tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89089216164033243972024-03-14T03:52:18.474+05:30artviewsGopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-70182973077725198042021-03-09T19:10:00.000+05:302021-03-09T19:11:32.497+05:30The Nurturing Forest - Nostalgia for Trees (Exhibition Review) Chandan Bez Baruah, curated by Waswo x Waswo, Gallery Latitude 28<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jFQDXSgJPQI/YEdxgxt4UVI/AAAAAAAAJOw/MJhgkgpV9K8O6pj89xDdYaA_m8g9huB0gCLcBGAsYHQ/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2BNortheast%2BIndia%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2Blr-%2B15%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2018.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1524" height="640" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-jFQDXSgJPQI/YEdxgxt4UVI/AAAAAAAAJOw/MJhgkgpV9K8O6pj89xDdYaA_m8g9huB0gCLcBGAsYHQ/w477-h640/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2BNortheast%2BIndia%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2Blr-%2B15%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2018.jpg" title="Chandan Bez Baruah - Somewhere in Northeast India - woodcut print - 15 x 20 inches,2018" width="477" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Somewhere In Northeast India, there is a valley. A deep, lopsided and gently undulating ‘V’ covered with dense foliage. Multiple, parallel lines mark the ether above and behind it, as if to denote the parameters of a rising horizon. In this Woodcut print (image 2, 15 x 20 inches, 2020), the artist has chiseled out the surface of the woodblock with minimal lines. Viewed from a distance, the resultant black and white presentation looks like a perfect photographic replica. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xSPRB5oBUJE/YEdy8-S0SQI/AAAAAAAAJPc/LmWoGe8mN5AM_QhrdBiMF74xksbwl-OOACLcBGAsYHQ/s622/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%252C%2B20%2Bx%2B24%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="622" data-original-width="514" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xSPRB5oBUJE/YEdy8-S0SQI/AAAAAAAAJPc/LmWoGe8mN5AM_QhrdBiMF74xksbwl-OOACLcBGAsYHQ/w528-h640/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%252C%2B20%2Bx%2B24%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" width="528" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Elsewhere in the same geographic locale, brambles, stems and an occasional leaf-structure form the foreground of another woodcut print (pt ii, 20 x 24 inches, 2020). Within the carved lines of the bramble and leaves – evoking the same minimal mark-making as in the earlier image, a dark space emerges. Is it a cave, a child’s hiding place or sanctuary in the forest, or is it something dark and foreboding – a forbidden space? A dense formation of insistent, intensely placed horizontal lines define the sky above the rambling shrubbery. These lines become a recurring pattern in almost all the works on display. </span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It was the first art show I was seeing in almost a year. The distress of lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic aside, being a caregiver is exhausting and emotionally draining. I had been in Delhi for more than three months and hadn’t been able to get out. As my mother got better, I tuned into some on-line viewing but despite the amazing ‘viewing room’ experience, I was itching to see a live exhibition. Not just zoom into the artworks with a digital cursor but get up close - using my body and mind to look, as also imbibe the subtle nuances that one receives from the physicality of art, which a digital experience doesn’t and cannot convey. And, Chandan Bez Baruah’s exhibition of woodcut prints, curated by Waswo x Waswo, at Latitude 28 ( January 22nd to March 1st, 2021, but may be extended), was just the thing for me. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Walking into the first floor of the Lado Sarai gallery run by Bhavna Kakkar, I held my breath in awe. Were these really woodblock prints, couldn’t be! The craftsmanship was so magnificent, that I began to wonder if somehow the artist had used laser technology to cut the wodges. But this was more of an after-thought. Surrounded by Bez Baruah’s graphically portrayed black and white photorealist landscapes, one was transported into another world. Not only was the execution mind-blowing, the finely chiselled markings denoting the thriving countryside of the North Eastern region of India was another kind of space. I was imaginatively transported, away from the cacophony of the city and the life-threatening episodes that my mother’s illness had put me and my sisters through. Chandan’s images of dense foliage, were contrarily life-affirming and therefore refreshing. And yet, the blackness of ink instead of lush green was intimidating. I was rejuvenated but only momentarily, as the stark evocation didn’t sustain this restorative effect. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tU8icvMw-d4/YEdzdwjA9lI/AAAAAAAAJPk/Pk8wL-pFl8Qy9gIRrRpBxj5xe5yBJi3QACLcBGAsYHQ/s1081/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2BNortheast%2BIndia%2B-%2BEmbossed%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2B-%2B17.%2B7%2Bx%2B16.5%2Binches%2B2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1081" data-original-width="776" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tU8icvMw-d4/YEdzdwjA9lI/AAAAAAAAJPk/Pk8wL-pFl8Qy9gIRrRpBxj5xe5yBJi3QACLcBGAsYHQ/w459-h640/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2BNortheast%2BIndia%2B-%2BEmbossed%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2B-%2B17.%2B7%2Bx%2B16.5%2Binches%2B2019.jpg" width="459" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In addition, the title of the show ‘If A Tree Falls (Somewhere in Northeast India)’ was most curious, compelling me go beyond the profusion of mountainous growth to consider what the artist sought to imply. Was he alluding to the danger of the earth’s ecology? Threatened by heedless urban projects spreading like an uncontainable tumour, farther and farther into virgin forest. But, it didn’t seem quite so straightforward. Though I could see an abundance of trees or a likeness thereof, the black and white images were contrarily bleak. Where large areas of black within each frame, created a feeling of gloom. This could suggest the fragility of the jungle - of flora and fauna endangered by deforestation. But, the artist’s medium of woodcut was a contradiction. I therefore assumed it wasn’t just a lament of the forest, of when yet another tree would fall, and another and yet another. Something deeper was at play, or was it?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QLyKYk680IA/YEdz2n-XEJI/AAAAAAAAJPs/z4-QvJP_F-EicGYiGpamPAkYtchRLHPcgCLcBGAsYHQ/s854/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-i%2B-%2Bwppdcut%2Bprint%2Blr-%2B20%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="854" height="484" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QLyKYk680IA/YEdz2n-XEJI/AAAAAAAAJPs/z4-QvJP_F-EicGYiGpamPAkYtchRLHPcgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h484/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-i%2B-%2Bwppdcut%2Bprint%2Blr-%2B20%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">As my viewing wasn’t a solitary one, I left the reflections for another time and enjoyed the company of old friends, while admiring the dexterity of Bez Baruah’s block prints.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Historically, block printing on textiles preceded the printing of books using wood blocks and also the famed Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut prints. Being a textile designer, I’ve been fascinated by this technique since my student days when one learned to print fabric using blocks carved from wood. Engraving a block of wood was not only too specialised a task for novice students but expert ‘block-cutters’, who create the ‘stamps’ from designs drawn on paper, have always been the backbone of block-printing communities. Wandering through villages that specialise in these textiles, one can hear the inimitable sounds of lumber wodges being chiselled and hammered, emanating from small kiosks and shops of carvers, lining village lanes close to printing units, to provide <i>‘chippas’</i> with blocks ready to print. At the Anoki Museum of Block Printing, just outside Jaipur, I once sat for hours watching fifty year old craftsman Mujeeb Ulla Khan, whose been craving blocks since the age of ten, listening to his stories – of how he learned by watching others, to master the indigenous tools of<i> kalam</i> (chisel), <i>thapi</i> (hammer) and <i>kamani</i> (bow)which he used to intricately carve the surface of the ‘stamp’.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">However, artists such as Chandan Bez Baruah, are both carver and printer, making the contemporary art of woodcut prints all the more engaging. One is not just viewing his artistic commentary but also witness to enormous hand-crafting skills, most commendable in an era of technologies that challenge the painstaking work done by hand. With so many printmaking techniques available, it is noteworthy that Bez Baruah chooses this most ancient craft. And that he has perfected his deftness, is even more creditable. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPDNsawq-I8/YEd0OlLLFXI/AAAAAAAAJP0/Vp0ccsce99ULJi9oQxxsHfflgm0gR4OOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s724/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-ii%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2B%2Bprint%2B-%2B2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="724" height="636" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPDNsawq-I8/YEd0OlLLFXI/AAAAAAAAJP0/Vp0ccsce99ULJi9oQxxsHfflgm0gR4OOwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h636/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-ii%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2B%2Bprint%2B-%2B2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">While many artists across the centuries have worked with woodcut, most didn’t carve the blocks themselves. One of the most iconic, world renowned prints, is ‘The Great Wave’ by Hokusai. This legendary Japanese printmaker and painter, of the Edo period, is said to have been capable of carving his own blocks but probably didn’t, being creative with illustrations and paintings instead. Albrecht Durer, an earlier artist of the fifteenth century German Renaissance, transformed the crude and thick lines of earlier printing with intricacy of detail and subtle gradations. Achieving this through precise carving, he elevated the artform to a level, historically unsurpassed. A notation in his theoretical writings suggests that he carved some blocks himself, deviating from the general practice of assigning this work to a professional woodcutter, but even so it was just an occasional thing. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Contemplating why Bez Baruah defies convention in this regard I made a study of his prints, textual material on his art practice and life in the hillsides of the North east region. He was born in the city of Nagoan, Assam, through which flows the Kolong River - a tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra. His mother’s early demise compelled the family to relocate to Guwahati and it was here that he developed a life-long connection with the woods. Residing in Nagaon, his proximity to indigenous Assamese communities such as the <i>Karbi</i> and <i>Tiwa</i> <i>(Lalung)</i> and their native traditions of living in harmony with the natural habitat, as also the exposure to their spiritual and cultural traditions may have influenced his early association with nature, but the artist says : “<i>When we shifted to Guwahati city, I became lonely…….Guwahati city is surrounded with hills, and my home also was near the lower end of the hills. I used to go to the green jungle </i>(for)<i> more than entertainment or other activities. In the midst of the jungles, I talked with them. I enjoyed my talks with the jungles more than my friends”.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bP1MxoScZM/YEd0v0QuzkI/AAAAAAAAJP8/1eSlxzYn79kLOr8Ml8j3Sh4w-oRBJCV5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s794/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-i%2B-%2B20%2Bx%2B24%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="794" height="466" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bP1MxoScZM/YEd0v0QuzkI/AAAAAAAAJP8/1eSlxzYn79kLOr8Ml8j3Sh4w-oRBJCV5wCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h466/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2BIndia%2Bpt-i%2B-%2B20%2Bx%2B24%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This intimacy of Bez Baruah’s relationship with the wilderness is reflected in the woodcut images he crafts. As Waswo, points out, it is as <i>“if the artist has trekked us through the jungle to his most favoured haunts, asking us to stay silent and observe what he treasures and wishes to reveal……Chandan has heard the songs of birds, the peep of frogs, the swift clicking buzz of beetles and the rustle through the leaves. He has heard trees falling in the forest.”</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">And yet, I sense that the affability he formed with the woodlands, besides being his sanctuary from the buzzing city of Guwahati, was also a means for him to communicate with the forces of nature and through this, he formed an unconventional bond with an absent mother. The countryside in her verdure fullness, became the parent. The metaphor of trees falling, becomes as much about deforestation as about loss that human beings encounter, where the demise of a mother is an irreplaceable one. What does a child in the fourth standard do to quell his grief and get on with the business of living? How does he relate to other children at his tender age of nine, who are undoubtedly oblivious of the despair he holds in every crevice of his being: he talks to the trees that stand tall in the untrammelled hills that surround him. And when they start falling, it is as if he is losing his nurturer over and over again. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iznrLsZuxI0/YEd1LXEhWKI/AAAAAAAAJQE/n3b_1qmRpKAu04-rZ0WtlR7zQlBFEY15wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Chandan_Bexbaruah_1610188431661.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1960" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iznrLsZuxI0/YEd1LXEhWKI/AAAAAAAAJQE/n3b_1qmRpKAu04-rZ0WtlR7zQlBFEY15wCLcBGAsYHQ/w383-h400/Chandan_Bexbaruah_1610188431661.jpg" width="383" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The physicality of carving the felled timber becomes a means to retain this connect with the tree, as also a means to honour and mourn the loss of his sanctuary, his parent. The prints are not mere images of the wilderness that he once lived amidst - a reminder of what we could lose in our carelessness, they are the precious memories of a child that grew up without his mother, who forged a bond with this vegetal environment instead. Gouging out the wood, chiselling indents into its surface, permit him explore recollections as also express his anguish over the fragility of life; something he is all too familiar with. In the process of carving, he both caresses the wood and destroys it. The tree is no longer a living thing, but its memory lives on through the woodcut print – the proverbial paradox of life! </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Initially Chandan used wood blocks to carve with, but when he moved to the National Capital Region, he found it easier to source MDF or medium-density fibre-board. Although I have not seen his earlier work and whether or not he was able to achieve the same fineness of lines and details, the smooth surface of this reconstituted board, made by fusing fine wood fibre and glue, can be manipulated much easier than actual woodblocks. And the artist has used this to maximum effect with his photorealist prints. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VVQX9WU4dhA/YEd1VDv8W0I/AAAAAAAAJQI/slHUrq7d7VgaPcKugmrVwqBpwo9Uyi-0QCLcBGAsYHQ/s671/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2Blr%2B-%2B14%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="671" height="358" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VVQX9WU4dhA/YEd1VDv8W0I/AAAAAAAAJQI/slHUrq7d7VgaPcKugmrVwqBpwo9Uyi-0QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h358/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2Bsomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%2B-%2Bwoodcut%2Bprint%2Blr%2B-%2B14%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">While the natural habitat dominates most prints, there are some deviations too. In the middle of extensive shrubbery, one can spy the roof of a cottage. In P-II Woodcut print (14 x 20 inches, 2020), the fibre has been scooped out to imply both the crudeness of the construction as to also retain the hallmark of the traditional woodcut print. Here, the tools that hollowed out the wood leave a distinctive stamp – of history, of naivety and lacking the finessed technique the artist has otherwise cultivated. In the midst of ultrafine carving, this act seems a deliberate harking back to the past and of imaginatively preserving a jungle refuge. A home away from home, perhaps more comforting than the four walls that defined one for the artist. Surrounded by a thick undergrowth, there is no way into this abode nor out. All one sees of what lies within, is a stamp of darkness. Black ink that is retained on the surface of the board – the area that is left intact and not carved or torn away from the resource. The hedgerow expands and lengthens to create an incomplete bower over the cottage and the space in between is hollowed out with a Dremel tool, to create tiny dots. Instead of stars twinkling, I like to think of them as fireflies in the sky.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xPkLrur4zqM/YEd1gvSLSNI/AAAAAAAAJQM/0zn1RvaSMjMlqAVsHJxClkE_ZLxIkWetwCLcBGAsYHQ/s794/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%2Blr%2B-%2B20%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="794" height="638" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xPkLrur4zqM/YEd1gvSLSNI/AAAAAAAAJQM/0zn1RvaSMjMlqAVsHJxClkE_ZLxIkWetwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h638/Chandan%2BBez%2BBaruah%2B-%2BSomewhere%2Bin%2Bnortheast%2Bindia%2Bpt-ii%2Blr%2B-%2B20%2Bx%2B20%2Binches%2B-%2B2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Bez Barhua is not content with intricately carving and printing single-block prints that are approximately two square feet in dimension, he ventures to create larger landscapes with four such blocks and the precision with which he does so, is riveting. The eye goes over and over these quadriptych prints. The precision of the print and meticulously engraved detail denotes a superhuman effort. I work in hand-crafting textiles and can get utterly frustrated with the laboured pace or if I fail in trying to achieve the desired modicum of perfection. In this digital age, where machines do anything as good or better than the hand, and most hand-crafting skills and produce serve as mere nostalgia or novelty, it would require incredible discipline to persist with such painstaking endeavour and level of proficiency. Bez Baruah’s tools range from traditional Swiss and Japanese tools and those which he has developed himself. And, even though MDF is markedly easier to carve than the wood blocks he earlier sourced from Assam, I just cannot get my head around his determination to achieve this kind of realistic representation. Especially with digital cameras and photographic prints rendering such effort superfluous. But, the artist deliberately creates this photorealistic likeness, working with photographs that he himself has taken (possibly in recent times).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DKc40VAIAEY/YEd2uyOLflI/AAAAAAAAJQY/-b44tmXkoP8GtS19n4M2M5iqyFuw8oAIwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/image%2B2%2Bcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1048" data-original-width="2048" height="328" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DKc40VAIAEY/YEd2uyOLflI/AAAAAAAAJQY/-b44tmXkoP8GtS19n4M2M5iqyFuw8oAIwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h328/image%2B2%2Bcrop.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Yet, if one zooms into the images, putting your eye to the glass that contains them, the impression of marks are minimized, rendering them more abstract than real. Dense foliage is not a collection of perfectly carved leaves as the camera can reproduce, but myriad amoebic squiggles floating over the mountainside. However, stepping back, the impression of every single foliole engraved in perfect detail, is recreated, by the same marks that do not remotely resemble a leaf as recognized by the human eye. Chandan Bez Baruah prefers illusion to exactitude.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In other prints, peering close, multiple cross-hatched lines appear to be placed ad hoc, which along with the amoebic marks on the hills become cognizant of the output of a contemporary state of mind. But, look again and you realise that each line, each mark, isn’t random or carved with indignation, impatience or angst, reflective of the average modern temperament. It is a kind of meditation. Where each line or mark is evocative of the character of the jungle as he knew it, as Chandan remembers. Looking back on these scenes with a sense of inaccessibility, emulating the photographic capture of light from the surface and texture of foliage as seen from a distance. More illusory and intangible than figurative, is a conscientious attempt at reiterating and recalling the magical comfort provided by the jungle. Where every stem that crossed over the other, did so because that was the only way it could develop. Able to chart its relatively unhindered path because no-one came along to way to prune it, to make it bend to this convention or other. Every leaf, or evocation thereof, that Bez Baruah carved is a deliberation. Every dot is essential to the randomness of the wild, unimpeded growth that nurtured his soul. Snuggling into the ‘<i>anchal</i>’ of an absent parent, exemplified as the omniscient spirit in the forest’s ample lap of nature.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7cIGAIeuU50/YEd3VT3Q10I/AAAAAAAAJQw/4e1b8MgOndg0Pgal4RkmwD9BU9II5xJBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/image%2B8%2Bcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1689" data-original-width="2048" height="330" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7cIGAIeuU50/YEd3VT3Q10I/AAAAAAAAJQw/4e1b8MgOndg0Pgal4RkmwD9BU9II5xJBQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h330/image%2B8%2Bcrop.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-62841946432636802842019-11-26T23:23:00.000+05:302019-11-26T23:23:03.904+05:30Viraj Naik's Imagined World, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for Arts, Goa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The first time that I saw the works of Viraj Naik, was at Gallery Nvya in New Delhi, at the start of the millennium. The recent solo exhibition titled ‘Ordinary Superheroes’ curated by Leandre D’ Souza, was the Goan artist’s first showing after a hiatus of fifteen years, and was hosted at Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, by its patrons Dipti and Dattaraj Salgaoncar. The collection of ninety-five ink drawings, etchings and sculptural works on display, was a continuum of his fascination for the anthropomorphic forms of animal-man, which follows a primeval tradition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In the modern world, he is preceded by Picasso, who not only painted the ‘Minotaur’ or ‘Bull of Minos’ (conceived by Minos's wife when impregnated by a bull), but is said to have identified with the human and animal principles of the creature that donned the head of a bull on the body of a man. However, ancient man was also familiar with such human hybrids, depictions of which were present in antediluvian lore, appearing in cave paintings as early as the Late Stone Age, approximately 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. Ethnologists conjecture that these portrayals - of beings with human and animal features were not necessarily physical representations of mythical hybrids, but were most likely attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts or ‘power animals’. Of reaching altered states of consciousness, in order to perceive and interact with the realm of spirit, channelling these transcendental energies into the physically manifest world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Remains of mythological hybrids have also been found in prehistoric burial sites, where skeletons of horse-cows, sheep-cows, and a six-legged sheep had been formed by joining together body parts from carcasses of different species. A practice that is believed to have been an offering to ancient gods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In the midst of viewing this exhibition, we were celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi across Goa, with much faith, fervour and colour. Known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, or by numerous other names, this elephant-headed god of wisdom, knowledge and new beginnings is one of the best-known and worshipped deities of the Hindu pantheon, especially in Maharashtra and Goa. A short while later, I was in Delhi celebrating Diwali which in North India is a celebration of Rama’s return to Ayodhya. In the epic Ramayana, the simian god Hanuman is credited for aiding his victory over the demon Ravana and safe return of Rama’s consort Sita. Both Ganesh and Hanuman are part animal, part human. Animals or their anthropomorphic forms are an integral part of the Hindu pantheon as either god's in themselves or vahanas or vehicles of god's. Many of Vishnu's avatars are also part human and part animal - Matsya, sometimes portrayed with a human head and torso with a fish body below waist, saves Manu the son of god from the great deluge. Kurma appears in the form of a tortoise or turtle to support the foundation for the cosmos and the cosmic churning stick (Mount Mandara) for the Samudra Manthan. Others, are Varaha (with a boar's head) and Narasimha (with lion's head). In addition, the mythical cow, Kamadhenu, who is considered the mother of all other cattle, is often portrayed as a cow with human head, peacock tail and bird wings. There are many such examples where much of this culture and worship is said to have arisen from a policy to protect animals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">While Naik concedes his fascination with the study of mythological gods with animal-like figurines - be it Hindu, Greek or Roman, he also says that it is his perceived relationship between human and animals that emerge in his hybridisation, bringing out the animal instincts that he feels all humans possess. “For instance, if I feel a person is aggressive like a tiger I would depict him with a head of a tiger" says Naik. Adding a simplistic, contemporary angle to the mythological ‘untamed lion man’ ‘Urmahlullu’ who was, contrarily, a guardian spirit in Mesopotamian mythology, where its image was used to ward off destructive demons, including the ogre of death. He is also found in seals of the Indus Valley, evolving into a lion-centaur goddess wearing a head-dress with a long pendant whose body merges with that of the tiger. An image that has similarities to what later became associated with Durga, the goddess of war.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Despite the antiquity that precedes his anthropomorphic renditions, Viraj Naik is not deifying his forms. Nor is he enacting some shamanistic ritual to connect with any power animals. Some of his depictions are socio-political statements about the animal nature of the contemporary human race, including quirks that materialize through his imagined beings. Societies are populated by all kinds of people. Some, aware of their socially undesirable behavioural patterns, manage to project a carefully cultivated but false personality. Presenting his etchings and drawings as a mirror to detect deceitful, fearful, foolish, conceited or angry animal traits within the homo sapiens frame, Naik could also be suggesting that, like animals we too possess the ability to sense or ‘sniff out’ such untruth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">However, his ‘Super Heroes’ are not necessary pleasant to behold. If you allow yourself the indulgence to get squeamish, it’s like beholding creatures that somehow got mixed up in the creative process. You wonder if the forces of life are experimenting, if Naik is using his own artistic ingenuity to consider what kind of species he would like to inhabit the universe. Speculating, why these perversions would find any value in a world where men and women have devised ways to perfect any perceived imperfections in their bodies and, where animals that presently pervade the planet, do not remotely resemble the organisms that Viraj envisages.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">20cm x 15cm, 2018.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">What can one make of a fish-face with humanoid teeth, wearing a necktie – or it could have been a fin protruding from inside the buttoned-up white shirt and black suit-coat, of the monochromatic interpretation. Imagine being a gill-bearing aquatic craniate who swims freely in the vast Arabian Sea, and you force yourself to wear a necktie and suit. But without the biceps and triceps of the human arms, empty sleeves of the jacket hang listlessly. Whether the fish-man had legs or tail is left to conjecture as the drawing focusses only on the torso. While the image generates a sense of the absurd and even as the implied vision of a slippery creature caught within the confines of a corporate suit, does percolate through, it doesn’t really seem odd because the proverbial world of commerce is rife with such characters, isn’t it?</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KUkhjF0yr2o/Xd1fVAZVduI/AAAAAAAAI7o/HWH4gf6amPAN07S23MOWbdAD1dcZsmI4ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/MVN-84%2Blr.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KUkhjF0yr2o/Xd1fVAZVduI/AAAAAAAAI7o/HWH4gf6amPAN07S23MOWbdAD1dcZsmI4ACK4BGAYYCw/s640/MVN-84%2Blr.jpg" width="476" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Not all the animal features were as easily identifiable. There was one face wearing a cap too small for his head. This, in turn, was too large for its quadruped body, which was part animal with fur and paws in the forelegs and two sturdy and stocky hind limbs with their feet shod with socks and shoes. His profile displayed a smallish eye, pointed nose and a smile that seemed a bit too cheesy. He was surrounded by trees and shrubbery and I had the distinct impression that he had just stepped out for a game of golf or some such, when the artist transformed his body thus. And, the man remained smiling or unaware, or plain simple didn’t care what he looked like or was seen as. He seemed blissfully absorbed in the machinations of his own extra-large head to care what anyone thought, or notice if anyone else even existed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For most part however, Naik focussed only on presenting the face, with no body to distinguish the kind of animal he intended. The eyes in one or two such portraits were definitely shifty. One face donned an adaptation of a fez cap, clenching his teeth, and the other had short horns on his head – actually the horned face didn’t look nearly as shifty as the other, more like the furtive glance of someone scared. If this wasn’t enough to intrigue, you were confronted by a the otherwise menacing apparition of a boar with an unusually docile, subjugated expression. It had an alligator or crocodile’s body that was stood upon by a diminutive elephant and an oversized parrot with relatively shortened horse legs and hooves, but nonetheless, gleefully towering above the dwarfed tusker, who glowered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">What kind of world is this? What's the necessity of contemplating such unlikely forms that colonize Naik's creative biosphere. If it weren't for Viraj's perfect drawing skills, these images would merely intrigue on an intellectually superficial plane. But precisely because his technique was so marvellous, one got up close and peered at lines, crossing, hatching and layering to create form and shade and superlative textures. His marks were masterful and this ensured that the viewer didn’t leave the gallery space horrified, disgusted or plain bored. It was through the process of observing, of examining those lines and their gradations that one became less conscious of the oddness of these anthropomorphic and zoomorphic creatures, to maybe find empathy, parity and perhaps some insight, whilst acknowledging the artist’s prowess to draw you into his weird-weird world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The inventive presentations may look unnatural, which is perhaps an effective tool to get your attention and nudge you cogitate. The images are such that, once you get involved with their characters, you cannot ignore them. Although the artist suggested we find ourselves in these forms, I for one, was unable to locate myself through the visualised hybrids, partly because, barring a few obvious associations, it was unclear what exact animal and its propensities he was expressing through them. The forms were not evocative of organisms or traits that one could easily relate to. However, if some viewers did spot a measure of resemblance, it would not be in their outer manifestations but in their sense of self or as perceived by others. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"> pen, ink and graphite, 20cm x 15cm, 2019</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">While employing the elemental modus of human portraiture, the artist caricatured the traditional features with animal physiognomies, which were not always jarring but sometimes even amusing. If we are indeed so, can we not see the humour in our warped-ness? After all, which one of us doesn’t carry some kind of dysfunctional baggage and subconsciously play this out to disastrous or embarrassing consequences. Within his philosophical renderings and pondering upon human-animistic inclinations Naik reminds, that biologically, humans are animals too. And like these quadrupeds, we too commit acts which are an inherent aspect of our natural disposition. But it is the moral code that he proposed, questioning whether our inborn tendencies are acceptable, simply because they are intrinsic to our nature, is where I felt more than a trifle miffed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For, surely it was with the wisdom of understanding that it is only through acceptance of how we are, that we can hope to control the unnatural expression of human reactions that, an ancient treatise on the arts, such as the Natya Shastra (compiled between 200 BCE and 200 CE) listed eight bhavas (emotions or sentiments) with eight corresponding rasas (aesthetic flavour evoking emotion or feeling) where, love and laughter are depicted alongside anger, disgust, terror and sorrow. There was apparently no censoring or shaming for any expressive response in those times. Therefore one imagines a limited degree of suppression and consequential hyperbolic emotive outbursts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">But Viraj Naik is not alone in voicing such ideas. There appears to be a growing trend in contemporary society, to advocate suppressing rather than expressing the uncomfortable-to-deal-with feelings, like anger and sorrow. It is this, more than anything else, which creates the overstatement of passions which then manifest as ugly or unmanageable. For instance, anger as a response is not abhorrent in itself. It is a very useful feeling that reveals what appeals and what doesn’t, which aids in setting personal boundaries. This emotive response only becomes disruptive when, unacknowledged and repressed, it finds articulation as vitriolic rage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">While it was drawings and etchings that formed the major corpus on view, one small gallery was dedicated to digitally worked pictographs. I found these fascinating. And, their dark auras didn’t require much analysing or scrutiny. Spaces and mythologies were superimposed and probably came from varying eras of civilization and across cultures, but the specifics seemed secondary to the atmosphere which enveloped you within the gallery space that was occupied by these pictographs. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Raurava, pictograph, 25cm x 28cm, 2019.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Drawings and etchings require a laborious and mostly meditative process of execution - where thoughts and feelings come and go as the hand continues with its work. The correlation of hand and mind at work where the procedure is relatively mechanical, as in these imaginative drawings - of a technique perfected over years of accomplishment and experimentation, is recognised across spectra of hand-crafting to be a process that aids the sublimation of one’s emotions. In contrast to the pictographic compositions these renderings seemed too finessed, merely skirting the fringes of a much deeper hypothesis. A premise which was disclosed effectively through the dramatic tones of the digitized images. Viewing their dark and foreboding vistas, which exaggerated rather than reduced the intensity of sentiment, the ominous tonality and ghostly apparitions became an inevitable encounter with the menacing aspects of mankind. In effect, the pictographs brought to the fore, the kind of indigence that could befall our world, if humans with untrammelled tendencies are allowed to dominate the planet.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-36641820865392976202019-08-03T23:48:00.000+05:302019-08-03T23:48:43.117+05:30Connecting the Threads, to Re-Connect with the Warp and the Woof<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">‘Connecting Threads, Textiles in Contemporary Practice’, was an exhibition held in Mumbai earlier this year. “Tracing textile practices, traditions and histories”, it sought to present “contemporary art practices that engage textiles as a medium, metaphor or process.” These fabric-inspired works were showcased at the iconic Bhau Dadji Lad museum in Byculla East, where the opulent, restored interiors and artefacts navigating the history of Bombay, its facets and cultures, became the site for contemporary art-works that were placed on and alongside the stairwell and beside the glass-boxed objects of the museum, as well as within the quieter, reflective spaces of a dedicated viewing gallery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Manisha Parekh</b>, Enshrined, 2016. Handmade paper on wool, silk and velvet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">In this work, Parekh responds to her visits to pilgrimage sites in various cities including Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and Varanasi in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India. Taken by the sense of detail and tactility imbibed by the adornment within such religious spaces, Parekh creates sculptural works that represent personal shrines. Intricate small, solid forms made of fabric, including velvet and silk, are carefully organized within the structures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The geometric shape of the outer box structures contrast with the organic sensual forms made of fabric, giving it a sense of precariousness.<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">It had an impressive line-up of artists from Anita Dube, Anju Dodiya, Lavanya Mani, Manish Nai, Manisha Parekh, N. Pushpamala, Nilima Sheikh, Paula Sengupta and Reena Saini Kallat, among half a dozen others. Textiles were represented in their art, in diverse ways. Few had devoted their procedures to the art of cloth-making, fewer still were makers in themselves and some had just featured painted renditions and photographs, rather than fabric itself. This was in keeping with the curatorial concept which proposed a choice of material and processes that prevalent art praxes suggested, towards “a nuanced understanding….of the art form” encompassing “the traditional, the modern and the contemporary.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>Archana Hande,</b> All is Fair in Magic White (image courtesy BDL)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hande uses fabric as a medium to narrate a satirical story
that comments on the rapid urban growth and aspirational plans for the revitalization of
Mumbai that are rooted in the history of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>class, race and power in the city given its
colonial and industrial<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>history. The story
moves to Dharavi, Mumbai, the second largest slum in the world, with the
largest conglomeration of sweatshops and small-scale industries in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The work features traditional wood-block prints to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>create a series of works on cloth that form a
