Kolkata :
A galaxy of prominent artists from all over the country will gather in this city for a six-day festival of art being hosted by ArtsAcre Foundation from this weekend. This will be the biggest such gathering of artists in the city in recent memory.
Thirty-one artists will paint, interact, hold workshops, participate in seminars and provide inspiration to budding artists during the festival, which is also the first of its kind in many decades. The renowned artists from outside Bengal who will be attending the festival include Himmat Shah, Madhvi Parekh, Prabhakar Kolte, Rameshwar Broota and Vasundhara Tewari Broota, Ravinder Reddy, Surya Prakesh, S.G Vasudev, Thota Vaikuntam, Veer Munshi and Vrindavan Solanki. Bengal artists Ganesh Haloi, Jogen Chowdhury, K.G. Subramanyam and Rabin Mondal, besides ArtsAcre founder Shuvaprasanna, will be part of the festival.
“The primary objective of this festival is for it to become a platform for art workshops that will immensely benefit students of fine arts and budding and young artists,” said Shuvaprasanna. This will be the first time that artists like Himmat Shah and Rameshwar Broota will come to the city for such a festival, he said.
The sprawling ArtsAcre campus at Rajarhat will be a beehive of activity on all the six days from November 1. “In the evenings we’ll have attractive cultural programmes. Films like the award-winning ‘Asha Jaoar Majhe’ and U R Ananthamurthy’s ‘Samskara’ will be screened. Soumitra Chatterjee will stage his ‘Kalmrigaya’ one evening, while a Chhau dance will be presented by Dilip Mahato and his troupe on another evening. Apart from musical performances, two books on Bismillah Khan and K G Subramanyam will be released at the festival.
ArtsAcre, a world-class integrated arts facility at Rajarhat, was conceived as an institution for nurturing young artists in the field of visual arts. Its foundation stone was laid by Gunter Grass in March 1984 and the new campus inaugurated 30 years later by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in March last year. ArtsAcre houses a museum of modern Bengal art showcasing many contemporary artists of Bengal, four art galleries spread over nearly 7500 square feet, a world-class auditorium, a conservation laboratory, studios, space for workshops, a conference room, and amphitheater and 18 guest apartments, besides many other facilities.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / TNN /October 31st, 2015