Baroda's art scene/Installation shots @ Red Earth Gallery

Indigo: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina was open for preview at the Red Earth Gallery in the ABS Tower in Baroda, Gujarat, India on Dec 16th.

Baroda is a small city known for their Faculty of Fine Art at MS University. Many students and faculty came through the gallery today. Most of the students said they were painters or sculptors but many were also architecture students (more interested in the Red Earth Gallery's amazing space than our artwork). One of the things that impressed me most was seeing multiple generations of artists. From meeting one of Baroda's senior most artist such as Jyoti Bhatt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyoti_Bhatt) to MSU first year painting students. Even the Maharaja of Baroda is an established artist (http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/4761007.Water_waste_inspires_royal/). He just unveiled his 12 foot high sculpture, Vessel of Life, last month in a sculpture garden in Durham City.

There seems to be a thriving artist residency culture here as well. I've met two other foreigners here - one DC art collector and a Swedish printmaker so far. Many of the established artists in India call Baroda home but they will often do not show here as this is not a city known for sales. The other wonderful thing about Baroda, and Gujarat in general, is that they are known for their textiles. We're off to New Delhi and Mumbai next but this was a wonderful place to meet other artists and learn about traditional textiles.

Here are two links about Baroda's art scene and art schools:

http://www.indiaprofile.com/art-crafts/baroda-art.htm

http://www.artconcerns.net/2007MayBaroda/html/feature_artinstitutions.htm

Front of ABS Tower
Street view from ABS Tower

Installation views of Indigo: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina

A proper tourist must shoot cows and spices

This is my first trip to India and I have failed to take proper tourist photos yet as we've been so busy working on the Indigo show. I'm staying in the home of my artistic collaborator, Shelly Jyoti, so when we aren't working on the show, were eating!

For the sake of my family back in Chicago, here is my weak attempt at being a tourist today:

A while back, Shelly decided that we'd make a video about our collaboration. If it were not enough to jump into the new medium of textiles for me, I'm attempting to figure out how to make a video. I came to India with a pile of footage which I've edited and now we've shot artist interviews and footage from the preview. Here we are in route to the videographer's studio. We were up late last night working on the script and story boarding and picking out shots.

Based on the Lonley Planet version of India, I feel that a proper tourist must shoot cows and spices. I'll get a better shot of the cows later but I promised my daughter, Midori, that I'd show her what they look like here. They wander the streets during the day and make their way home to their owners each night.
Shelly is teaching me how to cook. She's originally from the north so we are eating both Punjabi food but also the local Gujarti food. Everything is vegetarian, of course, and you always start with spices (usually cuman seeds along with garlic paste with chillies, and onions).

One of the dishes for lunch today was paneer with chillies. She usually serves dahl or a soup, rice or chapati (they make the best really thin chipatis), a salad of fresh veggies sliced up (always fresh tumeric) that are served with lime and masala, and a vegetable dish like aloo gobi or saag paneer. This is served with chili pastes, sauces, relishes etc. There is always chai or milk and a sweet. One morning for breakfast she made halva and a south indian breakfast dish called "upma." There have been many variations on chipatis that they have cooked as well. Shelly makes her own masala mixture that makes her food has an original flavor (very delicious)! So I've only been going back and forth from the dinner table to the gallery but it's an amazing way to see Baroda so far.

Gujarati snack dish "handva" - made from rice and pulse paste with water gourd, ginger, garlic, green chilies, salt, turmeric, mustard seed and sesame seeds
stir fried peas and carrots mixed with cilantro (notice that the carrots are red)

Gram dal - oil and cumin seeds, chopped onion, tomato, garlic, ginger, salt and turmeric, garnish with cilantro, green chilies

Opening night - Preview at Red Earth Gallery in Baroda, India

The preview opening of Indigo: New Works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina at Red Earth Gallery in Baroda, India was inaugurated by Maharaja Ranjitsinh Gaekwad and Maharani Shubhangini Raje Gaekwad on December 15, 2009.

Installation view of my Devon Avenue Sampler series
The gallery is 6,200 square feet!
One of the senior most artist of Baroda, Jyoti, talking to a Jewish collector from Washington DC.
Rajeev Jyoti, Shelly Jyoti, Maharaja Ranjitsinh Gaekwad, Maharani Shubhangini Raje Gaekwad and me.
The women is red is the great grand niece of Mahatma Gandhi - Geeta Goradia.

The owner of Red Earth Gallery, Rakesh Aggarwal.
Installation view of Shelly Jyoti's Indigo Narratives: Allusion to Stitches
Baroda based artists Jyolsna Bhalt and Jyoti Bhalt viewing works from my Devon Avenue Sampler series.