storyboard depicting characters, landscape and topographies of the city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">An interesting intercession by Monali Meher, wrapped the ornate railings of the central staircase with red yarn. This installation was overhung with paintings by Anju Dodiya. The day I visited, the museum was abuzz with activity. Curious to see how many people engaged with this macabre intervention, I was surprised to find that not one of the chattering groups, that passed by me observing them from a relatively silent corner, even noticed there was something uniquely odd about the stifling of a lovingly re-established Victorian aesthetic. Nor did they even glance up at the adjacent walls, to be disturbed by the melancholia of Dodiya’s canvasses that, nevertheless, looked down upon them as they ascended or descended the grand stairway. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Mangal; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Monali Meher</span></strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Running Thread, 2018, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Red wool wrapped around the Museum's grand staircase, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">temporary site specific installation - a detail (image courtesy BDL)<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">This apparent lack of interest, in these museum goers, to engage with something so incongruous and disquieting as dark red, bloody hued thread wound around the gilded insignia of the V&A as also the delicately fashioned metallic leaves and florets that surrounded it, (built in 1872, BDL was Bombay’s own Victoria and Albert Museum), was thought provoking. Was it something to do with the viewing public or had the exhibits themselves failed in their attempt to garner attention and even question the merit and/or activity of contemporary textiles as art. Were they even meant to, is the uncertainty I was left with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Rakhi Peswani</b>, Fruits of Labour (A Monument to Exhaustion)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cloth fades, bleeds, stains and dyes. This work attempts to take such material attributes of textiles and transform them into spatial metaphors, engaging the viewer with cultural narratives seeping from the physicality of the medium of fabric. The rudimentary impression of the work is derived from temporary relief shelters/tents pitched at the site of displacement, constructions, migrations, devastations and various intensities of these situations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These social ruptures of modernity are microcosms that our world witnesses closely and repetitively. Embracing the viewer within the space of the museum, the work opens up an experiential realm within this cosmetic, cultural, public space. The work as a temporary shelter carries an association of (a) larger body that stands desolately…..yet looms above our fragile individual selves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, the museum’s director and Puja Vaish, these materials that are inherently definitive of culture through their fundamental relationship with aspects of the human existence, had left little or no impression upon the average visitor, such that I had been able to witness. The tall, slim, colourful columns of Manish Nai’s collected and compressed fabric, on the first floor galleries, found perplexing glances by ‘shikha’ donning, saffron clad Brahmin pandits and Paula Sengupta’s ‘River of Blood’, had me right confused. It had been so well-camouflaged among the general exhibits of the museum, I had to double-check, if it was indeed part of ‘Connecting Threads’, or an earlier acquisition. And how I felt about it positioned thus. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>Paula Sengupta</b>, ‘</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk15761594"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rivers of
Blood </span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">– Caste Baidya, Village Kalia' 2010, ( A detail)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wood and Fibre-glass almirah, found objects, corn-fibre
paper lining, hand block printed wallpaper lining, hand-embroidered bed linen
and shirt, wooden hanger and vinyl stickers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘Rivers of Blood’ is a tactile diary, filled with stories
documenting the artist’s travels through Bangladesh to discover her roots
across the border - a mere two-hour drive from her Kolkata home, where she <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">discovered the fabled <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">nakshi
kantha.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This brought back
memories through which she reclaimed the process </span>as the script for her
narrative. <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Her
grandmother and mother are inheritors of the tradition where women quilted
layers of used textiles with kantha stitch, for domestic use. And she had learned
from them too.<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">This choice of locating the works of a specifically curated exposition in the midst of the museum’s general display, with walk-ins that created an almost, traffic-jam-like viewing situation, barely leaving room for serious contemplation, was as peculiar as it was disturbing. It made me uncomfortable. I wanted to look without the ‘noise’ of everything else. After all, there has barely been such a day, in all my decades of working with textiles, that one has been able to walk into an exhibition in an Indian metropolis, which is dedicated to the modern-day language of cloth and its skeins as markers of cultural residue, with significance in the world of contemporary Indian art. I didn’t take well to the approach, even as it made me trace histories and revisit and review my own perspectives. More particularly, since I had just travelled from the desert, hand-crafted textile haven of Kutch, where I had occasion to notice many revised parameters generating query and concern. And this exhibition added its share of dilemmas, provoking much internal debate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Paula Sengupta</b>, ‘Rivers of Blood – Caste Baidya, Village Kalia' 2010, detail, <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">(image courtesy BDL)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">When I first started working with textiles as art, in the early to mid-1990’s, it was an anomaly. I seemed to be going against the grain of time-honoured conventions where art was primarily utilitarian and the very idea of this becoming the medium for self-indulgent expression an anathema; arising from philosophies of the ancient world that had nurtured the rich legacy of textiles, we are fortunate to still have amongst us as a living tradition. My reason for venturing beyond the accepted practice arose from my work as a designer that took me into rural spaces where textiles and their makers were struggling to survive the rigours of the modern world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Weaver's village, Kotwa, Banaras</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">What struck me was that we, as they, were concerned primarily about the product and how to present it to buyers in the ever-expanding global village. And, little attention was being paid, if at all, to the life-style that was essential to those that worked with an expert dexterity of techniques passed down through successive generations. A way of living that was capable of stepping back from the chaos of the world to indulge in painstaking labour of love, simplifying necessities and focussing on what fostered the spirit of making with the hand. In my myriad experiences as a textile-designer, I learned that if I could bring any value, if I could find any means to contribute towards sustaining this inheritance, then maybe I could do so, by becoming a craftsperson myself. I chose the role of an artist-craftsperson to add value to age-old skills by lending the dignity afforded to contemporary art, as much as attempting to adopt the pared-down lifestyle of those that crafted with the hand. I ‘painted’ with hand-embroidery techniques without seeking to match prevalent skills, which have taken many generations to master.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gangaba, Bhujodi, Kutch -
pakko stitch on Maggie Baxter's textile<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In Kutch, I had been travelling with an Australian artist who’d been engaging with the fabric and artisans of Kutch for over twenty years. I was a bystander to more than just the unusual long-distance collaboration. I had returned to the region after three decades and the socio-cultural shifts were telling. As I wandered with Maggie, to hand block-printed units and artisan’s homes, I noted many changes. A middle-aged, bespectacled embroidery artisan from the Sodha clan, with faint strands of white on otherwise, well-oiled black tresses, sat cross-legged on the currently fashionable tiled flooring of her home, on a two-coloured plastic floor-covering - woven vaguely along the lines of the customary bamboo chattai. Her fingers, with chipped, dull-bronzed-maroon nail-polish, deftly handled the ‘sui-dhaga’, working the distinctive Sodha ‘pakko’ stitch, following instructions in Kutchi, passed onto her by Sandhya, a local Jadeja girl, who was assisting Maggie. Gangaba covered her head with the pallav of a mill-printed polyester saree imprinted with multicoloured polka dots and mock ombre-dyeing. Unlike the conventional garb of her people that once comprised a ghaghra, richly embroidered kurti-kanjari and tie-dye odhani that was usually paired with abundant silver and gold jewellery, closely resembling costumes worn in the deserts of Rajasthan. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Vankar Shamji Vishram , Bujodi Kutch, at the indigo vats</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Outside, carelessly strewn on the balustrade of the staircase leading up to the rooftop of the single-storey home, was a traditional, local-wool shawl with its definitive extra weft effect – in hues of beiges and brown and a hint of vibrant red tones; part of the garb that once defined the Rabari community of Kutch, usually worn by men. It’s casual placement on the steps of a Sodha home, in close proximity to a saree clad woman washing clothes, carried the implication of belonging to her. Making one note how patterns that earlier demarcated gender and communities, now blended into a generic Kutchi dress-code. Their attire, choice of colours and fibres, the way they lived and the things they filled their homes with, no longer had an organic feel nor distinctive touch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Manish Nai</b>, Unititled I-VIII<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nai comes from a family of textile artisans and he frequently uses discarded fabric and clothes to create minimalist forms that vary in colour from exuberant to meditative, inviting the audience to reflect on the extraordinary potential of art to renew and rethink the mundane. These works use old, discarded clothing that Nai collected from his mother and other relatives, that he compressed in a mould, using heat to ensure they remain consistent in shape. The otherwise versatile nature of fabric, in terms of shape, is altered, as the clothing is moulded into a series of slender poles. Displayed within <span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">a frame the works tread the line between painting and sculpture. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The room we sat in led into the kitchen area – a semi-open-plan arrangement where glass, stainless steel and plastic utensils lined shelves that had been placed in a large void in the soft-green painted hues of a wall, adjoining the kitchen, behind the bold colourful, geometric-patterned, mill-printed sheets covering the aluminium and polyester-niwar ‘manji’ that Maggie was seated on. Whilst this wasn’t the real cause for concern, what bid me ponder was how much farther could these living traditions sustain themselves, when what they make is no longer of use to them, nor are they emotionally or creatively invested in the evolution of the fabrics sewn by their dextrous fingers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">N. Pushpmala</span></b><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">, Tryptich, 2000<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Portrait of a Hindoo woman, Portrait of a Mohhamedan woman, <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Portrait of a Christian Woman,</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">From the Bombay Photo Studio
series<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I have always held that the great crafting traditions of this country arose not only through enlightened patronage but because of the ingenuity and passion of the maker. I have noted again and again that commerce alone, no matter how lucrative and well-paid, doesn’t lend itself to excellence, but personalised involvement of the artisan can create unimaginable magic. But, much of what they make today, if not all, is not for their own personal use. It travels to unknown people in faraway countries - features of the products dictated by the markets they are destined for. Becoming increasingly removed from the intimate needs of the maker and the aesthetic sensibilities that crafted them. Developing more and more into a commodity and the craftspeople relegated more and more to becoming just skilled labour. The traditional dual role of artist-producer is no longer pursued, leaning of extraneous design inputs which, while assuring better market-share are also contrarily stifling the artistic voice vital for the sustenance of this labour intensive work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Anita Dube</b>, Silence, (Blood wedding)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">(image courtesy BDL)<o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">In this work Dube transforms a skeleton, formerly used by her brother while studying medicine, into objects including a garland, a fan, and a flower, among others, wrapped in red velvet. The bones embody a juxtaposition between notions of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>death and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when covered by the opulent fabric. Wrapped in red velvet and decorated with embellishments including bead and lace, the works represent a wedding trousseau. The objects symbolizing death take on a new meaning, embracing the fragility of life, love and beauty, through the second skin that they are provided.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Textiles as art is not something new, it is as old as history itself, but our definition of art has altered. The history of Indian textile-making is proof of the kind of respect this art once earned. In the Indonesian islands, these fabrics were deemed a form of storing wealth, ascribed with magical properties and elevated to the status of heirlooms. In fact, the Indian maker was called ‘Klinga’ or God. It was such value and veneration that created the impetus for cloth as currency on the famed spice trade-routes. It was such worth and honour that sustained the impetus to make, even when their handiwork was separate from their personal utilization.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Reena Saini Kallat</b>, Walls of the Womb</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p>(image courtesy BDL)<o:p></o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Autobiographical in nature, these works speak of the artist relationship with her mother, whom she lost aged eight, and were arrived at through frequent contact with her sarees that remained in a cupboard for 27 years. Kallat collaborated with Khatri families in Kutch for the process of tie-dye, which evoke Braille-like translations of her mother’s hand written recipes. Associations of motherhood are carried through the usage of 12 sarees and the recipe books evincing notions of nurture and nourishing. The language on the cloth remains inaccessible echoing Kallat’s bond with her mother, which is based on fragments of inscrutable memory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Beyond the utilitarian, fabric as contemporary art expressiveness, is also not an innovative quirk of the millennial digital world, but draws its antecedents from the beginnings of the industrial revolution and the arts and craft movement in England that was the impulse for highlighting the craft of making, celebrating the ‘simple life’ synonymous with rural traditions and hand-craftsmanship. This, in turn influenced the Bauhaus outlook and pedagogy. And, it was in the studios of the Bauhaus in the early 1920’s that Anni Albers, a pioneer of the modern art fabric, discovered the wonders of the woven grid along with fibres and the loom, through which she found “ways to regain sensitivity towards textile surfaces: texture” and an expression of modern life. As mechanization made textile production cheaper, the preciousness of cloth and clothing rendered greater artistic experimentation viable, and the younger generation of contemporary artists like Shonibare, Do-Ho-Suh and others have used the pliable drape, abundantly, as compelling and dramatic metaphors to make private and socio-political statements about displacement, colonization and more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Shakuntala Kulkarni</b>, Of Bodies, Armour and Cages</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p>(image courtesy BDL)<o:p></o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kulkarni’s ‘ wearable sculptures’ as she calls them, traverse a space where historical objects like armour and the elaborately designed costume/dresses of different communities are brought together in a contemporary context by re-articulating the usage and the medium, collapsing and metamorphosing the two, thus blurring cultural and visual boundaries. Armour of the yonder days were worn by warriors to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>protect themselves during encounters and war. Made of metal and leather they were designed to look grand. Although the cane armour/costumes on display speak of that grandeur but these elaborately structured costumes are also feminine, linear, fragile and organic. This work attempts to address the relationship of the body to notions of protection and the notion of being trapped.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A century after Albers’s fabric inspired a generation of modern weavers, and a hundred years after the industrial revolution, where automation didn’t just evolve a refined aesthetic and produced fine goods, it also made our choices clonish. This facet is now among others, the incentive to renew corporeal parameters. Such that the unique, the original and the imperfections of handmade are fashionable, precisely because we have lost the sensibilities of feeling, holding and handling things before couriers from Amazon or Flipkart deliver them at our doorstep. Further heightened by the digital ‘touch’ of our smart-phones, and lack of physical engagement in socializing through social media, we are no longer compelled to touch the texture and glaze of the cup or bowl, run our fingers through that scarf or saree, or see if we actually enjoy sitting in a that funky looking chair or Avant Garde sofa. Fostering a growing disconnect with the dynamic physicality of being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Shahzad Dawood</b>, Point and I will Follow (a detail)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dawood interweaves histories, realities and symbolisms to create richly layered artworks. The original textiles, from which Dawoods works are based, were created by nomadic weavers of South Asia, throughout the 1970’s . Composed from discarded scraps from textile factories, his vintage textiles form a key element of the artist’s multidisciplinary practice. Intervening on quilted surfaces, Dawood adds layers of screen-print, paint and shorthand to create a bricolage of elements. By working with the textiles’ pre-existing narratives and highlighting their resonance with other cultural phenomena, Dawood questions the established binaries between different value systems and cultures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For Albers, weaving offered a means to regain connect to a bodily existence. This ideal becomes an important consideration in an era where we are we no longer making things for ourselves, nor engaged in everyday kinaesthetic experiences. It was especially pertinent while viewing this exhibition devoted to textiles within a contemporary Indian art ethic, where, despite a rich, unparalleled and ancient lineage of making, intellectual concepts prevailed over the tangible intricacies of fabric construction. Of textiles in modern-day art practices that were largely removed from the warping, weaving and embellishing of the cloth that, most of the artistic precepts presented, were fashioned on and by. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Priya Ravish Mehra</b>, rafoogari on Pashmina cloth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Growing up in the 1960s, her summer vacations were spent at the family ancestral home in Najibabad, in the Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh, home to many rafoogars. These early interactions with them, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>inspired a life-long dedication of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>researching and documenting this art form. For Priya, a rafoogar, was not just a darner of torn textile but <i>“ a healer of damaged cloth”. </i>Diagnosed with cancer she used the act of ‘visible’ as opposed to their ‘invisible’ repairing in her thread-work, to creatively speak of her own inner transformations during periods of recovery. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conjuring the saint-poet Kabir who poetically meshed the tangible with the transcendental, she said that, “to revive darning is not just a revival of skill and craft……it is also about healing suppressed past emotions connected with memories and the mending of cloth.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">These insights, coupled with my recent observations in Kutch, left me pensive and perplexed. Still grappling with the expanding gulf between textiles in art and the art of textile-making, as also the lives and sensibilities of practitioners on either end of the spectrum, I travelled to Banaras, the mecca of textiles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nizamuddin at the loom, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ramnagar, Banaras</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Engaging with weavers from all faiths and reminded of the vast difference in the ‘feel’ of fabric made by human hands and manufactured by machines, I was reminded that in the Indian tradition, the weaver or ‘julaha’, has always occupied a low station in the social hierarchy and even the wisdom of the weaver-saint Kabir hasn’t been able to alter that. We recite his ‘dohas’, laud the vitality of his verse and its pertinence centuries after he passed on, but we don’t seek to emulate the life-style that inspired his sagacity, nor uplift the makers, even as we celebrate cloth in our existence and art practices.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">मन दीया कहीं और ही, तन साधन के संग ।<br />कह कबीर कोरी गजी, कैसे लागे रंग ।।</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><em>Mn diya kahi aur he, tan saadhan ke sang<br />Keh Kabir kori gaji kaise laage rang</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">-Kabir</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">When the mind digresses<br />from the task at hand, and<br />the body continues robotically,<br />it weaves an un-hued cloth</span></div>
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(trans: gopika nath)</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">A peek into the interior of </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nizammudin's home<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-28754411522080587572019-03-10T23:23:00.000+05:302019-03-13T10:56:32.728+05:30Tearing The Heart Out <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Navjot Altaf -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Life In Art, curated by Nancy Adjania, NGMA,
Mumbai<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">It was in 1997, while working on a textile revival project in Bastar, that I first heard of Navjot Altaf. While driving from Raipur to Jagdalpur, when we halted at Kondagaon, I learnt of the project she had recently started there. I was intrigued because the villages of Bastar were unlike any other in India. The poverty and worldly innocence I had witnessed proved a tremendous test of conscience in resepct of the assignment I’d been hired for, and I wondered about her experiences. Reading about her art and seeing some videos and sculptures at galleries in Delhi and on visits to Mumbai, had not been enough to get to the nub of her contribution or challenges. So, when I heard that Nancy Adjania had curated a retrospective of her oeuvre, slated for viewing in December 2018, I co-ordinated my travel plans to Kutch, returning via Mumbai, to ensure that I didn’t miss seeing this exhibition :‘The Earth’s Heart, Torn Out.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Displayed within the semi-circular, multi-level galleries at the historical Sir Cowasji Jehangir Public Hall – a late-colonial, Science Society building subsequently converted into the National Gallery of Modern Art, were paintings, drawing, prints, posters, sculptures and videos rife with an emphatic express.<em> Of a radical artist, who as a young schoolgirl, “while running wild in the pine-covered valley of Dalhousie…..felt the first stirrings to be an artist”.</em> And her art, spoke evocatively of an innocent soul’s, almost violent response to a perceived violation of that sense of freedom. Where, as curator Adjania pointed out “She will fight every sullen bureaucrat, hostile censor and pursue every clue until she has a kaleidoscopic view of the situation at hand.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Her artistic yearning to break free, from the binds of authority, gender, caste, tradition and even the physical confines of the body, was seemingly heightened by the spiral stairway - its coils contributing to the excoriated angst, rising towards an imagined goal of liberation. Beginning with images from pre-college years, intermingling with experiments in the socio-economic dialectic of Marxism, weaving through the politics and ideals of feminism, meandering towards the life, livelihood and art making of the Adivasis of Bastar; culled from an art-practice spanning half a century, was a rather overwhelming exposition of over two hundred art-works. Snaking their way up five levels of the gallery, culminating with the iconic dome-ceiling projection of a sublime video. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A ‘transcultural’ artist, travelling between Bombay and Bastar, while also collaborating or interacting with artists and researchers across Europe, the US and Latin America. Navjot Altaf’s trajectory could well be termed a quest, centred not on the pursuits of the unseen, abstract notions of self - beyond the physicality of form. But, more like a mission to understand the political dynamics of an unequal social milieu and locating herself, through this exploration. Defining the tonality of her own voice - speaking from within spaces that were not as privileged; facilitating their discourse vide her own indignation. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Video Still of ' Soul Breath Wind'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The title for the exhibition is cited as a tribute to voices suppressed by apathetic authorities, presented in the film ‘Soul Breath Wind’. Of assertions of the people of Chattisgarh denouncing unregulated mining of their land in connivance with the State. And where, Nirupama, a farmer from Chattisgarh, in warning of the disastrous outcome of displacing them from ancestral lands and of disemboweling the earth, says: <em>“Purein dharti ka kaleja nikaal diya”</em>. And,‘ The Earth’s Heart, Torn Out’ also becomes symbolic of Navjot’s creative outpouring.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">At the base of the dominant, spiralling, chrome stairwell leading from the ground up into the impressive vaulted ceiling, spanning the fulness of its generous curve and not unlike graffiti, was an odd sort of marking. The blue symbol painted on freshly white-washed, cemented walls turned out to be an ancient water sign. It was part of the Nalpar project in Bastar, which had matured from studying the parallel but different modes of art making, (her own and the Adivasi’s) into creating innovative public sites where women, children, and men of all ages come for the mundane job of drawing water for domestic or other usage. In studying the significance of signs, symbols and objects incorporated by the communities during rituals and social functions, their integration and continuance, over centuries of living and in their spiritual life, this symbol became one of the structures designed in collaboration with the Adivasi artists. Transforming hitherto uncomfortable and unhealthy modes of collecting water into an aesthetic activity. An unusual art project where the participant was also a viewer as well as, a possible, future user of the site.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s17O6G2IJfA/XIVOQQwT7xI/AAAAAAAAIGk/jS6vLGFnE1wHBQYWOeVSXUk7mmo7TtzuACLcBGAs/s1600/How%2BPerfect%2BCan%2BPerfection%2BBe%252C%2B2015-2018%252C%2BWater%2Bcolour%2Bdrawing%2Bon%2BWasli%2Bpaper%2Band%2BPVC%2Btransfer%2Bon%2Bacrylic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1600" height="292" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s17O6G2IJfA/XIVOQQwT7xI/AAAAAAAAIGk/jS6vLGFnE1wHBQYWOeVSXUk7mmo7TtzuACLcBGAs/s640/How%2BPerfect%2BCan%2BPerfection%2BBe%252C%2B2015-2018%252C%2BWater%2Bcolour%2Bdrawing%2Bon%2BWasli%2Bpaper%2Band%2BPVC%2Btransfer%2Bon%2Bacrylic.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">How Perfect Can Perfection Be, 2015-2018, Water colour drawing on Wasli paper and PVC transfer on acrylic, 22.5 x 32 inches each</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">There was no specific chronological order to the display. Adjania placed Altaf’s photographic series ‘Abdul Rehman Street’, shot during her student days in the early 1970s, alongside recent, millennial water-colours, on the ground level. Emphasizing the non-linear progression of the artist’s creative development, she collated various other phases, on subsequent ones. With her portrayal as a young woman through Marxism and JJ school of Art on the third floor and effects of ‘violence on sociality’ on the second. Structuring the show such that each phase is self-consistent within its space/level and the curatorial mise-en-scene allows for conversations across the various levels in the spiral-shaped NGMA building.</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0XpwmlfDUaI/XIVGVfnSzmI/AAAAAAAAIFo/6-QJF2m0wekKY2_LIsjepsqp3gtRvfSZwCEwYBhgL/s1600/7.%2BFactory%2BSeries%252C%2B1982%2B-%2BInk%2Bof%2BBoard%2BPaper%252C%2B24%2Bx%2B30%2Binches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1241" data-original-width="1600" height="496" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0XpwmlfDUaI/XIVGVfnSzmI/AAAAAAAAIFo/6-QJF2m0wekKY2_LIsjepsqp3gtRvfSZwCEwYBhgL/s640/7.%2BFactory%2BSeries%252C%2B1982%2B-%2BInk%2Bof%2BBoard%2BPaper%252C%2B24%2Bx%2B30%2Binches.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Factory Series, 1982 - Ink of Board Paper, 24 x 30 inches</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Here, in dramatic, high contrast black and white tones of ink onboard paper, of the ‘Factory’ series, made during the turbulence of Bombay’s labour movement and disruptive textile strike of 1982, Navjot compelled us bear witness to image-fragments that, bereft of human presence, and by implication humane ideologies, implode upon themselves. Exemplifying the militant approach of Dutta Samant - the movement’s trade union leader, which successful to a point, ended in disastrous defeat: of jobless workers and factories converted into real estate assets by factory owners.<br /><br />On level four, in revealing ‘transgressions’, Adjania tells us that <em>“Navjot was deeply troubled by the gaping lacuna in regard to gender inequality in Marxist discourse”.</em> A question that opened up <em>“both ideological and iconographic problems”</em> compelling her <em>“redefine the representation of the woman’s body… imprinted by the insidious forces of patriarchal socialisation.”</em> Drawing inspiration from female surrealist painters Carrington and Kahlo who refused to <em>“play the muse to male artists……foregrounding their own desires and subjectivities”</em> Altaf appears in a self-portrait, with large spiral coils emerging from her vagina. In another painting, from the early 1990s, colouring the background of the canvas in a powerful shade of red and representing the female body through tactile, pebbled textures, was an endeavour to legitimize the act of masturbation. Navjot thus, drew attention to the pleasuring female self – rarely depicted in contemporary Indian painting.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4iflPkh7Rk/XIVGVdHutGI/AAAAAAAAIFI/Ce9yFoPixWInC6vrAIfg6jZ77KSRP2JxwCEwYBhgL/s1600/8.%2BPalanis%2BDaughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1120" data-original-width="1600" height="448" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M4iflPkh7Rk/XIVGVdHutGI/AAAAAAAAIFI/Ce9yFoPixWInC6vrAIfg6jZ77KSRP2JxwCEwYBhgL/s640/8.%2BPalanis%2BDaughter.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Being an artist myself, makes the act of viewing an informed and engaging process. But, seeing effort of this diversity, intensity and scale, one somehow overlooked the details of every canvas or watercolour brushwork and video, going beyond specifics of each, searching for the artist. Where did Navjot Altaf stand in the midst of these marks - the ridges, rents and commentary zig-zagging the complexities of contemporary society which had provoked her art. And what was the crux of her cry?</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1T_f3AeECrQ/XIVG7JD_nnI/AAAAAAAAIGQ/uH666HJFAc8PAwu2MA-yTNY-vXieUwlGACEwYBhgL/s1600/Navjot%2BAltaf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1369" data-original-width="1600" height="341" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1T_f3AeECrQ/XIVG7JD_nnI/AAAAAAAAIGQ/uH666HJFAc8PAwu2MA-yTNY-vXieUwlGACEwYBhgL/s400/Navjot%2BAltaf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I read her commentary as a pursuit for relevance. To find meaning and purpose and also one of frustration in the inadequacy of art alone, to do this. Which almost contradicted the free-spirited run in the woodlands, awakening the artist in her. On level 3, Through the ‘Proyom’ posters, in “Dreaming of the Revolution” art is designed for modes of public communication, but in that tonality of stark contrasts – of marks weighted with rigidness of steel/ mortar/glass and urban an imprint, it was impossible to trace even a glimpse of the free soul that once roamed the pine covered valley. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-In5CSLG-GWY/XIVGV3-XI-I/AAAAAAAAIFU/mish2D9jWZ0fUyVc7aYFXYvnBXo279nkQCEwYBhgL/s1600/9.%2BSurfaces%2B1%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1107" data-original-width="1600" height="276" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-In5CSLG-GWY/XIVGV3-XI-I/AAAAAAAAIFU/mish2D9jWZ0fUyVc7aYFXYvnBXo279nkQCEwYBhgL/s400/9.%2BSurfaces%2B1%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Surfaces, 1970, Recreated in 2018. <span style="font-size: small;">Ink on Gateway </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tracing paper, <span style="font-size: small;">set of 12, 11 x 15 inches each</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vAxG1EMRkOE/XIVGUZV5fCI/AAAAAAAAIFI/t92idD2-55kOMbfuK7JgtoRzSN5lyWjUgCEwYBhgL/s1600/10.%2BSurfaces%2B2%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vAxG1EMRkOE/XIVGUZV5fCI/AAAAAAAAIFI/t92idD2-55kOMbfuK7JgtoRzSN5lyWjUgCEwYBhgL/s400/10.%2BSurfaces%2B2%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Surfaces, 1970, Recreated in 2018. <span style="font-size: small;">Ink on Gateway </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tracing paper, <span style="font-size: small;">set of 12, 11 x 15 inches each</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As I walked from image to image of strident lines and compositions, listened to the cacophony of videos competing to be heard; the responsive outcome of this audio-visual impress, which crowded and stifled my senses, was empathetic. I too wanted to see her free.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ooMqfnPc5CU/XIVGU6KaFYI/AAAAAAAAIFU/xYjEVh6iikQUZ_K0zL_PAmEeoxpxD2hmACEwYBhgL/s1600/11.%2BSurfaces%2B3%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1038" data-original-width="1600" height="258" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ooMqfnPc5CU/XIVGU6KaFYI/AAAAAAAAIFU/xYjEVh6iikQUZ_K0zL_PAmEeoxpxD2hmACEwYBhgL/s400/11.%2BSurfaces%2B3%252C%2B1970%252C%2Brecreated%2Bin%2B2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Surfaces, 1970, Recreated in 2018. <span style="font-size: small;">Ink on Gateway </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tracing paper, <span style="font-size: small;">set of 12, 11 x 15 inches each</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Thoughtful, I sat on one of the benches trying to clarify my insights, but multiple videos playing simultaneously with full volume, jarred. The sound of crashing oceanic waves, a woman wailing or something akin to howling and then something else superimposed on these audios, was disconcerting. But uncannily, it also evoked the artist’s many voices. A constant, conflicting inner dialogue externalised through art, overlaid on the walls at all the levels I had ambled through. An attitude that struggled and fought but intended to find a way. A fundamental vision that had the passion, the will, the courage to express its confusion and it's floundering anxiety. And the lacunae – not just in the attempt to listen to the testimonies of those affected in the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, but a generally pervading inadequacy. In the willingness to really listen and the foreboding of not being heard. </span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qkB0YnjzOAU/XIVGewKMG9I/AAAAAAAAIFU/nFdfQZcRL4k8Pt9eINDlf7rmSu-7exsaACEwYBhgL/s1600/Touch%2B-%2BRemembering%2BAltaf%252C%2B3%2BChannel%2Bvideo%2Binstallation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qkB0YnjzOAU/XIVGewKMG9I/AAAAAAAAIFU/nFdfQZcRL4k8Pt9eINDlf7rmSu-7exsaACEwYBhgL/s640/Touch%2B-%2BRemembering%2BAltaf%252C%2B3%2BChannel%2Bvideo%2Binstallation.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r_NOHCKrsg0/XIVGiL-S1LI/AAAAAAAAIFo/t0ljFbPDM8sc5c563X32m-KpqrwtrUvFwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Lacuna%2Bin%2BTestimony%252C%2Bvideo%2Bstill%2Bof%2B3%2Bchannel%2Bvideo%2Bwith%2B60%2Bmirror%2Bpieces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1600" height="406" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r_NOHCKrsg0/XIVGiL-S1LI/AAAAAAAAIFo/t0ljFbPDM8sc5c563X32m-KpqrwtrUvFwCEwYBhgL/s640/Lacuna%2Bin%2BTestimony%252C%2Bvideo%2Bstill%2Bof%2B3%2Bchannel%2Bvideo%2Bwith%2B60%2Bmirror%2Bpieces.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Lacuna in Testimony, video still of 3 channel video with 60 mirror pieces</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Reminding again and again of the churning and constant thrust of unequal forces in the social fabric that intimidated and magnetized the artist to seek a larger purpose, beyond the personal. Defying the intellect and its formalized learning, as she witnessed the fallibility of existing knowledge in tackling the inequalities pervading the socio-economics of contemporary living. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7_O03d2-oWY/XIVGnd2icHI/AAAAAAAAIFw/eaZkPZe3Sjcu3SDP64E5Z4bDU2ECsDAxQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Dev%2BNathan%2Band%2BVasanthi%2BRaman%252C%2Bcore%2Bgroup%2Bmembers%2Bof%2BProyom%2Band%2BNavjot%25E2%2580%2599s%2Bfriends%2Bfrom%2B1970%25E2%2580%2599.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="1600" height="481" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7_O03d2-oWY/XIVGnd2icHI/AAAAAAAAIFw/eaZkPZe3Sjcu3SDP64E5Z4bDU2ECsDAxQCEwYBhgL/s640/Dev%2BNathan%2Band%2BVasanthi%2BRaman%252C%2Bcore%2Bgroup%2Bmembers%2Bof%2BProyom%2Band%2BNavjot%25E2%2580%2599s%2Bfriends%2Bfrom%2B1970%25E2%2580%2599.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Dev Nathan and Vasanthi Raman, core group members of Proyom
<span style="font-size: small;">and Navjot’s friends from 1970’s, interviewed in Anand Patwardhan’s
