One final exhibition for Gallery Ark Vadodara
- Art Featured
Schenelle Dsouza- 8 minutes read
Schenelle Dsouza
A contemporary art gallery based out of Vadodara, Gallery Ark is all set for its new transition into the Ark Foundation.
Gallery Ark was founded in May 2017 by Seema and Atul Dalmia, as a natural progression of their passion and patronage of the arts for over a decade. The gallery, now with Nupur Dalmia at the helm, is housed in Ark – a building designed by Messrs Prabhakar B. Bhagwat. The gallery’s transition to Ark Foundation aims to create opportunities as well as engagement with the different forms of art.
“With the support of vibrant and diverse creative forces, including those represented in Parsec, our vision for Ark is to create opportunities for a widespread and dynamic engagement with the arts, using narratives centred in Vadodara’s visual art oeuvre,” says Nupur Dalmia.
The gallery’s upcoming exhibition Parsec curated by Nupur Dalmia began on March 28 and will continue till May 31.
First glance
The exhibition features works by 19 Indian artists including Aaiushi Beniwal, Alexander Gorlizki, Messrs Prabhakar B. Bhagwat, Deepak Agasthya, Indrapramit Roy, Jyoti Bhatt, K. G. Subramanyan, Kadamboor Neeraj, Kaizad Modi, Mrugen Rathod, Nihaal Faizal, Rekha Rodwittiya, Roshan Chhabria, Sarasija Subramanian, Shilpa Rangnekar, Teja Gavankar, Vasudevan Akkitham, Vimal Ambaliya, and Walter D’Souza.
As Gallery Ark’s final exhibition, Parsec bookends the gallery’s journey with an expansive curation of artworks by artists who have been a part of Vadodara’s leading cultural presence. The ambitious curation brings together works by senior artists like Jyoti Bhatt and K. G. Subramanyan who have played a pivotal role in shaping the course of modern and contemporary Indian art, along with young artists who diversify the future. The exhibition is a rich melange of practices with the impressive Ark building as the backdrop.
Parsec
The title of the show “Parsec” is a reference to a unit measure of distance which is equal to 3.26 light-years, most famously referenced in the Star Wars movies as a measure of time. The word itself is a portmanteau derived from two words, ‘Parallax’ and ‘Second’ and literally means ‘a parallax of one second’.
In the context of the exhibition, Parsec alludes to the Ark organisation’s evolution for the next chapter.
Ark Foundation
Since 2019, the gallery’s scope has grown to include programmes that promote dynamic modules for access to visual arts in India. Dalmia’s chief interest lies in understanding macro patterns of visual art viewership, its mediums of dispensation, and researching possibilities for augmenting it among various audience groups using technology, pedagogy and behavioural interventions. In order to pursue this inclination, she is currently leading the organisation’s transition from its current form as a commercial art gallery to the Ark foundation, which will strive to create opportunities and provide incentives for widespread engagement with visual art in India.
“As Gallery Ark’s final exhibition, Parsec commemorates the many journeys – those of Gallery Ark, its patrons, and team – that have truly inspired our conviction in Ark’s vision going forward. The exhibition, therefore, has been conceptualised as a manner of honouring the people who have played significant roles in moulding my experience in the industry, and as well been instrumental in building the dream that is our vision for the Ark Foundation,” concludes Dalmia.
