Ambika Rajgopal | Goldsmiths, University of London (original) (raw)
Ambika Rajgopal, originally from New Delhi, currently resides in London. She has an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MSc in Art, Law and Business from Christie’s Education, London. Ambika has previously worked in the Indian and Islamic Department at Christie’s, South Kensington, London.
In addition to this, she has written extensively on art, with a special focus on the Asian modern and contemporary art scene. She has written for Art Asia Pacific, Art Radar, Saffronart Blog, Avenir Magazine and Culture Trip, among others. Ambika spends her time cruising through museums, pop-up galleries and cultural institutions searching for that flicker of novelty, which captures her imagination and sends it soaring.
In 2015, Ambika, in collaboration with Delhi Art Gallery, wrote a monograph on the Bombay Progressive modernist – Krishen Khanna, which was published by the gallery. Ambika has previously worked in London, New Delhi and Frankfurt.
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The ideal of perfect health, is interesting merely from a scientific point of view. Illness belon... more The ideal of perfect health, is interesting merely from a scientific point of view. Illness belongs to individualization-Novalis It is only in sickness that the body becomes fully aware of its consciousness because of constantly being confronted with pain and afflictions. A working body, removed from any bodily afflictions though functions resolutely, is devoid of the same awareness that a malfunctioning body acquires. A sick body is more conscious of being and being in the world and hence confirms an artist's work as reflective of being. In this essay I want to analyze how and why does illness alert us to our own mortality and what is the role of art in acknowledging this mortality. In light of this thought I turn to look at the work of some artists who were terminally sick and used their illness and pain to become hyper aware of their individuality. It is important to bring out the fact that I first considered the illnesses I wanted to analyse and then looked at the artists who revealed them through their work. The illnesses I chose are the two afflictions that have still not been completely apprehended by modern science-Cancer and AIDS. Due to the incomprehensible nature of these illnesses they are viewed with a moral contagion. They lurk silently below the surface of the body, often undiagnosed and undetected for years and deflate not just the body but also the mind. In light of the nature of these diseases, an autopathographic view of the artists will show the extent with which the illness became a part of their daily routine and how it enabled them to become more aware of themselves. While in the case of cancer cells proliferate, in AIDS the cells of the body are invaded and eventually die. The mechanism of both the diseases operate differently on the body. The HIV infection occurs in stages. First comes the Primary HIV Infection stage, which occurs one month after the infection of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The infection displays flu like symptoms and is generally dismissed as being something minor. In the next Asymptomatic Infection stage, the patient encounters very few symptoms. In the third Symptomatic HIV Infection stage, the HIV virus starts to beat the immune system. The last stage is known as AIDS, this is characterized by the weakening of the body's immune system and susceptibility to any oncoming infection. AIDS has been described by Sontag to be a disease whose definition depends on constructing a temporal sequence of stages. 1 In the case of cancer, the disease spreads through the body's geography. It consumes portions of the body and moves along spatially metastasizing until it can consume as much as possible.
Within the history of culture, art has embraced every medium possible. But no platform has been a... more Within the history of culture, art has embraced every medium possible. But no platform has been as accessible and pervasive as the Internet. This could be attributed to its relative youth as opposed to other platforms of art, its dematerialized nature and ephemeral nature, and its global reach. It surpasses barriers related to artistic elitism by removing art from white cube gallery spaces and institutional museums, into our own private space through the computer. Rachel Greene writes, "Internet art is intertwined with issues of access to technology and decentralization, production and consumption, and demonstrates how media spheres increasingly function as public space." 1 This paper looks at the realm of Internet art through the persona of Hennessy Youngman and his video art series entitled Art Thoughtz, which is the brainchild of Jayson Musson. One of my main reasons for choosing Youngman is because of the persona he represents, in mitigating the art world from an intellectualized field, which grants little access to those outside its limit, into a more accessible field. By using popular cultural references he critiques and clarifies various issues that dominate the art space.
The ideal of perfect health, is interesting merely from a scientific point of view. Illness belon... more The ideal of perfect health, is interesting merely from a scientific point of view. Illness belongs to individualization-Novalis It is only in sickness that the body becomes fully aware of its consciousness because of constantly being confronted with pain and afflictions. A working body, removed from any bodily afflictions though functions resolutely, is devoid of the same awareness that a malfunctioning body acquires. A sick body is more conscious of being and being in the world and hence confirms an artist's work as reflective of being. In this essay I want to analyze how and why does illness alert us to our own mortality and what is the role of art in acknowledging this mortality. In light of this thought I turn to look at the work of some artists who were terminally sick and used their illness and pain to become hyper aware of their individuality. It is important to bring out the fact that I first considered the illnesses I wanted to analyse and then looked at the artists who revealed them through their work. The illnesses I chose are the two afflictions that have still not been completely apprehended by modern science-Cancer and AIDS. Due to the incomprehensible nature of these illnesses they are viewed with a moral contagion. They lurk silently below the surface of the body, often undiagnosed and undetected for years and deflate not just the body but also the mind. In light of the nature of these diseases, an autopathographic view of the artists will show the extent with which the illness became a part of their daily routine and how it enabled them to become more aware of themselves. While in the case of cancer cells proliferate, in AIDS the cells of the body are invaded and eventually die. The mechanism of both the diseases operate differently on the body. The HIV infection occurs in stages. First comes the Primary HIV Infection stage, which occurs one month after the infection of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The infection displays flu like symptoms and is generally dismissed as being something minor. In the next Asymptomatic Infection stage, the patient encounters very few symptoms. In the third Symptomatic HIV Infection stage, the HIV virus starts to beat the immune system. The last stage is known as AIDS, this is characterized by the weakening of the body's immune system and susceptibility to any oncoming infection. AIDS has been described by Sontag to be a disease whose definition depends on constructing a temporal sequence of stages. 1 In the case of cancer, the disease spreads through the body's geography. It consumes portions of the body and moves along spatially metastasizing until it can consume as much as possible.
Within the history of culture, art has embraced every medium possible. But no platform has been a... more Within the history of culture, art has embraced every medium possible. But no platform has been as accessible and pervasive as the Internet. This could be attributed to its relative youth as opposed to other platforms of art, its dematerialized nature and ephemeral nature, and its global reach. It surpasses barriers related to artistic elitism by removing art from white cube gallery spaces and institutional museums, into our own private space through the computer. Rachel Greene writes, "Internet art is intertwined with issues of access to technology and decentralization, production and consumption, and demonstrates how media spheres increasingly function as public space." 1 This paper looks at the realm of Internet art through the persona of Hennessy Youngman and his video art series entitled Art Thoughtz, which is the brainchild of Jayson Musson. One of my main reasons for choosing Youngman is because of the persona he represents, in mitigating the art world from an intellectualized field, which grants little access to those outside its limit, into a more accessible field. By using popular cultural references he critiques and clarifies various issues that dominate the art space.