The art of reality

The 'Spectre of the Real ' an exhibition of social art curated by S Vijayaraghavan, a Hyderabad- based artist is being showcased at London. Born in Madurai, India, in 1981, S Vijayaraghavan is a visual artist, video artist, painter and photographer. He holds an MFA in painting from the College of Art in New Delhi and has also participated in an advanced studio art program at the Berlin Art Institute, Berlin. He has had major exhibitions and has participated in various shows and biennials internationally, and across the country.

Some notable exhibitions were held at the Lily Agius Gallery, Malta, CCA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK, Casablanca International Video Art Festival, Casablanca 25thand 28th Nomadic Festival Les Instants Vidéo, France, 10th Berlin International Directors Lounge, Berlin, Espaco de Art'es Multimedia Performance and Alliance Franchise de Coimbra in Portugal; Sarai Reader '09 curated by the Raqs Media Collective in collaboration with Devi Art Foundation and Sarai CSDS and supported by the Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi. The artist currently lives and works in Hyderabad, India. For more information, visit his website

Talking about his art works he said, " Through this work 'Story of desire against desire', I tried to exploit the potential of socio-political, personal and emotional expressions raised over self-ideology and consciousness. I explored in the narrative – comic style and expressed the quality of desires conflicted by each other. The visual components show how the arrogance of superior can be defeated. In the end the power of public voice has been displayed in the symbolic form of loud-speaker and tongue.