Tata Nano gets pop art cover

NEW DELHI - Street hawkers, road signs and the everyday people adorned the people’s car Tata Nano in a pop art imagery wrapper at the ongoing third edition of the India Art Summit here to serve as a metaphor for a rapidly changing India.

Captioned Stop! Indians Ahead, the project is supported by Singapore-based Suman Aggarwal’s Indigo Blue Art and is the brainchild of her co-citizen artist Ketna Patel.

Juxtaposing high art with contemporary popular culture in collaboration with SICIS, the Italian art mosaic factory, Ketna has converted the Tata Nano car into a symbolic ‘jewel of the masses’,” Aggarwal said.

The art is actually a candid portrayal of the lives of everyday Indians compressed with the country’s illustrious past with the rapidly unfolding future.

A marriage of art and utility, Ketna’s idea is to encourage the viewer to make an appraisal of received ideas filtered down to us through our media saturated conditioning and rampant consumer culture, Aggarwal told IANS.

The people’s car has been embellished with red and yellow pop coloured mosaics of SICIS’ Murano collection in a dose of psychedelia to recall the atmosphere and energy of Indian streets. Using a method similar to that employed by artisans of the Byzantine period, the mosaic artwork on the car has been executed at the SICIS factor in Italy.

Using materials which reflect the growing resurgence of consumerism and globalisation, Patel, through the art, chronicles a changing Asia whilst simultaneously examining issues such as South Asian identity.

The project includes two cars - one for the Indigo Blue Art and the other for Tata. If it may be sold with of course added prices for the artwork, is still under contemplation, Aggarwal said.

The third edition of India’s modern and contemporary art fair - India Art Summit, Jan 20-23, includes the largest showcase of international art to be shown in India till date through 34 international galleries. It is being held at Pragati Maidan in the capital.

Some of the works presented at the gala includes the likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor along with seminal works by Indian modern artists like Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher, among others.

Along with the art fair, the four-day affair also boasts of a sculpture park, video lounge, curated art projects, life performances, speaker forums, an art store with a range of other collateral events.