Alwar Balasubramaniam

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'''Alwar Balasubramaniam''' (born 1971), also known as “Bala,” is an Indian artist works in a variety of mediums such as sculpture, painting and printmaking. His work, ranging in subjects from the body and its material relationship with the world to the shadow of a shadow, has been the subject of international acclaim, and has been featured in museums and exhibitions worldwide.

'''Alwar Balasubramaniam''' ({{langx|ta|ஆழ்வார் பாலசுப்ரமணியம்}}, {{langx|hi|अलवर बालासुब्रमण्यम}}, born 1971), known professionally as '''Bala''', is an Indian [[sculptor]] and [[artist]].<ref name="Jumabhoy">{{cite web |last1=Jumabhoy |first1=Zehra |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam by Zehra Jumabhoy |url=https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/alwar-balasubramaniam |website=National Portrait Gallery |publisher=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=25 April 2025 |location=Canberra |date=2011}}</ref><ref name="Getty">{{cite web |author1=Union List of Artist Names |title=Balasubramaniam, A. (Indian sculptor, 1971-) |url=https://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=Balasubramaniam&role=&nation=&prev_page=1&subjectid=500651134 |website=Getty Research |publisher=J. Paul Getty Trust |access-date=24 April 2025 |location=Los Angeles |date=2010}}</ref>

== Biography ==

== Biography ==

== Career ==

== Career ==

Bala was born in [[Tamil Nadu]], [[India]]. He earned a BFA from the Government College of Arts, Chennai in 1995. He began his formal training with a focus in printmaking and continued to take courses after his graduation at the Edinburgh Printers Workshop (EPW),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/|title=Edinburgh Printmakers|website=Edinburgh Printmakers|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> the Universität fär angewandte Kunst Wien, Vienna where his early work focused on prints and paintings. His work took a turn after his time at the MacDowell Colony residency in Massachusetts. It was here that he ban working increasingly in sculpture and installation in the early 2000s. He was attracted to its multi-dimensionality and has since gained much recognition as a sculptor.

[[File:Hold Nothing, 2012, Alwar Balasubramaniam at Phillips Coll. 2022.jpg|thumb|right|''Hold Nothing'' (2012) at [[The Phillips Collection]] in 2022]] [[File:Body as Shell, 2011-2015, Alwar Balasubramaniam.jpeg|thumb|right|''Body as Shell'' (2011-2015) at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in 2022]]

Bala’s first solo exhibition in the United States took place at [https://www.talwargallery.com/ Talwar Gallery] in [[New York City]] in 2002. On display were sculptures cast from his own body, monoprints, and a heat sensitive work that revealed itself only at a certain temperature. Bala’s works begin with a questioning of perception and end with a new understanding of what we previously knew. He handles his strong conceptual groundwork with a playfulness in execution. He has shown his works at [https://www.talwargallery.com/ Talwar Gallery] in New York and New Delhi throughout his career.

Bala is known for embedding sculptures in walls. <ref name="Nath">{{cite journal |last1=Nath |first1=Deeksha |title=‘Do you know what you see?’ The art of A. Balasubramaniam |journal=Harper's Bazaar India |date=2012}}</ref> Bala's work centers on the human body and the bodies interaction with the material environment and intangible elements such as light, air, and shadow.<ref name=″Walsh″>{{cite journal |last1=Walsh |first1=Brienne |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam |journal=Modern Painters |date=2012}}</ref>

Other notable showings include ''Sk(in)''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Alwar Balasubramaniam – Exhibitions – Talwar Gallery|url=https://www.talwargallery.com/exhibitions/alwar-balasubramaniam4|access-date=2021-03-26|website=www.talwargallery.com}}</ref> at the Phillips Collection in [[Washington D.C.]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.phillipscollection.org/events/2011-06-30-intersections-bala-skin|title=A. Balasubramaniam|website=www.phillipscollection.org|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> For this exhibition, Bala created a massive steel sculpture to sit outside. It is not solid, but composed of delicately welded steel pieces that create an image suggestive of a tree trunk, or the human heart itself. The interior component to the piece engages with the walls in three parts, ''Wound, Hidden Sight'', and Untitled. The works all focus on the reversibility of skin, its position on the exterior of a body or and object yet it points to the interior and depth within. Bala has also been involved with notable group exhibitions such as the 50th Anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, ''Contemplating the Void'' in 2010<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/contemplating-the-void|title=Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum|date=2010-04-27|website=Guggenheim|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> and ''On Line'' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010–2011.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/970?locale=en&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo8j4yZKu5gIVDJyzCh1z1ASFEAAYASAAEgLZyvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds|title=On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> These highly respected museums invited artists from around the world who were known for their innovation and transformative artworks.

