Rabbithole
2010 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
2:54 minutes
Chitra Ganesh
Rabbithole by Chitra Ganesh is a digital animation that refigures a fundamental plot device in myths and fables. Referencing iconic folklore such as Alice in Wonderland, the Odyssey, and the Mahabharata, Ganesh’s video illustrates the story of a hero’s journey and transformation that is not driven by the glory of violent conquest or saving a damsel in distress. Ganesh’s short video features a colorful style of illustration specific to the artist’s comic works. The setting is a hallucinatory landscape, with an equally psychedelic instrumental score created by Karsh Kale. With a human head, the protagonist is otherwise an amalgamation of reconfigured body parts: a second face protrudes from their right side, a sideways eyeball replaces their torso, secondary hands sprout from their shoulders, and their legs are truncated at the thigh. The main character is flanked by several other part-animal/part-human figures and a pair of floating, bodiless arms. There are various symbols and forms that repeat throughout the video, most importantly the eye and similarly shaped lacerations that are cut onto the figures’ bodies and the earth. The protagonist falls into a red gash that appears in the grass and opens up a portal to a dark underworld filled with organs and flowers. They then return to the material world, physically and psychically altered, with a third eye on their forehead. In Buddhism, the opening of the third eye is achieved through enlightenment or higher consciousness. Rabbithole moves beyond conventional mythic narratives to consider a cyclical journey through the material world that initiates a psychic transformation for the protagonist.
Spanning printmaking, sculpture, and video, Chitra Ganesh’s work draws from broad-ranging material and historic reference points, including surrealism, expressionism, Hindu, Greek and Buddhist iconographies, South Asian pictorial traditions, 19th-century European portraiture and fairy tales, comic books, song lyrics, science fiction, Bollywood posters, news and media images. The process of automatic writing is central to the practice of the Indian-American artist and emerges from dissecting myths to retrieve critical moments of abjection, desire, and loss. By layering disparate materials and visual languages, Ganesh considers alternate narratives of sexuality and power.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Kelly Sinnapah Mary
2021Notebook 10 , l ‘enfance de sanbras (The Childhood of Sanbras) series by Kelly Sinnapah Mary is a sequel to an earlier series by the artist titled Cahier d’un non retour au pays natal (2015)...
© » KADIST
Bady Dalloul
2015Bady Dalloul’s Scrapbook is a 48 minute video beginning from his birth, tracing major global events of the 20 th century, including the beginning and current Occupation and colonization of Palestine, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, assassination of family members and the Syrian diaspora...
© » HYPERALLERGIC
Rediscovered Rembrandt Portraits May Be the Artist’s Smallest Paintings Skip to content Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, portraits of Jan van der Pluym and Jaapgen Caerlsdr (1635), oil on panel, each 7 7/8 x 6 1/2 inches (all photos by Olivier Middendorp, courtesy Rijksmuseum) Emerging from private holdings for the first time in nearly two centuries, a rediscovered pair of Rembrandt portraits is now on a long-term loan for public display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam...
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Two Chinese artists show contrast in styles in side-by-side solo exhibitions of paintings at Hong Kong’s Blindspot Gallery | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more Detail from “Bay of the Deer” (2023) by Zhang Wenzhi, part of the Beijing-based artist’s solo exhibition “Tiger in Mountains, Deer at Ocean” at Blindspot Gallery...
© » KADIST
Drinks at 6pm, event at 7pm Poet and curator Franck André Jamme will read from his new book of poems To the Secret (La Presse, 2015) and discuss with BAM/PFA Director, Lawrence Rinder , his involvement with the tradition of Tantric art as well as his curatorial contribution to the groundbreaking 1989 exhibition, Magiciens de la terre ...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (23 - 29 July 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Indonesia July 23, 2018 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Bali, Bromo, Solo and Jakarta from 23-29 July 2018 In Bali, Uma Seminyak is exhibiting Dolanan , an art show by 4 artists that highlights the world of imagination...
© » GALERIE MAGAZINE
Here Is Your Extensive Recap of This Year’s Miami Art Week - Galerie Subscribe Art + Culture Interiors Style + Design Emerging Artists Discoveries Artist Guide More Creative Minds Life Imitates Art Real estate Events Video Galerie House of Art and Design Subscribe About Press Advertising Contact Us Follow Galerie Sign up to receive our newsletter Subscribe Capital One and The Cultivist present dinner with José Andrés at Snow Beach Frozen Treats by Alex Israel...
© » KADIST
Brian Tripp
2010For many years Tripp has been involved in reviving Karuk ceremonies that had been discontinued for decades, he developed his signature abstract style, based in Karuk design, ceremonial regalia forms, and related cultural and political iconography...
© » KADIST
Andrew Thomas Huang
2019Highly autobiographical, exquisitely made and compiling different aspects of the artist’s practice, Kiss of the Rabbit God is one of Andrew Thomas Huang’s most precise, relevant, and successful videos...
© » ARTSJOURNAL
'Get the Picture' is a cheeky dive into the art world's 'strategic snobbery' : NPR Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player 'Get the Picture' is a cheeky dive into the art world's 'strategic snobbery' First of all, can we stop using the word "liminal"? Bianca Bosker spent five years doing in-depth research for Get the Picture — an irreverent book about "strategic snobbery" in the art world...
© » KADIST
Sanya Kantarovsky
2015Wrong Currency (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) by Sanya Kantarovsky uses the stylistic vernacular of five separate artists to create a series of five lithographs, dealing with a series of apparently unrelated happenings, each staged as one “day.” The series takes up Kantarovsky’s theme of embarrassment across a variety of scenes, each populated by multiple figures, set in a disjunctive relation...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
10 Things You Should Know About: Malay Dance | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints September 7, 2021 10 Things You Should Know is a series of short animated videos on aspects of Malay culture and heritage, made in partnership with Wisma Geylang Serai...
© » KADIST
Gregory Halpern
2016Gregory Halpern spent five years shooting ZZYZX , and another year editing the results, from an estimated thousand rolls of film, about half of which were shot in the final year after his Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him to live in California...
© » SLASH PARIS
Valentin Guillon — Hors-jeu — Les églises centre d'art de Chelles — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Valentin Guillon — Hors-jeu — Les églises centre d'art de Chelles — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Précédent Suivant Valentin Guillon — Hors-jeu Exposition Installations, techniques mixtes Valentin Guillon, © Valentin Guillon Valentin Guillon Hors-jeu Encore 2 mois : 3 février → 14 avril 2024 Après deux propositions en regard et en dialogue direct avec les Eglises, le troisième volet de cette saison s’intitule « Hors-jeu »...
© » SOMETHING CURATED
Jatinder Singh Durhailay Reimagines Indian Miniature Painting for Modern Times - Something Curated Share this: Facebook Twitter Tumblr Features Interviews Profiles Guides Jobs Interviews - 8 Dec 2023 - Share British artist Jatinder Singh Durhailay ’s mesmerising works re-envision Indian miniature painting, in particular drawing reference from paintings produced during the Mughal Empire...
