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For the past three years the art practice in Kolkata has seen an upsurge of young contemporary artists, who has made their presence unavoidable in consideration to the entire art community. And it gives us pleasure and pride to locate that Aakriti Art Gallery in Kolkata has been the key accelerator in this process, specifically with their annual show called the Gen Next, which invites all young artists below the age bar of forty to send their works to the gallery and Mr. Vikram Bachhawat along with some of the renowned art historians and critics of the city picks out the most outstanding among them and platform them with the banner of GenNext.
I was involved in the 3rd edition of GenNext process in 2008, where I came to learn the intricacies in mounting an event as ambitious as GenNext for the interest and growth of the cultural community. And today when I sit to write, I find it crucial to note the tendencies and the consequences that have emerged within the domain of the contemporary artistic trends. If only focusing on the GenNext III, I shall refresh by recollecting that the GenNext III exhibition was inaugurated in the presence of the British Deputy High Commissioner Mr. Simon CH Wilson, Consulate General of USA Ms Beth A Pyne, Consul General of Italy Mr. Bruno Campriya, Consul and Deputy Head of Mission, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Mr. Juergen Fischer, The Japanese Consulate, Swedish Ministry of Culture, Oscar Aschan, Mayor of Kolkata Sri Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, film maker Sergio Scapagnini and Goutam Ghose and also notably Mr Jogen Chowdhury and all the GenNext III participants and associates on 1st October 2008. The GenNext III gang of young artists was formally introduced to the press like Metro Now, IANS, Financial Express, PTI, and Pioneer that came from all over the country, on 30th September 2008 at Aakriti Art Gallery. And this has been significant in its own right as it involved young artist from all over the globe like USA, Poland, Canada, France, Austria, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Brazil presenting a global generation. There was an interactive session within the GenNext III participants, fellow artists and critics of our country parallel by a two day art camp. It is important for us to realize that making art now has an alternate vision and implication to our local, regional, national or international destinations. When recognizing the time that we are going through, it's not only about recognizing an individual identity but more crucially to sort out a collective voice for a global consciousness.
The GenNext III interactive session on 2nd October 2008, co hosted by Emami Chisel Art and Aakriti Art Gallery triggered some fundamental questions regarding the “trends and tendencies of decontextualsing art today”, initiated by the convenor Mr. Amit Mukhopadhyay. Present in this interactive session was Abha Seth, Abhijit Gupta, Arpan Mukherjee, Asim Purakayastha, H.A Anil Kumar, Nivedita Despande, Shukla Sawant, Sujoy Mukherjee, Jagannath Panda and Vivan Sunderam along with all other fellow artists as mentioned above, jointly came up with some motivating data and questions regarding the positioning of art as a product of any context, positioning of an artist in consideration with history and its own existence, positioning of an art work in a defined space or time and the argument goes on. What came up as extremely relevant from here was to reconsider our artistic practice according to the changed circumstances of altered globalised space. And as these questions came up significantly during the GenNext III Show, it enthusiastically should be a responsibility of our generation with the learning experiences and understanding of our predecessors and the ones of the future, to construct a discourse that will recognize and record the fate of an age. What can't go without mentioning, this pulsating interaction was presided by Sri Prayag Shukla and was concluded by Mr. Ashok Vajpeyi, who contributed their valued opinion regarding the context. As the two day artist camp was also simultaneously taking place at the same venue with the GenNext III participants and some noted artists Like Aditya Basak, Akhilesh, Amitava Dhar, Birendra Pani, Chandra Bhattacharya, Chhatrapati Dutta, Partha Pratim Deb, Samindranath Majumdar, Shekhar Roy, Sunil De, Tapas Konar giving rise to highly stimulating creative environment, inspiring to live by a community.
- Sampurna Chakraborty
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