tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53431467228323167512012-01-04T17:20:00.495-08:00Jugaad: a crude improvisation. south asian art at an angle.Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.comBlogger1291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-42386150369080317592011-04-18T15:07:00.000-07:002011-04-18T15:35:32.056-07:00

Here's the English text for an article I was asked to write last year for Du magazine, which is a Swiss art publication. It appeared there in German, so I doubt they'll mind if I post it here as well... I don't know how to caption photos in blogger. Ugh. IN the first of the two photographs--both taken one sun-dappled day in the November of 1908, in the garden of his family's old home on

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-45190554392309294732011-02-28T09:42:00.000-08:002011-02-28T09:47:24.364-08:00

Here's the opening of my piece in the most recent Bidoun, an account of the rise, turbulent fall and rebirth of the Dia Art Foundation, told through the eyes of co-founder Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi (nee Philippa de Menil)... for the rest please see the link at the break.By the time the auctioneer’s gavel fell, marking the bankrupt denouement of the Dia Art Foundation’s heroic first decade, the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-57963913503106339292010-08-02T11:06:00.000-07:002010-08-02T11:14:10.710-07:00

There is a shrine in one corner of the current location of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela's Dream House, at 275 Church Street, in Manhattan's TriBeCa, dedicated to two individuals without whom the Dream House would not exist: their teacher and guru Pandit Pran Nath, and above him, on the wall, one of the few extant photographs of Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, who was Pandit Pran Nath's own

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-36621525117369385392010-03-24T05:16:00.000-07:002010-03-25T07:39:42.029-07:00

Walter De Maria: Ocean Music (1968)This is the first installment of what will be a series of posts to music I listened to during months of researching my piece on Pandit Pran Nath in the current issue of Bidoun. There will be everything from deep dhrupad to raucous No Wave, with much time spent in the middle, not to mention along oxbows and the trackless backwaters... However, no time will be

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-60748233225682377842010-03-20T06:43:00.001-07:002010-03-20T06:50:25.449-07:00

I have been remiss recently with my clunky dear old blog, but perhaps this will explain why, my just-published story on Pandit Pran Nath for the wonderful folks at Bidoun Magazine, who were kind enough to post it in its entirety online. Please check it, along with some great photos shared by the incomparable La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, at Bidoun's web site. Here's the teaser...First

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-72809388962206969312010-02-26T06:36:00.000-08:002010-02-26T06:43:43.475-08:00

More stuff cross-posted from Brown Town, where you'll find me posting on occasion nowadays... This here is best seen there, where the image has a caption and the whole thing just looks nicer. Next stop on the desultory voyage a l'avatar Americain is this huge watercolor by Walton Ford. I was flipping through his recently published super-deluxe Taschen coffeetable raisonné the other day at the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-28483006293316678562010-02-18T15:42:00.000-08:002010-02-18T15:46:39.315-08:00

More stuff cross-posted from Brown Town, where you'll find me posting on occasion nowadays... This here is best seen there, where the photos have captions. I am going to burn down the worldI am going to tear down everything that cannot stand aloneThere were so many American avatars before Cameron's. Among them: the biweekly underground zine/mouthpiece of the banjo-playing acid-folk pioneer and

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-33529542835335743332010-02-01T07:27:00.000-08:002010-02-01T07:32:29.555-08:00

More stuff cross-posted from Brown Town, where you'll find my blogging energies--such as they are--expending themselves nowadays... This here is best seen there, where the photos have captions.In 1960, the Sierra Club published an influential book of photographs called This Is the American Earth, co-authored by photographer Ansel Adams and critic Nancy Newhall and featuring 85 black-and-white

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-4276150335383473002010-01-26T12:14:00.000-08:002010-01-26T12:16:27.489-08:00

More stuff cross-posted from Brown Town, where you'll find my blogging energies--such as they are--expending themselves nowadays... Rani Mukherjee wants to know what there is to do in Khandala. H.P. Blavatsky has some advice for her, in From the caves and jungles of Hindostan, a sensationalist post-spiritualist travelogue of India, written during 1879 and 1880 for the pages of the Russki

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-34681271430508398492010-01-08T10:40:00.000-08:002010-01-08T10:42:44.041-08:00

In which yours truly aims a few sharp pokes at a very expensive balloon. Cross-posted from Browntown...Confession: I've walked by Anish Kapoor's Chicago "bean" (ok, ok: "Cloud Gate") one too many times, and if familiarity has not, in this case, bred any real contempt, it has bred something akin to disinterest. It is an expensive-looking, starchitectural funhouse mirror cloaked with the same

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-48575349509072828572010-01-03T08:26:00.000-08:002010-01-03T08:34:08.465-08:00

hello readers and happy new decade to you from me... as some of you may have noticed my once feverish pace has slowed to a glacial crawl, what i like to think of as a majestic, solemn and stately schedule but that others may regard as a sign of laziness. no matter. solo-blogging--especially when you start a blog like jugaad which is full of really really long and time-consuming essays--can be

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-80229343531151289092009-12-28T13:51:00.000-08:002009-12-28T13:53:19.370-08:00

This is a real speaking tree, it speaks for itselfin incessant telegraph moans,an oscillating click-clack when it's stilland an alien reed when it blows.dear readers, the end, do not attempt to:

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-42879639377452000872009-11-07T10:22:00.000-08:002009-11-07T10:37:22.251-08:00

