Two books on famed artist S H Raza: Celebration and Prayer: Life and Light in Raza's Art, and Antima: The Last Art of Raza, by scholar and author Ashok Vajpeyi, take centre stage in this session with art curator Sangeeta Raghavan, chaired by cultural curator Asad Lalljee. The session explores the artist’s life work, the cosmic dimensions of his art, his contribution as co-founder of the Progressive Artists Group in what was then Bombay, and of course, contemplating the Bindu.
The session is an apt precursor to the upcoming exhibition on the last living Progressive Artist Krishen Khanna, which begins on the 10th of November.
Ashok Vajpeyi, a Hindi poet-critic, translator, editor and culture-activist, is a major Indian cultural figure, with more than 30 books of poetry, criticism in Hindi English to his credit. He has won numerous award including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Dayawati Kavi Shekhar Samman, Kabir Samman, Shakti Chattopadhyay Puraskar, and K Ramkrishnan Award. He has been decorated with honours by the governments of France and Poland. He set up the renowned Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal; has been the first Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University and Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi. He is the Managing Trustee of the Raza Foundation.
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Sangeeta Raghavan spent 25 years in the fashion industry, directing more than a 1000 shows, before moving to the world of art in 2002. She is presently a co-director of Art Musings, a Mumbai based art gallery, which showcases eminent modern and contemporary artists, ranging from renowned Indian modernists such as SH Raza, MF Husain, FN Souza, Anjolie Ela Menon and Sakti Burman to contemporary artists such as Nalini Malani, Baiju Parthan, Paresh Maity, Jayasri Burman, and Shilo Shiv Suleman.
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A former advertising professional, Asad Lalljee is Senior Vice President of the Essar Group, CEO of Avid Learning - one of India’s leading arts and culture public programming platforms under the Essar Group, and has been the Curator of the Royal Opera House, Mumbai, since 2016. Asad is on the board of FICCI’s Tourism and Culture Committee, co-convening national conferences on the creative economy across major Indian cities; on the Kala Ghoda Association’s Executive Committee, and on the advisory board of the Mumbai Urban Art Festival. He also specializes in new media, curating programmes around AI and the cyberfuture.
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