Mahirwan Mamtani

Mahirwan Mamtani

Mahirwan Mamtani (born November 2, 1935 in Bhiria (Nawabshah) Sindh , India ) is an Indo-German painter, graphic artist and multimedia artist. Mamtani grew up in India, initially studied there and at the age of 31 moved to Germany, where he has lived and worked ever since.

youth

Mahirwan Mamtani began painting as a child in Sindh at the age of six, mainly with charcoal on walls. He moved to Delhi at the age of 12 after the partition of India in 1947 . He had a relatively difficult childhood and, because of poor living conditions, had to study in a sick bed, i.e. without schooling. He then preferred to work with pencil and / or pastels. Later, his early professional life forced him to take a break from painting as he had to take on several jobs at the same time in order to make ends meet financially. Then he began studying for a Bachelor of Arts in evening classes and a little later was admitted to the Fine Arts Department of Delhi Polytechnic in New Delhi to study painting. He completed this course in 1962 with the National Diploma in Art.

In 1966 he received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service for the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Franz Nagel . Since then he has lived with his family in Bavaria.

Further development

Centrovision 168

Even at the beginning of his studies, Mamtani was well known for Kandinsky , one of the pioneers of modernism , for a spiritual dimension in art. Mamtani emphasizes that this spiritual relationship is not subject to any time limit and can already be observed in William Blake in the 18th century, as well as in Joseph Beuys , who relied on the influences of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner .

In Munich in the 1960s , Mamtani was strongly influenced by constructivism and also incorporated the encounters with tantric yantras from his youth in India into his work. This then resulted in "Centrovision", a collection that in 1990 already comprised over 3000 works.

Translated quote

Centrovision 1204

“The concept of“ Centrovision ”on which Mamtani relies is borrowed from Tantric teaching. His pictorial forms, which unfold from the center, are related to the concept of mandala , which is based on the fundamental laws of the microcosm and macrocosm . The association of procreation processes is awakened by rhythmic arrangements of symmetrical, organically curved shapes, whose roots can be found in the feminine, such as the shape of the breasts and the female organ, the symbol of Shakti , the highest cosmic energy. Instead of the radiant light, subdued light values ​​appear in these images; they are created by mixing the color tones with soft light and play an important role in modulating the pulsating circular shapes. "

- LP Sihare : Neo-Tantra Exhibition Catalog

His early multimedia projects include his graphic animation films Centrovision (1981) and Faces (1982).

From around 1990, after working on Centrovision, he began to build on an idea that had already appeared in some of his works in 1985: he allowed faces to flow into it. For this purpose, masks painted by him on wood - worn and interpreted as dancing - were the basis for various photo and video projects. With the help of a self-timer he took photos and video recordings of his movements, which were then painted over with the help of acrylic paints and led to his series "Transmuted Photos". In addition, he created mixed-technical work.

From 2000 he painted figurative pictures in which his mandala masks were the dominant element. His goal was to graphically manifest human emotions, represented in the form of these masks. He said, "We all wear masks all the time, which we change frequently but not remove." He called this cycle of figurative works "Mandala Conscious Beings".

Around 2003 he began a series of video films based on paintings he had previously published.

Works

In India, Mamtani belongs to the group of neo-tantra artists and has exhibited in German and American museums together with colleagues such as Biren De, GR Santosh, KCS Paniker , Sohan Qadri , Proffula Mohanti, Haridasan, PT Reddy , Om Prakash and Viswanathan .

In Europe he belongs to the group THE SPIRITUAL IN ART, which also includes Domenico Caneschi (Italy), Pietro Gentili (Italy), Guy Harloff (France), Joerg Anton Schulthess (Switzerland) and Nora Ullmann (Israel). This group was launched in the 1970s by Walter Schönenberger, the then director of the Lugano Museum, and organized numerous exhibitions in Locarno, Aarau, Milan and Bochum.

Centrovision 1164 1990
190 cm × 190 cm acrylic-wood-cutout

“The painter Mahirwan Mamtami (born 1935), who now lives in Munich, has built a bridge between tantrism and the complex esoteric currents of the western world with his classic, large-format 'Centrovisionen' . His visual metaphysics leads to the beginning and the end of the outer and inner space, touching the ideas of unity and wholeness. MAMTANIS mandala images in particular are valued by western viewers as the highlights of esoteric New Age art. "

- Jutta Ströter-Bender : Contemporary art of the ›Third World‹

Graphic editions

• Edition modern art gallery, Berlin
• Bruckmann Verlag, Munich
• Art Association, Munich
• Toni Brechbühl Gallery, Grenchen
• Galerie Regio, Freiburg
• Gallery Becher, Wuppertal
• Edition Galerie Wassermann, Munich