Two soldiers sit facing each other in the back of a truck, guns gleaming weirdly green against the apocalyptic half-light that bathes the scene in a burnt, neon-orange haze. In TV Santhosh's untitled 2008 painting, they seem poised on the brink of dissolution into a strategic anonymity, a trooper's anonymity—that mysterious passage from man to cadre—their moustaches mirror each other, their

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-84639433800475104862009-10-28T11:48:00.000-07:002009-10-28T11:57:48.172-07:00

Rumor has it that a film is going to be made of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan's lives and suicides, directed by Gus van Sant and written by Bret Easton Ellis. This is one of his non-digital-wallpaper films, a spiritualist ghost story from 2004 set in the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. If you want a highlight just skip to minute 22 and watch until like minute 24.I wrote about the couple

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-72527246824997964532009-10-27T09:38:00.000-07:002009-10-27T10:02:36.223-07:00

Naeem Mohaiemen's “Live True Life or Die Tryin,” at New York's Cue Art Foundation until October 31st--and afterward traveling on to Gijon, Zurich and Kolkata--presents two sets of photographs and accompanying text panels, facing each other across the gallery space. Taken singly and stripped of their accompanying texts, the photographs could easily be read as photojournalistic products, saleable

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-87397046747535391662009-09-03T09:11:00.000-07:002009-09-04T06:27:24.543-07:00

“The Expansion Complex of the First Great Ornamental Age,” Seher Shah's new series of digital prints at Nature Morte Berlin lifts images from the sepia-toned archive of yesteryear—a black-and-white news photo, an aerial view of a city, a rigid portrait in an antique studio—and tweaks them, splitting and embroidering them with geometric designs at the edges, creating an effect that is somehow

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-35515852452020571102009-08-31T08:33:00.000-07:002009-08-31T08:35:41.044-07:00

[This is a reposted review of the show as installed last year at PhotoInk in Delhi. The show opens at Walsh Gallery in Chicago on September 11th.]The mountain of trash seemed to stretch very far, then gradually without perceptible demarcation or boundary it became something else. But what? A jumbled and pathless collection of structures. Cardboard cartons, plywood and rotting boards, the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-35757437299023519472009-08-30T10:07:00.000-07:002009-08-31T10:26:11.979-07:00

Photo from Mithu Sen's "Nothing Lost in Translation" 2008 MOMAT Tokyo. Photo remains copyright of the artist.Text from Dhananjaya's 10th century aesthetic treatise the दशारूप, or Dasarupa.80 (P. 73; H. 67).बिभात्सः क्र्मिपुतिगंधिवामाठुप्रयैर जुगुप्सैकभुरउद्वेगी रुधिरान्त्रकिकासवासमाम्सदिभिः क्सोभानाहवैराग्यज जघनास्तानादिषू घृणाशुद्धो 'नुभावैर वृतोनासाव्क्त्रविकूणनादिभिर इहावेगार्तिशण्कादयः'The

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-13771012100750898842009-08-24T08:14:00.000-07:002009-08-25T16:16:00.499-07:00

The she-ghouls have made bracelets from intestinesand red lotus ornaments of women's hands;have woven necklaces of human heartsand rouged themselves with blood in place of saffron. (Bhavabhuti)“Half Full: Part II” reads like a dance of the half dead, a cremation ground lyric, a glasshouse of tropical plants whose skeletal roots are dipped in blood, a dirty joke screamed from the gallows, and a

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-30988772809094182012009-08-18T09:06:00.001-07:002009-08-18T10:12:35.167-07:00

Images are mediators, human-made intermediaries that transact between and simultaneously produce a sense of a perceiving subject and an independent will different from and communicating through the object perceived... An image with a powerful effet de reel effaces that intermediary transaction, obscures it behind the halo of its auratic immediacy, generating an illusion of perfect communication.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-24443067828117689802009-08-14T10:48:00.000-07:002009-08-14T11:04:34.913-07:00

Here's the text I wrote for the catalogue of an unusual solo exhibition of Suhasini Kejriwal's sculptures in January in Jaipur... the images of Rabindra Bhavan are both borrowed from Ram Rahman's excellent Rabindra Bhavan blog, the rest are Suhasini's works. Suhasini Kejriwal's “Garden of un-Earthly Delights” offers a double provocation. On the one hand, her decision to stage the show in a

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-55609567039388239492009-07-28T05:56:00.000-07:002009-07-28T06:03:21.683-07:00

Here's a little thing that appeared in Tank Magazine a while back... a huge thanks to Ram Rahman for his help...It was 1961 and things were proceeding according to plan in India. The nation's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, still had a handle on things. Self-sufficiency seemed imminent, the triumph of secularism, reason and non-alignment in the offing. And tucked away on a quiet

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-40321690992495747852009-07-28T05:25:00.000-07:002009-07-29T06:36:07.967-07:00

Finally I took a walk alone to the Levee. I wanted to sit on the muddy bank and dig the Mississippi River; instead of that I had to look at it with my nose against a wire fence. When you start separating the people from their rivers what have you got? “Bureaucracy!” says Bill.On The Road: The Original Scroll, Jack Kerouac, 1951 Not much seems to separate it from me here—it is as though the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-57141276925547894712009-07-23T08:12:00.001-07:002009-07-23T08:35:25.903-07:00

