Bhajju Shyam

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bhajju Shyam (* 1971 in Patangarh , full name: Bhajju Singh Shyam) is an Indian artist. He received international recognition for his book The London Jungle Book (2004), with which he made the art of the Gond known worldwide. In 2008, he received the Bologna Ragazzi Award for his book The Night Life of Trees (2006) . Bhajju Shyam lives in Bhopal .

life and work

Childhood and youth

Bhajju Shyam was born in Patangarh in 1971 and has two siblings. His first experience of painting was when he helped his mother paint the floors and walls of her house with traditional Gond motifs that she could not reach. At the age of 16, Shyam went to Bhopal to find work and worked as a security guard for three months, among other things. His uncle, the Gond artist Jangahr Singh Shyam, was artist in residence at the Museum of Mankind there at the time and asked him to color in the details of his paintings. Eventually he became his trainee. Jangahr Singh Shyam noticed his nephew's talent and encouraged him to work as an artist himself.

Career as a painter

Bhajju Shyam quickly made a name for himself as a gond artist all over India. In 1998 his work was exhibited internationally for the first time, in the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris. Bhajju Shyam's artistic work has been exhibited in Germany, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, Russia and the USA to this day. He lives in Bhopal with his wife and two children .

Career as a picture book illustrator

With Beasts of India (2003), The London Jungle Book (2004), The Night Life of Trees (2006), That´s How I See Things (2007), I Like Cats (2009), The Flight of the Mermaid (2009 ), Signature - Patterns in Gond Art (2010) and Alone in the Forest (2013), eight books illustrated by Bhajju Shyam (partly in collaboration with other illustrators) and partly written by him have been published by the Indian publisher Tara Books have been published in English. With Creation another book of Bhajju Shyam has been announced that will be released at Tara Books, though still without concrete release date. In German-speaking countries, only The Night Life of Trees , published by Baobab Books , is available in translation with The Secret of Trees (2009) . In addition to English and German, Bhajju Shyam's books have been published in ten other languages ​​(Danish, French, Italian, Japanese, Catalan, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish).

The London Jungle Book is an account of Bhajju Shyam's trip to London in 2002 - his first ever trip to a western city. The reason for the trip was the order from the local Indian restaurant Masala Zone in the Islington district to paint the interior. About his work there, Shyam says: "At first the owners only wanted a few paintings, but once we started they liked the Gond art so much that they asked us to cover all the walls on all three floors - a 2,000 sq. Ft. Area ". The London Jungle Book , co- edited by Tara Books and the Museum of London , is his best-known work internationally. When the book was published in November 2004, the museum also showed a three-month exhibition. The book has now been published in five other languages ​​in addition to English (French, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese). The exhibition was shown in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia.

The Secret of the Trees contains various paintings by Bhajju Shyam and two other artists. An accompanying exhibition of original paintings from the book was shown in London, Paris, Anchorage and Alaska.

Press review

General importance as an artist

"Bhajju then went on to become one of the finest living artists of the Gond tribe. Intricate and colorful, Bhajju's work is well known throughout India and has been exhibited in the UK, Germany, Holland and Russia. "

- IBBY : India - Shyam, Bhajju (PDF; 3.6 MB) , p. 49.

The London Jungle Book (2004)

"The result, The London Jungle Book [...], is an extraordinary example of reverse-anthropology. London is transformed into a marvelous bestiary, full of foxes and bats, of four-armed goddesses and worms undergrund, of fish-women and bird-men. [...] There are few books in the world that contain such a happy marriage of image and text. The two or three paragraphs that accompany each image are a beautiful blend of anecdote and explanation. You're led inside a remarkable mind, introduced to, and charmed by, a unique voice and you come away from the book, uplifted by the realization that even in our commodified, advertising-bombarded, globalized world, there are genuinely different "ways of seeing "."

- Anita Roy : Urban Jungle . In: Outlook Traveler. January 2008, p. 48.

"Though his statements are straightforward and unpretentious, there's a touch of the earthy thinker about Bhajju - an attitude and sense of philosophy that is firmly rooted in traditional values ​​and native wisdom - that makes every statement seem more than it is."

- Shalini Umachandran : Bhajju in London. In: The Hindu . November 28, 2004.

That's How I See Things (2007)

"Bhajju Shyam has illustrated Sirish Rao's humorous and profound tale about the power of art and the imagination. Siena Baba is a happy artist with a weird and wonderful way of seeing the world - and an even weirder and more wonderful way of painting it. People say his pictures look like nothing they know, but that doesn't bother him. Until one day, he starts to paint an extraordinary set of animals that do not seem to appreciate just how fantastic they are. Populated with such charming and disgruntled creatures as the Pea-pig, the Croco-rooster and the Monk-upine, children and adults alike will never want to leave the vibrant and surreal world of Siena Baba. "

- IBBY : India - Shyam, Bhajju - That's How I See Things (PDF; 3.6 MB) , p. 49.

The Night Life of Trees (2006) / The Secret of Trees (2009)

“You almost don't want to report that this book was produced in exemplary fair trade, otherwise someone will think that he should buy it as a good deed. That would be a misunderstanding. Because this is art. She understands something about the world that is being cut down. "

- Elisabeth von Thadden : Rooted in the mind . In: The time . No. 47, November 12, 2009.