<span style="font-size: small;">documentary, Prisoners of Conscience in 1978<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The 1990s proved a turning point, as art installations paved ways for artistic collaborations that not only altered conventional art-viewer relationships, but provided the potential for collaborative democratisation. And the earlier threads of Marxism, feminism and activism, inspired by debates on demarcations between westernized forms of art and rural craft, coalesced. Where, from 1997 onwards, Navjot began an active collaboration with Adivasi artists sharing in their lives and improvising a two-way learning and art-making process. Cultural-theorist Nancy Adjania, who has followed Altaf’s work closely, informed that the transition from Bombay to Bastar was not easy. <em>“She and her artist colleagues found themselves working hard to overcome the barriers of class, gender, location, language, education and world-view.”</em> And, that it took two decades of engagement with Bastar, to evolve new forms of artistic dialogue through collaborative and cooperative projects such as Nalpar, at the micro-political level of village and district.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The retrospective exhibition as a whole had a profound but disturbing effect. It made me revisit my own anxieties with regard to a self-absorbed, isolated art practice. There were no pretty pictures to comfort, nor transcendence to reassure. It was all about community and the trauma of belonging and unbelonging. A veritable abduction of the self. Yet, when she brought back hope, it was harking back to Marxism. In the capacity to live together, among each other as equals. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-y4isz9Mk0/XIVG7DSyAiI/AAAAAAAAIGc/gg_W13jljeYs3EBiLs1PKvNCSN6fhH3TACEwYBhgL/s1600/They%2BClean%2Bour%2BCompound%252C%2B1977%252C%2BSilk-screen%2Bprint%2B21%2Bx%2B14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1228" data-original-width="1600" height="306" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-y4isz9Mk0/XIVG7DSyAiI/AAAAAAAAIGc/gg_W13jljeYs3EBiLs1PKvNCSN6fhH3TACEwYBhgL/s400/They%2BClean%2Bour%2BCompound%252C%2B1977%252C%2BSilk-screen%2Bprint%2B21%2Bx%2B14.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">They Clean our Compound, 1977, Silk-screen print 21 x 14</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Wading through the dark messages, doomed social inequity and cries of careless living tearing out the heart of the earth, exhausted by the gloom, I heaved myself up to the last level. What else could there be to learn about this devastating world, where all her struggles had not achieved enough to let the light shine through – for tranquillity of soul to prevail in the accomplishment of its goals.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M7eR7Tan5Co/XIVG7MUCDiI/AAAAAAAAIGU/hxWT6T22-8wK9gWS0xIMtBRdnE4BbcFwQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Links%2BDestroyed%2Band%2BRediscovered%25E2%2580%2599%2B%25281994%2529%2B%2BSite%2Bspecific%2Binstallation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1189" data-original-width="1600" height="473" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M7eR7Tan5Co/XIVG7MUCDiI/AAAAAAAAIGU/hxWT6T22-8wK9gWS0xIMtBRdnE4BbcFwQCEwYBhgL/s640/Links%2BDestroyed%2Band%2BRediscovered%25E2%2580%2599%2B%25281994%2529%2B%2BSite%2Bspecific%2Binstallation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Links Destroyed and Rediscovered’ (1994) Site specific installation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Reaching the last step, I was confronted with an unwieldly plethora of dark, black, plastic pipes spilling out like the ghastly excess of sewage in our polluted cities. Contrasted with this, on the opposite side of the stepped passage was a reprieve in the minimalist, meditative grid-mesh of ‘Between Memory and History’. Where Navjot had created a secular shrine, replacing the traditional vermillion thread prayer-knots of a dargah, with white paper ribbons inscribed with questions and words <em>“from testimonial literature”</em> that the viewer was invited to open. I did, to find the telling words of “abduction” and some illegibly over-typed text, signifying a lack of clarity, so essential in finding the answer to one’s prayer.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BAYM__dOMNM/XIVGm7jPTMI/AAAAAAAAIFs/bhzsVz0k-_ESIk6fKZOyOXU0U1I_gPbQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Between%2BMemory%2Band%2BHistory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1188" data-original-width="1600" height="473" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BAYM__dOMNM/XIVGm7jPTMI/AAAAAAAAIFs/bhzsVz0k-_ESIk6fKZOyOXU0U1I_gPbQgCEwYBhgL/s640/Between%2BMemory%2Band%2BHistory.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Between Memory and History’, Site specific Installation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">From Partition, female infanticide, to factory strikes, unregulated mining, riots and pogroms, to collaborative practices with Adivasi craftsman, the irrepressible artist-activist in Navjot Altaf had involved herself in myriad ways with a chaotic and seemingly unfair world. She had an opinion on many matters and hadn’t averred from expressing volubly. An artistic journey riddled with the scars of a traumatic path, was an equally dark and distressing passage, for me as the viewer. She presented social conundrums, gender issues and artistic concerns, but the overwhelming question that I came home with, was of myself as a creative individual in such a dysfunctional and disparate society. In Fin-de-Siècle (end of 19th century) Europe, when socio-political structures had begun to disillusion, the artist, writer, composer and poet’s inner navigation had provided direction. Today, vide Altaf, this thinking was being re-aligned. Where the artist could not take her subtle role and subliminal significance for granted, but must strive, against all the odds of an indifferent social ethos, to carve a relevance, however tenuous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Ingeniously projected, on the concave interior of the dome, was a video of insects and spiders working in perfect tandem. <em>“Inspired by Gregory Bateson’s ideas about patterns which connect both the realms of the human mind and nature, and his belief that if we break those patterns we destroy both the ecology and human lives, Navjot set up a kaleidoscope that promises the possibility of inter-species communication”</em> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Digitally fashioned this Kaleidoscope reproduced snowflake-like patterns, albeit in the colours of the natural world and not the innocence of snowy white. Taking me back to the scientific notations of Masaru Emoto and his treatise on the ‘Hidden Messages in Water’. Of his experiments that showed that the greater perfection in symmetry, visible in the snowflake crystal formation, it reflected a higher level of purity in the water source that had been frozen. Forming 70% of the human physiognomy, water is impacted by words and sound – the music we play and the things we say to each other. The grace and gratitude or hate and anger we express towards the semi-aqueous body of self and others, impacts through this innate feature. In close proximity of the ‘Shrine’, the symmetrically repeating, Kaleidoscopic patterns of the natural world, appeared as Navjot’s sublime evocation of a prayer - her life-time’s quest for lived harmony. A wish, a hope that hadn’t dimmed despite the odds - of tearing her heart out. The undying courage of a determined, optimistic soul, creatively devising her out of the wilderness.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-65995866168392440532018-12-30T23:36:00.000+05:302018-12-31T16:18:06.335+05:30Excavating the Sacred Everyday, Every Way, Serendipty Arts Festival 2018, curated by Ranjit Hoskote<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>“What do I mean by this new sense of simplicity, of it seeming clear that Christ was God and man, and that he symbolized the oneness in each of us? If oneness is what we seek that we may have roots to nourish us, at the same time knowing there is a division in that oneness, then where am I, where am I?”</em> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> - </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">Florida Scott-Maxwell</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Living in Goa roots me, albeit infuriatingly, in the domestic and mundane. This, along with being so far from the hulchul of living in a metropolis means that the quieter, quasi-rural life-style is seeping into me. A three-day Lit Fest (GALF)and friends visiting the weekend before, plus multiple rounds of the RTO to renew my driving licence, sent my back out of gear such that I missed out on the first few days of The Serendipity Arts Festival, 2018 edition. But, I rested, sorted it out and went on Day 6, almost at the close of the fest. Although miffed at having such little time to take in all that was offered in terms of art, craft, dance, music, drama and more, I was quite pleased with this late start when I realized there were fewer people, so no jostling for viewing space as one did last year, at the onset of these events.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlVvAEfoBp8/XCj9Yc97unI/AAAAAAAAH_c/fvkRs86UUQAGfqhyp4ArlRCH-I6AV3eLwCEwYBhgL/s1600/02%2B-%2BJesus%2Bat%2Bthe%2BTemple%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BIssanama%2Bby%2BManish%2BSoni_2017_Courtesy%2BSarmaya%2BArts%2BFoundation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1322" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qlVvAEfoBp8/XCj9Yc97unI/AAAAAAAAH_c/fvkRs86UUQAGfqhyp4ArlRCH-I6AV3eLwCEwYBhgL/s400/02%2B-%2BJesus%2Bat%2Bthe%2BTemple%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BIssanama%2Bby%2BManish%2BSoni_2017_Courtesy%2BSarmaya%2BArts%2BFoundation.jpg" width="330" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jesus at the Temple from the Issanama </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">by Manish Soni, 2017</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sarmaya Arts Foundat</span>ion</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">My first stop was Ribandar, to see part of an exhibition housed in a 17th century church –‘The Sacred Everyday: Embracing the Risk of Difference’. “An exploration of the interrelationship between the divine, cosmic and sublime, and the realm of the human intimate and the domestic”, had been curated by Ranjit Hoskote. His near exhaustive presentation spanned large galleries that took one along the estuary of the River Mhadei or Mandovi flowing into the Arabian Sea. It was showcased partly at the Church of Santa Monica in Ribandar and the Adil Shah Palace in Panjim. Driving alongside the river at low tide with exposed mangrove roots and lots of birds in view, on a sunny December afternoon, I knew I'd made the right decision to keep the urbaneness of Panjim for later. Carrying forth the serenity of a week of relative silence and healing, I approached the painted, white, fortress-like façade with its unusually wide and unadorned buttresses, walking under them into the basilica (named after St. Augustine's mother) with its high-vaulted ceiling and decoratively painted stone pulpit, to begin my exploration of what emerged as a curatorial feat. Known particularly for the miraculous Weeping Cross, the Church of Santa Monica also houses the Museum of Christian Art, currently under extended renovation. Therefore the nave itself was the site for one section of this exposition.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lnG4lwLZxEs/XCj887yrnsI/AAAAAAAAH_E/gqmGddf9zqMIj2ixkYtWbDRHcgjmfSuwgCEwYBhgL/s1600/03_The%2BBaptism%2Bof%2BChrist%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BIssanama%2Bby%2BManish%2BSoni_2017_Courtesy%2BSarmaya%2BArts%2BFoundation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1333" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lnG4lwLZxEs/XCj887yrnsI/AAAAAAAAH_E/gqmGddf9zqMIj2ixkYtWbDRHcgjmfSuwgCEwYBhgL/s400/03_The%2BBaptism%2Bof%2BChrist%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BIssanama%2Bby%2BManish%2BSoni_2017_Courtesy%2BSarmaya%2BArts%2BFoundation.jpg" width="331" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Baptism of Christ from the Issanama </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">by Manish Soni, 2017</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sarmaya Arts Foundation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Nestled in the curves of the undulating, hilly landscape and serene surroundings, with the silence of worshipfulness inaudibly reverberating inside the vaulted sanctorum, the blessedness of the location created a sense of awe in viewing. The most significant work in this segment of ‘The Sacred Everyday’ art exhibits, was the work by Manish Soni, a contemporary miniature painter from Rajasthan whose family hail from the lineage of the legendary Badrilal Chitrakar. Soni's rendition of the ‘Issanama’ (Story of Christ) had been produced in collaboration with Paul Abraham of the Sarmaya Arts Foundation and was, rather ironically, inspired by the chronicle of adventures of Hamza and his men battling the enemies of Islam; a the 16th century commission of the ‘Hamzanama’, by the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Soni has worked, quite deliberately, in a style that fuses aspects of miniature painting drawn from Mughal, Rajput, Pahari and Safavid locution, depicting key events in the life of Christ. The paintings had a unique touch whether it was Mary dressed in a Kurta with chooridar pyjama (actually, could even be leggings) and Joseph and Christ wearing diaphanous muslin robes favoured by Mughal nobility (in the ‘Nativity scene’ and ‘Prayers at Gethsemane’ respectively); the anionic Islamic tile patterns of 'Jesus at the Temple' or, the ‘Baptism of Christ’ in a distinctly Asian landscape. These touches lent insight into speculation voiced by the late architect Charles Correa of what Christianity would have looked like if it "had not been headquartered in Europe, but stayed in Asia, where it originated." Correa made this point in relation to architecture and ‘church topography’ within the perspective of the Salvacao Church, which was built for the Archdiocese of Bombay in 1977, but it opened up possibilities of engagement, specifically within the location of Christianity in Goa. Whose rituals and feasts are peculiar to the region, arising from the fervour of conversions spearheaded by St. Francis Xavier to bring in the flock and with Jesuit interventions to sustain the worship of converted Hindus by incorporating many local traditions and ideas.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Birth of Chirst (Nativity) from the Issanama </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">by Manish Soni, 2017</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sarmaya Arts Foundation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Contrasted with the lushly detailed Issanama in Indo-Persian style, was the ‘Christ Series’ by Vishwanath Nageshkar, a painter of Goan origin. His angst-ridden, austere palate of watercolours with near total elimination of detail, conjured inner torment expressive of the Norwegian painter Edward Munch. In ‘Divine Light’ (1950), a curiously creative feature of a long-armed hand akin to a shaft of light, presumably the hand of God, reached out to lift the figure of Christ, encircling his body in the clasp of fingers and palm. Antonio Piedade da Cruz (mid 1950’s) at Adil Shah Palace, rendered the same theme in a more conventional representation of the figure rising up into the light, enabling one to glimpse the freedom with which themes on Christ have been developed. Hoskote also includes church furniture such as alms boxes and portable altars (Adil Shah Palace). As well as icons of the Virgin Mary crafted by local, Goan artisans who, in reproducing objects brought by the Portuguese inevitably imbued them with their own cultural and aesthetic sensibilities. Altogether making for a rich tableaux of expression centring on the era of Christ. The imagery was supported with extensive texts, but unfortunately one could merely grasp an ounce of the scholarship behind such a collation, as one ambled through the visually engrossing arrangement. The video with Soni and Abhraham describing the process of conceptualising and making the ‘Issanama’ series was most informative, especially with details of how the pigments are sourced, ground and applied. As also the unusual layered canvas of paper and fabric carefully devised to ensure the many appllications of pigment are received and absorbed, enabling fine detailing with the squirrel hair brushes still in use by this school of painters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sarmaya Arts Foundation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Tucked in a small corner, behind the elegant ‘Issanama’ display was ‘The Holy Rosary’ conceived by Mumbai based book-artist Priya Pereira, as pages of a miniature-sized manuscript loosely held together with a thread - the moveable sheets akin to its beads. And, precious few water colour paintings by the legendary twentieth century artist Angelo da Fonseca. A pioneer of the Christian cultural renaissance in Goa, he painted Christian themes in Indian settings with the Konkani Madonna in swarthy skin-tones wearing a sari. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy The Leonard and Naomi Menezes Collection</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Born a Hindu, I grew up in an Irish Catholic convent boarding school and whether it was music exams or ISC Board exams that I asked for success in, it was the school chapel one went to pray. Attending mass with the nuns at 5 am, we may have sung along with Christian hymns, but we didn’t receive the sacrament and I don’t recall praying to Christ. God was God or Bhagwan, neither Jesus, Krishna, Shiva nor Rama, and prayer was prayer, regardless of religion, temple or church. The idea of an Indian Madonna seems perfectly in keeping with this and befitting in view of the many other adaptations that pervade Christianity in Goa. A cultural shift that would be entirely legitimate for a Goan Christian. Neither an intellectual construct nor the subconscious influence of crafting fingers infusing the subject matter with a deeply rooted sensibility, but a profound grasp of the divine and its physical manifestation in the likeness of self. Though much criticised for this ‘offensive’ depiction in the first half of the last century, Fonseca’s work which epitomizes a cultural amalgam of religion, becomes one of the hallmarks of Hoskote’s curatorial commentary critiquing the politicising and owning or disowning of religions without much thought to the very concept of faith and the impartial divinity that enjoins us all.<br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />Maybe it was the space in which I viewed these works and the relatively blank mental state that absorbed intricacies and minutiae which enriched the looking; perhaps renditions of Christ within a centre of Christian worship brought in an element of veneration, but this was my favourite gallery of ‘The Sacred Everyday artefacts.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rq8MsMCeAQY/XCj8-J_Ry6I/AAAAAAAAH-4/-Uu2VTiVGvgxKxYib_TtnG_5ywNbdtPmACEwYBhgL/s1600/Gram%2BDevata%2B1%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rq8MsMCeAQY/XCj8-J_Ry6I/AAAAAAAAH-4/-Uu2VTiVGvgxKxYib_TtnG_5ywNbdtPmACEwYBhgL/s400/Gram%2BDevata%2B1%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gram Devata </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> from the Goa State Museum</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">At the Adil Shah Palace, I felt intimidated by rooms leading to more and more rooms filled to the brim with works that ranged from calendar art, to colonial water colours, the Bengal school, Kalighat paintings, Jain and Tantric interpretations as well as sculpted Goan Gram devatas, Saptamatrikas and more Christian art, alongside modern paintings, contemporary art and installations. And I know that I didn’t do justice to the works exhibited. It really was too much of a sensory overload. But even so, a few works stand out and though not a fan of the Prince of Travancore’s oeuvre, I was enchanted by the way textiles had been used to embellish the oleographs by Raja Ravi Varma and the many schools inspired by him, that were on display. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NHqQRgSnVmM/XCj9AUZ6QmI/AAAAAAAAH_E/q60AdXOF2qISG7j8xGz81jsXIZyEzl2xQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Kartikeya%2Bby%2BRaja%2BRavi%2BVarma%2B_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="684" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NHqQRgSnVmM/XCj9AUZ6QmI/AAAAAAAAH_E/q60AdXOF2qISG7j8xGz81jsXIZyEzl2xQCEwYBhgL/s640/Kartikeya%2Bby%2BRaja%2BRavi%2BVarma%2B_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="484" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kartikeya by Raja Ravi Varma </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Hoskote tells us that when “Ravi Varma democratised worship in India by bringing religious iconography within the reach of the masses, he also changed the contexts within which people engaged with gods and goddesses” enabling them to create a puja room or altar at home, using prints bought in a store. And, the impulse to adorn, interestingly, arose from the credence that ornaments which embellish and add beauty also protect the body from inauspicious elements. It is likely these creative additions were the work of household women who owned the prints, though they could have been the work of a cottage industry which employed women to decorate them. The 3-D facet that these prints acquired through the use of fabrics, sequins, beads, salma-gota and such-like, evoked a hint – and just that, of the elaborately ornamental Thanjavur painting tradition, with its essentially devotional themes and inlay work of glass beads and semi-precious stones.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pvtnvck8Qfw/XCj9CYDkTiI/AAAAAAAAH_A/3grlljDJeUs0-tnR1wK0q2RDZVyJgUmwwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Ram%2BSagar%2BDarpa%2BHaran%2Bby%2BRaja%2BRavi%2BVarma%2B_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="665" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pvtnvck8Qfw/XCj9CYDkTiI/AAAAAAAAH_A/3grlljDJeUs0-tnR1wK0q2RDZVyJgUmwwCEwYBhgL/s640/Ram%2BSagar%2BDarpa%2BHaran%2Bby%2BRaja%2BRavi%2BVarma%2B_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="472" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ram Sagar Darpa Haran by Raja Ravi Varma </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Other lesser known, but illuminating art-works were Chinese-style paintings (Swaraj Art Archive), a result of a flourishing Opium trade between India and China, during the 18th and 19th centuries. With Europeans settling in and around Canton, Chinese artists familiarized themselves with Occidental physiognomies and evolved a hybrid characteristic, later employed for reverse glass paintings depicting portraits of Indian royals, courtesans and dancers. This mode of art apparently found its way into palaces and abodes in Kutch, Mysore, Indore as well and collections in Bombay. Here, Devi, Shiva and Vishnu are not presented in familiar avatars but, as with the Madonna icons (Church of Santa Monica) that were infused with an Indian aesthetic, these figures had a distinct Chinese touch. And, reiterating the use of diverse influences in Manish Soni’s ‘Issanama’, attributes had been culled from Rajputana and Gujarat, Mughal courts as well as South India. In these fascinating depictions, Devi looked more like a princess than a goddess, Shiva was more benign than the familiar ascetic and intimidating destroyer of the universe, and Vishnu was certainly of mixed parentage (Chinese and Indian). What was evident in these portrayals was the detachedness of the painter, who was clearly not in awe of, nor a devotee of these idols. Without the impress of devout articulation these paintings assumed the quality of secular documentation rather than that of religious personifications. Chinese influences courtesy the Opium and other trade routes have continued, however sparingly, in the embroidered Parsi Gara and other textiles such as the famed Tanchoi silk brocades of Benares. But regrettably, this Occidental-Chinese-Indian style of painting declined after the first Opium war (1839-1842). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgXW62X5dlM/XCj88WHlOhI/AAAAAAAAH_A/5DA6m0DqCakM6UsC9FIBoF4QtSJ2AjpowCEwYBhgL/s1600/Chinese-style%2Bart%2B2_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="451" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jgXW62X5dlM/XCj88WHlOhI/AAAAAAAAH_A/5DA6m0DqCakM6UsC9FIBoF4QtSJ2AjpowCEwYBhgL/s400/Chinese-style%2Bart%2B2_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="335" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Chinese-style art, Shiva</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XYpbJPa6G7k/XCj88eGPlPI/AAAAAAAAH_I/1oIMfusghhQiUwz34jhtRmJAIbBA_RPRwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Chinese-style%2Bart%2B3_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="461" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XYpbJPa6G7k/XCj88eGPlPI/AAAAAAAAH_I/1oIMfusghhQiUwz34jhtRmJAIbBA_RPRwCEwYBhgL/s400/Chinese-style%2Bart%2B3_Courtesy%2BSwaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="341" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Chinese-style art, Vishnu</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Leading from this, via the many manifestations of ‘Calendar art’, one came across ‘The Keith Gretton Album’ (Swaraj Archive) featuring a series of small scale watercolours based on the ‘Thiruvilayadal Puranam’ - a series of devotional stories around Shiva and his presence in the mortal world, apparently to test his devotees. Written in the 16th century by the saint Paranjothi Munivar, it incorporated vernacular legends and tales that formed part of the Skanda Purana attributed to Rishi Vyasa. These were done in Company-style painting, similar to the ‘Trichinopoly Album’ (Swaraj Archive). The latter featured ‘Kamadhenu’, the wish-granting cow, in iconography that excerpts from the Buraq or Celestial horse of Islamic legend, Krishna floats on a banyan leaf and other gods and deities are featured in a “narrative that is as cosmic as it is domestic” as well as visually and ideologically interlinked through differing systems of belief.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-wiUFoq5XM/XCj9DAZp5_I/AAAAAAAAH_I/KlXvuL1FJAEfZ2tz4f7LNv_NSTUhLmC7ACEwYBhgL/s1600/Trichonopoly%2BAlbum_Kamadhenu_Courtesy%2BSawaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="766" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-wiUFoq5XM/XCj9DAZp5_I/AAAAAAAAH_I/KlXvuL1FJAEfZ2tz4f7LNv_NSTUhLmC7ACEwYBhgL/s400/Trichonopoly%2BAlbum_Kamadhenu_Courtesy%2BSawaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="340" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Trichonopoly Album, Kamadhenu</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sawaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aJcZlx-7zOY/XCj9DUPyTKI/AAAAAAAAH_M/pvoD2fI07rkK0b5i7ENHo5KK7Yg-_4idgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Trichonopoly%2BAlbum_Krishna%2Bon%2Bleaf_Courtesy%2BSawaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="759" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aJcZlx-7zOY/XCj9DUPyTKI/AAAAAAAAH_M/pvoD2fI07rkK0b5i7ENHo5KK7Yg-_4idgCEwYBhgL/s400/Trichonopoly%2BAlbum_Krishna%2Bon%2Bleaf_Courtesy%2BSawaraj%2BArt%2BArchive.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Trichonopoly Album, Krishna on leaf</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sawaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Seeing these and other such diverse works on adjoining and adjacent walls, room after room on the first floor of the summer abode of Adil Shah of Bijapur constructed in 1500, and now Panjim’s oldest surviving building, history saturated the spaces between the art works permeating one’s soul. There was so much to learn, so much that one had missed seeing and making connections with. So much more to look back and glean from. Art, for me, is never just an ocular experience. Studying an assemblage of this scale and dimension, notably with a subject matter that is at the core of being, there is a simultaneous interrogation of one's own practice and understanding, religious upbringing and values and how they translate into the present: of how the exposition informed and expanded the parameters of comprehension of such matters. There was history, there was a storyline in text and in the pictorial as well as juxtaposition of images and evidences that had the possibility of redefining and relocating pivotal convictions. Even if one doesn't see with that intent, the very act of viewing itself, is capable of altering perspectives. The questions that arose pertained to the scope this kind of curatorial register had, if it was merely preaching to the converted, of what kind of audience this exhibition had attracted and where would it's most influencing scope lie. Thus ruminating one was confronted, quite unsuspectingly, with a burst of contemporary art. And, I was stunned into acknowledging the present with a jolt.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYozsdN-v0Q/XCj9AJQY-qI/AAAAAAAAH-8/gBWReP4WmMsYBQ4HbaSCOVdBlXgR96jcQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Hibiscus%2BRiver%2Bby%2BSmriti%2BDixit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="604" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IYozsdN-v0Q/XCj9AJQY-qI/AAAAAAAAH-8/gBWReP4WmMsYBQ4HbaSCOVdBlXgR96jcQCEwYBhgL/s640/Hibiscus%2BRiver%2Bby%2BSmriti%2BDixit.jpg" width="564" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hibiscus River by Smriti Dixit, 2015</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">dimensions variable</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">fabric & mixed media </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The blood red of ‘Hibiscus River’ by Smriti Dixit, assaulted with its visceral blobs of magnified bloodshot globules descending from the ceiling. My response was to step back. I was struck, as if by a bolt of lightning, by its bold, larger-than-life, graphic exploration of the female menstrual cycle. In her letter accompanying the artwork, Dixit brought into site Kali and Durga whom she asserts are too far from the earth. And they are, quite simply, because women are squeamish in accessing the powers these goddesses epitomised. Her installation amplified her outrage that these volatile and powerful female deities of the Hindu Pantheon are far removed from the context of devotion they were created in. Pertinently so, within the bounds of the present epoch of an “ effectively patriarchal society” which interprets women undergoing the hormonal cycle as unclean for worship in temples. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JdBZ-mZ3jbs/XCj9ACf64EI/AAAAAAAAH_A/CUpnZ840YQYj9EORK67vNH9hC-_5FNHwQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Hibiscus%2BRiver%2Bby%2BSmriti%2BDixit_dimensions%2Bvariable_fabric%2B%2526%2Bmixed%2Bmedia_2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1287" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JdBZ-mZ3jbs/XCj9ACf64EI/AAAAAAAAH_A/CUpnZ840YQYj9EORK67vNH9hC-_5FNHwQCEwYBhgL/s640/Hibiscus%2BRiver%2Bby%2BSmriti%2BDixit_dimensions%2Bvariable_fabric%2B%2526%2Bmixed%2Bmedia_2015.jpg" width="514" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hibiscus River by Smriti Dixit, 2015</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Even as I did take a step back and walked away at first glance, I retraced my steps to confront my own practices and memories surrounding the monthly menstrual cycle, when my sisters and I would take turns to light the diya and do the aarti in mummy’s mandir at home, on the days when she was ‘down’. This was up until the mid-1980’s which was not that long ago. And the complexity of the on-going Sabrimala debate on barring women from entering the temple premises was heightened with this illogically ingrained dictum that had been and probably still is integral to puja in other households too. Where, Dixit’s indignation expressed in textile, fruit, metal and poured paint, compelled one to think again and accept how we are complicit in such ideas being carried forward at a personal level, without due probing. ‘Hibiscus River’ was not an endearing work of art such as the many water colours and artefacts I had viewed until then. It whacks you fairly and squarely, and repulses. Some may walk away, some may brave the language of colour and form to examine their own involvement within the stated premise . I wonder how many did the latter, and how many departed from that corner, averting their gaze from its awkward truth; or in reviled incomprehension.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ub-drNtPuNI/XCj8-Ve4jgI/AAAAAAAAH_Q/gLu2oLtpEyIRUQYYSTxIwQHCmcryBZtAgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Gram%2BDevata%2B2%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ub-drNtPuNI/XCj8-Ve4jgI/AAAAAAAAH_Q/gLu2oLtpEyIRUQYYSTxIwQHCmcryBZtAgCEwYBhgL/s640/Gram%2BDevata%2B2%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gram Devata </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Woven in between myriad painted and printed compositions hung on walls - spanning centuries and across the topography of the country, below eye-level, were placed rugged and aging, greyish stone sculptures of Gram Devatas, Devis and Khandoba, a folk deity and kuldevata (family idol) of the Deccan region, also known as Mallari – vanquisher of the demon Malla, who was later adapted into traditional Shaivism as Martand Bhairava. These sculptures (courtesy Goa State Museum) popped up in one’s optical field like sentinels, causing one to pause if not always to reflect. In re-imaging these deities who were guardians of health and prosperity, of the home, fields, water sources and forests, originating with the worship of Yakshas - the benevolent but occasionally mischievous caretakers of the natural world hidden in the earth and tree roots, or Kshetrapala - a god of the farmland, one pondered the genius and practical nature of such worship in an agrarian culture. As also the fluidity of religious icons from one sect of Hinduism to the other, signalling that nothing had been rigidly sacrosanct, but an on-going amalgam and adaption which forms the core values of any tradition anywhere in the world. Added to these were figures from the cult of Saptamatrikas or the Yogini cult – of seven mothers as shakti or female counterparts of a male god (where Brahmani is wife of Brahma and Maheshwari of Shiva). With this constant churning of the eye and intellect, doubling back and forth with religious histories and their visual intersections, Hoskote recreated a complex tapestry illustrative of manifestations of faith across philosophies and expressions of belief, exemplifying that the sustenance of an iconography or system of worship is ever-changing and emphatic propriety cannot be dictated nor imposed.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94YX_x2yl8Y/XCj8-9ZeeII/AAAAAAAAH_Q/YcB73FBBJls88ajQLnVCpChnn8ZjCRhogCEwYBhgL/s1600/Gram%2BDevata%2B3%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94YX_x2yl8Y/XCj8-9ZeeII/AAAAAAAAH_Q/YcB73FBBJls88ajQLnVCpChnn8ZjCRhogCEwYBhgL/s640/Gram%2BDevata%2B3%2Bfrom%2Bthe%2BGoa%2BState%2BMuseum.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gram Devata </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> from the Goa State Museum</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The curator also brought in shadow puppets or Tholubommalata – the leather puppets of Andhra Pradesh (Sarmaya Foundation). These captivating life-sized puppets used in performances of the epics, prospered under the rulers of 16th century Vijayanagara. And, were reportedly popular until about sixty years ago because farmers believed that a performance of the Ramayana had the power to call on the blessings of the rain god. Made from skins of the goat, deer or buffalo which were beaten to a film of translucency and coloured with pigments, with strategic holes that appeared as jewels during a performance; this novel art steeped with the power of faith, dwindled with the onset of travelling cinemas making their way across rural India.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tholubommalatta leather puppet of Hanuman</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Sarmaya Arts Foundation</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">And, there was still lots more - from Gulam Rasool Santosh’s canvasses awash with Kashmiri Shaivism and Tantra, to Sacred Geography. As well as Tanta-style art - of contemporary paintings made by anonymous artists in Rajasthan, which included masks and mantras, devised by these centres of production to appeal to tourism’s interest in the cult of the exotic. The more one looked the more there was to enthral and link with, but it was becoming impossible to compute. An exhibition of this scale of knowledge needs to be repeated and shown across the country, perhaps in smaller sections as separate events, elaborating on the varied elements of religiosity included here. Although the salient, yet unconventional and unorganised features of worship; quirks of modelling and re-modelling faith and how inventive and progressive devotion and the devotee was and can be, do permeate the narrative, one’s evaluating tended to get weighty and unwieldly. Therefore, more comprehensive presentations would be more accessible and informative for the relatively casual observer. Especially within the context of a multi-disciplinary event such as The Serendipity Arts Festival.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">GR Santosh </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Human dedication to the forces of being, however we image them, is a very personal and intimate affair. Whose systematizing is impossible, most especially, in our age that celebrates the individual. Therefore, such a revelation of diverging ideas hallowed through and highlighting the concept of creativity itself, as embodied in various forms of art, is crucial information in our currently fraught environment imbued with exceedingly fragile notions of faith that threaten to engulf us in our unknowing.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Valley of the Moon Castle by Youdhisthir Maharjan</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In the work of the young contemporary artist, Youdhisthir Mahajan of Nepal, we saw a very interesting analogy that could speak well for the institutionalization of religion. He explored the material specifics of language, exploiting the texts at a “molecular level”. In responding to titles of books or stories within books bought at thrift stores, Mahajan turned legible language into dense blocks of mark and texture, rendering the book and its otherwhile familiar content “frustratingly illegible” and therefore meaningless. In thus questioning the institution of language – its process of mark-making and meaning, he could well be challenging the same in the ethics of organized religion with its obfuscated formalities and dogma. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Keith Gretton Album </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Before I close, I must mention another work by Smriti Dixit. In a quiet corner behind her passionate ‘Hibiscus River’ was one more installation, which to me was the essence of devoutness, such that Coomaraswamy noted and wrote about extensively in reference to the ancient art traditions of this country. That interplay between the sacred and the everyday – where worship was not necessarily a ritual but the work of the artisan was his ceremony of veneration. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yatra by Smriti Dixit</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Mixed Media, 2018</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">‘Yatra’ is poignant with layers of memory, of questions, of wishes and stories. Innocuous anecdotes about an ordinary day in the artist’s existence which has the capacity to become extraordinary through her inner rendering, externalised as art. As if drawing from the quintessential karma yogi who pursues profession as a means for self-knowing, Dixit creates an arrangement of everyday objects – relics of a biographical path. And, in its simplicity lies the essence of reverence one also caught a glimpse of in the locally crafted Goan ‘Gram devatas’ and ‘Devis’ - uncomplicated, immersed in the authenticity of a physically manifest reality and something which cannot be ritualistically structured. Back to back with ‘Hibiscus River’ we thus saw two opposing facets of the artist, echoing qualities of the quintessential woman as both volatile and benign. In keeping with the various facets of the feminine deified as Devi, Durga, Parvati, Kali, Lakshmi, Shanta Durga and her other avatars.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Keith Gretton Album </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Courtesy Swaraj Art Archive</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">For this afternoon of viewing, the rooms of Adil Shah’s palace took on a character akin to halls of worship. For one could not negotiate icons of veneration and art-works provoking and questioning concepts of faith, without imbibing a sense of the piety through their expressions of an inner quest, not unlike one’s own. Yet, it didn’t have the same quality of silence, absorption and reflection that was facilitated at the Church of Santa Monica. In some sense this characteristic and its contrast, intensified the dialogue within, as also the awareness of how religion fails when the setting changes, when it becomes befogged in time or incomprehensible with overtly intellectualized assertion. Just as art does, without the capacity for involvement with self-discernment – the very basis for art-making and viewing that render it sacred.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-84936946525353645222018-07-05T15:56:00.001+05:302018-12-31T00:03:37.434+05:30A Painter from Goa: Being Introduced to Antonio Xavier Trindade<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mr. Amor, Portuguese Agent, 1919.<br />