Awards and grants (selection)

• 1976 Tokyo, 10th International Print Biennale
• 1978 New Delhi, National Prize of India, Lalit Kala Academy

literature

• Lalit Kala Akademie : Contemporary 30 + 31 Art journal . 1970.
• Catalog 30 YEARS GALERIE TONI BRECHBUEHL Grenchen . GALERIE TONI BRECHBUEHL, Grenchen, Switzerland 1970.
• Walter Schönenberger (Ed.): Catalog SITUAZIONE SIMBOLO MILANO . Edizioni Galleria San Fedele, Milan 1973.
• Catalog WORLD VIEW AS A PICTURE IDEA - PAINTED WORLD VIEW . Aargauer Kunsthaus , Aarau ( Switzerland ) and Museum Bochum Art Collection, 1975.
• Krishna Chaitanya: A history of Indian painting . Abhinav Publications, New Delhi 1976, ISBN 81-7017-310-8 .
• Catalog THE 10TH INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF PRINTS IN TOKYO . National Museum of Modern Art , Tokyo and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Tokyo / Kyoto 1976-1977.
• TANTRA, Philosophy and Idea Aspects of Contemporary Indian Art . Institute for Foreign Relations , Stuttgart 1983.
• Pran Nath Mago: CONTEMPORARY ART IN INDIA ( en-US ). National Book Trust, India, 1985, ISBN 81-237-3419-0 , pp. 94-95.
• Pupul Jaykar: Festival of India in the United States, 1985-1986 . HN Abrams, New York 1985, ISBN 0-8109-0937-5 .
• Dagmar Countess Bernstorff: Germany - Portrait of a Nation , Volume 10. Bertelsmann Lexikothek Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-570-08720-4 , p. 286.
• Edith A. Tonelli, UCL: NEO-TANTRA exhibition catalog . UCL, Los Angeles, Los Angeles 1986.
• Jutta Ströter-Bender, Helena. Spanjaard: Contemporary art of the> Third World <: Ethiopia, Australia (Aboriginals), India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2665-3 , p. 172-174 .
• Johanna Kerschner: Interview . Munich culture magazine APPLAUS, Munich October 1992.
• Edda Bhattacharjee: Catalog INDIAN PRESENT ART / WSPÓLCZESNA SZTUKA HINDUSKA 1993.
• Jutta Ströter-Bender: L 'art contemporary in the pays du "Tiers monde" . Ed. L'Harmattan, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7384-3184-4 .
• Georg Lechner (Ed.): Catalog MY EAST IS YOUR WEST cross-cultural explorations in photography . Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe-Institut), New Delhi 1995.
• Hans Gedat, Vienna: LET IT BE - Edition Art Of Life 1997.
• Catalog SYMBOLISM & GEOMETRY IN INDIAN ART . National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 1998.
• Catalog THE DUAL PATH OF INDIAN ART TODAY . Galerie Müller + Plate, Munich 2003.
• Catalog INDIEN INSTITUT 75TH ANNIVERSARY exhibition of paintings in collaboration with Galerie Müller + Plate . Sotheby's, Munich 2004.
• Pratima Sheth: Dictionary of Indian art & artists: including technical art term . Mapin Pub., [Ahmedabad] 2006, ISBN 81-85822-90-5 .

List of exhibitions (selection)

Web links

• Mamtani's homepage
• Comprehensive information page about the artist
• Centrovision 72. Serigraph in colors on thick black-ground paper
• Mamtani at Dhoomimal Art Center, New Delhi with picture gallery
• Sindhi Art, award ceremony to Mahirwan Mamtani ( Memento from February 2, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Pran Nath Mago: CONTEMPORARY ART IN INDIA . National Book Trust, India, 1985, ISBN 81-237-3419-0 , pp. 94-95.
2. ↑ Video Dancing Birds as an example
3. ↑ Video creations on YouTube
4. ↑ Jutta Ströter-Bender, Helena. Spanjaard: Contemporary art of the> Third World <: Ethiopia, Australia (Aboriginals), India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzani . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2665-3 , p. 172-174 .
5. ↑ Pran Nath Mago: CONTEMPORARY ART IN INDIA . National Book Trust, India, 1985, ISBN 81-237-3419-0 , pp. 94-95, 115-118.
6. ↑ Weltanschauung as a picture idea . Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, Museum Bochum Art Collection, 1975.
7. ↑ [1] Article in the LA Times on the occasion of the opening of the "NEO-TANTRA exhibition"