Alwar Balasubramaniam:

Biography :

http://talwargallery.com/bala-bio/

1. Country : India.

2. Dates : Born 1971,Tamil Nadu, India.

3. Lives and works : The Artist Lives and Works in Bangalore.

4. Education :

1998-99 Universitat fur Angewandte Kunste (Printmaking) Wien, Austria

1997-98 EPW Edinburgh (Printmaking), UK

1990-95 Government College of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Madras, India

5. Medium and Technique : Sculpture using range of materials (fiberglass, wax, gold)

Updated CV- http://www.saffronart.com/artists/a--balasubramaniam

Solo Exhibitions :

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012

Talwar Gallery, New York, NY, US http://talwargallery.com/new-york/

The Phillips Collection, Sk(in), Washington D.C, US

Talwar Gallery, Nothing From My Hands, New Delhi, India http://fr.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/284933/312407/event/756634

2009 Talwar Gallery, (In)between, New Delhi, India

2007 Talwar Gallery, (In)visible, New Delhi, India

2005 Van Every Smith Museum Gallery, Unfixed Being, Davidson College, NC, US

2004 Talwar Gallery, Into Thin Air, New York, NY, US, North Carolina, US

2002 Fundacio pilar i Joan Miro’s, Traces, Barcelona, Spain

Talwar Gallery, New York, U.S.

2001 Alliance Francaise, Bangalore, India

2000 Association Mouvement Art Contemporain, Chamalieres, France

1998 Art Inc, New Delhi, India

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 Columbus College of Art & Design, Wall, Columbus, Ohio, US

2012 18th Biennale of Sydney, all our relations, Sydney, Australia

Montclair Art Museum, Look Now, Montclair, New Jersey, US

2011 “Beyond the Self”- National Portrait Gallery,Canberra, Australia and travel to

McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park, Australia http://talwargallery.com/beyondself-pr/ http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/exhibition_subsite_beyondtheself.php “Beyond the self: Contemporary portraiture from Asia”-Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia http://w3.unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum/exhibitions/2012/beyond.asp Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Australia

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Time Unfolded, New Delhi, India

2010 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), On Line, New York, New York, US

Guggenheim Museum, Contemplating the Void, New York, NY, US

2009 Devi Art Foundation, Where in the World, Poddar Collection, New Delhi, India

2008 Mori Art Museum, Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art, Tokyo, Japan and travel

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea

Essl Museum, Wien, Austria

2006 1st Singapore Biennale, Belief, Director Fumio Nanjo, Singapore

2005 University of Massachusetts, Transition and Transformation, Amherst, US

Ecole des Beaux Arts, Indian Summer, Paris, France

2001 8th International Cairo Biennale, Cairo, Egypt

http://talwargallery.com/bala-bio/

Selected Solo Exhibitions

York -part Sculptural Installation, part of the Show Intersections at The Phillips Collection,

Washington, DC Talwar Gallery, New Delhi

2005 Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, US

2001 The British Council, New Delhi, India

ues, Spain

Selected Group Exhibitions

-Light', presented by Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai at The Oberoi, Gurgaon

2010 'Symbols and Metaphors', Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata

-09 'Where In The World', Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi – Sixty Years after Indian Independence’, Centre for International Modern Art

(CIMA), Kolkata

er at the Margins’, Chennai

Delhi ge Kunstler sind westfalen, Munster, Germany

Participations New Delhi

York

Museum, New York, NY Art: Open Your Third Eye', National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul

Belief’, Singapore Biennial, Singapore

ice, Poland

Format, Chamalieres, France

8 ‘Labyrinth’, 2nd International Triennial of Graphic Art, Prague, Czech Republic

venia

Taipei, Taiwan

ternational Contemporary Print Exhibition, Malaysia

ional Print Triennial, Giza, Egypt

http://www.saffronart.com/artists/a--balasubramaniam

Awards / Reviews :

2008 TED Conference, Mysore, India – Featured Speaker

Cornell University, Art Department, Ithaca, NY, US – Guest Lecturer

2006 Sanskriti Award for Visual Arts, India

2001 Fundacio pilar i Joan Miro Awards for Graphics, Spain

1998 Mac Dowell Colony Inc, Artist in Residence, New Hampshire, US

1997 Grand prize in 4th Bharat Bhavan International Print Biennial, Bhopal, India

The Charles Wallace India Trust, Arts Fellowship Award, UK

Text :

Alwar Balasubramaniam's work aches to express the overlooked, the invisible, the inexpressible. Quiet white sculptural forms, hung on a wall, unlock philosophical questions as one watches the light pass over them. What is their form, and what is their shadow? What are those mysterious white hands reaching for, around the corner and through the wall?