This from a catalog essay for the ongoing India Xianzai show in Shanghai, which was a blast. Some of the things in here didn't actually make the show but no matter...A hard-angled position that one would be hard pressed to hold for long, nevertheless she is held there, back arched, enrapt and gazing at the elaborate tiles of a mosque, above and behind her; their traditional ornament, exquisite

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-6271839618646232952009-02-17T03:25:00.000-08:002009-02-17T03:34:55.252-08:00

The traffic in Delhi has gotten worse, and long waits in shuddering three-wheelers are increasingly common; the phenomenon isn't lost on outdoor advertisers, either, who improve on the opportunity to snare the hapless passerby's gaze with ever more garish lightbox displays: Gigantic faces, impossibly photoshopped fireworks, flatscreen televisions, huge open mouths, bubble-fonted letters making an

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-1275582552740144292009-02-10T04:01:00.000-08:002009-02-10T04:05:30.843-08:00

I know I can't. I love writing them and consuming them too. They are like those little tiny idlis they have at Saravana Bhavan. These are both things I just published on Artforum.com.The first is for the Richard Bartholomew show at Photoink here in Delhi. By the way, it is pronounced "photo ink" not, as I previously reported "photo oink."http://www.artforum.com/picks/section=world#

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-74630018957966921682009-02-02T20:07:00.000-08:002009-02-02T20:13:03.798-08:00

Here's a mini-review of Hema Upadhyay's recent show at Nature Morte that I did for Artforum.com's critics' picks section. The link to the original. You can find images from the show on Nature Morte's website here.Mumbai-based Hema Upadhyay's two-dimensional works typically rely on a small set of pictorial elements: miniature photographed self-portraits collaged into painted environments that

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-15798475224269057602009-01-30T04:50:00.000-08:002009-01-30T04:55:54.265-08:00

The following is excerpted from my catalog essay for the Nature of the City, a show I co-curated with Nitin Mukul last month at arts-i gallery in Scindia House, on the corner where Kasturbha Gandhi Marg meets Connaught Place's outer circle.Artists' contributions to the public discussion of the ecology of the South Asian city are critically important, especially in the two-fold process of

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-59949915643943410782008-12-12T04:03:00.000-08:002008-12-12T18:15:42.721-08:00

Regular readers will definitely dig this cross-posting from the 48c blog:48c is back in the newsAnd about time. The Mint really beat everyone else with the scoop on this one. First off, a piece in today's Times of India: "Out of galleries, onto streets." Penned by Neelam Raaj, this one starts off in the slightly louche environs of the typical elitist wine-sipping art opening--I found myself on

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-39143057240512613262008-12-11T23:37:00.001-08:002008-12-11T23:42:29.207-08:00

You really should be checking these out on the 48c blog site itself, but I doubt anyone will mind if I cross-post a few articles of interest to my regular Jugaad readers... I start with a preview piece I wrote about Sheba Chhachhi's new installation work for the project, The Water DivinerSomething occurred to me the other day when I went with Sheba Chhachhi to visit her site at the Delhi Public

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-34262794418780661152008-12-08T19:06:00.000-08:002008-12-08T19:09:19.390-08:00

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-5203592486581495872008-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:002008-12-08T01:29:19.592-08:00

Dear readers, apologies as usual for my long and unforgivable absence. I have a good excuse though! First of all our Nature of the City show is opening on the evening of the 16th of December at arts-i gallery in Scindia House, Connaught Place here in Delhi. Do come! It is looking good. But in addition, in my typical foolish zeal for over-commitment, I have taken on the task of

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-90552414087704375302008-11-22T22:43:00.000-08:002008-11-22T22:58:57.948-08:00

I was reading through the Hindu's Sunday Magazine--which usually takes all of four minutes--when I saw that someone named Sasha Altaf (described as "an art critic based in Florida, U.S." also someone with whom I share no fewer than 11 facebook friends) had written a review of Vivan Sundaram's Trash show. Now I wrote a piece of my own on that show, posted right here (and nowhere else, I might add

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-39774037714689353492008-11-21T03:40:00.000-08:002008-11-21T04:07:47.575-08:00

We don't get to see enough new Pakistani art in Delhi. We really don't. And the times are lean here this fall, but not just for the money men: this year's season of shows started with something of a bang with the launch of the Devi Art Foundation in September, but since then has slipped into a perverse combination of ennui and triumphalism that, only in retrospect, looks like the inevitable and

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-44558850017062259952008-11-20T00:27:00.000-08:002008-11-20T00:31:02.633-08:00

Here's a blurb I just wrote for an upcoming exhibition by Suhasini Kejriwal that will be held in Jaipur at the Anokhi Museum near Amber fort. Dates are yet to be announced, but it will coincide at least in part with the Jaipur Literary Festival, so mid- to late-January. Stay posted for more information on the show...Dr. Alka Pande and the Viraasat Foundation proudly present an installation of

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-36351560075834669892008-11-18T02:23:00.001-08:002008-11-18T02:29:01.147-08:00

This is a piece that will be appearing in the magazine Marg, accompanied by a set of 10 photos from Gauri Gill's "Nizamuddin at Night" series...There is a sound peculiar to the middle of the night in the residential areas of South Delhi: the low whistle of a watchman on his bicycle, making the rounds, sounding muffled and quiet, not loud enough to wake up a sleeper but reassuring to the insomniac

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-13564564072294181232008-10-23T05:03:00.000-07:002008-10-23T05:13:11.974-07:00

Just back from Turkey, in a state of profound admiration. Why did it take me so long to get there? I recommend that you all leave for Turkey immediately. While you wait for your flight, check out this piece that appeared in The Mint while I was gone, a short newspapery review of Abir Karmakar's show at Gallery Espace in Delhi. I'll be back at this blogging business in earnest as soon as I can

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-62797893081594481992008-10-06T06:37:00.000-07:002008-10-06T06:39:29.918-07:00

Loyal readers will know that I have a long record of digital absences... For the first time, however, I am here to tell you that for the next three weeks your not-so-faithful blogger will be on vacation, in Istanbul, and full reports to follow!