In 1998, Bala was an [[artist-in-residence]] at the then [[MacDowell (artists' residency and workshop)|MacDowell Colony]], and worked in the Putnam [[graphics]] studio.<ref name="Talwar">{{cite web |author1=Talwar Gallery |title=Alwar Balasubramaniam |url=https://www.talwargallery.com/artists/alwar-balasubramaniam#tab:slideshow |website=Talwar Gallery |publisher=Talwar Gallery |access-date=24 April 2025 |location=New York, New Delhi |date=2025}}</ref><ref name="MacDowell">{{cite web |author1=MacDowell |title=VISUAL ART : Alwar Bala |url=https://www.macdowell.org/artists/alwar-bala |website=MacDowell |publisher=MacDowell |access-date=26 April 2025 |location=Peterborough}}</ref>

Bala’s works have been exhibited in museums, art festivals, and galleries worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), New York, NY;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/856733|title=Body as Shell|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.talwargallery.com/exhibitions/on-line-drawing-through-the-twentieth-century#tab:slideshow;tab-1:slideshow|title=ON LINE: DRAWING THROUGH THE TWENTIETH CENTURY|website=Talwar Gallery|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC;<ref>{{cite web|title=INTERSECTIONS: A. BALASUBRAMANIAM|url=https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2011-05-25-balasubramaniam|website=The Phillips Collection|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/contemplating-the-void|title=Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum|website=Guggenheim Museum|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> Mori Art Museum, [[Japan]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mori.art.museum/english/contents/india/info/index.html|title=MORI ART MUSEUM [Chalo! India]|website=www.mori.art.museum|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.knma.in/narrating-museum-archives-and-collection|title=narrating from the museum archives and collection: TEN YEARS OF KNMA|website=Kiran Nadar Museum of Art|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/citydwellers|title=CITY DWELLERS: CONTEMPORARY ART FROM INDIA|website=Seattle Art Museum|access-date=2023-06-27}}</ref> Essl Museum, Austria;<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://sammlung-essl.at/jart/prj3/essl/main.jart?rel=en&reserve-mode=active|title=Home|website=sammlung-essl.at|language=en|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> 1st Singapore Biennale;<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennials/singapore-biennale/|title=Singapore Biennale (Singapore)|website=Biennial Foundation|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> École des Beaux Arts, Paris, France;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.beauxartsparis.fr/en/|title=École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts|website=www.beauxartsparis.fr|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia;<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/content/beyond-the-self-2011/|title=Alwar Balasubramaniam: by Zehra Jumabhoy|website=National Portrait Gallery|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> and the 18th Biennale of Sydney, Australia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.biennaleofsydney.art/|title=Biennale of Sydney|website=Biennale of Sydney|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> Bala has been a guest lecturer at the Art Department of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and a featured speaker at TED.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.talwargallery.com/news/tedindia|title=TED INDIA: Alwar Balasubramaniam: Art of Substance and Absence|website=Talwar Gallery|access-date=2023-06-23}}</ref>

==Work==

[[File:Hold Nothing, 2012, Alwar Balasubramaniam at Phillips Coll. 2022.jpg|thumb|right|''Hold Nothing'' (2012) at [[The Phillips Collection]] in 2022]]

Bala prefers to be known simply as “a person who creates art.” He focuses on what needs to be expressed and the materials best suited to do so, rather than defining himself by a material and creating work accordingly.

Similarly, Bala's work, unlike that of many of his contemporaries, largely eschews references to contemporary social or geographic realities – a fact that many critics cite as the reason for his belated international acclaim, especially in comparison with artists whose "Indianness" appears more overtly in their work.<ref>Zehra Jumabhoy, "A. Balasubramaniam," ''Artforum'', December 2009.</ref> Bala's work, by contrast, is centered on the body and its relationship to the material world, focusing especially on the intangible elements – light, air, shadow – that structure physical experience.<ref>Brienne Walsh, "Alwar Balasubramaniam," ''Modern Painters'', November 2012.</ref> Bala’s artwork represents the questions that he asks about himself and the particularities of our world. He asks questions about the subjectivity of our perception, our faith or disbelief in the invisible, and the stance our bodies have in relationship to our selves and our world. His artwork also provides certain understandings of these questions. He plays with our perceptions, our preconceptions and others us a new way of looking at things. In a similar way, many of Bala's works deal with Energy – that invisible yet absolutely fundamental animating force of life. While his earlier works often referred to energy in a visually symbolic manner, eventually energy became more of a latent presence in Bala's work – a force connoted rather than denoted, known only by its effects. The dynamic installations of Energy Field (2009) or Link (2009), for example, physically manifest the presence of forms of energy, even while masking their origin – confusing and teasing the viewer and underscoring the myriad non-visible forces at work in the physical world.

[[File:Body as Shell, 2011-2015, Alwar Balasubramaniam.jpeg|thumb|right|''Body as Shell'' (2011-2015) at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in 2022]]

Often using his own body as a basis for his sculptures, Bala engages in a profound, but not humourless, investigation into the metaphysics of selfhood.<ref>Ella Datta, "The Inner of the Outer," ''Art India'', 2009.</ref> Many of his sculptural series that have included casts from himself, focusing especially on the skin as the literal and metaphorical boundary that separates the inside from the outside, the seen from the hidden, the self from the exterior world. In an early work, Self in progress (2002), for example, a life-sized seated figure cast from his own body, appears rooted within a wall. The figure is caught midway at this transitional threshold, entering from one side of the wall and emerging from another, with a non-visible head apparently stuck inside the wall. The sculpture seems an audacious pronouncement of the will of man, which grants the ability to saturate matter and makes nothing beyond reach or inert. For a passing moment, there seems to exist a connectedness between all things animate and inanimate; the art and the space it inhabits become one. As the artist once remarked, "We usually seek clarity in details while the entire picture may be blurred. To me life is not about clear moments but seeking clarity in life as a whole.

==Notable exhibitions==

==Notable exhibitions==