Installation view Devon Avenue Sampler

Traditional Indian inauguration lamp. The top is an image of Ganesh. The base is surrounded by fresh flower petals.

Installation view Shelly Jyoti Indigo Narratives.

First day in India

I flew out of Chicago O'hare on December 12th to Paris and then to Mumbai. I spent the night at the airport in Mumbai and then caught an early morning flight to Vadadora (Baroda). Yesterday was the 14th when I finally arrived. The artist I am collaborating with, Shelly Jyoti, picked me up from the airport. She welcomed me to her home and served me the most delicious homemade ginger chai tea. It's made with some kind of basil and fresh ginger. Amazing. I was so tired yesterday that I failed to take any photos of my new surroundings. Just imagine a crowded dusty street lined with fruit and vegetable venders with motorcycles piled high with passengers (women in saris, kids sitting on the handlebars) zipping in and out and competing for space with cows sauntering by and cars beeping furiously. I'm glad we have a driver here!

We installed the show yesterday. The walls in the gallery are cement (this is typical of most buildings) so the way you hang artwork is by tying it up with string attached to hooks up at the top of the ceiling. I have 14 pieces and Shelly has 20 wall works and 2 installations. This was not small task. The Red Earth Gallery space is gigantic and the scale of most of my Devon Avenue Sampler works is quite small so it took a while to figure out the right placement but we did it. Today was just have some last minute finishing touches and then we are ready for the preview opening tonight.

The most memorable thing from yesterday had to be eating. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all home cooked - saag paneer, roti, chipati, rice, soup, daal, lots of tea. I'm in culinary heaven.

Exciting news - we got written up in the Sunday Times of India, Ahmedabad (Dec 13, 2009) - "Pre-Independece Struggle Over 'indigo' plantation on canvas." They even printed a photo of both of us. I need to find an online link to post this. I only have a print version.
Installing Indigo: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina which opens tonight!

In Miami this weeked? - Check out my work in GEO-graphic

Laura Kina - "India" Acrylic and mirrors on a globe, 2009

If you are in Miami this coming weekend for the art fair madness, check out a new work of mine in the Project Room at Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts:

GEO-graphic
Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts
Project Room
December 5, 2009 – February 6, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 7:30-11 pm

2043 North Miami Avenue
Miami FL 33127
Tel. 305.576.1804
Fax. 305.576.1805
Tues-Fri: 10:00 – 5:00pm
Saturday 10 - 3 pm
info@dlfinearts.com
www.dlfinearts.com

GEO-Graphic
A group exhibition brings together gallery & guest artists Luis Alonzo Barkigia, John Bailly, Irene Clouthier, Felice Grodin, Jill Hotchkiss, Laura Kina, Alberto Latorre, Michael Loveland, Michael Scoggins, Carlos de Villasante, & Annie Wharton.

The show in the main gallery is a solo show by Miami art star Carlos Bentancourt - Lapidus Infinitus
Laura Kina - "India" Acrylic and mirrors on a globe, 2009

INDIGO Exhibition and Lecture Schedule

“Not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”, an Englishman in the Bengal Civil Service is said to have commented. In the 19th century, Bengal was the world’s biggest producer of indigo but today, the deep blue color of indigo is synthetically created in a lab and is associated, in the West, with blue jeans more than its torrid colonial past. But indigo holds a sustained presence in the post-colonial identity of India. Employing fair trade embroidery artisans from women’s collectives in India and executing their works in indigo blue, Indian artist SHELLY JYOTI and US artist LAURA KINA’S new works draw upon India’s history, narratives of immigration and transnational economic interchanges.

Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina decided to collaborate in 2008-2009, considering their mutual interest in textile history, pattern & decoration. They began by thinking about the intersections of their own ethnic and national positions in relation to fabrics. For this exhibition in particular, Shelly Jyoti’s Indigo Narratives utilize traditional embroidery and embellishments along with heritage symbols belonging to traveling ethnic communities who settled in coastal Gujarat while Laura Kina’s Devon Avenue Sampler series focuses on a contemporary Desi/Jewish community in Chicago, IL.

