed in, the Sunday classified is your linguistic playground, and the only ‘conditions apply’ are the ones laid down by you and your wallet. Then finally, buried deep below the Sunday headlines, the sex, the sports, the human affairs, the politics, the mergers and accqusitions, the setbacks and comebacks, your horoscope–there they are: your very own few lines of black Times Roman newsprint! A single India is presented here from two vantage points in time. The small bites of “classified” text sell the excellent-quality-superb-condition-dynamic-India we live in, while the illustrations are “declassified” Hindi film visuals from the India we grew up in. Of course, everything is open to interpretation…

Vishwajyoti Ghosh pursues interests in comics, illustrations, art and films. His comics are regularly published in various magazines, literary journals and anthologies. His recently published work includes contributions in two international comic anthologies, When Kulbhushan met Stockli- an indo swiss comic collection and Cntrl Alt Shift unmasks Corruption-a comics anthology on stories of corruption from round the world. In 2009 his illustrated set of picture postcards based on contemporary classified ads, Times New Roman and Countrymen was published. His first graphic novel ‘Delhi Calm’ has recently been published and will soon be released.

Amitabh Kumar is a graphic artist based in Delhi and has been trained in the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. He operates out of the Sarai Media Lab and has done extensive research on Indian comic book history and superhero-culture.  He is the co-initiator of the Pao Collective , an ensemble of graphic artists.  He has recently published a collaborative graphic novel ‘Tinker.Solder.Tap’ and is currently working on his second Graphic book.

Orijit Sen (born 1963) is a graphic artist based in Delhi. He trained at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in the 1980s, and has been working on graphic, exhibition, and textile-design related projects ever since.

In 1991, Orijit co-founded People Tree – today a well-known centre for the promotion of design, crafts and marketing collaborations, and a unique cultural space in Delhi. Orijit works with a variety of graphic narrative forms. His pioneering graphic novel ‘The River of Stories’ was published in 1994. His current projects include ‘Carnama’ – an animation film about the political life of an Ambassador car, and ‘A Place In Punjab’ – a large-scale narrative mural for the upcoming Khalsa Heritage Museum in Anandpur Sahib.

May 30th to July 10th, 2010

Peeling away layers of the written narrative—from sentences to phrases to words to the alphabet, we discover the narrative image of the letterform** itself. What is written, is also drawn.

Noopur Datye is a graduate of Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, with a specialization in Calligraphy & Typography. With past experience as a graphic designer, she is currently working on calligraphy and a font design project. Her calligraphic works were displayed at the Aksharanjali Exhibition, Mumbai, 2009.

Amit Kharsani is a multi-faceted calligrapher, graphic designer and design educator. Associated closely with the National Institute of Design (NID) since 1978, Amit also teaches programs at NIFT,CEPT, DA-IICT, MICA and other reputed design and communication schools across India. He trained in calligraphy under the renowned calligrapher Late Shri R K Joshi. Currently, Amit is working as a consultant graphic designer and faculty at NID.