Musiccosmos

Verve People Shiv Ankit Ahuja, 29 Few artists in India work with image, language and text as a medium of their artistic expression, and that’s what makes Shiv Ankit Ahuja’s artistic practice special. “I am exploring the capacity of images to influence the way we connect and relate to reality, especially with respect to the representation of nature on the one hand and the use of text and images in advertising on another,” Ahuja says. Use of text in art gained huge momentum in America during the sixties. The pioneers of the conceptual art movement — Barbara Kruger, who works with photography and text, and neo-conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer — have been an inspiration for Ahuja. Another major influence on him is Guy Debord’s seminal book, The Society of the Spectacle that offers a portrait of our image-saturated, media-crazy times. Curators-speak “Shiv has always kept us on our toes. He hates taking art at face value and thinks it should hit someone with a brick when they a...