Nallamothu chakravarthy biography of george

George Chakravarthi

Name of work/ Type Date/ Commission Exhibitions or performances Description Remotecontrol

(Video installation)

1997Chakravarthi as an androgynous person inspired by fashion photography and the politics of an 'ideal body'. Memorabilia/Aradhana

(Video installation)

1998
  • 1998 National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
  • 1999 Dance Academy (Tilburg), Tilburg, Netherlands
  • 2002 part of 'Third Sex' solo show, Site Gallery, Sheffield[21]
  • 2003 part of 'George Chakravarthi – a solo show', Sketch, London[22]
  • 2003/4 The Big M National Tour (ISIS Arts, Newcastle upon Tyne),[23] UK
An homage to Bollywood cinema. Chakravarthi plays both characters and it reflects the typical style and content of popular Indian cinema of the 1980s. However, the subtitles confront sexist assumptions and patriarchy. Genesis

(Video installation)

1998
  • 1998 National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
  • 1999 Dance Academy (Tilburg), Tilburg, Netherlands
  • 2002 part of 'Third Sex' solo show, Site Gallery, Sheffield[21]
  • 2003 part of 'George Chakravarthi – a solo show', Sketch, London[22]
  • 2007 Free To Air screening[24]
Filmed in real-time, Chakravarthi reveals a series of emotions from happiness to extreme sadness.

"[A] large-scale video projection of face and upper body, proudly showcases the artist's body, while offering a more intimate emotional aspect, which destabilises Western codes of behaviour." – Fine Art Visiting Speaker Forum[25]

Introjection

(Video installation)

1998
  • 1998 National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
  • 2002 part of 'Third Sex' solo show, Site Gallery, Sheffield[21]
  • 2003 part of 'George Chakravarthi – a solo show', Sketch, London[22]

"A short film about narcissism, identity, self-image, internal reflection and loss." – George Chakravarthi[26]

Resurrection

(Live performance)

1998
  • 1998 National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
  • 1999 Dance Academy (Tilburg), Tilburg, Netherlands
Chakravarthi, with a shaved head and naked, takes the position of Jesus in the Last Supper tableau as painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and he is accompanied by twelve female disciples wearing saris. Hair is strewn over the table. Resurrection

(Photographic)

1998Still image of posed version of the live performance above. Shakti

(Video installation)

2000Chakravarthi as an hybrid combination of Mona Lisa and the Indian goddess Kali with a landscape of naked women in the background. Barflies

(Triptych video installation)

2002

BBC and Arts Council of England

  • 2002 Saatchi & Saatchi, London[17]
  • 2002 part of 'Third Sex' solo show, Site Gallery, Sheffield[21][31]
  • 2003 part of 'George Chakravarthi – a solo show', Sketch, London[22]
  • 2004 Gardner Arts Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton
  • 2005 La Casa Encendida, Madrid[2][32]
  • 2006 Tate Modern, London[1]
  • 2013 City of Women Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia[33][34]
  • 2018 - 2019 LADA Screens (online screening) [35][36]
  • 2020 LADA Summer Programme (online screening) [37]
Chakravarthi as three specific types of transgender women filmed in bars with a soundtrack of conversations on a telephone chat line between the artist and other transvestites and those that seek them.

"George Chakravarthi is what is politely known as a bundle of contradictions... The sequence follows his alter egos through three phases of transvestism, from frumpy to flirty and fetishistic... In the first piece, Chakravarthi seems to have raided a charity shop in a bid to look like his mum... In the final sequence, Chakravarthi slips into a slinky corset and... we see him confidently seducing inebriated men, having progressed from housewife to hooker in three easy stages." – Alfred Hickling[31]

Great Expectations

(Live performance with video)

2002Chakravarthi sitting with his back to the audience in front of a video projection also showing the back of his head. Olympia

(Video installation)

2003

"Chakravarthi is seen as 'Olympia', a sexually ambiguous figure, dark, transfixed and oblivious to his/her white, male servant. The tension between the two characters is filled with ambiguity too, suggesting emotions of, love, hate, lust and obsession." – Cornerhouse, Manchester[40]

To the Man in my Dreams

(Installation and live performance)

2006

Artangel

A collaborative project with members of SW5, a London advice and information service for male, female and transgender sex workers (now known as SWISH). A collection of letters between someone who calls himself 'father' and 'George'. Masking

(Film)

2009

Live Art Development Agency

Not applicable

Short film produced to celebrate LADA's tenth anniversary.

"′Masking′ is an investigation of the visual creation and identification of archetypal and racially motivated images in pornography... This short film of 'The Blonde' and 'The Black Diva' is a study of some of the reoccurring stereotypes in pornography." – LADA[42]

I Feel Love!

(Durational live performance)

2009

SPILL Festival of Performance

An outdoor performance lasting all day that examines ways in which the body is traditionally portrayed in public sculpture, memorials and popular culture. Ode to a Dark Star

(Video installation)

2009

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

  • 2009 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford upon Avon[46]
Chakravarthi in costume as both Shakespeare and the 3rd Earl of Southampton in a looped video displayed in a frame, giving the impression of a painting with some motion. The Cobbe portrait of Shakespeare was shown for the first time in the same exhibition (Shakespeare Found: a Life Portrait). There is also a Cobbe portrait of Southampton. George Chakravarthi UnSeen

(DVD)

2009

Live Art Development Agency

Not applicable

A slide-show of early, photographic self-portraits by Chakravarthi. The photographs show him experimenting with his identity; they represent the earliest documentation of the experiences which inform much of his current work. The soundtrack is a conversation between Chakravarthi and Andrew Mitchelson in which Chakravarthi talks about his childhood experiences in India and London, and about feeling an outsider as far as both cultures are concerned.[15]Negrophilia

