Lifestyle Survey
Lifestyle Survey Participation until 15th June 2015 READER LIFESTYLE SURVEY 2015. HELP SHAPE CENTURION MAGAZINE. Dear CENTURION magazine reader, Over the last three years, the luxury landscape has undergone significant transformation and we are committed to providing our readers with only the most relevant and valuable editorial topics. With this in mind, enclosed within this edition of CENTURION is the 2015 Reader Lifestyle Survey covering key lifestyle categories such as travel, dining and shopping. We are keen to capture your thoughts and would be delighted if you shared your opinions on these changes with us. The enclosed questionnaire should only take a few minutes to complete. Using the prepaid envelope supplied, please return your questionnaires to us by 15 June 2015. For every questionnaire received, we will make a donation to ‘Doctors Without Borders’ – the world-renowned international humanitarian organisation which provides global medical assistance in areas affected by crisis, war and natural disaster. Thank you for your time – it is truly appreciated. Your CENTURION magazine team www.centurion-magazine.com
ART & DESIGN A CLOSE-UP ON THE ARTISTS, ARTISANS AND ARCHITECTS ENLIVENING OUR WORLD PHOTO © GALLERY MASKARA ONE OF A KIND THE ICONOCLAST OF MUMBAI Abhay Maskara, the curatorial director of Gallery Maskara, is pushing the boundaries of Indian contemporary art with every new show. By Deepali Nandwani T here are no sacred cows for Abhay Maskara. In a country where galleries are trying to strike a balance between showing art that is thought-provoking and cutting-edge but also commercially viable, the 45-year-old Maskara has eschewed all caution, putting up controversial shows that challenge the notions and precepts of what’s acceptable. It all started back in 2008 in an old quarter of Colaba for the former Microsoft executive, whose fouryear stint in the Big Apple was a revelatory one. “My time in New York with Microsoft opened up new ways of experiencing art,” he explains. “In the 1990s, galleries in India were pretty much white-cube spaces, aspirational without being experiential. But in New York, I found that it was a combination of the two, with the focus being on the experiential, especially when it came to contemporary art.” When he returned to Mumbai in 2005, he set up a space where, as he puts it, “I could work with artists who are edgy and experimental.” Today, his gallery hosts installations made out of everything from outsized inflatable dolls to orange, black and pink scaffolding, and even taxidermy. In Celebration, the show that marked its seventh anniversary in January, the artist used sexuality to examine our fixation with commodities and consumerism while questioning fixed notions of gender and sexuality by depicting same-sex couples and hermaphrodites on his canvases, a brave move in a country where homosexuality continues to be outside the purview of law. CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 51