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-13217996113014227052008-09-29T01:55:00.000-07:002008-09-29T02:05:33.898-07:00

This 2008 animated video is by Italian wall artist Blu, executed on public walls in Buenos Aires and Baden. If you haven't seen it before, it is well worth checking out. Thanks to my sis for sending the link.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-21119342071581782362008-09-26T22:33:00.000-07:002008-09-28T00:53:52.685-07:00

"Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?" "Truly, sir, I

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-9587501999888113832008-09-22T23:15:00.000-07:002008-09-22T23:19:37.451-07:00

Not to sound like an alarmist or anything, but am I alone in thinking this is a really really bad sign? From the Guardian:Starving guillemots push rival chicks off cliffsGuillemots have begun killing their neighbours' chicks by pecking them to death and pushing them off cliff edges in a desperate reaction to collapsing fish stocks in the North Sea.The sudden rise of infanticide in a colony in the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-28801476794511559622008-09-19T21:20:00.001-07:002008-09-19T21:26:55.246-07:00

Here I am opening up a new front in my tireless campaign to write about the Devi Art Foundation's inaugural show, in a little piece for Artforum.com...I invite you to don't:

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-19644849602862256732008-09-17T05:11:00.000-07:002008-09-17T05:40:31.728-07:00

I was on my way to do some research for a forthcoming preview, headed out to a place I've learned to be on guard against, lest it give rise to unwelcome surges of dilettante rumination on society and commerce, i.e. the perversely named New Friends Colony Community Centre, and sitting there in the back of an autorickshaw found myself in a spontaneous, inexplicable traffic jam, motionless at the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-28547371821502888792008-09-16T10:04:00.000-07:002008-09-16T10:17:43.625-07:00

Over the years I have occasionally featured in the Indian news in sometimes surprising ways. A few years back when I was here on a research grant and spending far too much time in manuscript libraries across western India, my face appeared in the local section of various newspapers with an alarming frequency. I was usually egregiously misquoted, in both Hindi and English. But the thing was, as

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-58970944962534767992008-09-13T23:21:00.001-07:002008-09-13T23:37:57.717-07:00

The mountain of trash seemed to stretch very far, then gradually without perceptible demarcation or boundary it became something else. But what? A jumbled and pathless collection of structures. Cardboard cartons, plywood and rotting boards, the rusting and glassless shells of cars, had been thrown together to form habitation. Michael Thelwell, The Harder They Come, 1980It was late and I was

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-62777441952242605592008-09-13T04:29:00.000-07:002008-09-13T04:33:49.107-07:00

If you aren't interested in animatronics, then maybe it is time to broaden your horizons. This animatronic nightmare came up during my intensive research for a piece on Vivan Sundaram's Trash show. Please don't be so foolish as to click the link below and actually expect to:

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-23159761260056539862008-09-09T00:18:00.000-07:002008-12-08T01:27:36.660-08:00

The Nature of the City, the show I'm co-curating with Nitin Mukul--originally scheduled for September 18th at the India Habitat Centre's Visual Arts Gallery--got some excellent press in this fortnight's Timeout Delhi! All except for one little thing... by the time we learned that we were going to be able to scale our show up, have it up for a month and do all kinds of other good stuff with it

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-18969705310105923412008-09-05T22:17:00.000-07:002008-09-05T22:30:40.409-07:00

Here's the link to an article of mine that appears in the Mint newspaper's Lounge section this weekend. They called it "Juxtapositions," which reminds me that I should always think up a title for my pieces. I have renamed it.It is as sure a sign of the monsoon's wane as the first storm clouds of June are of its arrival: galleries in the capital are gearing up for a new season of shows after a

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-21431643363211516252008-08-31T02:25:00.000-07:002008-08-31T02:40:44.860-07:00

A short piece I wrote this spring for the current issue of ARTIndia. The text that appeared in the magazine was, unfortunately, edited in a way that caused me much anguish and embarrassment. The same thing happened with my piece on Archana Hande. Here it is as I wrote it.The centerpiece of Srinivasa Prasad's Payana, on display from March 3rd to April 10th at Gallery SKE in Bangalore, is the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-42302998068931320022008-08-26T02:48:00.000-07:002008-08-26T03:02:48.317-07:00

For those of you who don't already know, the small exhibition of photographs of and works by Indian artist M.F. Husain was vandalized by a small group of young men calling themselves the Shri Ram Sena ("the army of Ram"). They threw chairs, broke frames and threatened people, then ran off. The exhibition was organized as a protest to Husain's exclusion from the "India Art Summit." In

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-26784026621106023282008-08-25T05:35:00.000-07:002008-08-25T05:57:20.893-07:00