Oil on Canvas, mounted on a panel, 22 x 14.5 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I woke up this morning to the sound of slushing, smothering, dunking rain. The weather forecast had predicted storms and showers and while there was no thunder, the rainfall was intense and delayed everyone and everything. I had planned to drive into Panjim for a talk on the Goan artist Antonio Xavier Trindade. I wasn’t familiar with his paintings or the context of Bombay in his art, which was the subject of the talk by Mr. Suhas Bahulkar, painter, curator and Director of the Modern Art Gallery in Mumbai. Lapping up the natural habitat in Siolim, cycling and walking miles in the slithering monsoon rain, I also needed something to stimulate the mind. So thought it a great idea to discover a painter I didn’t know and rediscover Fontainhas, the Portuguese quarter of Panjim, where the Fundação Oriente which houses a permanent collection of Trindade, is located. The rain had cleared up after lunch and I was hopeful it would continue to stay dry. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fundação Oriente</span>, Fontainhas, Panjim, Goa, displaying 'Preparation for Puja' 1923</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As a tourist I have taken long walks through the narrow streets with quasi Romeo and Juliet balconies and colourfully daubed facades, with the Ourem creek flowing alongside. I was looking forward to another stroll, but housekeeping chores took better part of the day. Even so I left in good time but, I was flagged down, en route, by a woman who looked in pain, requesting a lift because she couldn’t wait any longer for the bus. And on and on little things kept taking time away from the scope of an amble. And by the time I reached Fundação Oriente, locating the Fiilipe Neri Xavier Road it was on, aided but unaided by google, who really did get me into quite a spot, it was already 6 pm. And, the moment I opened the car door, it teemed down with rain; almost as if this was the trigger to some unseen bucket that overturned, the instant I opened the door. In Delhi I may have had a different response but, my frequent walks in the drenching rain have imbued getting wet with a sense of fun. It’s liberating to pop open the brolly and walk, always remembering never to wear anything other than plastic shoes or slippers during the monsoon. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slide Illustration by Suhas Buhalkar, displaying a sketch of Trindade at the easel<br />
done by his contemporary M. V Dhurandhar</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">An umbrella however, isn’t guaranteed to keep you one hundred percent dry. I walked in, to be introduced to Antonio Xavier Trindade, “a painter from Goa” who lived and worked in Bombay (1870-1935), with rain splatters on my cropped pants and my white floral croc slippers humming an ungainly pachar-pachar of residual rainwater smudging against stone. Alongside his contemporary, the trailblazing Raja Ravi Verma whose success as a professional painter reframed the context of artists in the Indian milieu, Antonio Xavier Trindade too played a key role during these formative years in the history of modern art in India. Born Roman Catholic in Sanguem, Goa, and raised in Portuguese occupied Goa, “he received a European cultural education……at the British Bombay institution, the Sir Jamshetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art.” A famous portrait painter who was popular with European and Indian patrons, his works featured regularly in Bombay Art Society exhibitions, gaining public recognition. He was also awarded the gold medal for the rather unconventional representation of his wife entitled ‘Dolce Farniete’ (Sweet Tranquillity) executed in 1920. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dolce Farniete, 1920, Oil on Canvas, 31.25 x 46.5 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">While all this is fascinating, I am not intrigued by his Western style painting, nor why the JJ school of art, starting out in response to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, designed to improve the arts and industry of India became instead, the epitome of Western classical tastes and techniques of painting and sculpture. Maybe it should interest me, but what grips me about these naturalistic canvases is the capacity artists had then, to eschew personal expression to focus on observing the subject at hand and portraying it with insight as well as accuracy of physical attributes.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forsaken, Oil on Canvas, 35.5 x 28.25 inches (undated)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The painting that I am particularly captivated by is ‘Forsaken’. In this rather large oil on canvas (35.5 x 28.25 inches, undated), Trindade has depicted a woman dressed in a blue saree seated on the floor in a tired and dejected stance. Behind her a lamp-light flickers pale, suggesting that she has waited all night for someone, but waited in vain. In the catalogue to an exhibition of Trindade’s works at the Georgia Museum of Art, USA, the text informs that this could be seen as a westernized interpretation of the rejected lover or nayika, popular in numerous Sanskrit texts. This typified pining beauty was in vogue with early 20th century painters of the Bengal school and may have influenced Trindade rather than the subject matter being part of his instruction at the JJ school of art. In fact, the style of painting that he was tutored in, foreshadowed the emergence of the Bengal school which arose as a kind of protest of the exclusion of Indian art practices and themes in British run art schools in India. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I suppose, one could surmise through her downward glance that she is forlorn, but she could well have fallen asleep leaning against the diwan or sofa. The dextrously detailed drapes of the folds of her simple indigo blue saree is contrasted with a softly tinted blue-white blouse bringing the viewing eye to rest on her bosom – ample and sensuous. To my mind, this is hardly a typical nayika – a young and expectant maiden brimming with sexy youthfulness. Her fingers and toes are long and elegant, her body is filled out, her demeanour mature and not necessarily disappointed but tired, making me deliberate on who was the inspiration behind this. Who was the woman modelled on and, although not much is known about her, could it have been Trindade’s mother? Although the painting may have been inspired by Indian literary traditions, or that the prevailing trend encouraged the saree clad figure in the style of the nayika, but the image also brings to mind the self-sacrificing and dutiful Indian wife who never ate nor slept until her spouse came home, whatever time that may be. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple, 1931, Watercolour on paper, 38 x 31 cms</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Trindade has painted this with such poignancy, making me wonder, how an artist can project feelings that must have been totally alien to him both in terms of gender and also situation. But, getting to the know the story behind his life, one is introduced to his own tragedies and pain and realise that this is probably how some of it may have been sublimated in themes that required him to delve into his own agonies.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of Dr.Anne Besant, An English Suffragette, 1927.<br />
Oil on Canvas. 11.25 x 8.5 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">His portrait of the Theosophist Annie Besant is fashioned in a completely different way. While the Hindu woman is represented as a full length figure, with Besant, he zooms in. We see up-close, the face of this well-known, colourful and politically powerful personality. A British woman who eventually joined the Indian National Congress and allied herself with anti-raj activists. Not only does the full frontal gaze of the sitter reflect a similar stance of the painter and therefore a confrontational posture but, one that is evocative of familiarity rather than the distance of being the public figure Annie Besant was. He chose to present the human being rather than the persona and it is noted that he probably captured her likeness in person rather than from a photograph, which may well have given him important insights to bring these facets to the fore. His portrayal of Besant, is in direct divergence to the woman in the blue saree, thereby highlighting the contrasting attitudes prevalent in India in the early twentieth century – an India grappling with identity and independence, frequently revisiting the past to define its nationality.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preparation for Puja, 1923. Oil on canvas,35.5 x 17.25 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As a contemporary artist, who works with a medium that veers very naturally towards abstraction and an introspective stance, honed into a very personal expression, the work of Trindade is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It is the discipline of an artist who wields paint with brush to bring to life another human being with verisimilitude, necessitating inordinate concentration and skill, that creates the sense of awe, pulling my attention into the detail of the brushwork. It is not that I have had been trained in another art aesthetic. It is not as if my education was any less a “European cultural” one, because studying in London, it was exactly that. I loved figure drawing of live models, and exulted in sitting for hours together, portraying the delicate veins of a Champa leaf. But, I have moved so far from this exacting mastery of co-ordinating hand and eye, and keeping oneself out of the picture so dedicatedly. The crowded mind of our millennium, has compelled the self to express, to observe within rather than without. Personal history, identity and opinion are the hallmark of our milieu and Trindade in this context is like a breath of fresh air, akin to walking in thundering rain and allowing it to wet you from head to toe. What I experience, is not a simple admiration for how it was done, a yearning to acquire the skills, but respect for the relative quietude of mind that facilitated it. Along with appreciation for these vistas of a time, when photographs were a rarity and therefore they serve as historical, visual records of dress, attitude, landscape and architecture - of what has changed and how.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LEt9iB7rO_g/Wz3oZHc2ufI/AAAAAAAAHlk/iJw01Pmu9c4CSwOttzek-VOVxtayoaLCACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_4795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1361" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LEt9iB7rO_g/Wz3oZHc2ufI/AAAAAAAAHlk/iJw01Pmu9c4CSwOttzek-VOVxtayoaLCACEwYBhgL/s640/IMG_4795.JPG" width="544" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goan Beggar Saying His Beads, 1927<br />
Oil on Canvas, 23.25 x 19.25 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">His brushwork is relatively informal. We can see the strokes. it is not all about photographically refined textures in the tradition of Vermeer and Rembrandt, who are constantly referenced in the writing around Trindade and his work. In ‘Goan Beggar Saying his Beads’ ( 23.25 x 19.25 inches, 1927) he paints a close-up of a wandering mendicant, adding this Christian man to his repertoire which also includes the fakir and sanyasi. The beggar grasps a spiral shell, known to be carried by religious nomads, in his right hand. His shirt is dull grey, emphasizing the sombre facial expression of a bearded countenance, with the light in his sad eyes accentuated to reflect the hardship born. Rather than bedraggled and pitiable Trindade presents a simple man living outside mainstream society. Clutching his shell and touching the rosary worn around his neck, in remembrance that where all else fails there is divine grace, lends a modicum of respect to this poverty stricken human being.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Head of a Bald Man, 1914<br />
Graphite on paper, 11.75 x 8.25 iinches (sheet)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Trindade belonged to a large family with strong ties to the church. His father Zeferino had five sisters and four brothers. Their ancestral home in Assonora, Bardez was known among locals as the “house of Friars” because two of his brothers were Dominican Friars. Although intending to join their ranks himself, Zeferino left the seminary to join the Customs department in Goa and was posted in far off places where he married, but returned to live in Sanguem where Antonio was born. While he lived, his family was well taken care of and much attention was paid to education but, after he died the tutors were dismissed and many creature comforts discontinued. Trindade was just sixteen years old when his father passed away.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Artist's Family by Lamplight, 1916.<br />
Oil on Canvas, 28.5 x 22.5 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In ‘The Artist’s Family by Lamplight’ he illustrates a rather shadowy scene, where a strong light from a table lamp illuminates the tableau of his children studying at the table, overseen by his wife. Unlike the sensual interpretation that won him a gold medal, here his wife Florentina is dressed in a long dress, with full sleeves and the painters glance is indulgent. As if benevolently appreciative of the care being given to his children – of enduring love. The canvas is executed in the tradition of painted interiors such as those of Jan Van Eyck’ or Velazquez, where the artist establishes his presence by leaving a token. In this case the picture of a man above the crockery arrangement, though vague, can be assumed to be a self-portrait. The painting of the artist’s family is mentioned by his daughter Angela Trindade (also an artist), as a record of “a special time” when his children were young. Before the hardships that World War I were to bring and before the family faced the premature demise of his younger son Gabriel. It is however curious that the household is depicted in such failing light, even as the subject matter is an everyday scene, the dark umber tones of the canvas are foreboding. Or perhaps carrying forth the distress of the time after his own father had passed away, subconsciously bringing those dark memories to life.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nasik Scene, 1931. Watercolour on paper, 12.25 x 19 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In addition to portraiture, Trindade created landscapes, still life’s and nudes, in oil on canvas as well as with water colour. In four water colours done in 1931 of ‘Nasik Scenes’, the freedom of his oil strokes takes on a whole new dimension enlivening everyday street parades of vendors, bathers and pedestrians in the city of Nasik. And while he was commissioned for portraits of the rich and famous, he also chose to paint his cook John. Virtually a member the family he posed for an aging Trindade, who rendered his image at the age of 61 years, with his uncanny facility to bring character to each of his delineations with undisputed authenticity. The cook is portrayed with profuse brush strokes, less refined than elsewhere, adding to his lower social status. His look is unkempt, mouth open, eyes that are lowered and jacket which is torn. In fact the only real detailing that Trindade indulges in here, is to reveal the texture of the torn cloth with exacting particularity.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of John, the Family Cook, 1930<br />
Oil on canvas, 15.25 x 11.68 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">After the talk by Suhas Bahulkar, there was a brief, impromptu solo violin concert. The violinist played a medley of pieces from Bach, Kriesler, and Jules Massenet among others, as an educated guess of what may have been played in salons of Bombay during Trindade’s time. He stood in a corner, with his back to four portrayals that could very well have defined the portraiture of Trindade. Flanked by Mr. Amor, Portuguese Agent and Mrs. Miranda and Child on one wall, with Annie Besant and John the family cooked alongside each other, on the other. If it hadn’t been for the soloists’ unconventionally informal attire of a T-shirt, time could have stood still for those pleasurable moments as I allowed the familiar strains of music to help me mull over my recent acquaintance with Trindade, his family, his India and painted oeuvre.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady Meherbai Tata, 1931. <br />
Oil on canvas,32.5 x 23.5 inches</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">But, before I end, I must mention the smiling visage of Lady Meherbai Tata, mother of Ratan Tata of Tata Sons Incorporated, and the most intriguing Miss Ferns, a writer. While Lady Tata is regal and statuesque as befitting her social stature, Miss Ferns is perhaps the most delightful of all the portraits on view at the Fundação Oriente, a collection donated by the Esther Trindade Trust, also known as the Antonio Xavier Trindade Foundation, in 2004. A young, unusually attractive European woman, self-consciously clutches the collar of her dress, as if it revealed too much of her flesh. And has turned her eye away from the artist, as if unable to bear his piercing scrutiny. Her young writers intuition knowing therein lay more than a painters skill, because Trindade’s gaze went beyond the physical façade to uncover psychological depths, privy only to those who have fathomed themselves well enough.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss Ferns, A Writer, 1925<br />
Oil on Canvas, 33 x 29.5 inches</td></tr>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-75919290235141486902018-02-17T16:43:00.000+05:302018-07-05T23:32:32.336+05:30It Is But A Matter of Course……Isn’t It? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">'Sensorium' - the end is only the beginning, was a multi-gallery presentation at Sunaparanta Centre for the Arts, a non-profit arts initiative founded by Dipti and Duttaraj Salgaonkar. Sometimes, Viewing art can be akin to a pilgrimage, and this exhibition certainly took me into deeper reaches of one’s existence and beyond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The last time I’d visited the centre was months ago and I had never driven there before. As luck would have it my maiden attempt was confusing and disorienting because the Jio Wi-Fi dongle acted up. And when I did have signal, google map was confused by the on and off signals such that I was taken on a long and needlessly winding route. When I finally got there, the painted blue and white facade was indeed a welcoming sight. Located atop Altinho Hill, Sunaparanta overlooks the city of Panjim and you can also catch a glimpse of the Mandovi River. The arts centre is housed in a large Portuguese-style villa with lush foliage and flowers overhanging the entrance and courtyard. As a venue for compositions pontificating the concept of that which doesn’t have an end, but is just another beginning, this colonial bungalow showcasing contemporary art, was an apt location, in more ways than one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">After seeing some of the art, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea at the Bodega Cafe housed in the inner courtyard, I mulling over the works seen, I couldn’t help but notice how alluring Dhruvi Archarya’s, canvases, expressive of her inimitable wry humour, appeared, when framed by green Areca fronds in the foreground, and bordered by the undulating edge of a traditional, Khaprael-tiled, darkened terracotta roof above. Desmond Lazaro’s polaroidic images, musing on family and personal history, glanced over my shoulder as I relished a slice of carrot cake, as if nudging me to talk about my own. Standing up to take a closer peek at the framed images, shadow-like lines of the courtyard and it’s various surfaces were reflected on the glass. It made for a rather pleasing juxtaposition, however unintended this may have been. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In the gardens, at the entrance to the centre, Riyas Komu had constructed an ode to his father’s balcony in Thrissur. Chancing upon this oddly styled sculpture-installation at the very start was bewildering. It was only after I’d seen the rest of the works that, I was able better to appreciate its facets . Seen from different angles it took on varied shapes, where the contours got distorted or enhanced. Although the artists intent was to enable spectators to experience their immediate surroundings through an altered perspective by climbing up onto this “ideological balcony”, I was more fascinated by walking around and noting how the model was re-crafted from each observed point. Created with metal and recycled wood the isolated balcony seemed to stand on its own. The structure that surrounded it and from which it rose above, was a crudely built house-like façade with a nave raised at one end and dropped at the other. This edifice used simple, monopoly-type house, ‘building’ blocks. Rusted metal crosses also made their appearance within this house of houses. All in all, it conjured a most curious tribute to a parent who was cited as a strong influence. It was when I stood at the end closest to the bungalow (farthest from the entrance gate), where the nave was laid on the floor, and thought how it resembled a quirky ‘Noah’s Ark’ that, I got a sense of Komu’s relationship with his father and of his fathers’ relationship with the world: an embracing refuge, yet not built on this external validation, but standing on his own - powered by a potent inner self.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">My reading of this visage as a could-be Noah’s Ark, may well have been suggested by Gigi Scaria’s video ‘The Ark’. In this 3 minute, single channel black and white projection, Gigi takes us back to the biblical myth as “an abode of continuity in a terrain of utter destruction”. Shown on a relatively small screen, one was compelled to peer closely at the moving images watching a primitive, wooden, luggage-carousel-like-contraption, leaving the ark-ship which stands marooned on cracked, dry mud. This moving bridge enters a large chamber that’s spewing grey smoke. It struck me almost instantly as an asphyxiating gas chamber, evocative of what our polluted cities are becoming. I could only discern luggage as passing from the ark into this threatening space - were there no people, I wondered. And then, what’s the continuum? But, perhaps the artist suggests, that carrying forth untended emotional baggage, this is where mankind is headed - the end of the world as an envisioned reality? While using Noah’s Ark as a symbol of continuity (that life on the planet survived the engulfing deluge thanks to the rule that only two pairs of each kind could enter, to procreate and ensure continuity of their species), Scaria also refutes the impression that the end is a new beginning. He doesn’t see a continuance to the Ark and its implied notion of survival. Gagging with toxins, breathing the poisonous air of a crowded metropolis, it’s probably too difficult to imagine one. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gigi Scaria - video still</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Numerous interesting works were on display, making untold demands on the viewing eye: Michael Muller from Berlin, Juul Kraijer from Holland, Julien Segard from France and Jacob Fellander and Pers-Anders Pettersson from Sweden, Iftikar Dadi from Pakistan in collaboration with Elizabeth Dadi from USA, Munem Wasif of Bangladesh, along with Belgium-born Srilanka-based artist Saskia Pintelon, made up the international quorum, while Indian artists from Jammu to Kerala, Tamilnadu and Bengal presented their work. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Saskia Pintelon</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Reminding us of how mindlessly traditions are can be carried forth, Saskia Pintelon’s ‘Faces’ were inspired by matrimonial adverts in Sri Lankan newspapers. In series of collages with obliterated faces, (using smileys or empty egg-shells and other such interventions), she reworks old photographs (studio portraits), highlighting marital discord and the naivety of traditional choices. Above all, her comment resonates with the fact that traditions are kept in continuance, often without understanding the merit they were devised upon or for, or their relevance in contemporary times. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shreyas Kale, Ascending Descending and 5mm</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Minimal, precise and incisive, Shreyas Karle subverts norms of perception. The two mirrored brass stairways of ‘Ascending Descending’ was quirky but it was the two brass pipes entitled '5mm' that compelled me delve deeper. What were those two parallel pipes depicting? If the simply presented visual hadn’t commanded attention, one could have missed the whole point. Intrigued by it, I glanced through the accompanying text and learned that the pipes were once of equal length, but one of the pipes had been cut into 6 parts and re-joined, which altered its size. The change is minimal and barely noted and the entire premise of cutting a pipe, joining it and placing the uncut and cut-and-joined bits, one above the other, seems almost absurd. But such works take art beyond that of visual delight, bringing into play psychological implications of parity versus identity and how a simple thought can alter this. At the physical level it’s an insignificant change. But, in an emotional capacity, and thereby the mental realm, what are the ramifications? How will this impact entities which once belonged as a whole or homogenous group, are separated by lines of caste, creed, religion, and then brought together as a single entity again? A seemingly banal play of ideas stimulates thought and debate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In a similarly abstracted and quixotic mould was Jitish Kallat’s ‘Rain Studies’. A unusual group of black and white drawings, denote ‘rain’ notations made by the artist when he stepped outside, during seasonal showers; holding the drawing paper skyward, turning them into unusual receptacles of rainwater. By virtue of the patterns formed on them by descending raindrops , these graphite and acrylic epoxy presentations on Arches paper become suggestive of planetary constellations. I’m uncertain of whether the undertaking was purely accidental and based on rainwater impacting drawings already done on graphite, if there’s a happy marriage of happenstance controlled by imaginative meanderings and how much of each is deliberately orchestrated, if at all. The initiative intrigues and highlights the potential of artistic endeavour to open up possibilities and creatively address issues of life, death, continuance. Where it is said to have all started with an astronomical explosion, by invoking the astronomical through the atmospheric, Kallat reminds us how energy destructed to recreate, paving the way for life as we know it. Suggesting that existing is but a ‘matter of course’, even if form and matter are reconstructed and re-formed, that the continuance lies in the life-force flowing into one altered form and the next. Thus revisioning age-old philosophies about past lives and reincarnation.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Parul Thacker, a detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">There were many other presentations ranging from the very personal to political as well as abstract thought. Parul Thacker’s ‘We Penetrate Deeper And Deeper into the Heart of Darkness’, was fabulously tactile and tempting to touch. Yet too chaotic and intimidating in its hard edges, to endear. Exploring notions of eternal existence, through enmeshed monofilament fibres, raw cotton and phalanx-like, white stalactite crystals, a plethora of hardened crystal formed into phalluses of light, protruding horizontally from within the disordered depths of ‘symbolic chaos’, to suggest a continued existence through procreation. A simple, well-heeled opinion, most commonly held, was presented through the deeper, more abstract dimension of light - as the infallible, age-old wisdom of life.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Julien Segard</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In his multimedia installation, ‘As He Takes From You, I Engraft You New’, Julien Segard touches on the codes of death and resurrection. He uses left-overs and fallen leaves along with plastic and other stuff that’s washed ashore. All of which he has picked up from a scrapyard in Panjim, and while walking the streets and shores of Goa. Delicately strung mobiles depicting skull bones and vertebrae among his other collected finds; hanging from the high ceiling of the dimly, but srategically lit ‘Library’ of the Centre, its not the engrafting of ‘new’ that shines through, but the concept of death is subtly reframed. From that which is traditionally enveloped by ghosts of despair, to an eerily playful event that, all which is born must face. The presentation is child-like and charming, belying the weightiness of a profound and philosophical theme.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Carrying forward the haunted melody through surrealist photographs, Juul Kraijer suggests alternatives to conventional seeing. Two hands, laying one on top of each other, wearing netted gloves, don’t let you ponder on the beauty of those slender fingers, the quality or craftsmanship of the fabric. But, the gaze penetrates the physicality of form imaged, to fathom another, unstated, but decipherable dimension. It’s as if an underlying essence is being unmasked through tonal gradations, which emerge through a unique process employed by the artist. What you see, isn’t all there is to be seen. An invisible presence is felt. Placing her subjects under a cloak of darkness lends her images this sublime sense of unease which emanates from that which her subject experiences in the dimmed environment – not able to see, not able to centre, knowing she is being watched. Seemingly alone, she is not. And then, neither is the viewer, for the impression of what is perceived renders the perceiver self-conscious. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Niyati Unnikrishnan - The Cake</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Exploring another dimension of the seen and the apparent is Niyati Unnikrishnan of Kerala. Tapping into a vibrant inner world, he presents fictional landscapes with the complexities that emerge in his engagement with current affairs, literature, art and the lives of the people he is acquainted with. In ‘Cake’ he brings together, sunbathing women, half-clad sadhus, yoga practitioners and socialites as part of the cake. They are seated on top, within its layers and in the surrounding scape. the soft contours of watercolour, pencil and ink on paper blur the edges of a satirical comment on the self and its counterparts in the external world. Where does it begin and end – who is who and what is what. Is it a cake or is it not? And is it the world we know, or is it not, or just an imagined space in the artist’s mind? The myriad questions that emerge, from observing this engaging dialogue of the inner and outer worlds with its apparently recognisable, figurative dimensions, lead into one’s own inner-scape.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bodega Cafe - Desmond Lazaro on right.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> Kaushik Chakravarty, behind, in the adjoining room</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Sunaparanta Centre is a small and intimate viewing space. And each of the works were housed in what were once, rooms of sleep and leisure in someone’s home. Walking from one to the next, the arched windows and wooden beams leaning in with their own resonances, examining art that was as disparate as the works curated in ‘Sensorium’, can be a distracting affair. The thematic content was so variously presented that it wasn’t always easy to comprehend what each said, and while this certainly brought to light the continuity of diversity, it also compelled a reference to an inner self. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Reena Saini Kallat </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Hyphenated Lives, Tri-khor</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In ‘Hyphenated Lives’, Reena Saini Kallat added a series of question marks, semicolons, colons, commas and in a contiguous dialogue. Resembling zoological or botanical drawings of hybrid creatures that are formed through different species, enjoining to create a variegated kind. (Which our world may well have known, had it not been for Noah’s wisdom of two of each). Reena Kallat created curious hybrids primarily using the national symbols of each country, rendering overtones of political reconciliations that could be compelled into being. At the base the quasi botanical drawing, also reminiscent of a postal stamp, of ‘Rosila’ – a cross-breed between a rose and dahlia, she writes in cursive hand informing the type as part rose, wherein “the rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa within the family Rosaceae. Its name comes from the Latin word Rosa. A symbol of love and beauty (as well as war and politics) the world over, the rose was designated the official flower and floral emblem of the United State of America in 1986.” She feels that, instead of uniting people from a region, such symbols have become contentious and reason for monopoly, with the original significance being overshadowed. She pairs the rose with the Dalhia, which draws its name from the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl and has been the national flower of Mexico since 1963. Will this genealogical marriage between the universal symbol of love and the “busy, tuberous, herbaceous and perennial” Dahlia, espoused by its contentious neighbour, augur well for the future of human relations? Will the ‘Sun-poe’ formed of the Palestinian sunbird and Israeli Hoopoe become an ambassador of peace between two embattled nations. And will the Ti-Khor fused of the Tiger of India and Markhor of Pakistan re-unite a people so bitterly partitioned – the price paid for independence from colonial masters? These interrogations ruminate as the eye takes in the unusual forms these amalgams have birth into. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Reena Saini Kallat </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Hyphenated Lives, Rosila</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A broken glass will always show its cracked joint and cut pipe ends will never quite weld to be the same length. They can exist as an extension of what once was but there is no turning back. I came away with from this presentation of many voices, humming in unison yet singing in parts, concluding that the continuum of all which is sensory in this world, must mean that whatever the future of the world, whatever form it may or may not take; whether procreation is of same species, or hyphenated in contrived combinations, it is the same energy that breathes that itself into matter formed, re-formed or deformed. Varied and differing in facets of being, but each</span> <span style="font-size: x-large;">perfect to its aim.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-1088552250752209492017-03-18T22:45:00.001+05:302017-03-18T23:03:39.396+05:30That Inescapable Sea of Pain - Day 3 at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Looking at so much art, seduced by the natural landscape, the Kerala Mundu, Arabian Sea and delicious beyond delicious Malyali cuisine, my senses were satiated - well, close to being saturated. But, there was more to see - a hell of a lot more. How does anyone see it all, I wondered as I made my way back to Aspinwall House for the nth time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Of the many nationalities, from Egyptian to Chinese, Arabs, Portuguese and Dutch, who came to Kerala in search of spices to trade, an Englishman by the name of John H. Aspinwall, stayed and made Cochin his home. Originally used for the business of Aspinwall & Company Ltd. established in 1867, this historic building today, is home to many significant art works in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The title given for the 2017 Biennale, by curator Sudarshan Shetty, ‘Forming in the Pupil of an Eye', referring to the eye which is concurrently physical and metaphysical, evolved with the art experience, to be an apt one. For the last three days, each artwork seen, led by the sensuous-loving physical eye, I had absorbed sounds, images and words, with the ‘eye’ simultaneously becoming an invisible mirror to reflect and let the particles of the seen and perceived vision sink deep into the abyss of being; finding oneself - in empathy, in curiosity, unresponsiveness and even playful competitiveness. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mundus and only mundus, lined up, pile upon pile</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The evening before, I'd bought myself a white Kerala-style man’s ‘mundu’ (loosely translated as lungi) with a simple black border, promising to wear it to the next day’s Biennale viewing. And I did. The salesmen at the shop on Churchlanding Road in Ernakulam had been amused at my quest to learn how to wear it, and each of the seven or eight men in the shop took turns in showing me how to wear it. Each thinking that they would get me to understand what the other had failed to communicate. I was keen to wear it pulled up, from the ankles up to the knees, which was a tad complicated and my efforts gauche and awkward to say the least. The experience had been hilarious for all, me included, even if a little embarrassing. Anjalee and Maggie tried to distance themselves from my keenness to learn how to pull it up, like we had seen men on the street do quite effortlessly. Anjalee had gone so far as to quietly inform the salesmen that I was ‘mad’. That afternoon, the day after the mundu madness at Kasava Kadu, when the three of us met outside the ‘Pyramid of Exiled Poets’, at Aspinwall House, I in my pristine white mundu teamed with a sleeveless black T-Shirt, willingly posed for the ‘must-have’ photo and then we proceeded to look for Raul Zurita's much acclaimed installation - The Sea of Pain', which I'd been dying to see but hadn't yet got there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I'd seen images on Facebook. I'd read reviews and my expectations were therefore loaded. Drawing on the Syrian refugee crisis, this installation by Zurita is dedicated to Galip Kurdi, the brother of 3yr old Aylan whose body had been washed ashore a Turkish beach in September 2015. The much-photographed image of Aylan becoming synonymous with the tragedy of the refugees who weren't granted asylum. Gurdip, his brother and their mother drowned when their dinghy capsized in its attempt to reach the Greek island of Kos, via Turkey. When the sea got rough, the Turkish smuggler, paid to bring them ashore, abandoned the boat, which capsized. Born and living in Chile, using his art as a vehicle to convey a political message, Zurita makes this crisis a moment of awakening for all. His audience, walking through the installation, bare feet, mid-calf steeped in dark waters, is compelled to listen within and to question what they would do in a moment of such a crisis.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5YLABgefjTM/WM1e41Q1aoI/AAAAAAAAG4E/WCQqqEMV008CvR5URUHan6x96h1AD9lOwCEw/s1600/Maggie%2Band%2BGopika%2Bimmersed%2Bin%2BRaul%2BZurita%2527s%252C%2BSea%2Bof%2BPain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5YLABgefjTM/WM1e41Q1aoI/AAAAAAAAG4E/WCQqqEMV008CvR5URUHan6x96h1AD9lOwCEw/s640/Maggie%2Band%2BGopika%2Bimmersed%2Bin%2BRaul%2BZurita%2527s%252C%2BSea%2Bof%2BPain.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie and Gopika immersed in Raul Zurita's, Sea of Pain</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As you wade through a long, dimly lit gallery filled with water that looks black, taking one solemn step at a time, for walking through water cannot be a hasty stride; it comes naturally to look around, to turn here and there. And the helplessness of being abandoned tugged at something in me, heightened by piercing questions, that called out silently but accusingly, from high walls that framed the long and narrow room: Don't you listen? Don't you look? Don't you hear me? Don't you see me? Don't you feel me? Are you never coming back - never? Never? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">One step at a time, I walked up to the end of the long rectangular space, to be reminded that a human tragedy is never just someone else's it is also our own, especially when Zurita states: "I am not his father but Galip Kurdi is my son" </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Walking back to where our sandals were left, Maggie and I were reflective but in our out-ward path a young girl danced in the water, lifting her dress and pirouetting daintily; her playful form silhouetted against the daylight. There were now many more people entering the installation space, but an experience that touches at the level of soul cannot be thus distracted from its message. