Arts Illustrated Magazine - April - May 2020

In this issue

To rewrite your mistakes, at least on paper, has become the easiest thing to do today. At the press of a button, the patiently blinking line gobbles up your words, thoughts, ideas, waiting for the next set of letters to take its place. We live in a world where ‘error’ is not a pause, but something that ceases to exist, something erased.
And so, this issue, we look at the changing meaning of ‘Error’ and what it entails to straddle that line between unrecognisable existence and recognisable disappearance. We look at artists who are pushing boundaries deliberately with a stoic, non-conformist vision that refuses to succumb to a false idea of perfection. And in the process, brings an unexpected experience to the fore that puts the onus of the blinking line on us; in choosing to go backwards or forwards, we either become filled with the colours of the past or empty out patterns into the landscape of the future.

Engineered Isolation

Artist Baiju Parthan talks to us about why life happens where the analogue ends and the virtual begins and why it is important to keep the familiar and the unfamiliar within the thriving terrain of creative thought

7 mins

Into the Wood Work

The wooden craft of toy-making from Varanasi finds new life through ‘Lattu’ as Kaushiki Agarwal reimagines them with contemporary utilitarian designs

3 mins

The Uncertainty Project

The dreary sameness of architecture calls for a renewal, where form follows malfunction and error becomes an effective tool of design

4 mins

The Blueprint That Never Was

Sarah Winchester, wife of William Wirt Winchester who popularized the ‘repeating rifle’, built a sprawling mansion with no blueprint, in order to escape the ghosts of her past.

2 mins

Distorted Patterns, Multiple Meanings

Evocative visuals and distorted recollections are bound together in the dance of memory that teases us with sharp glimpses and blurry edges, while retaining the essence of emotions associated with them

3 mins

The Good, the Bad, the Blurred

Franco-German photographer Alexandre Dupeyron took us through his abstracted realities that tread the line between documentary and fiction

4 mins

Free and Flawed

Greta Gerwig revitalises the literary classic, Little Women, highlighting the literary journey of its temperamental and wonderfully flawed female protagonist, Jo March

5 mins

A Taste of Love

Assamese film-maker Bhaskar Hazarika talks to us about his film Aamis and why a love story turning to darkness is a world apart from a dark story turning to love

6 mins

Expressions in Red

With the play Lal Batti Express, the Krantikaris showed us quite powerfully that ‘what we perceive it to be from the outside – the stigmas we buy into – they are not their truths’

4 mins

The Imperfect Layout To The Imperfect Mystery

Jane De Suza’s ‘The Spy Who Lost Her Head’ doesn’t feature a protagonist with superhuman skills of deduction, nor a plot that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. Here, quirks and imperfections are pushed into the spotlight

5 mins

Read all stories from Arts Illustrated

Arts Illustrated Magazine Description:

Arts Illustrated is an Indian based arts and design magazine dedicated to understanding the contemporary arts landscape and creating a more inclusive ecosystem for the arts in the country. It delves deeply into the visual arts and design narrative, offering a global and contemporary perspective to subjects, information and ideas that we believe, need to be heard by a larger audience. Our endeavour is to create an exciting read that reflects our ethos to inspire, evoke and enrich our readers. Our visually laid out chronicle of the creative landscape is published bi-monthly (once in two months) and is available across 12 key cities in India.