Mithu Sen-Girish Shahane Dialogue-Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi:Amrita Sher-Gil National Art Week

To celebrate the birth centenary year of the legendary Indian Artist Amrita Sher-Gil, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi organized Amrita Sher-Gil National Art Week from 18th to 24th February 2013.

Designed and conceived by Diwan Manna, artist and Chairman of Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi along with his team of dedicated workers, 19 eminent artists, art critics, art historians, curators, directors of museums, film makers and editors of art journals participated in this unique Art Week.

Participants included stalwarts such as: Anjolie Ela Menon, S. Kalidas, Pushpamala N, Ashok Vajpeyi, Sheba Chhachhi, Kavita Singh, Mithu Sen, Girish Shahane, Navina Sundaram, Dayanita Singh , Anju Dodiya, Sadanand Menon, Tasneem Mehta, Atul Dodiya, Alka Pande, Bhavna Kakar, Roobina Karode, Vivan Sundaram and Nanak Ganguly
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Trained as a painter, Mithu Sen works in a wide variety of media, making site and time specific installations that often combine sculpture, video, sound, drawings, and even poetry. Although most of her oeuvre is on paper, her work is also often conceptual and interactive. Blending fact and fiction, Sen incorporates selfportraits along with her fantastical creations. Swinging between distance and intimacy, her works deal with the politics of identity, sexuality and gender. 

Mithu Sen earned her BFA and MFA degrees in painting at the Santiniketan University in West Bengal and later studied in Glasgow school of art in UK as well.
Mithu received the SKODA award 2010 for the best contemporary artist in India.
She has had her numbers of solo and group shows all over the world in prestigious museums, biennales, galleries and solo exhibitions of her works have been held at Nature Morte and the British Council in New Delhi, Gallery Chemould in Mumbai, Bose Pacia in New York, Krinzinger Projekte in Vienna, Galerie Steph in Singapore, Espace Louis Vuitton in Taipei, and Suzie Q Projects in Zurich, Gallery Nathalie obadia in Paris. she also did many prestigious residencies in New York, Brazil, China, Austria, Kenya, Japan and South Africa.
She is also a poet with two of her solo books of poetries along with several publications an many imp magazines and journals.
She lives and works in New Delhi.

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Girish Shahane has degrees in English Literature from Elphinstone College, Bombay University, and Oxford University. He was editor and later consulting editor of Art India magazine. He has written on visual art, film and cultural politics for leading publications, and contributed columns to Time Out and Yahoo! India. He is on the faculty of art history courses conducted by Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Jnanapravaha. Exhibitions curated by him include Home Spun (Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, 2011).

Girish Shahane is Director - Art of the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art.