For those of us who were so unfortunate as to be stranded here in Delhi, or otherwise unable to make it to the lovely south Tirol for Raqs Media Collective's curatorial project at Manifesta 7, here's a bit of video that I found of their site at vernissage tv. For the show, Raqs was given a large, defunct fascist-era aluminium factory to work with. The theme they devised is based around the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-11877084891425488162008-08-22T12:34:00.000-07:002008-08-31T01:59:37.305-07:00

One of the things I'm working on right now. More details to follow. Please note, though, that despite what it says on the bottom of this, the original proposal, the show in fact will be opening on December 5th or thereabouts at the new Religare Arts Initiative space in Connaught Place and will be up for a month. Appropriately enough, given the theme, our little show is growing...Finance

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-55775915068114779382008-08-19T08:42:00.000-07:002008-08-19T22:43:17.420-07:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time... but this weekend Delhi will see a so-called "Art Summit" with big name panelists and a whole lot of other forms of hoo-ha. Please check out the letter below, courtesy of photographer Ram Rahman and SAHMAT, on the craven exclusion of M.F. Husain, apparently to avoid any unseemly controversy. Ridiculous and completely predictable. Hey, not everyone gets

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-26771117990089011262008-08-18T04:25:00.000-07:002008-08-18T04:29:53.594-07:00

Here's the infamous piece that Art India botched so badly in the editing process that it caused me anguish and nausea. A lot of people asked me to post it in its original form here, so here you go. This type of review is better online anyway...There is a revealing faux customer testimonial in the "About Us" section of Archana Hande's provocative new web-installation arrangeurownmarriage.com,

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-26955195270624282522008-08-18T04:13:00.000-07:002008-08-18T04:21:00.306-07:00

Here's a teaser and link to an article I published in the Mint newspaper's Lounge section last weekend. I had the strange experience of watching people read my article while on a flight to Bombay. I kind of felt like saying, hey I wrote that, but then I fell asleep. Keep your eyes open for another piece in the Lounge next weekend or the one after that, a preview of the upcoming show at Nature

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-70130174434037644292008-08-16T21:32:00.000-07:002008-08-16T22:02:15.493-07:00

I've been a fan of Susanta Mandal's mechanical installations since first seeing one firsthand at Khoj open studios, and another set at the Mechanisms in Motion show last year at Anant Art Gallery in Noida. No one else in India is working with this type of sculpture: rumbling erector-set engineering projects that combine fluid and gears and light and noise to generate an eerie, deeply personal

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-87583949757125466022008-08-15T23:25:00.000-07:002008-08-15T23:41:41.397-07:00

A piece that originally appeared in Matters of Art, an online publication that has been good to me and doesn't mutilate my writing and make me hate them, which is more than can be said for a certain magazine. They pay better too. As usual, please ignore the "read more!" link below the piece. I'd like to ditch those entirely, but I'm not sure how to change my blogger template thing without

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-45103695505389966322008-08-15T23:20:00.000-07:002008-08-16T21:52:15.685-07:00

Dear faithful readers,I know it has been far too long. I have allowed my blog to fast almost to the point of disappearance. But I have decided to come back. I could list all the reasons why this is almost impossible. But I think the email I append below--originally sent to a bunch of friends and colleagues in the art world--will give a good indication of why I'm going to try. Dear all,

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-25106537279928138012008-05-19T00:43:00.000-07:002008-05-19T01:17:47.463-07:00

The Shivvers live on WMTV TV, Madison. The band, led by Jill Kossoris, should have gotten huge but the vital late 70s, early 80s Midwestern underground powerpop scene was not on the radar screen of coastal hipsters--this in spite of the fact that this band, like their predecessors The Raspberries (from Cleveland) and Cheap Trick (from Rockford, Illinois), achieves a nearly perfect bubblegum

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-31631401886561856822008-05-18T01:10:00.000-07:002008-05-18T01:22:52.875-07:00

Here's a teaser for an extended piece that will be appearing in the next issue of Camerawork Delhi, a photography magazine that started publishing last year with funding from Khoj and the Alliance Francaise. It is co-edited by Gauri Gill, Sunil Gupta, and Radhika Singh. The piece this is from is a look back at a season's worth of photography shows in Delhi, 2007-2008. Pay no attention to the "

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-33891410718381114322008-05-16T03:44:00.000-07:002008-05-16T04:09:47.337-07:00

In honor of "Fluxus in Germany from 1962-1994: a long story with many knots," the current show at Delhi's National Gallery of Modern Art, and Ben Patterson, the Fluxus veteran who is giving Delhi's foremost artistic redoubt of government-sponsored mediocrity and clock-watching a taste of live Fluxus... 1."That point he made about the difference with performance art.Composer Henry Cowell came up

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-69107365052475722342008-05-13T04:43:00.000-07:002008-05-13T04:54:22.395-07:00

Another mini-review, this one of Gauri Gill's recent show. I wrote this for an upcoming issue of Camerawork Delhi, which Gauri co-edits, but it was in the context of a long wrap-up review of about seven recent photography shows, so I didn't get to use it all. I thought I'd post it here uncut. As usual with these mini-reviews, don't bother clicking on the "read more" link below. This is

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-69113357213269000812008-05-11T21:58:00.000-07:002008-05-11T22:10:43.583-07:00

This is Japanese alt-songstress Jun Togawa in 1993 doing a cover of the title track from Brigitte Fontaine and Areski's 1969 masterpiece "Comme à la radio." The original album was recorded with the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-13331074943277219562008-05-08T04:38:00.000-07:002011-01-04T16:02:09.978-08:00

