Matti Braun

Seeing Matti Braun’s batiks and silk paintings in the exhibition space, and how he presents historical saris in the same context, will provide an inkling of what it means that the artist examines unexpected, often little-known effects of intercultural dynamics, and reveals patterns of artistic migration and of cultural neglect. Here his enchantingly beautiful silk painting, which touches on Minimalism as well as Pop Art, there the historical fabrics of a traditional garment, a wrap-around skirt worn from India to Nepal and which to the wearer provides, in addition to festive occasions, almost superpractical possibilities in the daily life of subtropical countries, and which today is traded at auctions, and can be found mounted and framed as a picture in museums in Asia and Europe. The book at hand goes one step further and offers comprehensive insights into the associative network that has formed the basis of Matti Braun’s work in recent years. Matti Braun and co-editors Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay and Beth Citron reveal: the early science fiction culture of the Indian subcontinent; the stories of the various magazines, authors, and books; the effects on Bollywood; and the political ambitions of the Indian space program A truly exhilarating story!