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Orijit Sen, 'Go Play Ces'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As we left the installation, pausing long enough to dry our legs and feet, the next gallery that beckoned my companions was Orijit Sen's 'Go Play Ces'. I protested that it was too much of a contrast after such a solemn, soul-stirring experience. But, followed them nonetheless and was completely taken by the mixed-media installation games that we were invited to play. Visiting the vibrant Friday, Mapusa market in North Goa, is an experience that I've enjoyed first hand but, the details that Sen has captured come from deeper observations than a cursory holiday visit. It was like a virtual journey through liquor shops, the fish and flower sellers and much, much more. And to ensure that some essence of this experience remains, Sen tempts you to answer five questions to win a printed card of his drawings. So, totally engaged in this playful experience, I expected to forget Zurita's poignant plea, but despite exulting at winning two cards, the impressions of being in the ‘Sea of Pain’ remained.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EdcKtRhIupg/WM1e40ZvDTI/AAAAAAAAG4A/1UzBbzX0LxkU07gq1E_go1mSEJla8cR_ACEw/s1600/Orijit%2BSen%252C%2B%2527Go%2BPlay%2BCes%2527%2B-%2BThe%2BMapusa%2BMarket%2BGame.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="490" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EdcKtRhIupg/WM1e40ZvDTI/AAAAAAAAG4A/1UzBbzX0LxkU07gq1E_go1mSEJla8cR_ACEw/s640/Orijit%2BSen%252C%2B%2527Go%2BPlay%2BCes%2527%2B-%2BThe%2BMapusa%2BMarket%2BGame.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Orijit Sen, 'Go Play Ces' - The Mapusa Market Game</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Savouring deliciously sweet, fleshy, golden jackfruit for breakfast the next morning. I found the questions returning: "Don't you listen? Don't you look? Don't you hear me? Don't you see me? Don't you feel me? Are you never coming back - never? Never?" Abandonment is something we have all experienced at some juncture of our lives. Abandoned by family, friends or lovers in moments when we've possibly felt a need for human succour the most; in a gesture of defensiveness and self-protection, we may have internalised this angst. Therefore, reliving it through art can be cathartic and healing. Even though Zurita had a specific basis for his questions, they are common to the human condition, each with our own personal experiences to remember as we walk through this universal sea of pain. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-09YLfhUfoow/WM1lPLE9RQI/AAAAAAAAG5E/nuxoLj2jF90OwTLulZpowDRYwD0g0BMCACLcB/s1600/Desmond%2BLazaro%252C%2BFamily%2BPortraits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-09YLfhUfoow/WM1lPLE9RQI/AAAAAAAAG5E/nuxoLj2jF90OwTLulZpowDRYwD0g0BMCACLcB/s640/Desmond%2BLazaro%252C%2BFamily%2BPortraits.jpg" width="474" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Desmond Lazaro, Family Portraits, Aspinwall House</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">When sorrow is celebrated - and expressing it through art and poetry is about celebration rather than suppression, is where I am reassured that the exalted premium that contemporary society has accorded on happiness, hasn't eroded our capacity to experience its lamenting brother. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BPH1S0MLq9U/WM1e25Gu4PI/AAAAAAAAG3w/IDF4Lla1bcY8RdTVUTuboYxOi1IUyjkcwCEw/s1600/Copy%2Bof%2B%25E2%2580%2598Dance%2Bof%2BDeath%25E2%2580%2599%2Bby%2BYardena%2BKurulkar%252C%2BAspinwall%2BHouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BPH1S0MLq9U/WM1e25Gu4PI/AAAAAAAAG3w/IDF4Lla1bcY8RdTVUTuboYxOi1IUyjkcwCEw/s640/Copy%2Bof%2B%25E2%2580%2598Dance%2Bof%2BDeath%25E2%2580%2599%2Bby%2BYardena%2BKurulkar%252C%2BAspinwall%2BHouse.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Dance of Death’ by Yardena Kurulkar at Aspinwall House writes her date of birth with light bulbs that keep going off, to have all the lights go out at the end of the Biennale</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Each day in Kochi has been an enriching and enlightening one and I want to gush with enthusiasm like a teenager, but restrain myself. Walking through the extensive galleries at Aspinwall, I walked into the ‘Dance of Death’ by Yardena Kurulkar, passed the ‘Family portraits’ by Desmond Lazaro and entered a large hall which had a painted mural in progress.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Desmond Lazaro, Family Portraits, Aspinwall House</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Sitting on raised platforms, two artists, assistants of the painter P.K. Sadanandan, were engaged in completing a mural which depicts a story called 'Paraya Petta Panthiru'. A young gallery guide told us, this is the story of inter-caste marriage and how each child, of the twelve progeny born of this marriage, was abandoned by their father at birth - trusting in the force that created its life to care for it. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8R7R1c0cfaU/WM1e6fCCO9I/AAAAAAAAG4w/bdQLoeBBSa4FZPmcyt2-UdQ-dxY5SVYEACEw/s1600/artists%2Bat%2Bwork%252C%2BP.K.%2BSadanadan%252C%2B%2527%2527Paraya%2BPetta%2BPanthiru%2527%252C%2BAspinwall%2BHouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8R7R1c0cfaU/WM1e6fCCO9I/AAAAAAAAG4w/bdQLoeBBSa4FZPmcyt2-UdQ-dxY5SVYEACEw/s640/artists%2Bat%2Bwork%252C%2BP.K.%2BSadanadan%252C%2B%2527%2527Paraya%2BPetta%2BPanthiru%2527%252C%2BAspinwall%2BHouse.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">artists at work, P.K. Sadanadan, ''Paraya Petta Panthiru', Aspinwall House</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">This translated into each child being brought up and/or adopted by families of varied castes - from Brahmins to carpenters and wandering minstrels. It's a powerful legend to educate people on the universality of being - free from caste and religious dictates. The father of the abandoned children was Vararuci, a Brahamana scholar in the court of Vikramaaduthyan in 57BCE. Featuring narratives from mythology, masterfully painted in the Kerala mural style augmented with inspiration from the cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora, although Sadanandan's art, is known well known for his presentation of teachings and practices from across India, it was my first encounter with this painter’s oeuvre. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--cQZX-73JTo/WM1e0IukPhI/AAAAAAAAG3M/MMRlIyFR7oI-18NxXU_ROwYZZi47yU2VwCEw/s1600/Anjalee%2Bviewing%2Bthe%2Blarge%2Bscale%2Bmural%2Bby%2BP.K.%2BSadanandan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--cQZX-73JTo/WM1e0IukPhI/AAAAAAAAG3M/MMRlIyFR7oI-18NxXU_ROwYZZi47yU2VwCEw/s640/Anjalee%2Bviewing%2Bthe%2Blarge%2Bscale%2Bmural%2Bby%2BP.K.%2BSadanandan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anjalee viewing the large scale mural by P.K. Sadanandan</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The intermingling of abstract experiences with vibrant traditional forms in art along with sensory experiences of tastes and smell that have been a simultaneous 'degustation' of the Biennale experience, echoed the philosophical thought in Bose Krishnamachari's essay, in the Biennale Guide. "The river is everywhere" says Bose, quoting Hesse from 'Siddhartha', in a 'A River called Biennale’ as he expounded the likeness of a river to that of the human experience. "We are born of a river's origins and like a river flow toward an end. A river is the root of our existence. All great civilisations were born on the banks of a river". The river is where all things merge. Situated in Kochi, on the banks of backwaters that lead to and come inland from the Arabian Sea, especially at Aspinwall House which is a sea-facing property, it was easy to make this connection of a river's origin flowing into the sea and on its journey carrying the silt of experience, merging into the oceanic current, into the being of non-being - that vast ocean of one-ness. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">On the ferry to Ernakulam</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As we'd walked around asking for directions to Zurita's 'Sea of Pain', we'd observed someone blindfolded and being guided in a most aesthetic way. I had been quite taken with what I had seen of this audience-interactive performance. The participant could not see, but I'd watched Jijo guide her to stop or move forward, relinquishing his touch through enchanting, dance-like gestures. Steered by sound (headphones) and touch alone, where goggles shut out the visual, I had watched her being led in and out of spaces at Aspinwall House. Intrigued and attracted by the lyrical gestures of Jijo, her guide, I signed up for the experience and hurried back from lunch at a nearby water-front restaurant, with a quick look at Praneet Soi and an interesting marble sculpture by Jonathan Owen at Pepper House, to participate in this performance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> I hadn't given much thought to what I had set myself up for, but as I waited for the performance to start, I reminded myself how much I rely on the visual to experience life. I'm exceedingly sensitive to sound, but it's the visual that's been my metier. Would that bother me? Soon enough, a hand reached out from behind me and put large white goggles covering my eyes, obscuring everything but a sensation of light. I was now completely at the mercy of my touch-guide and the recorded soundtrack played through the wireless headphones. In anticipation of being taken through 'The Sea of Pain' as part of being masked and walked through familiar spaces, I requested Jijo to turn up my mundu. Thankfully Maggie and Anjalee weren't there to tell me how ridiculous I may have looked and I surrendered to the ‘Symphony of a Missing Room', choreographed by Christer Lundahl and Martina Seitl, enacted by Jijo and myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Blindfolded, I was led by suggestive hand gestures, aided by the recorded soundtrack, which alerted me to take slow measured steps or to stop. Pause a bit, then move forward, take a step up or down or touch a wall - telling me I had reached a dead end. The soft, predominantly female voice, played through the wireless headphones, occasionally urged me to see the light within, to imagine the art works I had seen before this, but each time I tried doing so, I could only visualize tall, bending trunks of lofty coconut palm trees, their pinnate leaves moving with and creating a gentle breeze. From the onset of the performance, as soon as the headphones were put on, I also had this inexplicable urge to sleep. I wasn't sure if this was brought on because I was tired or because I found the spoken tract a little naive and didn't connect with embracing change through the Biennale, which I now viewed without sight. There was a shift but it was making me sleepy. I'm aware how fear of facing things does create this illusion, but there had there been no real fear. Not about the performance in any case. I walked with caution but I also knew that I'd be led safely. Maybe it was a deeper fear surfacing, or maybe shutting out the visual created a familiar, sleep-inducing space. Each day had been packed with stimulating experiences, so it could just be that – the surfacing of a latent desire to sleep!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">When I was asked how the experience was, the only word I could summon was 'weird'. I hadn't had any kind of spiritual epiphany of experiencing myself at a deeper level of knowing, nor I had I recollected the art works seen in days or even hours just passed. The sensation of wanting to sleep overwhelmed, and the coconut palms all around me, dominated my subconscious. I fought the urge to sleep - I had to, I mean, how could I sleep standing up? As I walked, unknowing where I was, I did experience various degrees of darkness and light, which led me to think I was going inside or coming out into the open which brought about the shift regarding the levels of light. At the end of the half-hour session when the goggles were removed I was standing calf-deep in Raul Zurita's 'Sea of Pain'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Overwhelmed by the urge to slumber, I headed out of Aspinwall in search of some South Indian filter coffee to find none. I returned to my room in Thoppumpuddy to get my camera and rushed back to Fort Kochi for a Kathakali performance and make-up session. While the experience was photographically enriching - watching them do the make-up was novel, the whole performance was designed for touristy kind of viewing and I was possibly the lone Indian among fifty foreigners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The man who played the female lead should have retired a long time ago, but hogged the limelight while the younger man who was more interesting in attire and fluidity of movements as well as elegant facial gestures, so vital in Kathakali, was relegated to the background. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">When I bought my ticket and a young man guiding me to my seat, softly asked why I was wearing a man’s dress; was it because it was ‘Women’s Day’? I had forgotten I was wearing the mundu, I had forgotten it was the 8th of March and reminded of both in this way, I forgot to tell the young lad that, in the normal scheme of things, I wore a ‘man’s dress’ more often than what is narrowly designated a ‘woman’s dress’. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The interplay of life with art heightened by such unexpected occurrences, my third day at the Kochi Biennale ended with a delectable bite of figs and roasted almonds coated with a delicious dark, dark chocolate. I headed back to my homestay in Thoppumpudy in an auto, reaching just in time before it started pouring down with rain. Although I was relieved to not have been caught in the downpour, it did flash through my mind that Kerala has two monsoons - the south-west monsoon in June and the north-east in October, bring plentiful rain which means that unlike other parts of the country it is never parched. “Falling Down, pooling up, /Out of the sky, into my cup. /What is this wet that comes from above, /That some call disaster, and others find love”, wrote the poet Mitchell. D. Wilson, echoing the paradox where the falling wetness may irk but water and especially rain, is also an integral part of the Kerala landscape. In addition to the extensive shoreline of the Arabian sea on its west, Kerala also has a network of rivers and lagoons with tranquil stretches of backwaters, all of which add to its lush greenness and abundance of natural birds and other species.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />And as I readied for slumber, I reflected on the irony that rain, rivers, backwaters, tears of laughter or grief - all form an integral part of our existence. The human existence in it its many facets, brought forth to ponder upon through the art extravaganza of the Biennale, is fraught forever with error and misguided evaluations leading to pain, inflicted by self or others. Whether it was walking through the Pyramid of Exiled Poets, reflecting on the changes in society brought about by imported ideas, the fragility of nature, haunted memories of an abandoned past or redefining gender, all these expressions arose from a some kind of an ache. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale art was therefore a constant reminder that the ‘experience’ of life, which eventually salvages the lost sense of self in our knowing, almost always come through the mistakes we make in our unknowing. That the nature of human consciousness is one that merges or emerges from that proverbial 'Sea of Pain'.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-40306784154168845742017-03-17T00:43:00.001+05:302017-03-18T23:12:13.894+05:30Turning, Returning, Reclaiming: Day 2 at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Breakfast in Kochi was a soul indulging experience and a habit that could be hard to break. Each morning, I sat out on a verandah with gleaming red tiles that lead to a handkerchief-sized emerald green lawn, which overlooked the backwaters. Watching the coconut palm bending towards the Vembanad as I nibbled sweet, ripe, golden jackfruit or sipped some tea, beyond a white picket fence, I could also see the Thoppumpudy Bridge that crosses over the backwaters into Ernakalum. More often than not, it was packed bumper to bumper with traffic. But although I wasn’t too far, the water acted as a buffer and I could barely hear the urban cacophony. In the heart of this historic buzzing port of Kerala, I was fortunate to begin my day watching fishermen and birds on the large expanse of water gently rippling along with the tide, its fluid surface shimmering in the subtle light of morning. The empty plastic water bottles and polythene bags that were carried with the tide were disconcerting, but I was told that it is better than it used to be and people are becoming more conscious about such things.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">View from Ginger House Restaurant, looking onto a naval base</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">While today Kochi may be the busiest port, historically it was Calicut, modern day Kozhikode, that dominated in trade. When Vasco da Gama landed on the shores of Kerala, it was in Kappad in Calicut that he disembarked with his crew, in May 1498. Calicut, then under the rule of the famed Hindu Rajah known as the Zamorin of Calicut, was the archetype of commercial prosperity and hosted merchants and goods from every trading nation in its lively bazars. But the Zamorin and Vasco and his crew didn’t hit it off and the Portuguese eventually sailed out to Cochin to load their ships. It was through the Portuguese that Kochi came into prominence prior to which its history is not well documented. The Rajah of Cochin befriended the Portuguese and with his help many battles were fought against the Zamorin who, with the help of the Dutch, eventually conquered Cochin in 1663. However, after the retreat of the Portuguese, the Dutch assumed the mantle of protecting the Rajah of Cochin and in various other ways by interfering with the prevalent trading practices, undermined the Zamorin’s powers. Although the Dutch had a longer stint in Cochin than the Portuguese, they didn’t stay too long either. Weakened by constant wars against Marthanda Varma of Travancore the Dutch eventually surrendered to British forces that marched from Calicut to Cochin in 1795, as part of the larger Napoleonic Wars between Holland and England in Europe. By the end of the 17th century Calicut’s pre-eminence and glory faded, and Kerala’s great age ended by the turn of the 18th century with the dawn of the colonial era.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Fascinating as history can be, and walking through Kochi one cannot help but notice various colonial influences, nature is a powerful magnet. And, as if by design, a big chunk of Day 2 of the Kochi Biennale 2017 experience, was viewing works on nature. ‘Landscapes and Silences’, an Indo-Canadian Project curated by Tanya Abraham and Wayne Baerwaldt presented artists who explored the changing relationships between artists and nature in art, re-looking at the moral and aesthetic values towards nature in a changing rural landscape. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Terry Billings, Adjusted Landscape, 2006, Acrylic on archival digital-print paper</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Within this exhibition, Terry Billings, created an aural installation, recorded in Saskatchewan and Kochi, of a 'Dawn chorus' - of birds singing at the start of the day, which was placed at the entrance and stairwell of the Kashi Art Gallery, an old Dutch house in the Fort Kochi area refashioned as a cultural space. This gentle, twittering chorus followed us throughout the gallery, sometimes complimenting, sometimes contrasting and sometimes overpowered by the art works on display. The natural landscape was presented in its many guises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Through black and white photographs made by a pin-hole camera, Regina Horowitz created images that brought a sense of timeless transience in the natural world through her wispy, grainy images in shades of grey and black. Gabriela Garcia-Luna photographically documented the seen and unseen in natural vistas to index personal memories, presenting them in a circular format as quasi-abstract imagery which drew its impetus from foliage and trees. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The unending circumference around the colourful photographic landscape, evocative of a seamless merging of the inner and outer world was a compelling visual metaphor that drew the viewing eye inside the form and then, further within, into the self, to create an intimate viewing experience. Zachari Logan's portraiture of wild plant-life, though reminiscent of botanical drawings of an age gone by, were not necessarily biologically accurate but were created as deliberately provocative, imaginative hybrids, referencing the four seasons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I'm irrepressibly drawn to plant-life and enjoyed these art-works immensely. Walking around Kochi, I've also been mesmerised by the over-arching, larger than life, flowering 'Rain Trees' that line the streets around Fort Kochi. Kerala, is abundantly blessed with natural munificence and the large water bodies around the city bring in many birds. I've seen Seagulls, Heron, Kingfisher, Cormorants, Eagles, Kites an abundance of crows, as well as unique small birds that I can't identify. Here, nature, the mechanical and man-made co-habit with ease. There are no 'green' auto-rickshaws and taxis around, as seen in Delhi but, the debris floating out to the Arabian Sea is a constant reminder of how careless we become when nature sustains us so effortlessly. Walking out of these exhibits expressive of a dwindling natural habitat, I wondered how much impact could the subtle voices of these Canadian artists have on the collective consciousness in Kochi, and, as artists, are we merely speaking among the converted - is that as far we can go? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Nearby, David Hall - also an old Dutch bungalow that has been restored and redesigned as a cultural centre, cafe and gallery for contemporary art, had actually been the first Biennale venue I visited that day. My hitherto languid mid-morning, after breakfast overlooking the Vembanad, had been confronted by Padmini Chettur's multi-channel video, Varnam, 2016, where she sought to redefine gender roles through the depiction of love and longing in classical dance. Intrigued by the rhythmic chant and free-flowing but tightly controlled body gestures of women dressed casually in sarees, evocative of western modern dance with mudras from classical Indian dance, I sat on the wooden bench and watched three simultaneous videos being screened. It's never easy to impress upon your audience, in the matter a few moments, the essence of ideas that have engaged an artist for many years. The language becomes personal and thus codified and needs deeper engagement and more time than such a large-scale Biennale viewer can spare. I can't say I understood what she was saying but I was intrigued enough to watch and listen and carried with me a sense of its power, even if the real meaning eluded my grasp.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Padmini Chettur's multi-channel video, Varnam, 2016</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In an adjoining room, this idea of a codified language was also voiced by Dana Awartani, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 'Love is my Law, Love is my Faith', 2016, a large-scale (200 x 200 x 200 cms), white on white panels of hand embroidery on silk. I was curious about these love poems and who had done the embroidery. I searched on the internet and discovered that I share my alma mater of Central St. Martins with the artist and therefore assume that Dana does the embroidery herself. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie and Anjalee distracted while viewing Dana Awartani's,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> 'Love is my Law, Love is my Faith', 2016, (200 x 200 x 200 cms)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Standing in front of the eight embroidered panels, or walking around, I found myself drawn into their depths, but that I was precluded from entering its inner recesses or sacred space. The white panels placed in the manner of eight receding doorways were hung from the ceiling and raised from the floor level and only a spirit floating inwards could possibly access the inner sanctum, as experienced by the poet. Ibn Arabi was an Andalusian Sunni Scholar of Islam, a Sufi mystic, poet and philosopher, regarded by Sufism as "the greatest master" and a genuine saint who wrote: </span></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">"The mystery of that is that in the world of subtle beauty<br />people are only infatuated with the world of form.<br />Were they like me in love, they would be satisfied<br />and they would witness his essence in every form of belief;<br />for they would be [sharing] in what my vision determines<br />if they were in love from the world of direct observing.”</span></em></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dana Awartani, 'Love is my Law, Love is my Faith', 2016, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">(200 x 200 x 200 cms),detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In concurrence with the aniconism reflected in the poem and the poetry of geometry which the Islamists believe created the universe; as an act of reviving the practice of Islamic geometry and its highly codified mathematically derived forms, Awartani embroidered familiar patterns from the Islamic repertoire. “Using the tradition of Saudi textiles” and creating “genealogies of meaning that act as a form of meditation, praying and search for the inner spirit”, with white thread on white Moire silk, Awartini delicately envisioned the purity of a spiritual encounter”, recalling Ibn Arabi’s experience at the Ka'aba in Mecca. I am a fan of Islamic art and was once a keen student of the concepts of geometry and mathematics that defined it. In Awartini’s “act of revival” of its highly-coded language, I had hoped for some contemporary light on the precepts that formulated this art, especially to decode the mystery of symbols embroidered in her work and their particular relevance with the poems of Ibn Arabi, but I was disappointed.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Avinash Veeraraghavan, After The End, 1, <span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: small;">2016, (150 x 100 cms),</span> </span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In another gallery within David Hall, walking across the hallway and once again encountering Padmini Chettur's video performance on my way, were large, embroidered tapestries on organza by Avinash Veeraraghavan from Bengalaru. In 'After the End' 1 and 2, 2016, (150 x 100 cms), he used traditional embroidery techniques to evoke notions of what could have been an abandoned childhood - harking back to the past, through the present recording of absence - the absence of human form. Forgotten playgrounds, going to rust, were lushly portrayed with sequins, beads and thread work, seemingly celebrating rather than lamenting the empty and abandoned spaces. His use of padded beadwork to raise and highlight the relatively shining metallic structures of a rusting slide and carousel was most effectively contrasted against the organic and rough texture of the rest of the tapestry. And even though the extravagant use of material in the elaborately sequinned landscape, of fallen autumnal leaves and the sky, raised many questions about the shimmer and shine, there was, nonetheless, a haunted quality to the embroidered tapestries that evoked an emptiness which the gleaming plastic sequins could not disguise. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Avinash Veeraraghavan, After The End, 1, a detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Although I inferred that the execution had been done by artisans, it wasn't stated whether Veeraraghavan had embroidered the works himself or employed skilled craftspeople to assist him. The Biennale Guide text references embroidery with its ancient tradition as a vehicle for reclamation of the past. But, do those continuing a tradition need to reclaim it, or is it for us now removed from such practices, to find ourselves through that tradition? In this instance, I am not sure how that could have been achieved, not unless the artist undertook to learn the skill and execute the embroidery himself. In addition, the absence of credit given to those who may have worked with him in continuance of the tradition of this embroidery practice, detracted from a statement that was also not corroborated visually. From the perspective of craft revival and enhancing the value of working with the hand, the craftsmen employed could well have been exposed to newer ways of using age-old techniques that would augment their vocabulary of form and texture and enhance the scope for embroidery. And, I was happy to see thread used so extravagantly and find its place in the third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The skilful execution of these two tapestries was also a significant feature that attracted and sustained my interest.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Avinash Veeraraghavan, After The End, 2, a detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Looking at so many works of art needs frequent pauses and the galleries at the Biennale are well located among cafes and restaurants to create a viewing experience that includes quaint lanes and expansive vistas of a charming city, its history and multi-layered culture. Quite naturally Maggie, Anjalee and myself sat back and relaxed in the natural environs of The David Hall café to natter and mull over the art we’d just seen. Filter coffee, Kerala style, with an impeccably cooked French toast using banana bread, was the perfect punctuation after some intense art viewing. The swing, hung by coarse rope from a tall tree, was just too good to miss out on and taking off from Veeraraghavan’s embroidered playground, swinging high, I reconnected with a childhood pastime. However, the eerie viewing of a chicken’s dismembered foot on the garden path as I walked past, created a horrified Eeeks! for the reality of everyday living, to offset the aah’s of art appreciation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">On our way to The Kashi Art Gallery, we walked through ‘The Passage Malabar’ to stop by and check out the merchandise at ‘Cinnamon’, a designer retail outlet. In the Passage, we encountered some curiously manipulated photos, as visual essays on the palaces of India, imagined by Karen Knorr where the inhabitants were creatures of the animal kingdom. It was part of a collateral event presented by Tasveer.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iEY41DCtXJ4/WMrTqR43pkI/AAAAAAAAG1g/p4guFk54jUEchUqpM3SdtfqwQW5phdI8gCEw/s1600/Meydad%2BEliyahu%252C%2BThe%2BBox%2Bof%2BDocuments%2B-%2BKadalassuppet%252C%2B2%252C%2BKashi%2BArt%2BGallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iEY41DCtXJ4/WMrTqR43pkI/AAAAAAAAG1g/p4guFk54jUEchUqpM3SdtfqwQW5phdI8gCEw/s640/Meydad%2BEliyahu%252C%2BThe%2BBox%2Bof%2BDocuments%2B-%2BKadalassuppet%252C%2B2%252C%2BKashi%2BArt%2BGallery.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Some of the other art that I engaged with, included an installation at Kashi by Meydad Eliyahu [Jerusalem] who explored a lost personal history and connection to Kerala Jews, through ‘The Box of Documents/Kadalassuppet’, a compelling series of photographs by Endri Dani [Albania], at TMK Warehouse, expressing how people subvert the homogeneity imposed by totalitarian leadership, and Margaret Lanzetta [USA] speaking colourfully at Kashi, about the ‘Folded Language’ of patterns that have migrated through trade in textiles.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Endri Dani [Albania], CM 182, from a series of photographs,</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Margaret Lanzetta [USA] ‘Folded Language’, Kashi Art Gallery</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Yesterday, Maggie and I had a sumptuous lunch at ‘Oceanos’ on Elphinstone street, where the ‘Thiru Kochi Mango Fish Curry’ and the ‘Syrian Catholic Fish Pollichathu’ were beyond delicious. Today’s choice was the Ginger House Restaurant in Mattanchery, which also houses an antique store. Sitting on the waterfront, upon and among antique furniture including the tables, chairs, counters, pillars, door frames and traditional Kerala artefacts, the museum restaurant was a perfect counter point to contemporary art viewing and a reminder of the cultural palette of the city hosting it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">It was also the venue for a Biennale collateral event presenting the Nathdwara Pichvais of Rajasthan where the highlight was a series of miniature-scale line-drawings depicting the various modes and forms of ‘shringar’ captured by an innovative artist. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Boats and a Boatyard, and Naval ships in the distance, Mattachery</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Thinking, about the art I had seen over the last two days, of being surrounded by the Arabian Sea, with large Naval ships and fighter aircraft flying above, I was waiting for my companions inside the antique store, seated on a darkly polished rosewood sofa-set with an ornately carved, large than life, Garuda backrest, when I glanced around me and found that I sat amidst dulled brass face and body masks used for dance performances, larger than life painted but faded wood carvings and other antique artefacts. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Garuda backrest Sofa and brass body and face masks, </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In a city where civilisations have colluded and collided over trade and warring princes paved the way for colonial masters; where a culture once seeped in mythology and lore of an indigenous ethos had imbibed much yet ignored a great deal of the foreign influences of ruling factors, choosing to stay rooted in their own unique culture, I wondered how this city would be, or could be impacted by the world of International contemporary art and artists it was hosting. I wondered about the very language of art and its capacity to move others - especially the uninitiated public. Some of the artistic concepts that I had engaged with had been deep and required total commitment to viewing, letting go of preconceived ideas and just being part of the experience. This kind of viewing is a practiced art that comes from years of looking and making art, how then do others engage with such expression?</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F_xEdpJibJ4/WMrThPW9KSI/AAAAAAAAG1g/0yBDkevtaWEz4iPymqz3BFEL80rAZ0yaACEw/s1600/Alex%2BSexton%2B%255BAUS%255D%2B%2527Refuge%2527%2B2015%252C%2B%255BTKM%2Bwarehouse%255D..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F_xEdpJibJ4/WMrThPW9KSI/AAAAAAAAG1g/0yBDkevtaWEz4iPymqz3BFEL80rAZ0yaACEw/s640/Alex%2BSexton%2B%255BAUS%255D%2B%2527Refuge%2527%2B2015%252C%2B%255BTKM%2Bwarehouse%255D..jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Alex Sexton [AUS] 'Refuge' 2015, [TKM Warehouse].</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Though tired from stretching my mind to contextualise the art already seen, my day had not yet come to a close. Egged on by Maggie and Anjalee, I dragged myself to yet another Biennale venue to be utterly awed by Alex Sexton's 'Refuge' 2015, [TKM Warehouse], which highlights the struggles of those seeking political asylum. Powerful as the work is, I may well have overlooked it, not because it wasn't striking but because in my fatigued mind it appeared as if a tarpaulin fabric had been draped and cast in plaster of paris, so no big deal! But, as Maggie read out the details of the work posted on the walls of a run-down, possibly out of use warehouse, my senses perked up. Did she say carved marble statue? Yes, it was indeed carved as if the human being it draped had left a hollow of its earlier presence. By choosing to depict a single figure Seton [Aus] personalises the story of the refugee. The empty space could have been, or could be occupied by anyone, including myself. His use of classic form, skills and material connecting to the history of sculpture that heralded the figurative and realistic representation, added another dimension. Not only did the concept gain strength through my admiring attention of its skilful execution, but the power that skill and excellence in execution has in drawing us into itself, was brought to the fore. In another, adjacent gallery, six, large (167 x 670 cms) water colour paintings by T.V Santosh compelled my attention in much the same way, marvelling at the technical expertise of using water colour at such a large scale. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D0M6yh4uh6E/WMrTuscU0VI/AAAAAAAAG1g/vcOaWMcAce8vy2pVHlv7UFamyb1T05NOQCEw/s1600/T.V.Santosh%252C%2528167%2Bx%2B670%2Bcms%2529%2Bwater%2Bcolour.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D0M6yh4uh6E/WMrTuscU0VI/AAAAAAAAG1g/vcOaWMcAce8vy2pVHlv7UFamyb1T05NOQCEw/s640/T.V.Santosh%252C%2528167%2Bx%2B670%2Bcms%2529%2Bwater%2Bcolour.JPG" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">T.V.Santosh,(167 x 670 cms) water colour</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Yesterday too, despite relating to and thoroughly enjoying the deeply philosophical and socio-politically motivated conceptual art works at Aspinwall House, it was the lighter-veined, innovative drawings in a collaborative work with Madhubani artists, at a collateral event at OED gallery on Bazar Street, that had been just as memorable. Skilful in execution, imaginative in content and subject matter, with a lightness of being, were the hallmark of artworks that I found exceptionally attractive – be it embroidery, drawings, water colour or sculpture. The capacity for excellence in execution and presentation couldn't override the notions an artist explored, but somehow, it seems that conviction in the idea is often communicated and made consummate by the level of commitment in its execution, even if not done entirely by the artist him or herself. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Godh - in the lap of nature 2016, detail 2</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The acquiring of a skill and facing challenges encountered in traversing newer conceptual terrain, is also about making a pledge to excel. Even where the artist is not the skilled executor, getting traditional craftsmen to interpret the concept and provide just the right technique and texture requires a tremendous level of commitment. It is perhaps this depth of engagement which can and does grip the imagination of even the uninitiated in art, leading to curiosity and awe and through this to impactful and far reaching dialogues - beyond that of the converted preaching to themselves. I am always moved by art that takes me deeper into myself, that enables an experience beyond the sensual. Yet, the sheer materiality of the embroideries, skilful water colour paintings and marble sculpture were breath-taking, even though the subject matter may have alluded to desolation, loss and trauma.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">T.V.Santosh,(167 x 670 cms) water colour, panel of six</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Indigenous art had found ways to incorporate a gamut of human emotional experience by embracing the disgusted and grotesque with as much power as the lovelorn and romantic. And these rasas became a highly-codified language now intelligible only to scholars and that ilk. In the realm of textiles, emphasis lay in the exquisite exploration of skill in making and embellishing fabric, prompted as much by trade as by a spiritual quest towards discovering greater and greater heights of excellence in human endeavour. The ancients in India, had devised an art practice which eschewed personal glory by extolling the gods or creative forces of the universe that blessed the hands that created in its name. This encountered its own set of complications in the modern world dominated by western ideals of art making compelling a shift in the practices of art making in the subcontinent.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dana Awartani, 'Love is my Law, Love is my Faith', 2016, </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Towards a return to traditional practices, Dana Awartini alluded to such ideals by emphasising the dominance of the art over the artist. However, in an era where personal glory is prized, such ideals are hard to sustain and her art, in keeping with the practices of the contemporary world, was presented with her individual identity. Placing technique at par with concept or of art over the artist, are ideals of the past, and perhaps in reclaiming the past, as Veeraraghavan attempts through the extravagantly embroidered abandoned playground, they become ideals for the future. It is however, reassuring to see that no matter how tentative their steps, the masters of skill are beginning to find their feet in our contemporary world. But, before renouncing identity to extol the forces of the universe that creates through the human form, they must first find their place in a world of contemporary art that has overshadowed humble anonymity to exalt human vanity.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Avinash Veeraraghavan, After The End, 1,</span><br />