Here's a teaser for a piece I wrote on Delhi-based artist Aditya Pande for the current Matters of Art. The full text can be found here.John Ruskin would be horrified, the old fuddy-duddy, if he could peek through my eyes at Aditya Pande at work in his brightly lit studio in South Delhi: he sits there in a comfortable office chair with a large computer monitor in front of him, his left hand

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-347788932194015292008-05-06T06:08:00.000-07:002008-05-08T04:37:03.545-07:00

A mini-review of Sheila Makhijani's works in a recent show at Vadehra in New Delhi. My extended review is in the current Matters of Art, available here. There is a strange pulse beating in Sheila Makhijani's recent paintings, miniature abstracts on paper included in "Fluid Spaces: Gender and Abstraction, 1973-2008," an engaging group show at Vadehra Gallery's Okhla space. And there is something

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-90501601562471664442008-05-04T19:21:00.000-07:002008-05-04T20:19:07.811-07:00

Some people get a little freaked out by dancing puppets. Not me. This is a track by a 1970s band called the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Dahomey, recorded in the West African country of Benin.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-68437250395903794042008-05-02T01:35:00.001-07:002008-05-08T04:48:15.569-07:00

A mini-review of Abul Kalam Azad's recent show in Ernakulam. My extended review is in the current Matters of Art, available here. Abul Kalam Azad's latest series of photographs, "Animal," on display at the brand new Ishka Gallery in Kochi, are shot in the color-filter shades of a computerized twilight. In one, a buffalo looms menacingly in the sinister shadows of a color negative, underneath a

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-15915259263819180272008-04-27T22:29:00.000-07:002008-05-01T08:50:39.301-07:00

There are some tastes that arise unbidden--inexplicable and autochthonous--surfacing from the murky shallows and presenting themselves to anyone watching, at once novel and yet somehow fully formed and primordial, like an unidentifiable turtle coming up for air. Some of these capricious pre-critical tastes are best kept under wraps, and carefully, so they can't even sneak out at parties, in a

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-91654759276171625882008-04-27T19:30:00.000-07:002008-04-27T19:50:29.358-07:00

Brazilian pop from the 70s is good, really really good. Why? I think it is their unashamed pursuit of beauty and virtuosic musicianship, combined with excellent analogue production. Here is the legendary Cartola with a young Leci Brandão, performing one of her hits "Deixa Pra Lá" in the early 70s. Thank you, YouTube.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-49718756561195658242008-04-27T00:45:00.000-07:002008-04-27T02:06:28.962-07:00

A mini-review with photos of "A Tale of Three Cities," the Pablo Bartholomew show at the National Museum back in February. This is taken directly from my notes...Self-satisfied, overstuffed aunties-to-be in chiffon shalwar suits sniffle "bekaar ye to! mindless people" and walk quickly by, voyeuristically perusing the demimonde and dismissing it just as quickly, missing out on what may

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-53250870799594272762008-04-24T03:07:00.000-07:002008-04-24T10:40:06.273-07:00

Peter Nagy, Delhi's formidable gallerist and arbiter elegantiae, must have a wicked sense of humor, marking the advent of summer with Pushpamala N's "Paris Autumn." There is something immediately--viscerally--appealing about entering Nature Morte from the blazing hot and blindingly whitewashed driveway area to find an air-conditioned evocation of a velvet-draped fin de siècle movie house. That

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-69809035018965628212008-04-09T22:23:00.000-07:002008-04-09T22:28:39.322-07:00

Dear few, faithful (and faithless) readers, this blog is due to be up and active again in a couple of days as I slowly return--fattened by idlis and darkened by the southern sun, somehow retaining my grip in spite of it all--and recover from an extended familial foray in the lands of the Dravidas. No doubt most of you have given up on the blog, dormant now for over a month, perhaps periodically

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-60577420865452585412008-03-02T20:14:00.000-08:002008-03-03T00:35:56.146-08:00

A few ambitious readers have expressed confusion over my highly condensed excursion through the mind-twisting thickets of Jacques Lacan's theory of the "imaginary order", and I must confess I share their sentiments. But then I came up with a perfect exempla gratia, a favorite old chestnut for illustrating prickly ideas about the nature of the self, which subject--I'm sure you'll agree--is one of

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-91305841589222883652008-02-29T20:23:00.000-08:002008-03-04T02:31:35.361-08:00

The recent NGMA photography mega-show, now at the NGMA in Bombay, comprises a number of self-contained galleries ranging from the Alkazi Foundation's stunning exhibition of early Indian painted photographs ("The Embellished Image") to the wonderful retrospective stroll through the intensely personal, remarkable photography of Umrao Singh Sher-Gil ("His Misery and His Manuscript: 1889-1949), the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-86656620416868411722008-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:002008-02-29T05:02:35.890-08:00

It must have been the autumn of 1995, when the holidays draw circuses to the city... I was young and new in Benares, at least looking back now; at the time, I probably seemed to myself to be some grizzled old Banarsiwala. And granted, perhaps I had gone slightly gray during those first few months there--early gray like a spring snow. I must have met with every Sanskrit charlatan in the city.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-40073964000332629362008-02-25T03:04:00.000-08:002008-02-25T08:26:01.280-08:00

I was speaking with a friend of mine on the phone--a journalist covering the auctioning off of the world's cricket talent in the hyped up Indian Premier League draft--and he cut right to the chase, without being asked: yes, he had stood within several feet of Preity Zinta. Well?, I asked. She had the most perfect pout, he told me, a perfect practiced pout on demand--a preening public pout, an

