“Sometimes laughter hurts, but humour and mockery are our only weapons”. -Cabu (pen name of Jean Cabut), cartoonist and co-founder of Charlie Hebdo (13 Jan 1938-2015) The complexity of the contemporary world we live in, significantly more so after a long period of disorientation, calls for varied means and devices to navigate it. The intention of this curatorial plan was to penetrate the malaise that blanketed everything, by seeking out artists whose work employed a lens of humour and satire to contextualise life/reality. License to Laugh brings together artworks that engender altered perceptions, and awaken nuances of playfulness and new meaning. Art has the power to heal, to envision lightness and transformation in the midst of grim truth; more than anything it can create escapes into multidimensional spaces of the artists imagination. The artists’ styles reference popular culture and outsider art, including visual vocabularies of comics, cartoons, animation, graffiti and pos

Maadhyam, a group exhibition by nine contemporary Indian artists, explores how the mediums or materials used by artists in their artworks become an integral part of their storytelling or narratives. The participating artists are representing their works in different mediums, bringing back the third dimension and moving away from paintings and drawings. The exhibit is as diverse as the subjects and is executed in a wide variety of materials such as terracotta, metal, ceramics, paper pulp, cement, stone, wood, and tapestry. These artists are creating an altered perception for us when they place their works on their respective platforms such as a floor, in a frame, on a pedestal, alongside a wall, or on the wall. Using shape, size, comparative position, and space, sculptures inspire us to observe the world we inhabit from a whole new perspective. Each one of these artists juxtaposes symmetry and asymmetry, order and chance, reason, and randomness.

Shrishti Art Gallery, one of the oldest art galleries in Hyderabad showcasing Indian Contemporary Art, in partnership with American India Foundation (AIF), a twenty-year-old not for profit organization, and with the support of 90+ Artists, successfully completed its online fund raiser sale to help Artists and Artisans whose livelihoods have been severely undercut by the Covid-19 pandemic.

An Online art exhibition to support artists and artisans whose livelihoods have been severely undercut by the COVID-19 pandemic. In support of underprivileged artists and artisans whose livelihoods have been severely undercut by the COVID-19 pandemic, we at Shrishti Art Gallery have put together “Introspection”, an online art fundraiser sale with more than 90+ artists and 130+ artworks. Check out the artworks at www.donate-shrishtiart.com. 50% of the sale proceeds will be donated to American India Foundation (www.aif.org), a 20 year non-profit organisation working on health, education and livelihoods of underprivileged communities in India. The sale proceeds will be used by AIF to support artists and artisans who are in dire financial needs due to Covid 19.