Frontlines: Notations from the contemporary Indian Urban / BodhiBerlin / Interview with the artistic director Shaheen Merali

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Frontlines: Notations from the contemporary Indian Urban / BodhiBerlin / Interview with the artistic director Shaheen Merali

May 9, 2008

At the same time as the Gallery Weekend, the Halle am Wasser near the Hamburger Bahnhof was inaugurated. One of the galleries at this venue is BodhiBerlin. Bodhi Art has already branches in Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore and New York. At the occasion of the opening we met with the artistic director of BodhiBerlin, Shaheen Merali who not only provided us with an introduction to the inaugural exhibition “Frontlines: Notations from the contemporary Indian Urban“, which he has curated, but also gave us an outlook to the program of BodhiBerlin. According to the press release the gallery will “feature work in both monograph shows and group exhibitions from a vast range of practitioners based mainly in India, yet will also present curated exhibitions based both on individuated experiences and experiments which develop themes drawn from a wide pool of practitioners from the global sphere.” The current show features works by Atul Dodiya, Subodh Gupta, Zarina Hashmi, Jitish Kallat, Riyas Komu, Valsan Koorma Kolleri, and Nataraj Sharma. The selected works in this exhibition examine the current state of accelerated urbanization that is affecting the cities of India.
Shaheen Merali has been Head of Exhibitions, Film and New Media of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures) in Berlin. Shaheen Merali is an artist, curator, researcher, writer, observer and globetrotter. His art work has been widely exhibited and he has curated over twenty international exhibitions. Merali holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Sculpture).
BodhiBerlin, Halle am Wasser, Berlin, May 2 and 3, 2008. The exhibition runs until June 1st, 2008.
PS: The second exhibition at BodhiBerlin will be a monograph exhibition by young media based artist, Shilpa Gupta. This exhibition will be a split-site exhibition in collaboration with Volker Diehl Gallery, Berlin.