editor's note
Reading signs of divagation
'Punctum vegetationis' is a botanical term which refers to the component of regeneration; most dictionaries explain it as 'the terminal cell of a stem, or of a leaf bud, from Read
writes MUSTAFA ZAMAN
letterbox
Somenath Hore in focus
Afew days ago I was handed two copies of Depart by its editor, which included the current issue and a previous one. The fact that it is in English and Read
newsscape
War memory archived: Raihan's lens on '71
The photographer Abdul Hamid Raihan, on the eve of the war of independence, during the political upheaval following the Pakistani junta's unscrupulous scraping of the people's verdict in 1970 elections, began Read
Turtle Tale
Cosmic Turtle Visiting Green Earth is an interactive artwork by artist Ronni Ahmed where convergence of conceptual formulations occurs at multiple junctures. One such meeting point is found in the Read
Yields from 'Studio 48'
Story of life is the theme around which a group of artists from 'Studio 48' frames an exhibition that puts forward an ambivalent narrative taking its impetus from the modern medium-specific Read
Chronicles of '71
On December 7, 2012, at the opening of Bangladesh: The Price of Freedom, a photography exhibition featuring 51 images by the celebrated and decorated Indian photojournalist, Raghu Rai, a portal of memory was Read
Art Dubai at a glance
Greased with the new capital as well as the new aesthetic principles that easily embrace languages and methods that cut across national and cultural boundaries, art fairs are venues where Read
Dubai Art Fair: A convergence of minds, matters and meanings
Mustafa Zaman: In an article you once wrote, 'Today's art world is also resolutely global', reflecting on how the world-wide art events and activities are keeping everyone in the art Read
features
Lalon and the construction of the 'Bhadrolok' Baul
How do we perceive the Baul tradition? This enquiry in the past has wrought a multi-dimensional discourse among the genteel cultural consciousness. Akshay Kumar Dutt, initially, attempted to ascribe the Read
writes TAIMUR REZA
Lalon's legacy and everything after…: A critique of Shudhir Chakrabarty's position
Through an erroneous oppositional framework, Shudhir Chakrabarty, whose research on Lalon has unquestionably led to some quality resources, in his book 'Braatya Lokaayato Lalon', characterizes the thinker as not only Read
writes MUSTAFA ZAMAN
The polemic of postmodernism in search for language and continuity: 15th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka
Art appears to have no other generality than to signify that meaning is possible. This revelation offers itself to Dieter Roelstraete in what he called the central conceit of Thierry Read
writes SEEMA NUSRAT AMIN
15th Asian Art Biennale an overview
Launched in 1981 with the participation of only 14 Asian countries, within a short span of time the Asian Art Biennale became the lifeline for the Bangladeshi art community spurring the ensuing Read
writes ERSHAD KAMOL with DEPART DESK
Emerging new art as 'cultural capital'
The comment above by Leo Tolstoy cited in Dr Bimal Kumar Mukhopadhaya's book on Aesthetics of Rabindranath seems to draw a decisive line between what we perceive as art proper Read
writes SHAKHAWAT TIPU with DEPART DESK
Art in the age of infosphere: A departure from immutable modernity
It was mainly in the decade of the nineties that the most promising expressions of a new language of art began to proliferate. It was a time when some boldly Read
writes SHAHMAN MOISHAN with DEPART DESK
Hybrid freight from an irrational space: Bahram's visionary ideograms
In the beginning there were two painted vinyl discs – each showing a human visage violated by the intrusion of an animal form – a head on collision leading to an unpredictably Read
writes GOLAM MORTUJA
exposure
The plane of appearance: Ripon Saha's recent paintings
Ripon Shaha's recent body of works calls into question the logic of the Late-Capital era society. The desublimated sensibility of this young artist, one who bewails the market monopoly and its impact on the society under consumer capitalism, constructs Read
encounter
Light, colour, form and the act of shahoj seeing
Mustsfa Zaman: Your art is premised on the effects you want to produce in the viewers. It is not only about visuality, it is also about how cognitively the viewers Read
interstice
GENOCIDE REDUX: DHALI AL MAMOON speaks to Depart on crossreferencing, symbolism and the stratagem of recall
Mustafa Zaman: I would like to start off with a quote from one of your favourite artists Anselm Kiefer, who once said to an interviewer: 'I am a story teller Read
Amidst the grand blue of sea and sky
One aspect of early modernism in sculpture was to locate artistic inspiration in some primitive or natural arcadia beyond industrialized culture, and to turn away from the forms of the Read
writes ROMAIN MAITRA
Representation of anthropomorphic beast in rickshaw painting: Figurative fantasy of social biology
The depiction of beast in the rickshaw painting seems akin to a figurative fantasy of a social biology1. However, this theoretical position becomes an ineffectual rhetoric if not analyzed in Read
writes SHAHMAN MOISHAN
dissection
Goya in the age of capital punishment
The appearance of Goya, at Bengal gallery of Fine Arts, through a selection of his etchings in the month of October, last year, fostered renewed reflection on the ability of Read
depart file
The macabre humane in Goya
Goya's imaginative expression that finds its loci in the figurative depiction of his images invokes a sense of confrontation between rationality and its counterpart, loosely conceived as irrationality; a performance Read
writes SHARMILLIE RAHMAN
Throwing a pebble: Freud, Edward Said and the Question of Palestine
In this essay I propose to review a little book by the late Edward Said. But before I enter the book itself I think it is proper that a reviewer Read
navigator
Sharad Das's conundrumic images
Sharad Das, with his combination of stratagems, showcased in the exhibition titled 'Blurred Borders', particularly through some recent forays, comes to terms with the nature of image production in the Read
writes GOLAM MORTUJA
imprint
THE SURPRISING UPRISING
Contemporary art in Pakistani context is like the proverbial elephant that was discovered by a bunch of blind men. Each in order to describe what he experienced, why he reduced Read
writes Quddus Mirza
interregnum
Arte Povera and its impact in Europe
Europe, especially Italy, in the 1960s was re-emerging as an industrial power after the Second World War. This was a period of expansion of wealth yet at the same time Read
Chittagong : Far from the madding crowd
While buying water, I overheard, 'Eta ki… oshudh naki? (is this medicine?)' I turned to find a young shopper pointing to a wall of swollen polythene bags that was Satabdi Read
writes NAEEM MOHAIEMEN
panorama
THE QUEST FOR ACHINPUR: CRACK International Art Camp 2012
Last year Bangladesh saw a number of art camps dispersed across the country, which may appear as an effort in decentralizing the capital-based art activities, at least in a transitory Read