Trained in painting and printmaking, Balasubramaniam has been experimenting with a range of materials (fiberglass, wax, gold) to create sculptural works that bring forth his ideas and his search process. His work is often very tactile, very physical, but it symbolizes an exploration of big questions: what defines the self? what confines us? how do light and shadow shape our view of the world?

"Mr. Balasubramaniam, self-taught as a sculptor, is young, savvy and in the middle of a spurt of growth. It could take him anywhere, but there’s already a lot here."

Holland Cotter, New York Times

http://www.ted.com/speakers/a_balasubramaniam.html

Alwar Balasubramaniam's sculpture plays with time, shape, shadow, perspective: four tricky sensations that can reveal -- or conceal -- what's really out there. At TEDIndia, the artist shows slides of his extraordinary installations.

Sculptor, painter and printmaker Alwar Balasubramaniam makes work that crosses the boundary between art, perception and life.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alwar_balasubramaniam_sculpture_of_substance_and_absence.html

Balasubramaniam’s latest works are a play of shadows through which he questions the viewer’s belief in the unseen and the unknown – encouraging them to query their own consciousness. After stripping down a form to its bare minimum, Balasubramaniam allows it to grow again through a series of shadows – although seen, intangible to the sense of touch. Each form and its multiple shadows share their own camaraderie with the element of light. With some appearing darker and deeper than others, the notion of transcendental infinity is also established. “Despite the strong visual affirmation involved in witnessing Bala’s works, we are nevertheless challenged to believe what we see. Our sense of perception, of reality, is questioned and at times evokes a contradictory realization” says Deepak Talwar of Talwar Gallery, Delhi and New York. Born in Tamil Nadu in 1971, Balasubramaniam received his Bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the Government College of Arts, Chennai, in 1995. In 1998, he studied printmaking at EPW Edinburgh, UK, after which he pursued his love for the genre at the Universitat fur Angewandte Kunste in Wien, Austria. He has travelled extensively and exhibited in France, Spain, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Finland, Norway and USA. Amongst his solo shows are '(In)Between' and ‘(In)Visible’ at Talwar Gallery, New Delhi, in 2009 and 2007 respectively; Talwar Gallery, New York, in 2007; ‘(Desi)re’ at Talwar Gallery, New York, in 2005; ‘Transition and Transformation’ at the Fine Arts Museum, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, also in 2005; and Talwar Gallery, New York, in 2004. His most recent group endeavors include ‘Freedom 2008 – Sixty Years after Indian Independence’ at the Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata, in 2008; ‘The Inverted Tree’ at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi, in 2005; ‘Indian Summer’ at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, also in 2005; and ‘Solitude’ at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, in 2003. The artist lives and works in Bangalore.

http://www.saffronart.com/artists/a--balasubramaniam

Alwar Balasubramaniam: Uncharted Territories by Minhazz Majumdar

Seeing is believing. In Alwar Balasubramaniam’s case, seeing and believing are two separate acts, depending on your discernment and perception. His prints, paintings, and sculptures, with their constant plays on the visible and invisible, illusion and certainty, challenge notions of the real and the unreal. Walk into a Balasubramaniam exhibition and you will be confronted by a surreal world where walls are pulled like fabric by disembodied hands, where a figure of the artist sits with his head buried deep in the wall, where angels emerge as if by magic from blocks of stone and sculptures dissolve into nothingness. A printmaker, painter, and sculptor, Balasubramaniam refuses to be slotted into any one category, stating flatly, “ You are whatever you are.” He would rather be known as “a person who creates art.” Born in 1971 in Chennai, Balasubramaniam is now based in Bangalore. The recipient of several international and national awards, he has participated in solo and group shows across the globe. After receiving a BFA from the Government College of Arts, Chennai, in 1995, he focused on printmaking, taking special courses at