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-32158550416115558282017-03-13T21:39:00.000+05:302018-07-05T23:49:35.796+05:30That Thirst........ Day 1, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anjalee looking out at the Pyramid of Exiles</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">On my first day in Kochi, I hadn’t gone to the Biennale venues, choosing instead to take a sunset ride on the Vembanad. I wanted to go alone, in a country boat, without a motor, and somehow my hosts could organise this for me at short notice. I spent a delightful hour watching Peter, a fisherman cum sand transporter, manoeuvre his boat through the backwaters with a bamboo pole called karkol. The setting sun played all kinds of ‘light’ games with his silhouette, as his tall, lithe frame, turned the dark, long, wooden boat this way and that, or just letting it float in the rippling waves. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Peter in his Vanji on the Vembanad, Kochi</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">It was a photographer’s delight and I took almost 300 photos in that hour. Occasional fishermen in smaller boats passed by and Seagulls, Cormorants, Kites, Eagles and Crows flew past or overhead. This, my first day in Kerala was steeped in such wisps and views of the natural world amid the bustle of a successful commercial port that, I couldn’t help but envy the residents of Kochi who were blessed with the facilities of a city and the tranquillity of nature always so close by.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Breakfast in Kochi, overlooking the Vembanad</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /> The next day, I met up with Maggie Baxter who’d flown down from Australia and Anjalee Wakankar who’d adjourned her Ayurvedic medical treatment for the Biennale, and got down to some serious art viewing. The way the exhibition venues are planned, one walks through different parts of Kochi, passing under the tall canopies of the overarching, shady ‘Rain Trees’, through the perfumes of myriad flower oils, masalas and fish aromas, added to which Dutch and Portuguese architectural accents, Chinese fishing nets and naval dock yards, make the viewing experience a uniquely enjoyable one. Everything mingles in the mind, making it a truly sensual experience, much beyond Biennale art. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Under the canopy of Rain Trees</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">As I looked back on the days’ viewing, in my recall, it was the last set of works I saw which came to mind first. At OED Gallery, on Bazar Street in the heart of the spice market of Kochi, were many interesting works that didn't come under the official Biennale banner, but were delightful to view, nonetheless. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;">Biennale Collateral Event curated by Helen
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;"> ‘Common Ground: the serendipitous happenstance project’</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Madhubani artists Pradyumna Kumar and Pushpa Kumari collaborated with Ishan Khosla (Bangalore) and Mandy Ridley (Australia) to create fascinating, floor to ceiling, black and white scrolls on coated fabric panels, that transcended boundaries of culture - unique because of the visual and ideological exchange that created the forms, lines and language of visual communication. There was a distinct sense of the 'Western' style of drawing with an 'Alice in Wonderland' touch, but it was also refreshing to see a new vocabulary of marks and narrative emerging from ethnic artists that are wont to regurgitate ideas that don’t always resonate with the world we live in.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Godh - in the lap of nature 2016,</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In ‘Godh: in the lap of nature’, 2016, the fluidity of Mithila lines and their naive representation of subject were seamlessly interwoven with skilful, realistic drawing techniques. I was intrigued: who drew them? Was the collaboration one where Ridley and Khosla conceived and gave sketches which the duo from Mithila inked, or were the marks a collective endeavour of the four artists. As part of a Biennale Collateral Event curated by Helen Rayment in ‘Common Ground: the serendipitous happenstance project’, this collaboration was based on collective memories of experiences in nature and from landscapes of childhood. And the different drawing styles of each of the artists were synthesised through the digital reproduction process. I wasn’t sure what stories these scrolls told, but the lines and marks tugged at my imagination and like Alice, I was tempted, but didn’t linger long enough to go down the rabbit hole.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Up-C1w65MMk/WMa9VeAKYPI/AAAAAAAAGy8/gK6CNS4dQF84R6Idy-aEyy0sM5PK8UgvwCEw/s1600/Godh%2B-%2Bin%2Bthe%2Blap%2Bof%2Bnature%2B2016%252C%2Bdetail%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Up-C1w65MMk/WMa9VeAKYPI/AAAAAAAAGy8/gK6CNS4dQF84R6Idy-aEyy0sM5PK8UgvwCEw/s400/Godh%2B-%2Bin%2Bthe%2Blap%2Bof%2Bnature%2B2016%252C%2Bdetail%2B3.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Godh - in the lap of nature 2016, detail</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pHWX1NjAwXg/WMa9WcomUsI/AAAAAAAAGzA/O_sQGIWova4EQa09RzshcRizaqSiCT5zgCEw/s1600/Godh%2B-%2Bin%2Bthe%2Blap%2Bof%2Bnature%2B2016%252C%2Bdetail%2B4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pHWX1NjAwXg/WMa9WcomUsI/AAAAAAAAGzA/O_sQGIWova4EQa09RzshcRizaqSiCT5zgCEw/s320/Godh%2B-%2Bin%2Bthe%2Blap%2Bof%2Bnature%2B2016%252C%2Bdetail%2B4.JPG" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Godh - in the lap of nature 2016, detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In a complete shift from these playful drawings, Ales Steger in creating 'The Pyramid of Exiled Poets' at Aspinwall House, nagged at my conscience, compelling me to enter and experience what it feels like to walk in a world where your voice is unintelligible; where strangers, and not your kinsmen who share language and cultural values, hear your words. What does it feel like to be in exile, to have lost your home and not be heard? And if heard at all, to speak in a world darkened by the knowing of your unknowing? </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t7PhZjQi4co/WMa9PysM_dI/AAAAAAAAGyU/xhW17cgbCpgS1pCceYNVK-9GUbqtflukACEw/s1600/Ales%2BSteger%2B%2527The%2BPyramid%2Bof%2BExiled%2BPoets%2527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t7PhZjQi4co/WMa9PysM_dI/AAAAAAAAGyU/xhW17cgbCpgS1pCceYNVK-9GUbqtflukACEw/s640/Ales%2BSteger%2B%2527The%2BPyramid%2Bof%2BExiled%2BPoets%2527.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ales Steger 'The Pyramid of Exiled Poets'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Invited to experience that articulated but unutterable anguish of separation and the pain of not belonging, I entered a life-sized Pyramid - emblematic of life after death, which was covered with cow dung. Walking through a pathway, dimly lit as if from below, I tread carefully through a maze of dark passages within the triangular space created by woven mats that partially obscured the light. As lightness got dim and darkness grew so dark as to engulf me, and whence I could barely see, I felt as though I had somehow been suspended in mid-air. My stride was hesitant and taking small, tentative steps, not knowing where or what to put my foot upon and what I could step upon, the only sense of humanity around me was an aural one. Poems spoken aloud in unfamiliar tongues became my guide. As long as I could hear something I was reassured that I hadn't taken a wrong turn (even though there wasn't scope for it). As the blackness enveloped me, I experienced the suffocating darkness, evocative of those who have been summarily dismissed or cast out of public consciousness - whose ideas have been stifled and exiled. It was a disturbing experience but one that left its mark. If anything marred, it was the nervous giggles of a group of youngsters who walked ahead and behind me. But even so, the darkness and sense of insecurity was consummate enough to taunt me through the day, reminding that we are all exiles, where the human experience itself is one of banishment from the kingdom of heaven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In another gallery, inside Aspinwall, on the first floor. There was an installation with numerous brown ceiling fans accompanied by the occasional, sharp, rasping bark of an unseen dog. Placed just above the stairs on the landing of the first floor, this installation by Lantian Xie who lives and works in Dubai: ‘Ceiling fans, stray dog barking, Burj Ali’, became a passage beyond that of a space connecting floors and rooms. The strange, sharp rasping bark of the dog was to echo through the gallery spaces within and without and even if I wanted to forget, I could not. Like the restive and traumatised spirit of a soul that hasn’t found peace, this dog and the memory of those fans haunted me as I made my way through the other exhibits. Was this ghostly bark the voice of another exile?</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gLYaISh-fjw/WMa9QwXDmMI/AAAAAAAAGz0/TPFBpHCSQ8gPD_6rGCVEbtxDCcQI2my4QCEw/s1600/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gLYaISh-fjw/WMa9QwXDmMI/AAAAAAAAGz0/TPFBpHCSQ8gPD_6rGCVEbtxDCcQI2my4QCEw/s640/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dai Xiang - 'The New along the river During the Qingming Festival', 2014, detail 1</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Moving into the adjoining gallery, we found that by contrast there wasn’t even one ceiling fan in this room. The afternoon was balmy and humidity was high after heavy rainfall the night before. We were hot, uncomfortable and peeved enough to ask why there was just one pedestal fan in the corner of this long room, to be informed it was so as not to disturb the paper scrolls on display. And somehow, we accepted this explanation without demur because by this time, the sheer scale of the scrolls and intense detailing had engaged us totally. Much discussion ensued between Maggie, Anjalee and myself as to how it had been done and naturally none had the answers. The horizontally positioned 115 x 2500 cms long scroll by Dai Xiang - 'The New along the river During the Qingming Festival', 2014, juxtaposed traditional modes of transport, dress, customs and architecture with the contemporary, and presented an engaging dialogue between layers of culture that interact to form and transform into present-day society. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6U3elxm_Rs/WMa9Q2eTItI/AAAAAAAAGz0/DteidMCeLuwyFMEB1hTR_cMtzo28vNN6wCEw/s1600/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6U3elxm_Rs/WMa9Q2eTItI/AAAAAAAAGz0/DteidMCeLuwyFMEB1hTR_cMtzo28vNN6wCEw/s640/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dai Xiang - 'The New along the river During the Qingming Festival', 2014, detail 2</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Inspired by Zang Zeduan (12th century, Song Dynasty) this panoramic, 25-metre-long photographic scene, which had been digitally ‘sewn’, highlighted the socio-cultural conflict from 1970/80's and the opening up of Chinese society, between imported Western ideas and local Chinese traditions. Re-imagining the Qingming Festival, artist Dai Xiang transformed a monumental social-cultural shift through subtle satire that was gripping not just in its Chinese context, but one which provoked much thought regarding India's own cultural confusion and the layers of history which, though assimilated, are still distinguishable as separate from local traditions. And Fort Kochi - it's Portuguese, Dutch, Syrian Christian and British accents in architecture and cuisine juxtaposed with the distinctive indigenous culture of Kerala, created an evident parallel to mull upon. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OT13w3xHrfo/WMa9RRRwfNI/AAAAAAAAGz0/LDAEGFr8Xmg2fkS_5I6_MdYdH0aRZ40BwCEw/s1600/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OT13w3xHrfo/WMa9RRRwfNI/AAAAAAAAGz0/LDAEGFr8Xmg2fkS_5I6_MdYdH0aRZ40BwCEw/s640/Dai%2BXiang%2B-%2B%2527The%2BNew%2Balong%2Bthe%2Briver%2BDuring%2Bthe%2BQingming%2BFestival%2527%252C%2B2014%252C%2Bdetail%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dai Xiang - 'The New along the river During the Qingming Festival', 2014, detail 3</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Pondering upon the amalgam of intertwining cultural influences, I reflect back to the exhibits at the OED galleries in the Spice market area, particularly Maggie Baxter's (Australia) collaboration with Kirit Dave (Kutch). ‘The Poetics of Nothing’ 1,2 and 3, were three scrolls on hand-woven fabric, block-printed and embroidered, with marks composed formally within an ellipse with the same ‘block’ overprinted in varying intensities. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ks8PnHm7yg/WMa9bNNHCjI/AAAAAAAAGz0/vw5S_IkNxCELUbDe4OAiv0a6Wg8VNTtWgCEw/s1600/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ks8PnHm7yg/WMa9bNNHCjI/AAAAAAAAGz0/vw5S_IkNxCELUbDe4OAiv0a6Wg8VNTtWgCEw/s640/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B2.jpg" width="368" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie Baxter and Kirit Dave, 'The Poetics of Nothing</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Large, tactile, textile scrolls with printed, hand-written text in English became the backdrop for hand-sewn threads to be inserted and hung from this base material. This technique created an illusion - as if the warp and weft of construction had unravelled to now hang from the fabric. It appeared as if the boundary of language had transcended, moving out of the egg-like elliptical form, which dominated the background, evoking a resonance with the essential womb of creation and its energies that create any form desired, encompassing all and nothing in the same breath.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FpVJe-ME4gw/WMa9Y51VvlI/AAAAAAAAGz0/ViVZJGY8nF8wXxqijGdBhUFNeViuI8QWgCEw/s1600/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B1%252C%2Bdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FpVJe-ME4gw/WMa9Y51VvlI/AAAAAAAAGz0/ViVZJGY8nF8wXxqijGdBhUFNeViuI8QWgCEw/s640/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B1%252C%2Bdetail.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie Baxter and Kirit Dave, 'The Poetics of Nothing, detail 1</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> In keeping with Maggie’s preoccupation with scribbles, scrawls and alphabets, the printed works and marks continued her trade-mark free-flowing gestures enhanced by the ubiquitous running stitch and contrasted by Ahir embroidery diamonds done by numerous artisans, all of whom have been named in the catalogue. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ft1cE581b2k/WMa9adBcGBI/AAAAAAAAGz0/RrMoEQrxDH4DEhjaV1IE_iogliPVTtEJgCEw/s1600/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B3%252C%2Bdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ft1cE581b2k/WMa9adBcGBI/AAAAAAAAGz0/RrMoEQrxDH4DEhjaV1IE_iogliPVTtEJgCEw/s640/The%2BPoetics%2Bof%2BNothing%252C%2B3%252C%2Bdetail.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie Baxter and Kirit Dave, 'The Poetics of Nothing, detail 2</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In another exhibition, also at OED, Krupa Makhija's use of computer keyboard keys to create a map of lost language followed in a similar vein – how languages as marks of culture, are lost or recreated. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WmY7xAYIVsY/WMa9WVprw4I/AAAAAAAAGz0/JqZkzd3Tct4uEKpyT2rlTpxFxDP3UiSfwCEw/s1600/Krupa%2BMakhija%252C%2BMap%2Bof%2BLost%2BLanguage%252C%2BII%252C%2B60%2Bx%2B70%2Bx%2B2.5%2Bin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="343" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WmY7xAYIVsY/WMa9WVprw4I/AAAAAAAAGz0/JqZkzd3Tct4uEKpyT2rlTpxFxDP3UiSfwCEw/s400/Krupa%2BMakhija%252C%2BMap%2Bof%2BLost%2BLanguage%252C%2BII%252C%2B60%2Bx%2B70%2Bx%2B2.5%2Bin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Krupa Makhija, Map of Lost Languages</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In another work by Siji Krishnan from Kerala, soft colours evoked the time-worn textures carried as memories through photographs and souvenirs collected and often forgotten. In creating the layers of memory, especially childhood memories through small, life-sized wallets using papier-mâché and mixed media the works were so softly hued as to remind one of the many washes they have gone through – the washes of time which form the ritual of creating memories, more imagined than real.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pxXYDLrQBGk/WMa9X4Y-h_I/AAAAAAAAGz0/iPGf4jHvO0o8-2iJTc0izgH6lavSHmUiACEw/s1600/Siji%2BKrishnan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pxXYDLrQBGk/WMa9X4Y-h_I/AAAAAAAAGz0/iPGf4jHvO0o8-2iJTc0izgH6lavSHmUiACEw/s400/Siji%2BKrishnan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Siji Krishnan</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Siji Krishnan</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Hours of viewing art can take their toll and the mind shuts down, but ‘Art’ also has the capacity to invigorate in precisely such moments. Mikhail Karikis, in ‘Ain't Got No Fear’, 2016, (Aspinwall) a single channel video with surround sound, used the noises of demolition in a recurring beat as young boys ‘rap’ about their lives. It was a compelling video with a mix of cultural references which I could hear but could not discern. But, from the rubble of the site being demolished and the dialogic beat from a complex and sometimes ‘hellish’ language of the past, you heard distinctly defiant voices of the young boys who had made this site their playground that they “Aint Got No Fear”. The juxtaposition of history and cultural voices, echoed the essence of changing values and ideas posed by most of the artists whose work we had seen today. But, it was the recurring beat and an insistently repeated chorus, amid shrill noises of the landscape that, hammered in the weighty question of how much could the human mind really eschew fear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">In another audio-visual presentation, Voldemars Johansons had created a documentation of the stormy North Atlantic Ocean, inviting us to enter a landscape of troubled waters. A large cinematic screen, with massive crashing waves and swirling waters, viewed in a gallery space could not have quite the same intensity of experience as being in the middle of the ocean to hear the roar and feel the turbulence of the waters, and the wind howling and beating around you. But I found myself watching, ‘Thirst’, 2015, (Aspinwall) intently, observing the roaring waves swell and break, to try and fathom what the artist was wanting to show me. Everything else that I had seen till then was momentarily relegated to the back of my mind. And despite the troubled waters before me, I felt a sense of quiet within my being to experience through this 'thirst’ for observation, the vital key towards understanding the ever-dynamic phenomenon of life, of going from without, within. Where briefly we are no longer in exile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Through the day, I found myself surrounded by varied Art expressions and media, new vistas, water bodies, ships and ferries, spice markets and delicious food that beckoned, and realised how difficult it was to engage with it all.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Maggie at Brunton's Boatyard, Fort Kochi</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">We had started our viewing late in the day after an exotically flavoured lunch of Syrian Christian flavours steamed in banana leaf. Our first day therefore, was limited in its art-intake, and with periodic breaks for cardamom flavoured nimbu paani and impromptu shopping for spices, though slowing us down, also gave us scope to sit back and let the mind wander in other directions, to let art we did see, sink in effortlessly. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Spice Market</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Yet, the Art that we did see, left their scars, created parallel dialogues in my mind and invoked the spirit of intercultural influences, through trade, colonization or displacement - absorbed and amalgamated into the ever-dynamic traditions that we inherit and pass on. But above all, this first day of my viewing of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2017, created a thirst in me. That perennial thirst to know and understand the human experience, articulated through the visions and voices of artists from across the world: was it truly a universal one, and how much did the external world and its unique contours matter, in the ultimate analysis of things.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-45730292280285668142016-08-31T14:02:00.002+05:302019-03-07T21:54:05.858+05:30Building Bridges - Exhibition Review - Ceramics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gnF3AmN91hc/V8aPSjzvlQI/AAAAAAAAGiM/aPSCiEDxDtcnF6jdsw6Kcd4eL3obiFx2gCLcB/s1600/Neha%2BKudchadkar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gnF3AmN91hc/V8aPSjzvlQI/AAAAAAAAGiM/aPSCiEDxDtcnF6jdsw6Kcd4eL3obiFx2gCLcB/s640/Neha%2BKudchadkar.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Neha Kudchadkar</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">‘Bridges’ was an exhibition of ceramics held at Stainless
Gallery, New Delhi. This exhibition showcased the work of fifty studio potters
who have trained with Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker at The Golden Bridges
Pottery studio in Pondicherry. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Reyaz Badruddin</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Playful porcelain and pen doodles by Neha Kudchadkar
reminiscent of containers defied the weightiness of them. Reyaz Badaruddin had
flattened the cup. A hollow container, usually thrown on the wheel had been
painted on flat clay tiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Veena
Chandran used a large, traditional earthen pot-form. But she flattened it out
as if breaking the clay pot, and then smeared the moist clay with her hands in
a gesture that sought to explore the potential of clay, beyond traditionally prescribed
norms. Shayonti Salve’s thrown but altered forms were a reflection of the
duality she experiences where, as she said: “my head is often tormented by the
times we live in, while my heart tried to comfort it”</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Veena Chandran</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Shayonti Salve</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Pottery is one of the oldest art forms in India. Known as<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Prajapati</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kumbhar</i>, the potter played a significant role in ancient society.
However, potters no longer command the same reverence that was once accorded to
them, nor do contemporary potters continue the tradition of making pots for
daily use. “Today our students are about as interested in making functional
stoneware as the sons of Indian village potters are interested in continuing in
their fathers’ footsteps”, say Smith and Meeker. This quantum shift from the
traditional, ‘form follows function’ approach, towards the more ornamental and
conceptual approach in contemporary ceramics, where ‘ideas’ supersede ‘function’,
makes an interesting comment on the social and cultural values of our time. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ray Meeker</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Golden Bridges, now a preeminent centre for ceramics, was set
up in the mid 1970’s by Deborah Smith with her friend Ray Meeker, at the
invitation of ‘The Mother’ spiritual head of the Aurobindo Ashram in
Pondicherry. Cited as an exhibition of ceramics rooted in the Golden Bridges
tradition and a tribute to the influence of Meeker and Smith one expected to
find a thread that knitted together the work on display. To the contrary, the
diversity of scale and style belied the fact that each of the fifty potters had
been trained by the same two ceramic artists and more particularly, were
trained using a specialized wood-firing technique.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the fifty potters participating, were Anjani
Khanna, <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Michel Hutin, </span>Aditi Saraogi, Manisha
Bhattacharya, Adil Writer,<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> Kristine Michael,
Nehal Rachh, P. Daroz, Vineet Kacker and Sylvia Kerkar. Although</span><span style="color: #141823; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"> primarily
trained in making wood-fired studio-pottery, working in an urban context many
of them have </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #141823; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">explored gas and electric firings to evolve a differing aesthetic.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">P.Daroz, From the 'Sea Bed' Series</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Michel Hutin, a Frenchman who has lived and worked in
Auroville for over twenty-five years, joins soft, undulating slabs of clay such
that the interacting lines create rhythm, melody and counterpoint. P. Daroz has
a passion for seascapes. Drawing upon memories of trips to various coasts and
cliffs, his ceramic pieces from the ‘Sea Bed’ series are abstract in their
presentation. For Nehal Rach an advertising graduate, who found her calling
working in clay, pottery is not just something she does, but says that
clay-work defines her. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reyaz Badaruddin responds
to urban spaces by evoking the disappearing fields of the agrarian landscape he
grew up in. Each of these potters has moved beyond making a conventional vessel,
to present abstract ideas where it is no longer about pots per se, but clay as
art.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Neha Kudchadkar</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">The local potter and ceramic artist co-exist, but the local
potter is not an artist in the contemporary sense of the word. He is
technically skilled but doesn’t employ self-expression which is the basis of
much art today. Ironically, this facet once deemed “pitiable rather than
heroic” in ancient India, as cited by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, is what is being
keenly explored by contemporary ceramic artists. Pottery is essentially a
skill-centric craft where the kind of clay used, kiln and techniques of firing,
as well as glazes, play a significant role in the eventual product and how it
looks. The firing process can be as intense as eighteen to seventy-five hours,
with potters keeping vigil and maintaining logbooks. All of which is rarely
mentioned in relation to exhibitions of clay work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In positioning ceramics within the context of
contemporary art, the technical process employed is seemingly superseded by the
concepts explored.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the medium has
evolved to transcend its functional origins, is a tribute to the creative minds
that work with clay, as much as it is a yearning to bring attention and value
to hands that have moulded<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>earth into
vessel for centuries. However, the expression of self in the works on display,
did not articulate an exploration authentic enough, to speak the language of
contemporary art. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Manisha Bhattacharya</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">[This exhibition was held in September 2014]</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-80403123653552320532016-02-08T13:08:00.000+05:302016-08-31T13:14:45.669+05:30In the Presence of Absence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Absesce13. Fabriano Paper 300 GSM. 2ft x 9ft. 2015</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">‘Absence’, an exhibition of paper
works by Pune based artist Sachin Tekade was held at Gallery Art Motif, New
Delhi, 31<sup>st</sup> October to 1<sup>st</sup> November 2015. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four storeys above, narrow, car-filled streets,
one entered a serene space - a contrast to the visually crowded and cacophonic
journey there. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Absesce14. Fabriano paper 300GSM. 2ft x 9ft. 2015 </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Finely cut strips of white
Fabriano paper, like cloth, rose and fell. The carefully orchestrated folds,
like the wave of an ocean caught in flow, or young peaks rising from a land yet
flat, masked and filtered the light, in a play of shadows. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Absence 13 and 14 [9 ‘x 2’ each,
2015], were displayed one above the other, occupying an entire wall space. To
behold these large white frames encasing delicate, quasi-sculptural lines of
white paper was pure perfection. Minimal, despite the scale, the works on
display were larger and more complex in execution, but visually simpler and
ascetic, than his earlier expositions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tekade
is not interested in self-expression but explores himself through a process
that involves skilful dexterity. His art-making is not spontaneous. The artist
first makes a maquette and then begins work on the larger piece.</span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;">Tekade cuts each, even-sized and
even-spaced line and then folds each line of the finely cut paper to create a
desired effect. It appears as if the work is crafted from a singular sheet. But,
it is the dexterity with which he carves, folds and joins additional strips of
paper to complete the rectangular base, which is the challenge; enhancing the
purity of his exploration in white.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-58154544135395419392015-07-08T12:28:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:56:55.505+05:30Accidental Perfection - Mrinalini Mukherjee [Conversation/ Review - Nature Morte]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Y82af-dBos/VZzGA858wiI/AAAAAAAAEh8/Kc4PtVJcjb8/s1600/Mrinalini%2BMukherjee%252C%2B2013%252C%2BPalm%2BScape-V%252C%2BBronze%252C%2B49%2Bx%2B69%2Bx%2B30%2Bin%2B%2528Detail%2B1%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Y82af-dBos/VZzGA858wiI/AAAAAAAAEh8/Kc4PtVJcjb8/s320/Mrinalini%2BMukherjee%252C%2B2013%252C%2BPalm%2BScape-V%252C%2BBronze%252C%2B49%2Bx%2B69%2Bx%2B30%2Bin%2B%2528Detail%2B1%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Palm Scapes, an exhibition of Bronze sculptures by veteran artist Mrinalini Mukherjee at Nature Morte, New Delhi [October 29th – November 23rd 2013] compelled me initiate a conversation with the artist. Appendages of a Palm tree crafted so precisely, where every line of its delicate ridges appeared as though liquid bronze had been poured over a live specimen, aroused my curiosity. How was this perfection achieved?<br /><br />Surrendering the knowing of the intellect in deference to the inner voice, which paves the path for perfection, is ancient wisdom. Often referred to as happenstance, it is not coincidence, but humility allowing perfection to manifest. But, rarely do artists say it just happened, in quite the way Mukherjee concedes. <br /><br />The exhibition comprised a handful of bronzes from the Palm series and two works - ‘Bouquet’ I and II, from an earlier body of work. Palm Scape-V [49 x 39 x 30 inches, 2013] was a majestically crafted limb of the Palm, reclining as if on its spine. Its knee-like flexibility allowed it to bend and rest its ‘foot’ on a pedestal, appearing almost human. Placed in the centre of the basement gallery, the expansive space around it, created an aura of authority. In part, it evoked the ‘Machli Palm’ morphing into something that had little or no resemblance to the Palm species at all, but seemed akin to “fossilized trophies dug from a prehistoric swamp or the robotic armour of an alien orchid creature.” </span></div>
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<br /><br />The ‘head’ of ‘Palm Scape-V’ opened up gladiola-like in full bloom. It’s sensuous, but rigid petal formations stretching themselves, reaching for the skies. The lower section grew into an amply fleshed, leaf-like calyx through which shoots emerged and kissed the table in a quasi reverential way. The leaf-calyx became the focus of attention not just for its placement at the centre of the limb but, because the extremely fine texture, where each fine line was delicately etched to utter perfection, commanded the eye’s focus. I asked Mukherjee how she achieved such replication of this texture. She replied saying this was not intentional: it could have been cast in plaster from an original specimen of the Palm and then in bronze, adding that when she is working, the forms being carved in wax take on the texture of the surface she is working upon and could not recollect exactly what surface created this.<br /><br />Mrinalini Mukherjee is well-known for her elaborate, knotted and</span><br /></div>
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plaited fibre sculptures. She has also experimented with ceramics, moving onto working with bronze. She carries forward the tradition of working with the hand, which both textiles and ceramics necessitate, and moulds the wax sculpture, before casting it in bronze, entirely with her bare fingers. If any tools are involved, they are only used to remove plaster stuck in ridges and hollow spaces of the finished piece. Here, she uses dentistry tools to extricate the residue. Working with the hand is important to this artist who needs direct contact with her material. Where, through the conversation between the epidermal layers of her fingers and the soft skin of wax she ‘feels’ the form and its texture into being. </span><br /></div>
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<br />The transition from fibre to bronze was not seamless but one that generated a great deal of experimentation and capacity to explore different media. Knotting for hours at a stretch, of fingers intertwining with jute to create large, anthropomorphic vegetal forms was laborious and time consuming. A chance opportunity in 1996, found Mukherjee responding well to the immediacy of handling clay, creating large pieces. But she began working with wax to make smaller, less time-consuming work - necessitated by a personal situation, which eventually led to casting in bronze through the lost wax process. </span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br />In ‘Palm Scapes’, which marked a decade of working with bronze, the work of hands that have felt and touched fibre in a very intimate way was evident - as if thread had been cast in bronze. I wanted to discuss her experience from Fibre to Bronze. She was reluctant but a brief conversation ensued which was inspiring. Not because she revealed some elaborate secrets, but, for the very simplicity with which she spoke. Of how she had let chance lead her from one thing to the next, undeterred by technical limitations. Allowing this to re-define the way the medium she was experimenting with was going to be used. Mukherjee disclosed that ceramic artist Ray Meeker began his larger-than-life pieces after she had taken the scale of clay onto another dimension. </span></div>
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<br />Palm Scape-I [20.5 x 62 x 48 inches, 2013] recalls a Palm in flower, however the ‘flowers’ appear hostile and the leafy calyx is menacingly serpent-like. On the opposite end of the flowering tip was a stem extended about three feet in length, with a droopy head-like form at the far end which had a distinct similarity with the male sexual appendage. Despite the traditionally female association of a plant in flower, the form itself carried rather masculine attributes and like most of the sculptures on view appeared androgynous. The voluptuous folds and orifices of Palm Scape-VII [33 x 36 x 13 inches, 2013] could be interpreted as a feminine form, but there was harshness reflected through the use of metal and the grotesque and formidable aspect of the sculptural form. The intensified detailing evocative of a piercing gaze created an otherworldly aura, further fleshing out the masculine. The effect was ambiguous because for Mukherjee, plants have their own sexuality. <br /><br />Studying these bronzed plant limbs, I was intensely aware of a<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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persona that was near-human. Rigid and unmoving – stilled in time, sometimes evoking the vagina, sometimes a penile form and sometimes nothing more than a bouquet of textures, bringing forth myriad ideas underlying which was a sense of reverence. The sculptures created a sense of awe but, Mukherjee does not speak of either her practice or her observation of palm trees encountered on her drives across the country, with the same devotion they invoke in the viewer. On the contrary, she is very matter-of-fact with words. The interplay of the sensual or erotic and meditative that manifests in the sculptures through attention to detail and intensity of gaze – making a connection that evokes divinity or puja as it were, is not part of her conscious practice either.<br /><br />Mukherjee records her observations and translates them into her sculptures by neither drawings nor photographs. But driving around Kerala, Goa and other places, she just looked. Different palm forms found their way into each sculpture and it’s hard to say where one began and the other ended or when it took on a character that went beyond that of the palm, or that of any plant-form itself. </span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mwWK-xIxq1E/VZzGB2fpM0I/AAAAAAAAEiU/dlvVQH7HV00/s1600/Mrinalini%2BMukherjee%252C%2B2013%252C%2BPalm%2BScape-V%252C%2BBronze%252C%2B49%2Bx%2B69%2Bx%2B30%2Bin%2B%2528Detail%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mwWK-xIxq1E/VZzGB2fpM0I/AAAAAAAAEiU/dlvVQH7HV00/s320/Mrinalini%2BMukherjee%252C%2B2013%252C%2BPalm%2BScape-V%252C%2BBronze%252C%2B49%2Bx%2B69%2Bx%2B30%2Bin%2B%2528Detail%2529.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Mukherjee doesn’t define the forms she doesn’t deify them either, but the works exhibited evoked an unseen presence. Some of the creative process is controlled but mostly not. Because she likes to look back at her work with a sense of awe, which is probably why her bronze sculptures bring forth a similar response in the viewer too.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-8072470322048227892013-11-29T19:50:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:56:07.137+05:30Small Wonder -Rahul Kumar [ Review]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Astronomically
Small</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">
was an apt title for Rahul Kumar’s exhibition of miniature pot sculptures at
Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi, from the 2<sup>nd</sup> of March to the 3<sup>rd</sup>
of April. These minuscule works made us wonder if a pot could be more than just
a pot.. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPl1_zvML0k/U9O6ipqCoGI/AAAAAAAADIQ/04nPjZvpUuo/s1600/image+A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPl1_zvML0k/U9O6ipqCoGI/AAAAAAAADIQ/04nPjZvpUuo/s1600/image+A3.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Near the
entrance of the gallery, three very small cadmium-red glazed pots placed in an
unglazed terracotta niche appeared like votive offerings. Many such miniature works
filled the gallery – placed on walls or on raised, uneven ceramic pedestals.
Collectively, they evoked the poetry of Omar Khayyam. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of the works
featured an indigo vase, just over an inch high, on the edge of a scroll-like strip
of white textured porcelain marked with occasional black swirls. In a similar
vein, a small white teapot, merely two inches high, stood on the edge of a flat
patch of terracotta with a wave-like form at its far end. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WazHyPm-HGs/U9O6DmqtBeI/AAAAAAAADIA/yGWs4wzeMGA/s1600/image+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WazHyPm-HGs/U9O6DmqtBeI/AAAAAAAADIA/yGWs4wzeMGA/s1600/image+1.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To make his
delicate pots, Kumar’s doesn’t throw clay on a wheel but moulds each sculpture by
hand. The scale of the works commands close examination and inspires
contemplation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In the show, Kumar
also displayed sets of larger tiles mounted on grid frames. These works seemed
to have no relationship with the ‘Astronomically Small’ theme. This slight
confusion detracted from the power and beauty of the exquisitely small pots. </span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-53536382701080566362013-10-31T19:31:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:54:49.211+05:30Canvas of Thread - Monika Correa [Review]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mllz-EgMAZk/U9O1lWw7RnI/AAAAAAAADHM/vZAFsIsiRXk/s1600/IMG_0987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mllz-EgMAZk/U9O1lWw7RnI/AAAAAAAADHM/vZAFsIsiRXk/s1600/IMG_0987.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was first introduced to the tapestries by Monika Correa
through the pages of ‘The India Magazine’ in the early 1980’s. Then, a student
of woven textiles, I was awed by her audacity and ingenuity in removing the
reed of the warped threads to weave those fluid yet structured, unforgettable
images of the Banyan Tree. This technique, of removing the reed while weaving the
fabric, has become Correa’s signature style. In the present body of work,
‘Meandering Warp’, exhibited at Gallery Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai, the
visual qualities of the woven pieces have moved away from representing any
sense of the figurative towards a more abstract and philosophical exploration.
The large woven pieces present a tactile sensuality that is evocative of a
deep, intense questioning of something that seems to have no answer, because, a
similar question persists throughout the works. Correa’s woven explorations
meander but do not necessarily deviate from the essence of her intellectual
preoccupation. The thread canvas is ascetic, yet sensual, evocative of the universal,
yet intensely personal</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x8sF2pHGY9g/U9O12AJ61DI/AAAAAAAADHY/7F0YZaXi5cg/s1600/IMG_1051.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x8sF2pHGY9g/U9O12AJ61DI/AAAAAAAADHY/7F0YZaXi5cg/s1600/IMG_1051.jpg" width="267" /></a>‘Jamshedpur’ [40 x 53 inch], is woven with red-dyed cotton
threads in the weft and an unbleached off-white cotton warp. This contrast both
highlights the redness of the maroon and softens its bloody overtones. The warp
begins, at the bottom, with a division into three, almost equal parts, where in
the central portion the reed has been removed lending fluidity to the threads,
while the outer ends of the warp threads, are fitted within the confines of a
reed for a more structured weave. The basic construction is an open twill weave
where the weft colour dominates. The artist has envisioned the work such that
even though the magic of its construction lies in the way the warp threads are
manipulated, the coloured weft provides the contrast in hue and texture to
highlight the dancing movement of the warp threads. A quasi-Rothko-like
sectional is drawn as the eye moves slowly from bottom to top, following the
weft, but along the lines of the warp. Akin to a vertical river flowing
upstream, the wavy threads culminate in a square of vertical waves -
effortlessly contained. For, as the weaving progresses, they respond meekly to
the discipline of the reed. As if a restless mind having expressed itself has been
appeased. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GptSspq84nY/U9O1k_8x-9I/AAAAAAAADHI/dF4oMpQxIwY/s1600/IMG_1004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GptSspq84nY/U9O1k_8x-9I/AAAAAAAADHI/dF4oMpQxIwY/s1600/IMG_1004.jpg" width="113" /></a> Each tapestry seems to be a continuum of such inner explorations.
The trajectory is subtle. ‘Foggy Day’ [40 x 70 inches] begins with the dark
colours that underlie the dinginess of a day where the light is blocked by a
cloudy sky. Gradually, as the weaver shuttles the weft in and out, light seems
to penetrate the realms of a mind fogged out. A Black weft leads to a deep blue
and then it gets lighter still until the unbleached cotton warp and weft seem
to meet in a confluence of enlightened minds. There is an apparent resolution
to this foggy day. However, Correa’s more successful works are those where the
resolution is not quite so obvious and the warp distortions create deceptive
illusions.</div>
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</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NnSSykLZVAo/U9O1z1xu73I/AAAAAAAADHU/QZaSO3INH-o/s1600/IMG_1028-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NnSSykLZVAo/U9O1z1xu73I/AAAAAAAADHU/QZaSO3INH-o/s1600/IMG_1028-2.jpg" width="181" /></a>The optical illusion created in ‘The Sound of Silence’ [28 x
62 inches] is skilfully constructed. Woven with black cotton warp threads and a
contrasting, unbleached cotton weft, the chatter of the unspoken voices seem to
get louder and louder. This is denoted by a singular, precisely woven, steep
chevron rising upwards, dissipating into a medley of confused lines. The
chevron is still there, but the clarity of its form has dissipated. And yet
only so much, for it cannot escape the essential pattern determined by way the
warp has been threaded, a construction that is precisely articulated, with the
help of the reed, at the commencement of the tapestry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This piece ends with a black warp and weft woven
together which obscures the detail of the fabric construction. And darkness descends,
as it must when we give into the insecure chattering of the mind. The
monochromatic colour-scheme and deceptively simple woven construct draw the
viewer into their own mindscapes, looking for something familiar, finding it
and then losing it, but without getting lost. There is clarity despite the
conundrum.</div>
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The tapestries by Correa are highly evocative of the machinations
of a contemporary urban mind. There is discipline, but restlessness too. There
is structure, but yearning for freedom and fluidity - to just be. Sometimes
there is resolve and often resolution too, but many times darkness descends
before lightness dawns. The weaving is skilful. The ideas are subtle and not equivocal.
Correa’s threads are open to interpretation. Each viewer must find themselves in
these thread-ruminations as we do in the fluid, reflective surface of a deep
pond. </div>
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I found the monochromatic pieces most appealing and the
black and white ones most appropriate for the ascetic meanderings of a subtle
and refined mind. The exhibition could have been more concisely edited.
‘Tree-One’, ‘Homage to Kepes’, ‘Purple Rose of Cairo’ and ‘Bethlehem’ brought
much coarser elements into play. These detracted from the subtlety of the major
body of work and I felt that had such works not been included, the song of
Correa’s threads would have touched an unforgettable chord.</div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-63778992261585309112013-04-11T22:17:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:57:54.754+05:30A Misplaced Universe [ Review - Jayashree Burman, Gallery Art Alive]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GnD48UYvzOs/UWbn5N7jPrI/AAAAAAAABvE/VyyvvIR5geU/s1600/Jayashree+Burman,+Teen+Konya,+2009;+watercolour,+pen+and+ink+on+board,+20x20+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GnD48UYvzOs/UWbn5N7jPrI/AAAAAAAABvE/VyyvvIR5geU/s1600/Jayashree+Burman,+Teen+Konya,+2009;+watercolour,+pen+and+ink+on+board,+20x20+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GnD48UYvzOs/UWbn5N7jPrI/AAAAAAAABvE/VyyvvIR5geU/s320/Jayashree+Burman,+Teen+Konya,+2009;+watercolour,+pen+and+ink+on+board,+20x20+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" width="320" /></a>Vibrant colours, exotic detail
and a folk-art-like frontal faces whose large white flattened eyes looked
directly at me, was how I encountered Jayashree Burman’s mythical universe at
Lalit Kala Academy, presented by Art Alive Gallery. I decided to view the
exhibition from top to bottom and was able to see her earlier work first, which
allowed me to reflect on the extent to which Jayshree has explored the more
western oriented ideas of modern art, towards a manifestation of her Bengali
antecedents; searching for an idiom which will nuance her own peculiar identity
within this. Ina Puri’s essay reveals that given the background she came from, Jayshree
has led a rather unconventional life and in her own way is quietly spirited
rather than meekly accepting the traditional ideals her family’s culture espoused.
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Women in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
metropolises may consider themselves emancipated for their assertion in
breaking the glass ceiling in the corporate world, but is the Indian woman really
freed from the rituals and tradition that are deeply etched in our psyche? Does
she even want to be, is the question Jayshree’s water colours present. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GDwNK9-mhNk/UWboHU-lwPI/AAAAAAAABvQ/gJhI7Q7f9DA/s1600/Jayashree+Burman%252C+2009%253B+Bonolota%252C+watercolour%252C+%255Bpen+and+ink+on+board+24x24+inches%255Blowres%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GDwNK9-mhNk/UWboHU-lwPI/AAAAAAAABvQ/gJhI7Q7f9DA/s1600/Jayashree+Burman%252C+2009%253B+Bonolota%252C+watercolour%252C+%255Bpen+and+ink+on+board+24x24+inches%255Blowres%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GDwNK9-mhNk/UWboHU-lwPI/AAAAAAAABvQ/gJhI7Q7f9DA/s320/Jayashree+Burman%252C+2009%253B+Bonolota%252C+watercolour%252C+%255Bpen+and+ink+on+board+24x24+inches%255Blowres%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a>She draws in situ while
travelling; never takes photographs, confessing that she does not know how to.
In her studio she then translates the people she has seen around her and drawn.
They are people like you and me, her maid, the dhobi and panwalla or anyone
else she encounters who become integral to her mythical universe, where she
presents her everyday world, seen though the perspective of senses moulded
through traditional lore and its iconography. I found this interesting for even
if externally we have adopted the sensibilities of a western world through their
steel and glass high rises, malls and a culture that is reminiscent of an industrial
and a digital civilization, we have lived with these inherited God and Goddesses
far longer than the brutal icons of our modern world -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a reminder that those centuries of ritual are
not that easy to erase.<br />
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However, the physical indicators
of the contemporary world are missing. We do not see anything that immediately
locates the work in this present era. If you look deeper you will see the
relative freedom with which Burman interprets the Gods and Goddesses because
she does not start out to paint one. The starting point could well have been a
sister-in-law or a friend, but while working, the form becomes infused with notions
that emerge from deep within her reservoir of memory and habit, evoking ideas
reminiscent of idols and images that she grew up with. These are then presented
through a visual language and technique that she has evolved and is comforted
by. The loosely painted background is worked intricately, but again loosely
with pen and ink and does not speak of the discipline or power and accomplishments
of the inherited gods and goddesses that she represents. Here Jayashree is
perhaps questioning this world versus ours where we pray to them as stone idols
as opposed to respecting each other as manifestations of this spirit.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sySqlaafnYk/UWbogNJg38I/AAAAAAAABvU/r2fFfsYuh1U/s1600/Jayashree+Burman,+Shringar,+2004;+watercolour,+pend+and+ink+on+board,+16x14+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sySqlaafnYk/UWbogNJg38I/AAAAAAAABvU/r2fFfsYuh1U/s1600/Jayashree+Burman,+Shringar,+2004;+watercolour,+pend+and+ink+on+board,+16x14+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sySqlaafnYk/UWbogNJg38I/AAAAAAAABvU/r2fFfsYuh1U/s320/Jayashree+Burman,+Shringar,+2004;+watercolour,+pend+and+ink+on+board,+16x14+inches%5Blow+res%5D.jpg" width="281" /></a>To visually locate Burman’s heavily
decorated watercolours in an art milieu that is preoccupied with a material
world, concept art, installations and digital media is virtually impossible. But
scratch the surface and there are subtle resonances of this in the way she<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>works. The randomly painted watercolour base and
restless scratching of the ‘Rotring’ pen on the painted surface are indicative
of the influence of a frenzy that has gripped us all. This leads to a
perception that her art is an escape into a mythical universe where she does
not have to acknowledge this, but can inhabit the world of memories, healing
old wounds and reconciling with the enormous changes that have been forced upon
us in a bid to compete with a world that does not have cognizance of this
deeper spiritual connect.</div>
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The problem that I have with this
imagery is that it is really not exploring the outer world enough and therefore
is distanced from its realities, both physical and emotional. While she does
acknowledge this rather perfunctorily, she appears to be out of sync with the
aesthetics that govern our everyday living and inhabits a world of imagination
almost as if it’s too much for her to bear. It is a personal choice, but one
which positions her work more in terms of nostalgia for the exotic, a past that
has long gone, rather than a tapestry of the exciting contemporary world. The
culture and physical dimensions of life today have changed so much; does she not
wish to explore these nuances at all? <br />
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Guy de Maupassant in commenting
upon the imposing presence of the newly built Eiffel tower in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Paris</st1:place></st1:city> said that the best way to escape it was
to get inside it. If she takes a leaf out of Maupassant’s book and plunges right
into this teeming universe, throbbing with its own peculiar rhythm and
dissonant harmonies, Jayanshree Burman may well find that the presently intimidating,
rapidly transforming contemporary world is as vibrant and engaging as the nostalgic
one she inhabits; discovering and revealing yet more facets of her spirited
herself.</div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-59824651522626793292013-02-08T21:05:00.000+05:302019-03-07T22:11:59.657+05:30A Window of Perception - [Review, American Psyche, Religare arts i]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbEIzoXbeMo/UXqZ6JCUrrI/AAAAAAAAByw/QDepKlkqj74/s1600/Dyanne+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbEIzoXbeMo/UXqZ6JCUrrI/AAAAAAAAByw/QDepKlkqj74/s320/Dyanne+low+res.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Dyanne'. Beth Yarnelle Edwards</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Photographs hold a special
fascination for everybody, the world over. The facility to grasp a moment as it
is; capturing the monumentality or poignancy of the moment with just a click of
the camera is irresistible. Digital technologies have made this simpler than
ever before, so what sets apart the artist-photographer from a doting parent or
enthusiastic tourist? </div>
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Photography that engages beyond
familial or familiar memories is about the quality of observation a
photographer imbues their work with. It’s the measure of a photographer’s engagement
with self and subject; exploring facets of looking which draws and sustains a
viewer’s attention. This quality of intimacy and engagement noticeably pervaded
almost all the images in the exhibition ‘American Psyche’ curated by Janet
Delaney, at Religare Art. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-16pBeGIgpL8/UXqaRV0W4mI/AAAAAAAABy4/hT79rNXlPlI/s1600/05+Paul+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-16pBeGIgpL8/UXqaRV0W4mI/AAAAAAAABy4/hT79rNXlPlI/s200/05+Paul+low+res.jpg" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Paul' - Susan Felter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In addition, what made this exhibition
a unique experience, was that the earlier construct of the West looking at the
East with their limitations of knowing and desire to know, based solely on the
narrow self interest of commerce and dominion, was turned on its head. The
on-going shift in world economic power with its implications of change in how,
once dominant cultures are now viewed by those they dominated, was evinced as
we in New Delhi were invited to look at the ‘American’ psyche through the eyes
of ‘American’ photographers. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cpL3UNMYseM/UXqbkprSkQI/AAAAAAAABzM/ykUqXcR1aB4/s1600/knox92laundromat+low++res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cpL3UNMYseM/UXqbkprSkQI/AAAAAAAABzM/ykUqXcR1aB4/s320/knox92laundromat+low++res.jpg" width="220" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SkpNdcFZMe4/UXqak20dIHI/AAAAAAAABzA/7oGKb3aEX0I/s1600/knox91low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SkpNdcFZMe4/UXqak20dIHI/AAAAAAAABzA/7oGKb3aEX0I/s320/knox91low+res.jpg" width="243" /></a>The selection by Delaney featured
some known, predictable icons such as the ‘Cowboy’ from Susan Felter’s
portfolio ‘Rodeo Work’, as well as lesser known facets of contemporary daily
life, exquisitely captured by Beth Yarnelle Edwards in ‘Suburban Dreams’. This
was added to by Brian Ulrich’s statement on the “American love affair with
shopping on credit” and subsequent bankruptcy. Chris Churchill’s black and
white images highlighted ‘Faith’ presenting a broad spectrum which included various
organized religions and also spiritual practices. Leon Borensztein‘s series of
commissioned portraits also in black and white, recorded ‘telling details’ and
Jim Goldberg’s ‘Teenage’ narrative added a touch of authenticity to the presented
socio-political commentary. Issues of governance and civic mindedness also
formed part of this montage where Paul Shambroom brought us a close-up view of
the American public servant. Mike Steinmetz stealthily captured candid moments
of unknown people and Todd Hido kept driving and looking, photographing the
outside of houses at night with people at home. Indicated not by silhouettes of
them, but implied by the glare or soft haze of electric light shining through
windows, that were curtained and sometimes not. He captured a sense of the
quietude of night-life, imbuing it with a sense of knowing, despite the
physical displacement of him being outside the frame.<br />
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In this vast panorama of life in
America, it was the images by Beth Yarnelle Edwards, portraying the
everydayness of suburban living with precision and sensitivity that left a
lasting impression. These photographs needed no explanation. They had a
timeless, universal quality. Akin to still-life painting of early Dutch
masters, Edwards’s keen sense of observation posed not a critical view but provided
a perceptive document. In ‘Dyanne’ [1998, 19/25, chromogenic print, 20x24 in],
the quality of light and semi-completeness of attire, nuanced a level of
tension. There was a sense of expectation, yet also of fatigue and on looking
more intently, one noticed that the dinner was not yet over. The table was
still set. It was not a sense of let down after the event, but a kind of resigned
expectancy after long hours of preparation, that emerged. Such details reveal
more than just a stereotypical view of the mundane. In another photograph, she
captures ‘Susan’ at work, [2002, 5/25, chromogenic print, 20x24 in] her
bejewelled hand polishing the glass top of a dining table. An Andy Warhol print
hangs behind her and a large urn of artificial Hydrangeas and exotic Orchids rests
on the centre of the table. A William Morris look-alike design on the upholstery
of dining room chairs completes the picture of a home where everything is neat,
clean, carefully chosen and meticulously arranged; a life-style of successful
people residing in the suburbs. Edward’s success lies not only in capturing evocative
everyday moments but also in the lack of self-consciousness with which each person
appears in the frame.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PRRKp5tn8PU/UXqb08XO_iI/AAAAAAAABzU/OFXN1uvIZhM/s1600/Susan+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PRRKp5tn8PU/UXqb08XO_iI/AAAAAAAABzU/OFXN1uvIZhM/s320/Susan+low+res.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Delaney presented a wide panorama,
attempting to cover the breadth of a vast and diverse culture. This however
detracted from the subtler perspective each photographer had presented. At
times one felt that this ‘psyche’ was orchestrated to present more of a
politically correct statement rather than a heartfelt one. This portrayal may
not have been conclusive or entirely convincing, but in presenting a view
through the lens of American photographers, of nuances most of us here would not be
privy to, it opened up another window of perception. </div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-40014531214091389262012-08-31T19:25:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:58:40.488+05:30Vivan Sundaram, Gakawaka: Making Strange [ Book Review]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-erhtbOFVRH0/U9Oxe3rudNI/AAAAAAAADGE/o2s62PSSs-E/s1600/P7230025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-erhtbOFVRH0/U9Oxe3rudNI/AAAAAAAADGE/o2s62PSSs-E/s1600/P7230025.JPG" width="282" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Book Title: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vivan Sundaram</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gagawaka: Making Strange</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Published by:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chemould Prescott
Road</b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paperback</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
155 pages<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
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Full Colour</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Size – 8 x 10.75 inches</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ISBN 978-81-908879-4-6<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Price:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rs. 2,750/- </b>[includes DVD]</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;">When I saw the Gagawaka presentation by artist
Vivan Sundaram at Lalit Kala Academy, I was perplexed. It was neither a fashion
show, nor was it evocative of art traditionally seen within a gallery space.
There were dancers performing and walking alongside professional models and
artists too were participants on the makeshift stage cum ramp. The garments, if
indeed they could be classified as such, were bizarre to say the least, yet
they were crafted with finesse and some of them were quite marvellous to see. I
kept wondering how to contextualize this presentation. It was neither art nor
fashion and neither was it breaking totally new ground for in the two decades
that I have taught at NIFT, I have seen design students create equally, if not
more creatively bizarre garments.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uHjsEDg3cjI/U9OxcvI9XkI/AAAAAAAADGA/RrRZ4MWWo3w/s1600/Immunity+cover+back+print.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uHjsEDg3cjI/U9OxcvI9XkI/AAAAAAAADGA/RrRZ4MWWo3w/s1600/Immunity+cover+back+print.JPG" width="212" /></a><span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;">With the intention of finding some context to
place this artistic offering within, I picked up the book ‘Gagawaka, Making
Strange’, published by Chemould Prescott Road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A slim volume, visually lush with numerous full-page colour photographs
of each work, it also includes a DVD of the performance/fashion show and essays
by Deepak Ananth, an art historian based in Paris, Shanay Javeri who is a PhD
candidate at the Royal College of Art in London and Gitanjali Dang, an
“independent curator-critic and shape-shifter” based in Mumbai.</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;"> </span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-IN"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Ananth takes us through a rich, art
historical discourse beginning with a rag picker reference citing Baudelaire and
later with references to the Futurists, the Dada movement, Oscar Wilde, Arte
Povera, Duchamp, Andy Warhol and more. He claims that “from the ragpicker to
gladrags, from the lower depths to the bourgeois salon – the contrast will
appear flagrant or incongruous only to those unaware of their co-presence in
the inaugural texts on modernity”. Though erudite and interesting his essay
does not extrapolate this “co-presence” with clarity. He also quotes lavishly
from Roland Barthes and brings in references to artists who have made some
foray into the realm of fashion, but never quite manages to present the evolution
of the ragpicker-fashion designer with any level of conviction. He cites the
ragpicker icon in reference to Sundaram’s “delve into detritus” with an installation
‘The Great Indian Bazaar’ [1999], which is followed by ‘The Brief Ascension of Marian
Hussain’ [2005] and other works that incorporate trash. Implicit in the use of
‘trash’ is the image of the rag picker, but in Gagawka, Sundaram does not use
items only collated from garbage bins and kabadiwala’s. A lot of them did not
seem used, but newly bought. In addition, a twist to this argument emerges when
Ananth states that the initial point of Sundaram’s departure for creating this
collection was the body; more pertinently, the body’s distress, which arose
from the artist’s own experience of a body “punished by pain”. The argument
centred on trash then becomes confusing. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;"></span>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QwfPp5fOg_Q/U9OxgKWJEuI/AAAAAAAADGQ/ICZDTHqjCEk/s1600/Immunity+Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QwfPp5fOg_Q/U9OxgKWJEuI/AAAAAAAADGQ/ICZDTHqjCEk/s1600/Immunity+Cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;">During a period of convalescence Sundaram
was inspired to use medical paraphernalia to create garments, transposing
materials used for healing the body to create another kind of body. This was done,
perhaps, to cloak the presently dysfunctional one as a way of exorcising the
body’s infirmity, to present the antipode of sickness through the glamorous
dimension of fashion. This disclosure lends far greater authenticity to the
body of work than the historical antecedent of detritus or the on-going relay
between art and fashion. However, for this most pertinent revelation Ananth does
not cite historical precedence or context. Neither does he tell us about Sundaram’s
experience through this venture, which we are told was both therapeutic and
cathartic. He does not reveal how it benefitted the artist, which could perhaps
be the most significant contribution of this venture.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;">Shanay Jhaveri does not delve into detritus
or history but focuses upon his viewing in four episodes, of the work as a
moving installation cum performance cum fashion show and also a static exhibition,
beginning with his anticipation before the preview, where he was invited to
engage with the artist about the work. He describes the performance evocatively,
brings films into reference and also mentions fashion stalwarts such as Miyake,
Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and others who have used garments in an
architectural and sculptural way, but neither of these two writers provide a
considered fashion perspective. Jhaveri however, does not try and provide
answers but raises oblique questions. In discussing one particular performance consisting
of a single garment, where the performer had been internally ‘miked’ and every
breath amplified and broadcast to the audience he says: “Did a force to know,
and not forget, guide the performance? Did it precipitate a state of knowing?”
After the four encounters he concludes that Gagawaka is an “expansive practice,
a constellation, a set of platforms through which a series of questions are
asked.”</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RXEGBcXG0hk/U9OxomT9q1I/AAAAAAAADGw/oN1HAS1GkhU/s1600/Zip+Around+print.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RXEGBcXG0hk/U9OxomT9q1I/AAAAAAAADGw/oN1HAS1GkhU/s1600/Zip+Around+print.JPG" width="212" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LQl4m8gbwlc/U9OxXPFsxWI/AAAAAAAADF4/wxGrSNGyXCg/s1600/Flow-Wrap+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LQl4m8gbwlc/U9OxXPFsxWI/AAAAAAAADF4/wxGrSNGyXCg/s1600/Flow-Wrap+.jpg" width="212" /></a><span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;"> Dang’s essay is placed strategically
between these two and is significant because she does not allude to the work but
speaks tangentially of an improbable, bizarre situation, bringing an element of
fiction into play. Her essay echoes the discomfort I felt in trying to
contextualize the work within the parameters of art and fashion and made
fascinating reading. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IN;">This volume does not provide a reassuring
context to view the work within but raises issues. Is Vivan Sundaram charting
new territory, where the cathartic and therapeutic qualities inherent in
art-making are the key to understanding this work? Will the art of tomorrow
emphasize what artists say, not so much about the world to the world, but what
the process of art-making does to the maker, revealing him to himself? Ananth’s
almost casual mention of Sundaram’s convalescence as impetus for Gagawaka,
generates interest, more so than the historical precedence for this work, or
lack of it.</span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-84334220684538789842012-08-08T20:12:00.000+05:302019-03-07T22:12:26.923+05:30The Art of Listening [ Review - Amina Ahmed at Gallery Seven Art]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qngbMC7nt8M/UCJ2BT4GGKI/AAAAAAAABGs/WcB29ob-ELk/s1600/17b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ave Maria Gratia Plena</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">- detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">How
well are you connected? No, not on facebook or twitter, but to your soul; do
you hear the call? New York based artist, Amina Ahmed’s recent exhibition at Seven
Art Limited, New Delhi, drew inspiration from the “pulse of life” permeating
all forms. Her father taught her that rain, trees and even their roots had a
sound. She gives this communion a visual language in ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Call or ‘Bism’</i>.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jFEMizIfF1Y/UCJz4i5298I/AAAAAAAABFs/bvjh3HknMvc/s1600/Amina+Ahmed,+My+heart+is+on+fire+with+the+look+of+the+holder+of+my+heart,+2009,+Ink+on+Paper,+30+x+22+in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jFEMizIfF1Y/UCJz4i5298I/AAAAAAAABFs/bvjh3HknMvc/s200/Amina+Ahmed,+My+heart+is+on+fire+with+the+look+of+the+holder+of+my+heart,+2009,+Ink+on+Paper,+30+x+22+in.jpg" width="132" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My heart is on Fire...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">Imprinted
on the gallery wall, a few words informed that while we live, there is a state
of persistent longing. This angst, of separation from the divine, leads to
bliss of oneness and separation again, in an eternal cycle. Through nuances of sound
and shifting patterns of trees, water, roots and the logic of birds, the artist
communicates with the divine. Seeing this connection in all things, Ahmed
brought the language of birds, the subtlety of earth, and the rhythm of water, as
drawings, installation and video, into the gallery space. The omission of any
connection to other human beings was telling; speaking of the tendency to draw
solace from aspects of nature that are unable to speak as we do, and thus contradict
or question our assumptions about them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most works were subtle and monochromatic,
without overt messages or dramatic invocation of the divine. Haunting Sufi
music that accompanied the two videos resounded in the entire space, adding to
the serenity. As one walked through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Pukar’</i>
with its numerous messages invoking the divine; over centuries and across
cultures, imprinted under a beam and on the inside of its pillars, creating a
sacred arch of sorts; you were compelled to ask: Am I in tune with nature? Have
my senses been dulled by loudspeakers, hi-decibel newscasts and advertisements
on television? </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QOlUE9p-Lwc/UCJ5t_bncNI/AAAAAAAABHE/TX9EC3XV20Y/s1600/6.+Amina+Ahmed,+Water,+2011,+Monotype,+20.75+x+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QOlUE9p-Lwc/UCJ5t_bncNI/AAAAAAAABHE/TX9EC3XV20Y/s200/6.+Amina+Ahmed,+Water,+2011,+Monotype,+20.75+x+9.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Water</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Water’</i> a diptych [20.75 x9.75 inches,
2011, monotype] miniscule squiggly lines, form a longer one in a continuum , until
the end of the narrow paper width; then the next line close to this and the
next and the next; like an endless invocation, manically drawn with meticulous detail.