(Live performance)

2010

Duckie

  • 2010 Duckie, Royal Vauxhall Tavern, London
  • 2014 ALAG: A Live Art Gala (celebration of 15th Anniversary of the Live Art Development Agency (LADA)), Royal Vauxhall Tavern, London[47][48]
  • 2014 Brut Künstlerhaus,[49] Vienna, Austria[3]
  • 2015 Abrons Arts Center, New York City (part of LADA's 'Just Like A Woman: NYC Edition Programme')[4][50][51][52][53]
  • 2015 Chelsea Theatre, London (part of LADA's 'Just Like A Woman: London Edition Programme')[53][54][55]
  • 2015 The Citadel, St Helens, Merseyside (part of Duckie's 'Twenty First Century Music Hall')[56][57][58][59]
Negrophilia is inspired by the Parisian avant-garde culture of the 1920s and its fascination with Africanism (Negrophilia), Hollywood cinema's negative portrayals of Africa and Africans in the same era and the performer Josephine Baker. Chakravarthi reveals himself dressed, as Baker famously did, in a banana skirt and pearls.[51]

"Good art makes you see the world differently – whether it's George Chakravarthi shimmying in drag from inside a gorilla suit at ALAG, or Turner's spectacular landscapes hanging in the Tate." – Mary Paterson[48]

″George Chakravarthi's dance performance in which he transforms from an ape to a chorus girl, skewering the histories of racism, evolution and exhibitionism in one long, seductive move″ – Mary Paterson[60]

Thirteen

(Photographic – comprises 13 separate images)

2011

Royal Shakespeare Company

Self-portraits of Chakravarthi in costume as thirteen Shakespeare characters (male and female) who committed suicide. Each image is layered with textures including cobwebs, mould, stone, water and clouds. Backlit transparencies in light boxes, characters about life-size.[80][81][11]

"Suicide might be the theme but it is difficult not to feel uplifted by the beauty of these images." – David Whetstone[79]

Miss UK (an archive)

(Live performance in three parts)

2011

Duckie

A dance floor posing piece that celebrates the glamour and absurdity of beauty contests in the UK from the 1960s to the 90s (such as Miss United Kingdom). Andhaka

(Live performance)

2013

Live Art Development Agency

A one-to-one durational performance. Chakravarthi is present in darkness and is finally revealed in a flood of light as Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation.[86]

"reaction[s] to the performance came in extremes... most... emotional, often tearful, some tapped into their own fears and... felt threatened... Both reactions were... integral to the work." – George Chakravarthi[86]

Barflies

(Photographic)

2014

Not applicable

Edition of fifteen, signed sets of three prints based on the 2002 video installation Barflies (see above). Produced for the Live Art Development Agency's 15th Anniversary Limited Editions series.[87]The Ambidextrous Universe

(Photographic)

2015 Six self-portraits, which are the first pieces of work emerging from Chakravarthi's current and ongoing research known as The Ambidextrous Universe.[88] The images explore symmetry and emphasise the fractal construction of objects in nature and religious architecture.[89][90]Border Force - I Did ′India′

(Performance installation)

2015

Duckie

Performance installation as part of a Duckie 'geo-political-immersive-disko' confronting xenophobia and promoting freedom of movement.[94][95]

"UK nationals have freedom of movement to 174 countries and territories (89% of the countries of the world), ranking the British passport 1st (tied with Finnish, German, Swedish and the US). By comparison, having an Afghanistan passport gives you free access to just 28...
Although ancient Indian culture offers many examples of same sex love and, for example, the veneration of transgendered gods, homosexuality in India was criminalised (under British rule) in the 1860s. The law may not be enforced and India has seen a smattering of same sex weddings but there is no legislation in place to protect LGBTQI rights. The ‘Gay Happiness Index’ which measured acceptance of same-sex relationships in 127 countries of the world, put ... India 81st..." – Joshua Sofaer[95]

Let Them Eat Cake

(Performance installation)

2016

Duckie

Performance installation as part of Duckie's 'Lady Malcolm's Servants' Ball'. Chakravarthi, as Marie Antoinette, hand feeds slices of a cake decorated with a map of the British Empire to members of the audience - referencing feasts and famines across the British Empire. Negrophilia

(Film screening)

2016
  • 30 November 2016 TRANS LIVE ART SALON at the Live Collision International Festival, Dublin[98]
  • 9 to 19 February 2017 IBT17 Bristol International Festival, Bristol[99]
Mata Bahucharaji
(Goddess of Eunuchs)

(Painting)

2016 An Indian in a Box

(Performance installation)

2021

Duckie

Live, durational performance installation as part of Duckie's 'Princess: The Promenade Performance', inspired by the queer history of Georgian London. Chakravarthi presents issues of enslavement, voyeurism, fetishisation and isolation as experienced by the victims of Human Zoos, also known as Ethnological Expositions - a shameful practice that endured during the colonial era, which continued into the 1950s, and as late as the 1990s in some countries across Europe. Captured and encased in a glass cabinet, Chakravarthi, in Georgian gentleman's attire, presents himself as a living object of curiosity and an exoticised creature.

The performance in Slovenia was part of the 'International Festival of Contemporary Arts – City of Women', Chakravarthi was dressed in Slovene national costume.

AUM

(Site-specific, multi-media project - video, sound and photography )

2022

Nomad Projects

New body of work exploring Indian spiritual and tribal practices instigated while being the artist in residence at Phytology throughout 2022. See the image below of the billboard launching the work. The Ascension of the Bearded Lady

(Performance installation)

2023

Duckie

Live, durational performance installation as part of the 'Duckie Summer Fete'. Self-Portrait As An Unknown Devadasi

(Photograph)

2023 Part of the exhibition ‘Oor’ and produced by The Queer Tamil Collective