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-11349949030403578682008-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:002008-03-05T04:34:07.916-08:00

The midday papers at New Friends Colony were warning against monster bacteria in big black letters, splashed with lurid headshots of kidney-thieving doctors gone bad and the bodies of Naxalites gunned down in the tribal belt. A group of rich teens was debating whether to go to Barista or Cafe Coffee Day, smoking cigarettes and avoiding the imprecations of a small army of professional mendicants

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-72175869727184479082008-02-18T21:30:00.000-08:002008-02-19T19:31:09.582-08:00

There is something shadowy and truant about visiting a gallery at midday--and I should know--like sneaking off to a matinee during an artificially extended lunch hour, into the darkened private space of the aesthetic and the interesting. It is a great way to see a film; its impact heightened by the frisson of a quotidian escape scene, by the sunlit day-to-day transactions going on outside. In

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-49508875950082362382008-02-06T05:32:00.000-08:002008-02-06T05:57:43.300-08:00

An Old Delhi treasure under threat and not much to be done about it... welcome to the life of an architecture lover in Shahjahanabad.When I wrote my last post--in a fit of whimsy and inspiration--I had just come back from my second visit to the "Meru Mandir" in Dharampura neighborhood in Old Delhi. This temple is never visited by tourists, is a bit difficult to find (although you will find the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-9718565285916776142008-02-03T03:05:00.000-08:002008-02-06T05:55:14.983-08:00

Contrary to what you may have heard--the world isn't round, it is flat. And rather uneven in its disposition. As long as I'm busy disillusioning you of science's mad theorems, I may as well add that time, too, doesn't flow evenly, like a cartoon river--it moves more like a real one. That is to say, it flows but it also doubles back and eddies and over some shallow spots runs fast before

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-31263088751651539052008-01-31T01:15:00.000-08:002008-01-31T07:58:06.829-08:00

A house of wax hangs from the wall, a dark soft box somewhere between the color of earth and blood. It is closed to view, just like the six blank coffins that sit on top of it. I can't see anything inside it, even looking from all sides and then I turn around and see the camera filming me there looking, projecting my image on a wall nearby, next to the sepia-toned painting of the same box

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-61105567887314728362008-01-25T02:29:00.000-08:002008-01-30T19:23:46.855-08:00

...All I can remember was a pale lightening flash. Then I collapsed...The new T.V. Santhosh show at Nature Morte in Delhi--up until February 16th--combines installation pieces and paintings in a powerful juxtaposition that evokes the empty inexorability of digitized time, plasticized bone and clean metallic flesh--the inverting irradiation of nature and the sterile horror of what is left behind

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-59042461311761321682008-01-24T03:05:00.000-08:002008-01-24T20:51:08.226-08:00

Perhaps it was like the clinking of champagne glasses before the crushing roar of the iceberg and the arctic paralysis of the cold, salty sea--or maybe just the beautiful iridescence on the bubble before the baby pokes it with a dirty little finger and it pops into the air's dry absence--or maybe it was like one of those Sunday night piss ups that you find yourself involved in despite your own

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-20236219568613261342008-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:002008-01-18T04:32:05.032-08:00

There's trouble brewing in Sewa Nagar.In 2002, the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) approved plans for a unique project, meant as a pilot for a large-scale solution to address the needs of Delhi's estimated half-million street vendors. With the MCD's support, together with funding from private and governmental sources, the human rights NGO Manushi Sangathan laid the groundwork for a new type

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-40058153246091756952008-01-14T22:44:00.001-08:002008-01-15T04:45:15.399-08:00

Quietly tucked into the northern wall of the enclosure around Humayun's tomb is one of Delhi's least visited historical sites, the Chilla Nizamuddin. Tradition has it that it was here that Delhi's most important Sufi saint, Nizamuddin Auliya, along with other masters of the Chishti order of Sufis, spent his time in retreat, performing a ritual of seclusion called the chilla. Although nowadays

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-28003580785850849402008-01-14T04:15:00.000-08:002008-01-14T19:54:50.649-08:00

Mohsin Hamid’s debut novel Moth Smoke, first published in 2000, paints a picture of Lahore—and by extension contemporary Pakistan—falling apart at the seams during the nuclear summer of 1998. The anti-hero of the novel, Darashikoh Shezad is our Virgil for this descent into the modern Pakistani maelstrom, and a perfect emblem for the vision that Hamid seeks to impart: Darashikoh is a fallen

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-47547095841662395072008-01-09T23:20:00.000-08:002008-01-09T23:56:55.295-08:00

Once upon a time, or so the story goes, there lived an old fisherman on the wretched riverbanks in the shadow of the palace of the Shah. A lucky day was one where he caught a tiny fish or two. Even back in those days, this type of patient desperation attracted gawkers--as it does now, gentle readers--in this case in the form of an immense, iridescent bird--the legendary Kaha, as even the

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-87829548525994101422008-01-08T01:44:00.000-08:002008-01-08T07:25:50.079-08:00

Blown back into the subcontinent by strong gusts of easterly wind--recovering from two weeks of European excess--delivered by the good offices of Swiss Air, I found myself wandering like a stranger through the rapidly gentrifying Meher Chand market, past the incongruously posh new Cafe Coffee Day on the corner, then eyeing the irresistible offerings of M.I. Meat Market's nighttime kabab stand as

