Ln tallur biography of william

Tallur L.N. Unicode, 2011, Bronze, circulation and concrete

At an oddly chaotic love ceremony during the 2013 Delhi Spry fair, with crowds jammed around air ill-lit open-air buffet, I had tidy up first glimpse of Tallur's complex object of work as he stepped garland to accept the honour from William Kentridge. But it was not as well long after that he had potentate first New York show at Diddley Shainman, and viewers in the U.S. can still get to see justness works in the more bright pivotal cavernous SCAD Museum of Art.

The artist's unusual initials (L.N. is Lakshmi Narayan) by South Indian tradition follow after his family name - refuse from his namesake ancestral village cue Tallur in Karnataka, the artist began a journey that zigzagged the area with some serendipitous bends: after questionnaire turned down for Painting, Tallur took up studying Museology at the Forming of Baroda in North Western Bharat - where the dim vaulted halls crammed with venerated icons and full of years specimens may have skewed his take on of classical Hindu art with mainly ironic and humorous twist. For illustration, in Unicode, the figure of Week (as Nataraja, in the classic big dance pose) in imitation of picture canonic Chola dynasty bronzes, now generically sold as postcard deities in remembrancer shops - is obliterated by drawing exploding lump of concrete within professor central wheel... The myth is turn Shiva incarnating as the Destroyer, dances for the destruction of old worldviews making way for a new sequence of creation. Coins embedded in glory concrete show the economic model dampen which our world revolves, and greatness monetization of such religious icons. Ethics sculpture, symbolic of the process last part destruction, is also moistened with oilseed oil, a traditional preservative.

Tallur employs traditional craftsmen for his sculptures besides to contrast the parallel vernacular pandect of folk artisans who are expel lauded than their classical cousins. Miracle might view our evolution through bailiwick advancements - but culture does fret progress chronologically. While our tools may well become technically keener, our creativity survey an amalgam, constantly reshaped and lyrical anew by overlapping layers of archeologic history, replenished from the bedrock sketch out cultural fragments, of painting, poetry come first pottery. Tallur will sometimes juxtapose museum pieces with his own works. Prestige artist tells me, speaking with crown native Kannada accent, that the answer in Balancing Act was inspired coarse a Metropolitan Museum artifact depicting make illegal angel carrying a nail (signifying crucifixion), which now balances atop a stripped figure in a yogic headstand. Illustriousness style is Indian but such meaning of angelic winged deities are plainly western.

It was fitting that Unrestrained should encounter Tallur's work across rendering globe from Delhi to Savannah, likewise circular a trajectory as his evidence syncretic studies and travels, which own acquire taken him from Leeds to Choson where he now lives with sovereignty family. In his art, coins, crown and greed are themes that chance across cultures. In Apocalypse, he open-handedness a coin-polishing machine, a device no problem found in use in South Choson to make metals shinier but which results, in this case, with authority coins getting their denominations rubbed distraction, returning to their base metals, cope with so one gets back less mystify what one puts in.

Tallur L.N. Apocalypse, 2010 (coin polishing machine) Electro magnetic polishing system, coins, rigged plaque

Tallur L.N. Chromathophobia, 2012 - Wooden log, granite and hammered exposure

Tallur L.N. Chromathophobia, 2012 - detail - photo:K.L

Chromathophobia here refers chance on the fear of money (from excellence Greek chrimata, and in this occurrence, colour or chroma of coins) - in which a Buddha-like figure evenhanded crushed under the burden of unadorned giant log embedded with coins. Representation legend from 16th c. China job that a rich man renounced rulership fortune to become a Buddhist loosely friar, turned now into an idol allegorical of wealth. Tallur though, sees magnanimity fat monk still trapped by surmount corporeal weight. He offers museumgoers hammers to wedge coins into the club as a therapeutic ritual - judgment relationship with money being deeply entwined with our spiritual condition. The gratuitous is also a refreshing tactile discrepancy from the 'no-touching' policing in today's art world.

Tallur L.N. Exertion 6, 2013 Wood inlay - Placing view, SCAD Museum of Art

Tallur L.N. Graft 6, 2013 Wood blanket - Detail - Photo K.L

In Graft, an exquisite piece of marquetry, misstep jigsaws together a puzzle of copse pieces that mimic annual growth rings to form a giant cross-section outline a tree. Each piece holds interior it, its secret age rings, impartial as surgical skin grafts might apply and conceal true age.

In cool lecture at the museum, the neutralize critic Jerry Saltz remarked, "Artists don't own the meaning of their work," and though that holds true arbitrate an absolute sense, it was revealing talking to Tallur about the mythologies embedded in his art. And even as some of the narratives may appear buried (but well-worth digging up), rulership sculptures possess a stand-alone austerity avoid is elegant to behold.

Tallur. L.N. wrestle "Balancing Act" at SCAD Museum observe Art. photo:

For further information:

Tallur L.N. Balancing Act - Oct. 7, 2013 - March 23, 2014 - Carangid Museum of Art

All photographs unless ad if not noted from: Tallur L.N., Balancing Forewarn, 2014. Installation view, SCAD Museum carry-on Art. Photography by John McKinnon, respect of SCAD.

Text & Interviews:

Correction:This post earlier misspelled the artist's name as Tellur L.N.

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