Osian's Auction Catalogue Select Masterpieces of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | June 2009

87 39 Baiju Parthan (b.1956) SUN RISING – Patented Landscape Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2002 S/d in English ‘Baiju Parthan 2002’ t.l. and on verso Titled on verso 47.9 x 48.0 in (121.8 x 122.0 cm) INR 3,600,000 – 4,500,000 USD 75,000 – 93,750 Exhibition Reference ‘Blur’, The Fine Art Company, Mumbai and Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2002 Illustrated Reference ‘A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists’, Amrita Jhaveri, India Book House, 2005, p145 This particular work uses a landscape from a royalty free stock photograph collection and a newspaper photograph of a soldier guarding an army bunker in Kashmir valley. This work reflects my interest in dystopian cyberpunk fiction and is a critique on genetic engineering and a possible future scenario where even the aesthetic spectrum of a vista could be patented and owned by business corporations. A genetically engineered Eden of a probable future with an eclipsed sun rising over a patented landscape, guarded by armed men and owned by business corporations is a dystopian fantasy I use to make critique on the whole approach of using genetic engineering for profit. “This is one of the early works that make use of imagery appropriated from mainstream media (Newspaper, TV) to create an original artwork. I am not making the claim that I was the first one to do it as the qualifier/ category ‘Mediatic Realism’ came to be used to identify similar works long before, but certainly was a catalyst in making that kind of work visible and appealing for a large number of art-students who graduated during the early half of 2000. My intention in these media derived works was to take spent images (or images from the media that had lost there contextual potency because it is yesterday’s news) and re-contextualise these into original works of art and inject them back into the system/ public imagination.” – Baiju Parthan “Baiju Parthan’s art reflects his academic training in engineering, botany, philosophy, comparative mythology, and computer programming. The main theme of his paintings and digital works is the location of the self in a world dominated by technology. Drawing upon such different sources as illuminated manuscripts and computer games, his work represents a quest for individuality, identity, and transcendence in an increasingly uncertain world…In another, ‘Sun Rising – (Eden)’, 2002 angels descend into a garden of paradise guarded by a soldier. The landscape is near perfect – either genetically modified or digitally manipulated.” – Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists’, India Book House, 2005, p145.