EPW Edinburgh (1997– 98) and the Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (1998–99). In his prints and paintings, Balasubramaniam has experimented with a variety of innovative materials and techniques, including silk-screen printing over holograms. In 2000, attracted by multi-dimensionality, he began moving toward sculptural installations. His engagement with the process of creating three-dimensional work is best embodied in one of his early installations, When I made a pond it became a mountain (2000): in the course of creating a depression, he built a corresponding mountain of excavated material.

http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag08/dec_08/balasub/balasub.shtml

SEE MORE

Review-Beyond the self,Zehra Jumabhoy,National Potrait Gallery.

http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/exhibition_subsite_beyondtheself_artist.php?artistID=4

Review-Alwar Balasubramaniam,Brienne Walsh,Modern Painters,2012.

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/nov12modernpainters.pdf

Review-Alwar Balasubramaniam, Diana Seo Hyung Lee, Art Asia Pacific,2012.

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/WebExclusives/AlwarBalasubramaniamAlwarBalasubramaniam

Review-Alwar Balasubramaniam,Murtaza Vali,Artforum,2012.

http://artforum.com/index.php?pn=picks&id=31355&view=print

Review- (IN)BETWEEN A. Balasubramaniam,Deeksha Nath,Art Asia Pacific,2012

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/68/INBETWEENABalasubramaniam

Review- Duality and Contradiction in the Art of Alwar Balasubramaniam,Bansi Vasvani, Art New England,2012

http://artnewengland.com/blogs/duality-and-contradiction-in-the-art-of-alwar-balasubramaniam/

Review-Space beneath the Skin, Shana Maria Verghis,The Pioneer,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/march12pioneer.pdf

Review –Sculpting the unseen beauty of nothingness ,Aditi Uberoi,The Sunday Guardian,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/march12guardian.pdf

Review- Art in Calm and Chaos, Vesela Sretenovic, The Phillips Collection,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/feb12phillips.pdf

Review- Even nothing is something beautiful,Anindita Ghosh,Live Mint,2012

http://blog.livemint.com/Leisure/d3JG5LuiXudWmHhU7uOazL/8216Even-nothing-is-something-

beautiful8217.html

Review-‘Do you know what you see?’ The art of A. Balasubramaniam,Deeksha Nath,Harper’s Bazaar,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/Harper%27s%20Bazaar.pdf

Interview- Capturing Invisible Territories,Shruti Kapur Malhotra,Platform,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/jan12platform.pdf

Review –This and That,Design Today,2012

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/jan12dt.pdf

Interview-A pause in time,Design Today,2011

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/11designtoday.pdf

Overview-Hyaline,First City,2011

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/2011firstcity.pdf

Review- Squiggly, Tangly, and Angular ,Holland Cotter,The New York Times,2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/arts/design/02online.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Overview , A. Balasubramaniam,Zehra Jumabhoy,Artforum,2009

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/dec09artforum.pdf

Review- The Inner Of the Outer,Ella Dutta,Art India,2009

http://talwargallery.com/wp-content/themes/emptiness/bala-press/dec09artindia.pdf

The Times of India, Art is Something Between Science and Spirituality | Oct. 2009

Review- Alwar Balasubramaniam: Pushing Boundaries, Past and Present, Josheen Oberoi,Saffronart blog,2012

http://blog.saffronart.com/2012/07/04/alwar-balasubramaniam-pushing-boundaries-past-and-present-2/

Videos :

Artist Talk-Art Of Subtance and Absence,TedIndia Talk, 2009

http://www.ted.com/talks/alwar_balasubramaniam_sculpture_of_substance_and_absence.html

Interview- Beyond The Self:Alwar Subramaniam,2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDHmOsnIzSQ

Exhibition Glimpse- Behind the Scenes: On Line: A. Balasubramaniam,MOMA,2010

http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/131/818

Exhibition Glimpse-18th Biennale of Sydney at MCA - Alwar Balasubramaniam & Pinaree Sanpitak install,2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyfdSMAdcVE