Navjot Altaf

{{Short description|Indian artist}} {{Undisclosed paid|date=July 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2022}} {{Use Indian English|date=June 2022}} {{infobox writer  | name = Navjot Altaf | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1949 | birth_place = Meerut, India. | occupation = Artist, painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video, installation, mixed-media, and public art. | language = Hindi, English | nationality = Indian | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = Degree in Fine and Applied Arts | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | website = | portaldisp = | image = Navjot Altaf.jpg }}

'''Navjot Altaf''', often referred to simply as "Navjot," is an artist, currently based in Bastar and Mumbai, India. Navjot has worked in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video,<ref name="Navjot ref2">{{cite news |title=These top six women artists are to watch out for at AstaGuru's upcoming auction |url=https://www.indulgexpress.com/culture/art/2021/sep/27/these-top-six-women-artists-are-to-watch-out-for-at-astagurus-upcoming-auction-35778.html |access-date=21 October 2021 |publisher=indulgexprss.com |date=27 September 2021 |language=en}}</ref> installation, mixed-media, and public art.<ref>Deepanjana Pal, "Going public," ''Time Out Mumbai'', 2008.</ref> Navjot's art draws from art history, as well as tribal craftsmanship of India, particularly of the Bastar region.<ref>Sasha Altaf, "Navjot Altaf," in ''Navjot Altaf: Lacuna in Testimony'', Frost Art Museum, 2009.</ref><ref>Holland Cotter, "Navjot Altaf," ''The New York Times'', 2005.</ref> Her work has been exhibited at Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, at the XV Sydney Biennale, in Sydney, Australia and at the Talwar Gallery in New York City and New Delhi.

== Life and career == Born in Meerut, India, in 1949, Navjot earned a degree in Fine and Applied Arts from Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai.<ref name="Navjot ref1">{{cite news |title=Looking back with Navjot Altaf|url=https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/LG0xjaLmCIIYnY35x25fXM/Looking-back-with-Navjot-Altaf.html |access-date=21 October 2021 |publisher=mint |date=6 January 2019 |language=en}}</ref><ref>"Navjot Altaf's Touch IV", ''Art & Deal'', August 2012.</ref> While in school, she met artist Altaf and they married in 1972, travelling together and sharing a studio over the course of the next three decades. Navjot continues to cite their relationship as a major part of her artistic growth.<ref>Maria Louis, "Navjot Altaf," ''Verve'', 2008.</ref>

=== Activism === Both Navjot and her husband were members of the Progressive Youth Movement (PROYOM) in the 1970s, and liberal political ideology has continued to inform her creative process throughout her career.<ref>Nancy Adajania, "Dialogues on representation," ''The Hindu'', 16 February 2003.</ref> Much of Navjot's work attempts to question and expand the expected interaction between artist and viewer, creating a cooperative, dialectic conversation around the work of art.<ref>Frost Art Museum, ''Navjot Altaf: Lacuna in testimony'', 2009.</ref> Navjot has collaborated with traditional craftspeople of India, particularly in the villages of Bastar, in the creation of her sculptures and installations, and has worked to bring their work to exhibitions in Mumbai.<ref>Gitanjali Dang, "Bastar's myth and reality," ''The Hindustan Times'', 16 January 2006.</ref> Her fascination with oral history, ritual, and communal creation has led to other cooperative projects; the 2010 work ''Touch IV'', for example, emerged from a collaboration between the artist and a group of sex workers, and created the space for a multivocal communication about the ideas of intimacy and desire.<ref>Natasha Baruah, "Touch IV – Navjot Altaf," ''Artfair'', July 2010.</ref><ref>Jane Mikkelson, "Touching stories," ''Time Out New Delhi'', May 2010.</ref> Navjot has organized art workshops for women and children in villages in Bastar, and she has worked to design alternative public spaces that allow young people to meet and engage with each other creatively.<ref>Nancy Adajania, "Dialogues on representation," ''The Hindu'', 16 February 2003.</ref>

=== Feminism === Navjot's collaborative projects involving traditional female crafts, such as weaving, are viewed as a feminist approach to art.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cotter |first=Holland |date=2007-01-29 |title=Feminist Art Finally Takes Center Stage |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/arts/design/29femi.html |access-date=2025-05-20 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Many of Navjot's sculptures, such as (Untitled, Blue Lady) also engage directly with the female body and its representation in Indian art, often both invoking and subverting the forms of traditional fertility figures or female divinities.<ref>{{Cite news |last=admin |date=2012-10-03 |title=Summer 2008 |url=http://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/books-magazine/rom-magazine/issue/summer-2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630163059/http://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/books-magazine/rom-magazine/issue/summer-2008 |archive-date=30 June 2016 |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=Royal Ontario Museum |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Awards and honours == * 1971: Bombay Art Society's Annual Art Exhibition award{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} * 1980 : Maharashtra State Art Exhibition award{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} * 1983: All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society award<ref>{{Cite web|last=|title=Gallery 7|url=https://www.gallery7.com/artists-work.php?id=MjAz|access-date=2021-03-20|website=Gallery7|language=en}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links == * {{official website|http://www.navjotaltaf.com/}} * [http://artpulsemagazine.com/navjot-altaf-lacuna-in-testimony Art Pulse, ''Navjot Altaf: Lacuna in Testimony''], 2010. * [http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/art/features/sister-city Time Out Mumbai, ''Sister City''], 18 February 2010. * [http://www.verveonline.com/60/life/artspeak.shtml Verve, ''The Intimacy of Sensation''], April, 2008. * [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E5DF1630F935A25751C1A9639C8B63 The New York Times, ''Navjot Altaf''], 16 December 2005. * [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/04/arts/art-guide.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm&gwh=482B00AA5E200DC8E38C0E1216EC3F54 The New York Times, ''NAVJOT''], 4 April 2003. * [https://archive.today/20140315071309/http://www.hindu.com/mag/2003/02/16/stories/2003021600030200.htm The Hindu, ''Dialogues on Representation''], 16 February 2003.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Altaf, Navjot}} Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Indian women artists Category:21st-century Indian women artists Category:Artists from Mumbai