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-38619605834108469682007-12-13T22:30:00.000-08:002008-01-10T00:27:10.638-08:00

It was about eight years ago. I was up in Milwaukee with assorted family members to see Tina Turner live at the old Mecca Arena. It was kind of a funny scene--there were downtown dudes wearing sharp suits and old-school men's hats, there were teams of suburban moms wearing matching pastel colored sweatpants with the name of their hometown's high school on them, and there was everything in

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-46126417944969895502007-12-12T02:46:00.000-08:002007-12-12T07:37:44.972-08:00

Thought much about dark linkages between exotic fantasies of Delhi, American underground music and the lessons of Edward Said's groundbreaking Orientalism? Well maybe it is time you did... Aliskandar’s pocket guide to OrientalismDon’t get me wrong, I have my own problems with Edward Said’s Orientalism. Published in 1978, it is a book whose repercussions are still being felt. In it, Said

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-8479453829635221952007-12-11T00:05:00.000-08:002007-12-11T03:27:12.527-08:00

The first time I heard the name Nitin Bal Chauhan was when his friend and fellow fashion designer Darshan showed me a newspaper article that had come out recently in the Times of India’s “Delhi Times” supplement. It was the sort of article that I wouldn’t normally bother to read—even if I occasionally find myself skimming the resolutely mediocre and consumerist Times—“Hats off Girls!” it

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-64802731180454860122007-12-07T04:47:00.000-08:002007-12-09T03:56:56.371-08:00

Say what you will, but the DDA flats of Gautam Nagar have style. Climbing the steps through ascending levels of that geometric, stained yellow concrete public housing architecture of the 1960s, past ingenious alterations and illegalities, past urban gardens and rampant creepers, past leftover Divali lights busted and dusty tangled with marigold garlands buzzing with flies, the DDA plies my mind

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-9531913705977286462007-12-06T20:30:00.001-08:002007-12-06T21:17:25.823-08:00

I recently rediscovered the online photo-archives hosted by the Digital South Asia Library, or DSAL, a project affiliated with the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. The site is a treasure trove of historical texts and images. One interesting resource for those interested in South Asia during the mid-twentieth century is a set of three collections of photos taken by American servicemen

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-30317118286932501162007-12-03T21:50:00.000-08:002008-01-08T01:51:41.609-08:00

"Culture"--whatever we mean by that--is as much a product of movement and contact as it is of fixity, rootedness and isolation. The fact that nationalist, regionalist and localist discourses that make use of this loaded term tend to emphasize the latter, rooted aspect makes the former all too easy to forget, especially when the patterns of movement that shaped "culture" before modernity have

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-29510770511523588492007-12-01T20:20:00.000-08:002008-01-31T07:27:10.042-08:00

I have always been a fan of Anita Desai's 1984 novel In Custody. It tells the story of an unhappily mediocre Hindi lecturer who dreams of a life worth living, specifically one spent in his idealized vision of Urdu poetic culture, in the urbane, cosmopolitan world of Old Delhi. The novel tracks the process of this dream simultaneously being realized and falling apart: Deven, the anti-hero of In

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-57064036095589994062007-11-29T23:56:00.000-08:002009-08-12T08:02:05.407-07:00

A piece in the NYT today discusses an upcoming exhibit at the Corcoran that includes an unfinished work by the late video artist Jeremy Blake, who committed suicide this summer in the wake of the suicide of his longtime girlfriend Theresa Duncan, a blogger, game designer and would-be screenwriter. The article describes how Blake's incomplete "Glitterbest"--his video portrait of Malcolm McLaren,

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-35898450794416300342007-11-29T00:47:00.000-08:002007-11-29T02:53:35.372-08:00

Surrounded by bad news on all sides, I get struck by the fragile, idiosyncratic, dreamily intense beauty of guitarist Ilyas Ahmed. You can watch him on stage with this uneasy, inspired energy--rocking back and forth, his knees bouncing around, hunched over his guitar--and then somehow channeling it into eerie music that is formally rigorous, but impossible to pin down, and startlingly beautiful.

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-35547753095380611522007-11-28T23:00:00.000-08:002007-11-29T02:44:12.861-08:00

Monday's edition of the Hindu carries a story that is sadly familiar: a young girl raped in a rural area collecting firewood, a mob forming, violence, looting, road blocks, burned buses, "tension". But those unfamiliar with the the language of Indian newspapers could be forgiven for coming away from the article a bit confused:"HINDUPUR: The alleged rape of a minor girl belonging to a particular

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-61447995186204158522007-11-22T23:32:00.000-08:002007-11-23T07:38:38.226-08:00

If there was one disagreement that epitomized the stark differences between Mohandas Gandhi and BR Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution and leader of India's formerly untouchable castes, during the formative period of India's liberation from British rule, one argument that embodied the chasm between their respective outlooks, it was this: was India a nation of villages? And if so, was

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5343146722832316751.post-11020353685693675752007-11-22T20:10:00.000-08:002007-11-23T07:42:12.835-08:00

Judee Sill live on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973. She died of a drug overdose on the 23rd of November, 1979. In 1973, when this was shot, she was in the middle of a brief, critically acclaimed but commercially miserable pop career, after a rough childhood, a stint in reform school, and some time spent on the street thieving and hustling. Her songs are hard to pin down, but most deal with

Alexander Keefehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428570289587241656noreply@blogger.com1