To view their works visit:
www.laurakina.com
www.shellyjyoti.com

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Preview Red Earth Gallery Baroda, Gujarat
December 15-16, 2009
Reception: December 15, 2009 5:30-8:00 pm, artists will be present
Red Earth Art Galleries Pvt. Ltd.
ABS Towers, Old Padra Road Vadodara, India 390007
Tel: 91 265 3201526
www.redearthgalleries.com

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
India Habitat Centre New Delhi
December 22-28, 2009
Opening Reception: December 23, 2009, 5:30-9:00 pm, artists will be present
Open Palm Court Gallery
India Habitat Centre Lodhi Road
New Delhi, India 110003
http://www.indiahabitat.org/

Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
Nehru Art Centre
January 12-18, 2010
Opening Reception: 12 January, 5:30-8:00 pm, Shelly Jyoti will be present
Dr. Annie Besant Road Worli, Mumbai, India 400018
Tel: 91 22 2496 4676-80
Fax: 91 22 2497 3827
http://www.nehru-centre.org/artgallery.html

Forum for Contemporary Theory
Laura Kina Artist Lecture - “Diaspora on Devon Ave: Stitching South Asian/Jewish Intersections”
Shelly Jyoti Artist Lecture - “The Politics of Indigo: Revisting India’s Torrid Colonial past”
December 31, 2009 4:00 pm
Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics
C-304 Siddhi Vinayak Complex
Framji Road, Baroda-390 007
Gujarat, India
Tel (0265) 2338067
http://fctworld.org/

Welcome to my new art blog

For years I've had a professional website (www.laurakina.com) and a personal/family blog and like the rest of the world, I jumped on twitter and facebook (and linkedin). I'm finally getting a new art website built (my site was is past due for a refresh) and I'm migrating archives from past key events to this new art blog so keep checking back. I'm also getting ready for a 2 person show in India that will open in December - Indigo: New Works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina. I have a new series of textile works called Devon Avenue Sampler that will debut in this show.

Walsh Gallery

Over the Top: 16 Years of Running a Gallery

One of my new Devon Avenue Sampler paintings will be reproduced on limited edition t-shirts as part of a massive 35 person group show at Walsh Gallery that opens next Friday. It should be fun.

November 20 - December 23, 2009
Opening reception: November 20, 2009

Walsh Gallery
118 N. Peoria St. 2nd floor
Chicago, IL 60607

Tues-Sat : 10:30 - 5:30pm
p 312.829.3312
info@walshgallery.com
www.walshgallery.com

http://www.walshgallery.com/over-the-top-16-years-of-running-a-gallery/

Awarded a 2009-2010 DePaul University Humanities Fellowship

Awarded a 2009-2010 DePaul University Humanities Fellowship

War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art
I am currently working with Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor Asian American Studies San Francisco State University, on a book project and an exhibition on mixed race Asian American art. The show is scheduled to open at the DePaul Art Museum Spring 2011 and the Wing Luke Asian Museum Feb-July, 2012. Description: War Baby |Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art investigates the construction of mixed race/mixed heritage Asian American (or, controversially, "Hapa") identity in the United States. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age in an era of “optional identity,” War Baby |Love Child examines how, or even if, mixed Asian Americans are addressing their hybrid identities in their artwork.

Artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laurel Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Amanda Ross-Ho, Camille and Jenifer Wofford, Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Each year the Humanities Center supports a group of DePaul faculty with Faculty Fellowships. These fellowships provide partial reductions in teaching load and an undergraduate research assistant. Fellows engage in rich interdisciplinary conversations throughout the year, and work with the Center to plan a program that connects their work to the broader community.

http://las.depaul.edu/humanitiescenter/FacultyFellows/Current%20Fellows/index.asp
Artist Amanda Ross-Ho in her Los Angeles studio. I interviewed her back in Feb 2009 for this project.Artist Debra Yeppa-Pappan and my co-curator Wei Ming Dariotis in Chicago 10/25/09

Jessica Hagedorn in Conversation with Wei Ming Dariotis & Laura Kina

DePaul Humanities Center and the President's Signature Series 2009-10 present:
Jessica Hagedorn in conversations with Wei Ming Dariotis and Laura Kina
Thursday, October 22, 2009
DePaul University Art Museum
2350 North Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614

What does it mean to be a Mixed Asian American Writer/Artist?

Mixed Race Studies scholar Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor Asian American Studies San Francisco State University, and Laura Kina, DePaul University Associate Professor Art, Media, & Design, Vincent dePaul Distinguished Professor & Director Asian American Studies, will take on identity, categorization, and issues specific to Asian American mixed heritage populations in their dialogue with award winning writer, screenwriter and performer, Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, Danger And Beauty, and editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction and Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. Her next novel, Toxicology, will be published by Viking Penguin in 2011.

This event is free and open to the public

For more info contact: Humanities Center - 773-325-4580 - aperson@depaul.edu
http://las.depaul.edu/humanitiescenter/



Note - photos by DePaul art students Rob Bolante and Marco Cortes

Vincent de Paul Society

In September 2009 I was inducted into the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul as a career-long member. DePaul's Newsline ran an interview with me.

Newsline Interview - Q&A with Laura Kina October 5, 2009
http://newsline.depaul.edu/qa/Pages/LauraKina.aspx