“In The Secret of Trees , a tree is presented on every double page - an intermediate step between ordinary botany and divine instruction. In the pictures of Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti, there is something very philosophical about the questions of who we are, where we come from and where we are going. That seems like tough fare for kids. Ultimately, however, these are the questions that parents are bombarded with as soon as the first sentences gush out of a child's mouth. [...] The secret of the trees is not only valuable because it is used to transport the largely unknown treasure of the gondola to Europe. But also because with this book you are holding a piece of fairly produced, traditional Indian craftsmanship in your hands. The handmade black paper is reminiscent of thick construction paper; on it, bright colors in fine lines, circles or points, which unite an animal with the tree as a total work of art. Not a book that is read briefly and then goes back to the shelf; rather a book to sit together, fantasize, smile. "

- Manuela Müller : Philosophy of Trees . In: Badische Zeitung . November 8, 2008.

"In the pictures of these three Gond artists, a wonderful, artistic world full of stories opens up before our eyes."

- Brigitte Petereit : Books for the Christmas season . on: Radio Bremen . November 20, 2009.

" The Night Life of Trees , silk screened and hand bound, is filled with" luminous, intricately drawn visions of trees ", featuring the art work of three fine artists from the Gond tribe: Bhajju Shyam, Ram Singh Urveti and Durga Bai. At the 2008 Bologna Children's Book Fair, Trees won the " Ragazzi New Horizons " award, making it the first Indian book to do so. No less an art critic than John Berger described it as "A book where the nightingale sings until the morning." "

- Pradeep Sebastian : The Groaning Shelf & other instances of book-love . Hachette , ( Gurgaon ) 2010, ISBN 978-93-8014303-3 , chapter The Artists' Book .

bibliography

Books by Bhajju Shyam

Original English language edition German translation Remarks
2003: Beasts of India , Kanchana Arni and Gita Wolf (editors), Bhajju Shyam and other artists (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 81-86211-78-0 not published in German translation
2004: The London Jungle Book , Bhajju Shyam (text and illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 81-86211-87-X not published in German translation
2006: The Night Life of Trees , Gita Wolf and Sirish Rao (adaptation and processing of the Hindu stories), Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 81-86211-92-6 2009: The Secret of Trees , Eveline Masilamani-Meyer (translation from English), NordSüd ( Zurich ), ISBN 978-3-314-01999-9 appeared in the series Baobab

2012 German new edition: Baobab Books , Basel , ISBN 978-3-905804-42-3 .

2007: That´s How I See Things , Sirish Rao (text), Bhajju Shyam (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 978-81-86211-10-6 not published in German translation
2009: I Like Cats , Anushka Ravishankar (text), Bhajju Shyam (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 978-81-906756-1-1 not published in German translation
2009: The Flight of the Mermaid , Gita Wolf and Sirish Rao (text), Bhajju Shyam (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 978-81-906756-0-4 based on the fairy tale The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

not published in German translation

2010: Signature - Patterns in Gond Art , Gita Wolf, Bhajju Shyam and Jonathan Yamakami (editors), Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and other artists (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 978-93-8034002-9 not published in German translation
2013: Alone in the Forest , Gita Wolf and Andrea Anastasio (text), Bhajju Shyam (illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ), ISBN 978-81-923171-5-1 not published in German translation
Unknown year of publication: Creation , Bhajju Shyam (Illustration), Tara Books ( Chennai ) not published in German translation

Books on Shyam

Original edition Remarks
2008: Teaching unit on "The Secret of Trees" , Regula Rappo-Raz and Eveline Masilamani-Meyer (text), Sonja Matheson and Marianne Gujer (editor), children's book fund Baobab and Alliance Sud , ISBN 978-3-905804-14-0 Free download (PDF; 3.0 MB) of the lesson
2013: The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing , Tim Youngs (text), Cambridge University Press ( Cambridge ), ISBN 978-0-521-87447-2 Mention of The London Jungle Book on pages 122 and 124.

not published in German translation

Exhibitions

Festival participation and artist in residence stays

Commissioned work

  • 2002: Painting the interior of the Masala Zone restaurant in Islington, London
  • 2005: Painting for the Hotel Ashok in New Delhi
  • 2005: Illustrations for the BBC World Service's Hindi Promotion Program

Awards

  • 2001: State Prize for Best Indigenous Artist
  • 2002: State Prize from Hasta Shilp Vikas Nigam (Development Authority for Crafts in Mahya Pradesh ) for Origin of Man and the Earth
  • 2006: Honorable Mention at the US Independent Publisher Awards in the Multicultural Fiction category for The London Jungle Book
  • 2008: Bologna Ragazzi Award in the New Horizons category for The Secret of Trees
  • 2009: Honored by the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya Museum in Bhopal
  • 2010: Certificate of Honor for Illustration from IBBY for That's How I See Things
  • 2018: Padma Shri

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ seaofstories.com
  2. ↑ masalazone.com
  3. ↑ hindu.com
  4. ↑ ibby.org
  5. ↑ books.google.de
  6. ↑ hindu.com
  7. ↑ ibby.org
  8. ↑ zeit.de
  9. ↑ badische-zeitung.de
  10. ↑ radiobremen.de ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.radiobremen.de
  11. ↑ books.google.de
  12. ↑ sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net
  13. ↑ Neeraj Santoshi: Padma Shri honor: Tribal painter helped world see modernity through Gond art. In: Hindustan Times . January 27, 2018, accessed February 3, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Shyam, Bhajju
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Patangarh