If there was any definitive form to begin with, it merged into this ebb and
flow, forming a ‘jaal’ that seemingly meant nothing and yet spoke of marks that
make up our lives as we flow through experiences: the intertwining of cause and effect that entraps most of us.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Fine,
silvered pins and photographic paper formed the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Rhythm of Fiveness’</i>, a site specific installation on the wall [2011,
dimensions variable]. Beneath this, a geometric pattern was lightly drawn in
pencil over which the paper curled and twisted, forming protrusions on the wall
surface.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_qcLaOP9BYs/UCJ6A218JVI/AAAAAAAABHM/J_ax5FFvwJs/s1600/5a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="119" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_qcLaOP9BYs/UCJ6A218JVI/AAAAAAAABHM/J_ax5FFvwJs/s200/5a.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rhythm of Fiveness</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">Even though the ‘pattern’ seemed to emerge from a calculated
mathematical formula, encrypted in the underlying geometrical configuration,
the result was chaotic. This was augmented by shadows produced through an
overhead light source. The origin of the form seemed inconsequential, for the
artist’s process of exploration had reduced it to an orchestrated presentation
of chaos emanating from order; evocative of living, especially when our
connection with the divine is impaired. </span><br />
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</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4SddnJTonk8/UCJ1AQNM2gI/AAAAAAAABGM/drNytjoIfG8/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4SddnJTonk8/UCJ1AQNM2gI/AAAAAAAABGM/drNytjoIfG8/s200/10.jpg" width="118" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Oh, Subtle Earth</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">As a
whole, the exhibition was soulful and evocative of some deep listening, but the
unevenness in Ahmed’s involvement with the different elements jarred. Her
invocations through water and birds had far greater depth than the rest. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Oh, Subtle Earth [tree]</i>’ [30x18 inches,
2011, mixed media on paper] carried a texture similar to what had earlier been presented
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Water’</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Its roots extended down
from a rectangular surface with intense but tiny marks, like the tassels of a
prayer rug. This work was hauntingly exquisite and worked much better without
the title. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Listening [Roots]</i>’
[Charcoal on paper, 63x42 in, 2011] with its massive, black, typhoon-like swirl,
brought in a bolder dimension and one lost the subtle thread of intensity
connecting works like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Tree’, ‘Water’</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘River’</i>. Adding to the confusion
was another awkwardly swirling large form, drawn with charcoal on paper - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Listening [roots, weeds and trees]</i>’. The
paradox of oneness and the wretched angst of separation or subliminal glimpses
of transcendence were better nuanced in ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Water’</i>
with its manic, obsessive line work and simple but effective articulation. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QuftslT-vmE/UCJ1dTQ_93I/AAAAAAAABGc/2N6zCx14Ol4/s1600/17a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QuftslT-vmE/UCJ1dTQ_93I/AAAAAAAABGc/2N6zCx14Ol4/s320/17a.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ave Maria Gratia Plena</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzrKDwz5DHs/UCJ1P_ifz-I/AAAAAAAABGU/wKy7gJzqqjc/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzrKDwz5DHs/UCJ1P_ifz-I/AAAAAAAABGU/wKy7gJzqqjc/s320/8.jpg" width="119" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Listening[Roots Weads &</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Trees]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">In ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ave Maria Gratia Plena’</i> a site specific
installation of variable dimensions [paper and pins, 2011] Inspired by a prayer
to Mary, Blessed of all women, Ahmed created shapes, evocative of fallen
feathers, from unusually textured paper. The pure whiteness of the paper
against a white wall infused the installation with an aura, almost sacred. Was
it a shrine to Birds? In the video ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Call with the help of Divine Nature’</i> birds are shown flying the sky. There
is nothing subliminal about this flight; you can barely discern the form. The same
movement is repeated in a somewhat deliberate, jerky motion. Birds shed their
feathers. Birds fly. What is the logic of birds? Living in a multi-storey
complex in Gurgaon, where pigeons abound, it’s impossible not to notice them. But
the day after seeing Ahmed’s video; whenever I saw a flock mid-air, I stopped
and wondered at the rationale of creatures that seem to do little else other
than procreate at an astonishing pace and take to the skies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The logic of birds seemed simple: be what you
are, do what you are born to do. This is where Ahmed succeeds, guiding you to
hear your own call. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EUN6CNeqOSw/UCJ1qV6NvZI/AAAAAAAABGk/VKi-NnAAiUk/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="110" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EUN6CNeqOSw/UCJ1qV6NvZI/AAAAAAAABGk/VKi-NnAAiUk/s200/14.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Call, Bism</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">When
I saw the show, no literature accompanied the exhibition; the artworks also had
no labels. It was an unusually calming experience: a silent communion, free of extraneous
explanations. But later, reading the artists’ statement, I was disappointed. Her
words obfuscated with formalized, intellectual ideas that detracted from the magical,
personal connections made without them. If there is intention to lead the
viewer, it would be useful to provide titles and literature at the onset. However,
to connect with work executed with such heart and soul, a quiet mind, unhindered
by jargon and politics would be more adept at listening.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: large;">To read a story inspired by this show read:</span><br />
<a href="http://garammasalachai.blogspot.in/2012/03/darjeeling-tea-mendelssohn-and-flight.html"><span style="font-size: large;">http://garammasalachai.blogspot.in/2012/03/darjeeling-tea-mendelssohn-and-flight.html</span></a></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-27640171940056750972012-02-08T20:56:00.000+05:302012-02-09T20:55:55.691+05:30Interview - Saba Hasan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_iscim3fK2A/TzPlFLtFIqI/AAAAAAAAAWU/mHPFxyTJEy0/s1600/Tea+cups+May+036aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" sda="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_iscim3fK2A/TzPlFLtFIqI/AAAAAAAAAWU/mHPFxyTJEy0/s320/Tea+cups+May+036aa.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What vision do nails, words, fabric, leaves, plaster, memories and glue meshed together paint? <strong>Gopika Nath</strong> interviews abstract artist Saba Hasan, revealing the persona and politics enmeshed in her process. </span></div>
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GOPIKA NATH: A rapid change in India’s economic development has altered the physical and cultural landscape of our cities, but you choose not to dwell on these facets.</div>
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SABA HASAN: I am certainly aware of conflict. It doesn’t matter if it’s specific to any place. My interest is the mind, the heart - factors which are there irrespective of the location.</div>
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GN: The mind and the heart are located within physical and cultural dimensions, they always have a context.</div>
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SH: My material indicates cultural elements. I use everyday materials like jute, rope, plaster, nails or even the Urdu text. When I use a nail as opposed to a colour I am calling your attention to an alternate utterance, carrying the voice of the material itself. The experience of a nail could suggest pain, violence or construction. I love abstraction because I have the freedom to give the viewer the space to interpret my work in their own way. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4EUxR59YJK0/TzKTF1L3cmI/AAAAAAAAAU8/wJ0HOaEQMHk/s1600/saba-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: left; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" sda="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4EUxR59YJK0/TzKTF1L3cmI/AAAAAAAAAU8/wJ0HOaEQMHk/s320/saba-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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GN: Who among the abstract painters have inspired you?</div>
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SH: Somnath Hore, Mark Rothko and perhaps J. Swaminathan. All three are restrained, they never over-state.</div>
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I love Rothko’s obsession with death. When I first saw his work I got goose-bumps. I felt that passage you make from our world into the other mysterious but magnetic world. <br />
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Somenath Hore, says so much with so little; reaches such depth with great simplicity and this is something I feel I have achieved.</div>
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Swaminathan brings in ordinary elements, using material that is not that different from what I use. It makes his work very powerful.</div>
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GN: Your canvasses have a heavy impasto quality using unusual materials. Can you elaborate on this and your choice of materials?<br />
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SH: I was painting monuments. The idea was not to paint walls but construct a space for reflection. I began with burning, then using plaster. The logistics of working with plaster led me to cement. I could create cracks. I wanted to bring tension onto the surface. I found some rusty nails – they seemed to have a voice. The different materials are like alphabets. It’s also about how I use them, whether I hammer the nail in or I put one beside the other as if it’s a path taking you somewhere – like when you die you go from one world to another</div>
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GN: Could you elaborate on the violence in your gestures as you work?<br />
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SH: Initially perhaps there was burning and then slashing of the canvas and then the hammering of nails. But every slash gets stitched - everything gets healed. There is an attempt to heal and find a certain resolution. This is important for me. <br />
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I really don’t believe in violence or destructive acts but in the universal Sufi thought sulh-i-kul [peace with all].<br />
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It begins with burning, then there is resolution – there is calm – may be its abstractionist– but that does not mean it is art for arts sake. I want to take a position. <br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E8Ny42JZOqk/TzKTXwp_vcI/AAAAAAAAAVE/o6nQlIOT_3o/s1600/saba-20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" sda="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-E8Ny42JZOqk/TzKTXwp_vcI/AAAAAAAAAVE/o6nQlIOT_3o/s320/saba-20.jpg" width="320" /></a>GN: Is the process cathartic?</div>
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SH: Yes, </div>
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GN: Do the elements of violence and protest arise from your being a Muslim and the way the world views this today?</div>
<br />
SH: As one of the elements, yes. I am not a believer of any formal religion and I have a split relationship with Islam. <br />
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You look at the painting and you think there is a protest, there is conflict, resistance. There are wrongs in this world, I do protest. There is also survival and a sense of calm.<br />
<br />
People look at the work and confront deep tragedies or fears and yet they feel the work also lifts them out of that abyss. <br />
<br />
GN: How do you deal with a process that is fragmented? [Working on multiple canvasses simultaneously]<br />
<br />
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SH: Its not as if you have one thought and another – art is my whole life and experience – not that today I am thinking that the wall is crumbling and on the next canvas I think how beautiful the flowers are; because I think about them simultaneously. One canvas has a thousand thoughts and feelings. I distil my entire life’s experiences in my work.</div>
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GN: How much time does each canvas take to complete? <br />
<br />
SH: 6 months to 2 yrs and a life-time.<br />
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GN: Can you explain what you undergo in the process? <br />
<br />
SH: I experience complete exhaustion – sometimes I can’t move for days after. I put my entire being into it and get drained. While I’m working my mind is not cluttered with any thoughts – certainly not about a socio-political, objective reality. I do not bother about all that; it’s my heart that’s at work. I only let emotions affect the way I work.<br />
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<br /></div>
My expression is visceral. It could be a reaction to my mother not being well, a tragedy or some minor disturbance. It’s not that I think about these things, I just let my heart do the work. It’s more about the emotion than the cerebral<br />
<br />
GN: The inclusion of Urdu text, you’ve said is “your personal resistance to the global wave which builds upon the cultural image of a backward, narrow minded Muslim jumping into action while wielding weapons of terror”. Are you speaking here as a Muslim? <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lDnLed2ghQY/TzKTie9vawI/AAAAAAAAAVM/UYpt-ULTITw/s1600/saba-23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; cssfloat: right; float: left; height: 239px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 321px;"><img border="0" height="213" sda="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lDnLed2ghQY/TzKTie9vawI/AAAAAAAAAVM/UYpt-ULTITw/s320/saba-23.jpg" width="320" /></a>SH: Urdu is my mother tongue; what I heard as a child and learnt the sound of. I use it for its visual beauty, rich linguistic fibre, nuanced and complex poetry and because it is an Indian language. I use words of contemporary writers, poets, family and friends as reflections of the world as we live it. I provide glimpses from our daily life, concerns of people in Kashmir, Delhi, Bangalore, tribes of Madhya Pradesh, extracts from real conversations, interviews and my letters; all collated to reflect the shared Indian experience, our basic philosophical oneness. </div>
<br />
GN: You have said “that Art and life are for me simultaneously about the personal as well as about cultural contact, about experiencing the other.” You are married into a Hindu family, how has your art has been informed by this experience? <br />
<br />
SH: My husband and I are not religious people. We don’t practice either of our faiths. We rebelled against tradition long before we got married. Socially however, it is interesting, because during partition, my parents chose to stay in India. They were active participants in the freedom movement. They did not believe in another nation based on religion. <br />
<br />
Amit’s father and grandparents were from the North-west frontier. They had to forcibly leave and take refuge in Delhi; they witnessed the real trauma of partition.<br />
<br />
When we got married, our families found healing way beyond political divides. This reaffirmed my faith in humanity and the power of love. <br />
<br />
GN: In letters from Baton Rouge [2006] you said – “My generation has been long grappling with issues of ego, identity and heterogeneity of cultures” How do you express such issues visually?<br />
<br />
SH: I am currently working on a project revolving around the burqa ban in Europe which just deals with the symbol of oppression, not the actual oppression; infringing upon a woman’s right to choose. I find it particularly offensive that for centuries women were coerced to hide behind the veil and today they are being coerced not to wear one. Neither the fundamentalist nor the democratic mind has learned to respect individual choice. <br />
<br />
I have however, been most troubled by death, natural or as a result of wars. I am always confronting that point in my work. I wonder if suicide is the ultimate art performance and a grave the ultimate installation. <br />
<br />
GN: At the end of your day, after many hours working through a rather intense and rigorous process, what do you feel?<br />
<br />
SH: Physically I feel completely exhausted; mentally however, I am usually on a high. I am quite obsessive. The mind can’t stop ticking even after long hours in the studio.<br />
<br />
GN: Do you have greater clarity about issues, you started out with?<br />
<br />
SH: Clarity comes only when I immerse myself in the work. I don’t believe in thinking the entire project through, but leave room for discoveries while at work. <br />
<br />
In addition to the studio hours, I read a lot, discuss ideas, jot my thoughts down, or just play with materials - be it plaster, paper, leaves or even sound. <br />
<br />
Living next to the Notre Dame in Paris, I recorded the bells ringing every half hour. I’ve also recorded the ocean waves near my house in Goa and sounds in a grave yard.<br />
<br />
GN: You have said that “Ultimately it is only we who can infuse our lives or art with new meaning”. What does art mean to you? What new meaning have you in particular tried to imbue your art with, and how and why?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xa-xbGXMagU/TzKTug9HF3I/AAAAAAAAAVU/uC-5MMGypCc/s1600/sabanails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" sda="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xa-xbGXMagU/TzKTug9HF3I/AAAAAAAAAVU/uC-5MMGypCc/s320/sabanails.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
SH: Art is my experience; a visceral, emotive response to the world in a somewhat dream-state with a sense of timelessness.<br />
<br />
Each work is a complex thought construct residing in a universe beyond the palpable. This happens if I immerse myself so deeply, that my art is like meditation. At this point I feel I have successfully communicated the intended. <br />
<br />
I depend a lot on accidents and keep an open mind to the outcome. Abstraction is best suited for this freedom and open mindedness. It allows me to deal with the complexity of my intention and frees me to develop my own signs of communication. My viewer too is a participant, in that he is free to interpret this vision with his own twist of experience.<br />
<br />
Art is as powerful as the knowledge and instincts of the artist and the mind of the viewer. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-9987324683875549382011-12-30T21:34:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:59:11.734+05:30An Exercise in Trust [Interview with Tejal Shah re performance at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delh]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MVQHqgGgR5E/T6qG85k_wXI/AAAAAAAAA-w/eMleWJj6CIo/s1600/DSC_3200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MVQHqgGgR5E/T6qG85k_wXI/AAAAAAAAA-w/eMleWJj6CIo/s1600/DSC_3200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MVQHqgGgR5E/T6qG85k_wXI/AAAAAAAAA-w/eMleWJj6CIo/s320/DSC_3200.JPG" width="320" /></a>As part of a group show at <st1:placename w:st="on">Vadehra</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Art</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Gallery</st1:placename>,
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>,
Tejal <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Shah invited
participants to take her blind-folded on an hour long walk through the city, as
an exercise in Trust. Narrowing the boundaries between art and life, she became
the medium, </span>colour<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> and
texture; her experience the canvas. ‘Feelings’ became the ‘</span>colours’<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span lang="EN-US">of a life-like experience for
both artist and participant. </span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: It
has been said that ‘Life’ is not something we discover but create in each
moment. Is life the ultimate canvas for you? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: In some sense, life is the ultimate canvas, but for me nothing is
the ultimate medium.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #e06666;">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I engage with performance and its
potentiality, exploring life-like art. Inspired by Allan Kaprow and John Cage -
their thinking about life-like art and art-like art, I began exploring live
performance in life-like art – what this means to the viewer and relevance of
the viewer to the art, how not to de-contextualize it from life, but to engage
in the process of life.</span> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Why
do you work through live performance and not painting or installation?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I am interested in it and living in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the context in which one can
make and produce art is limited, largely determined by commerce. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I come from a socially engaged and activist background engaging with
issues of marginalization of class, religion, sexuality and gender and I wanted
break down the false wall, the invisible curtain that exists between the artist
and viewer - to bring myself to the viewer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Trust
is intangible, yet fundamental for harmonious living. What did you hope to
achieve by bringing the notion of trust as an ‘aesthetic’ into the gallery
space? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: Trust is very loaded word. How can I explore some aspect of this
through strangers? Contact was the key feature, leading to intimacy and touch,
questioning the artists’ relationship with the audience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I also wanted to work with the duality of trust and mistrust. It is
relevant at this point of transition as a human society - of politics, war,
colonization and technology.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: What
does trust signify for you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: There is a kind of fundamental handing over to someone else.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: What
are the parameters by which you ascertain trust?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I was sound recording the conversations which implied surveillance.
Participants were not always aware of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was surprised that people assumed I had completely surrendered. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Sometimes personal things were exchanged - life story experiences, where
trust defined how one formed a relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: If
exploited, the exercise could have been traumatic. Was there any particular
participant that tested the threshold of trust? </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SyXitkUJRL8/T6qJ-B3zklI/AAAAAAAAA_I/tJEA1nQpZ2A/s1600/Tejal+%2526+Asim+Waqif.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SyXitkUJRL8/T6qJ-B3zklI/AAAAAAAAA_I/tJEA1nQpZ2A/s200/Tejal+%2526+Asim+Waqif.jpg" width="123" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tejal with Asim</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: With Asim on the motor-bike and then also with Mary- with the kind of sharing - such openness, made me feel that there actually was great potentiality for trust between people. I also had sense of care which is related to trust.</span> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Did
anyone display a tendency to exploit the trust?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: There was an artist in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beijing</st1:place></st1:city>
[where I have done this earlier]. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">San
Juan</st1:city></st1:place> gave me 3 choices and asked me to pick one. He wouldn’t
disclose the choices. I really had to just trust, that this person is going to
respect – not hurt me.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: What was
the threshold of tolerance, beyond which you would call for help? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: So far I have not come across a situation where I needed to call for
help. Dialogue helped as I was always in communication with the participant and
could always say ‘yes’ to this and ‘no’ to that. The Gallery had the phone
number of each participant and could hear us talk. The only control that I had was
to choose to go along or not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: You
have done this exercise earlier in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Beijing</st1:place></st1:city>;
what was the essential difference between that performance/interaction and
this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: In [<st1:city w:st="on">Beijing</st1:city>] I chose no: 2. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Juan</st1:place></st1:city> took me to an amusement
part with crazy rides. Later, when we’d finished the exercise I asked what
choice no: 1 would have been. He said that he would have taken me to the top of
a sky skyscraper, made me stand on a parapet for 10 minutes, go down, take a
photo and then come collect me.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">He had decided that no: 1 would be a very dangerous thing, No: 2 – would
feel very dangerous, but still safe [amusement park] and No: 3 –would be
something that was not dangerous</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Did
this experience change your outlook in any way?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I still think, ‘what if something happened’? Today if someone asks
me to do something without telling me what’s happening, even in everyday things
like<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘are you free on this and this day’
my response is: ‘why are you asking, what do you want’?<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Your
trust has become conditional?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">TS: My worry is that someone is putting me in a precarious position
where moving by a </span>millimetre</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;"> could be a question
of life and death</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Give
some examples of what you and the participants in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> did?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: At the opening night someone kept asking me to guess what she looked
like. She was interested in how people would perceive someone, without knowing
what they looked like.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6--RQ2-bs24/T6qUf9gE1YI/AAAAAAAAA_o/gWSIV1HUeH4/s1600/Tejal+with+Suruchi+&+Ankit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6--RQ2-bs24/T6qUf9gE1YI/AAAAAAAAA_o/gWSIV1HUeH4/s200/Tejal+with+Suruchi+&+Ankit.jpg" width="127" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="color: black;">Tejal with Suruchi and An</span>kit</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #e06666;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Suruchi took me to the work of Desire Machine Collective asking me to
describe it. We then talked about my performance, whether it is art, not art</span>. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666;">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">A journalist took me onto the gallery terrace and asked round about
questions. I am not sure whether they were meant to be metaphorical or poetic.
She said: “there is an arch on a hill, like an old stone arch, its part of a
ruin; [pointing me in that direction] what does it signify for me?’ I have been
on that terrace many times but did not know if the arch was really there. I had
no sense of what was reality and what was not. I just went with the flow. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I was also taken to Tughlaq’s tomb, Qutab minar, Greater Kailash II
market [with Mary, where we went to a coffee shop and had coffee]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-taF-ihy9bHw/T6qJ_c7AR2I/AAAAAAAAA_Q/RXMS23qBvqU/s1600/Tejal+with+Mary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-taF-ihy9bHw/T6qJ_c7AR2I/AAAAAAAAA_Q/RXMS23qBvqU/s200/Tejal+with+Mary.jpg" width="130" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tejal with Mary</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Were
passers-by curious about your being blind-folded?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I kept asking the participants ‘are people looking, how they are
looking’? A foreign tourist interacted with us outside Tughlaq’s tomb. And when
I was with Amber, some guy asked us in Hindi <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“What are you doing, what is the meaning of this?”<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: Were
your other senses heightened because you were blindfolded?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: Being cut off from the visual world created a dark space – a visual
emptiness. It was amazing to lose the visual world and see how calm I felt - no
anxiety about being blind-folded; it felt very natural. The sense of
temperature was heightened. I could tell when we were going from shadow to
sunlight, feel a change in temperature on my skin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: In
one recorded conversation you felt that the bike was titling to the left and said
“I was scared, but obviously trusted <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">him</b>
totally.” Could you elaborate?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I have since re-questioned the idea. The bike felt it had titled,
was almost touching the road. I felt desperate and needed to focus on one fixed
point. I knew Asim a bit, but didn’t know if he was a safe rider. There was a
lot of traffic, the sound was overwhelming. I lost my equilibrium. It was also
getting dark and cold. It was not whether I trusted him or not, but a
precarious situation.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: What
specific nuances of trust did you discover through the interactions in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Delhi</st1:city></st1:place>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ct0nVIeAmfs/T6qRCNfjT7I/AAAAAAAAA_c/j1w4KjVGlJI/s1600/Tejal+with+Mithu+Sen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ct0nVIeAmfs/T6qRCNfjT7I/AAAAAAAAA_c/j1w4KjVGlJI/s200/Tejal+with+Mithu+Sen.jpg" width="129" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tejal with Mithu Sen</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I needed to keep talking. People are open and willing to engage and
share, renewing my ability to trust. This is just the beginning. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #e06666;">
</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Mithu was surprised her conversation was being recorded. She saw it as
mistrust, making me question myself. The dialogue generated interest in the
ethics of what is exchanged.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: The
notion of trust is abstract, with no visual qualities. How does this come
within the purview of the visual arts? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: There is something to hear and see and experience. I do not
necessarily qualify this performance as visual art. Live art is more than even
performance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: We
live in troubled times, trust is at a premium. Did the performance give insights
that could help address this issue?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: Trust was built into the title of work. I am like an optimistic
pessimist. I feel we can try and address these things. I have faith. People were
willing to participate. It’s only when we engage that we can think about our
limits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: As a visual
artist what do you experience when you become a performer? </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: I felt vulnerable. There was a sense of being exposed and of
adventure too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: What
did the participants, your co-performers, experience? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">TS: People lacked the experience of leading a non-sighted person. Some asked
me to walk in front, to lead them and many walked really fast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #e06666;">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Some were vulnerable in the sharing they did.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">GN: At
the outset, who did you really trust - participants, the gallery, or some other
element? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #ff6600; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I started with a sense of complete trust in the participants.
Ultimately, I do feel that it comes back to one’s self, as collaborative,
sharing self.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-23402696431160615382011-12-30T20:28:00.000+05:302019-03-07T21:59:36.276+05:30Chronicles of Loss [Interview with Samar Jodha] Art India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Bhopal Gas Disaster,
disappearing North Eastern tribes, tiger conservation and the afflictions of
the elderly are all explored by Samar Singh Jodha in his photographs. He talks
to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gopika Nath</b> about what drives him
to work on marginalised communities. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--PF-VGhblIE/T_2VZqXmEAI/AAAAAAAABDg/YI6dCCZvwIg/s1600/Bhopal+Container+RGB+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--PF-VGhblIE/T_2VZqXmEAI/AAAAAAAABDg/YI6dCCZvwIg/s320/Bhopal+Container+RGB+low+res.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gopika Nath</b>: From advertising and high fashion to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy
– how did this shift take place? Was it a prick of the conscience?</div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><st1:place w:st="on"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Samar</b></st1:place><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Singh Jodha</b>: I could make things look amazing using different
techniques of photography. But that wasn’t enough. My father was an economist.
Talk around the dining table centred on development, marginalization, food
security, drought, and water and wasteland management. We travelled with him to
Africa, South America, the <st1:place w:st="on">Far East</st1:place> and other
South Asian countries and so I had early exposure to important social issues.
As I watched our society changing, with its new material way of living, its
lopsided development, the marginalization of certain communities and the lack
of basic amenities, I wanted to talk about it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;">In 1993, I worked on a book with Aman Nath called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jaipur: The Last Destination</i> and then on
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Costumes and Textiles of Royal India </i>with
Ritu Kumar. Through these projects I saw another <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In 1994, I started working
with Mobile Creches and HelpAge <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
The latter led to the work I presented in 1999, namely, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ageless</i><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"> </span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mind and Spirit: Faces and
Voices from the World of India’s Elderly</span></i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #741b47;">.</span> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.: </b>How does your approach vary from other photographers? Do you
make a conscious effort to be different?<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: Photography is only a tool. Skill is not the issue. I try
to give the viewer an experience that is authentic and as close to what I have
been through. In many ways, it is the antithesis of commercial photography
where you have one meeting with a client, get your brief, shoot in the next few
days, bill the client and your work’s done. There is no process going on in
your head.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.: </b>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ageless</i>
project involved a great deal of patient, time-consuming observation over eight
years during which you documented the lives of 400 elderly people all over <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Did you
get involved in the lives of the people you photographed? Did you investigate
their histories?</div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: My brother and I would spend anything between one to five
days explaining to them what I was doing. I took three flights to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Calcutta</st1:place></st1:city> for one portrait
of a person living in a joint family because everybody had to be convinced. It
had nothing to do with looking through the lens, but respecting the subject’s
space. </span></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.</b>: You have worked on issues like Save the Tiger, labour
exploitation in the Commonwealth Games and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy – all of
which are part of our history of national shame. Your installation <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bhopal – A Silent Picture</i> (2009) has
been criticized for packaging ‘failed activism’ in an attractive way. What has it
achieved in terms of addressing the issue? </div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: Well, in the space of three
months this year, the installation has been shown at the India Art Summit in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>, at the Kala Ghoda
Art Festival in Mumbai and at Art Chennai. No curator or gallery was interested
in supporting it. I put my own money into it. An artist puts his work out there
because he has something to say. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;">I first went to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> in 2004 to work on a campaign for BBC
that raised awareness about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy 20 years after the disaster.
I made countless trips thereafter and kept thinking about how I could bring
this issue into the public domain. In 2009, I invited Bittu Sahgal, an
environment expert, and two others from an NGO in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> and one survivor to speak at a public
forum at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai. I did all this
because I believed that people should know about these issues and respond to
them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;">Independent monitoring has
recorded that over 95,000 people walked through the box-installation <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bhopal – A Silent Picture</i>. There was
nothing to sell in there, it was purely about advocacy. It is not that the
installation will make the Supreme Court change its judgement, but it will
educate a whole generation of people in this country who have no idea what
happened in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city>.
As a photographer, I am using my medium to show what corporate irresponsibility
can do.</span></div>
<span style="color: #741b47;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;">
</span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.</b>: Your portrait of the Tai Phake tribe of <st1:placename w:st="on">Phaneng</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Village</st1:placetype>
in <st1:place w:st="on">Upper Assam</st1:place> was a subtle but dark
commentary on their impending extinction. The people were the focus of this
project. <i>In Bhopal - A Silent Picture</i>, however, you have shown the
starkness of an abandoned factory. Were viewers moved by this? And did you
manage to make a point about the human loss?</div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b>S. S. J.</b>: Shockingly, dozens
of people, especially students, had no idea that the Bhopal Gas Tragedy had
happened in their own country. Many urban Indians now live like Americans do –
a certain section of the young population has started living very insularly.
They only know what is happening in their region and nothing beyond. Many said,
“Thanks for bringing this here. Can you bring it to our university?” As a
photographer, I have used my medium to increase awareness of crucial issues. </span></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.</b>: You are not a dispassionate observer. Your documentation of
the Burj Khalifa project in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dubai</st1:place></st1:city>,
like your work in Phaneng, involved months of interaction and observation. Do
spaces and people interest you differently? <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: Human
suffering or celebration does come into play when you are capturing an issue or
an event. One has to deal with the human condition. But art is not about going
into other people’s living rooms. It is about issues that get sidelined. My
work is about how a certain consumerist way of life dominates our so-called
development or, for that matter, double-digit GDP growth. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47;">My <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Through The
Looking Glass</i> series (1997) was one of the first environmental portraits
project which ‘excluded’ humans. The project provided a counterpoint to the
various visual depictions of living spaces in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> found in glossy magazines and
coffee table books that emphasized stylized order and harmony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the things it did was document the
now-pervasive presence of television in Indian life.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.</b>: Why did you choose not to show the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">people</i> of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Bhopal</st1:city></st1:place>
when the gas tragedy caused physical abnormalities, transforming them in terrible
ways? </div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: I did photograph people. I went to hospitals and found
deformed third generation babies. I also worked in communities that live around
the plant. These images would have been easy to sell but to me it was important
how human dignity was preserved in the portrayals. I wanted the general public
to experience a space they would never have access to. The plant has been
sealed for the past 27 years. There is still a chemical residue there and
snakes too. Hardly anybody’s been there.</span> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">G. N.</b>: Presenting the installation in a container used for the
transportation of industrial goods is a smart way of accusing corporations of
environmental neglect. To go back to a question I raised earlier, does it speak,
however, of the enormity of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">human</i>
tragedy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">S. S. J.</b>: The ‘Box’ is at an angle and inside, there is total
darkness, recreating that midnight in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city>
when the trains were pulling into the station. People were gasping and running,
and they had no idea why they could not breathe. The five photographs inside
the box are lenticular images of what they would have seen through the train
windows – images of the factory that was the site of the disaster. As you walk
through the box you lose your balance. I had thought of covering the box with a
satellite image of the factory, but eventually, put only the information about the
chemical composition of the gases, the dates of the disaster and the number of the
people who died, on it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;">The US Holocaust Memorial<span style="color: green;"> </span>Museum in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New
York</st1:place></st1:state> has a room with just a pile of shoes. When you
enter this space something intense happens to you. Instead of the pictures of
the dead men and women you have only a heap of their sorry possessions. I
believe in art that leaves room for the viewer to engage. </span></div>
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Review of Phaneng:<o:p> A Journey Into Personal Engagement</o:p><br />
<o:p><a href="http://gopikanathartviews.blogspot.in/2009/03/journey-into-personal-engagement-samar.html">http://gopikanathartviews.blogspot.in/2009/03/journey-into-personal-engagement-samar.html</a></o:p><br />
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-39070089065317904322011-09-29T17:40:00.000+05:302019-03-07T22:00:13.578+05:30The Sorrows of the City of Joy - Leena Kejriwal [review]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Leena Kejriwal’s installation of photographs, Entropic Sites, curated by Shaheen Merali at Shrine Empire Gallery, New Delhi, from the 21st of January to the 21st February, 2011, presented an intriguing study of the city of Kolkata. Superimposed photographs were hung from the floor to the ceiling. Speaking voices from a documentary on human trafficking jarred with their American accents. Hung light bulbs in the centre of the room evoked an atmosphere rather than illuminate the works on the walls packed with images of Subhash Chandra Bose. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2X6KKUewZ4w/ToReJ8Xmx6I/AAAAAAAAAJc/YTSnffVVTC0/s1600/The+tram+ride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2X6KKUewZ4w/ToReJ8Xmx6I/AAAAAAAAAJc/YTSnffVVTC0/s320/The+tram+ride.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yTYPNqIZr-Y/ToRfrSy4rII/AAAAAAAAAJk/OJ3VrGQ0yew/s1600/kumartoli+1+Re-exposed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kca="true" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yTYPNqIZr-Y/ToRfrSy4rII/AAAAAAAAAJk/OJ3VrGQ0yew/s320/kumartoli+1+Re-exposed.jpg" width="192" /></a>The coloured photographs were re-worked to create caricatures or ghostly ‘absent presences’ of people. An empty cubbyhole added to this, while the disembodied voices created a sense of displacement. Babu on the Terrace augmented this sense of dislocation, where a Babu was seen on a Victorian terrace overlooking a crowded, middle-class residential complex. Dressed in dhoti and kurta, wearing a supercilious expression, he seemed to look into the horizon. The sky above was covered with menacing predatory birds. Kejriwal probably intended to depict the arrogant Babu preying upon a disputable inheritance and through the solarized images she probably intended to comment on the carelessness of the upper class Bengali gentry. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lfi5K5Riad8/ToRfFbkaJlI/AAAAAAAAAJg/iqGmfXs-HH4/s1600/Here+There+Everywhere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" kca="true" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lfi5K5Riad8/ToRfFbkaJlI/AAAAAAAAAJg/iqGmfXs-HH4/s320/Here+There+Everywhere.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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However, the inclusion of a documentary on prostitution in the show confused both the intent and content. Its pertinence was lost thanks to the overloaded commentary. If Kejriwal intended to evoke guilt, she failed, revealing instead, that such complex situations require greater objectivity and sensitivity in selection and presentation.</div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0Gurgaon, Delhi, India28.46385 77.01783828.449891 76.998097 28.477809 77.037579tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-26364225832282090402011-08-25T20:31:00.000+05:302019-03-07T22:01:24.780+05:30Manjit Bawa - Readings, edited by Ina Puri [Book Review]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wDihbmRadYA/UDjoTCZNqII/AAAAAAAABJY/gTgUp8mdyo4/s1600/manjit+bawa+-+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wDihbmRadYA/UDjoTCZNqII/AAAAAAAABJY/gTgUp8mdyo4/s320/manjit+bawa+-+blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Book Title</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">:</span>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Readings’ Manjit Bawa<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Edited and <o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">compiled by:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ina Puri<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Published by:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lalit
Kala Akademi, </span></b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">New
Delhi ,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2010<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Paperback<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">220pages<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Size<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>18
x23.75 cms</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Full Colour</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">ISBN: 81-87507-42-X<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Price:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rupees 1,000/-<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Manjit
Bawa was an individualist; an artist and human being who lived life on his own
terms. Through his art, he brought into play modern modes of expression in
painting, while also referencing the Indian aesthetic.<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span lang="EN-US">“Being a turbaned Sikh from an ordinary middle-class
family was daunting enough but to strike out against the prevalent forces of
Cubism and the iconic Klee was to really ask for big trouble”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>.But
he did venture out;</span></span> creating a new figure, a new landscape and
spoke in a new voice. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Art
in its essence is an experience; a silent communion between a viewer and an
artist’s canvas. Its understanding matures as we do. The simplicity of this
communion has become compounded in the crowding of urban life, where time is at
a premium and such contemplation a luxury. Today, for most people, art is
either a commodity to invest in or too challenging an intellectual activity to
participate in. For some, art has been reduced to being just a piece of
decoration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Each
artist however, spends a life-time devising an iconography that speaks most
evocatively of their thoughts and feelings. This complex language that
encompasses all dimensions of their being is not easy to decipher. In Manjit
Bawa’s own words</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
his work was “a continuous process that takes up almost all my waking hours.
Even when I sleep, I have experienced visions in my dreams that are related to
my painting activities….. I wanted to create my own style….to find a new idiom
and a new language. In every sense, this was a stumbling block that needed to
be tackled with immense patience and fortitude</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">”.
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Many
books about artists become technical and theoretically complex, excluding
rather than including the lay viewer. ‘Readings, Manjit Bawa’ compiled and
edited by Ina Puri, published by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, reaches out to
us through essays, interviews, conversations and reminisces by Manjit Bawa himself
and other artists, providing a unique insight into the artist and his oeuvre. It
is not didactic, but eclectic; each reader is thus able to formulate their own
ideas, to look at the artist’s canvas through these perceptions. The text is
bi-lingual. There are writings in both Hindi and English. Ina Puri’s close
association with Bawa’s art reveals itself through this selection, providing insight
into the man, his persona and what made his art; the people that influenced him
and how childhood memories led to the cow and goat becoming leitmotifs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prayag Shukla [in Hindi], sums up that the
animals and birds and all the different emotions and feelings that Bawa brought
to life on his canvasses that had not been seen before in Indian Art and “in
par ab Manjit ki ek vishisht chaap hai” that the seasons and their colours have“apne
he vishisht aakaron aur rangon mein kramash dhaal liya.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Informative
and refreshing to read, the book is illustrated with over forty full colour
plates, photographs of the artist and some of his drawings. A full list of
collectors is appended at the back of the book, but regrettably none of the
works are dated. It would also have been useful to include a small biographical
note on each of the authors published in this compilation. A comprehensive
biography of Bawa tells us about his numerous exhibitions and art camps he
attended. We also learn that Bawa curated shows of Indian Art in Syria, Egypt
and Australia, was a founder member on the Committee for Communal Harmony,
organized peace marches during the anti-Sikh riots and more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Essays
by Ranjit Hoskote, Ashok Vajpeyi, Gayatri Sinha, Richard Bartholomew, Ina Puri,
Geeti Sen, S. Kalidas and Madan Gopal Singh bring some in-depth analysis and
critical insights, while painter Krishen Khanna, a friend through the decades,
reminisces of his early encounters with Bawa. J Swaminathan, friend and fellow
painter, does a quick summary of the evolution of the modern Indian art movement
from Amrita Sher-Gil to Tyeb Mehta, stating that “Manjit’s figure is at once an
assertion of a tradition and its negation” owing hardly anything to the realism
of the West, suggesting instead a linkage with the Pahari Miniature tradition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year before the riots in Ayodhya, Bawa wrote
an article for the Times of India which provides a glimpse of the artist’s
unusual perception of things. He also brought attention to the fact that most
people agitating in the name of Ram were quite ignorant about the Ramayana. They
were mostly “sons of shopkeepers and petty merchants…. seething with frustration”.
He arrived at this conclusion, not through some obscure intellectual analysis,
but by engaging with people on the ground: one human being to another.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
book has diverse material on Bawa’s evolution as an artist, his engagement with
the world, involvement with communal issues, work as a curator and artist and
also how he encouraged younger, aspiring artists. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His preoccupation with various dimensions of
being, both physical and spiritual, all find place in these readings. In a talk
given to art students at Shantiniketan he ends, with accrediting Ina Puri for
motivating him to think anew and sums up with a Sufi saying: “simply trust…… do
not the petals flutter just like that? Trust life….” He was well versed in the Hindu
epics and could challenge the young protestors outside the Babri Masjid on the
Ramayan just as easily as he could quote from the Gita, even though he “found
it difficult to subscribe to many of these values.” An independent thinker, he
questioned things. This is brought to life in this book, as in his art. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
interpretations of Manjit Bawa’s art are many and all equally illuminating. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hoskote finds a “jagged edge of eroticism and
risk in an intimate battle of beak and dagger, the swelling tongue of the bull,
the tumescence of the goat” adding that “Bawa is more significantly preoccupied
with the sheerness of pleasure at the edge of language.” While Kamala Kapoor
sites that “Bawa’s images…. appear to reflect his desire to intervene in a
world burdened with over-rationality, as he draws forms in the air that
undulate and reform into pliable boneless shapes.”In a small note of personal
appreciation, the author David Davidar makes an interesting observation about Bawa’s
use of colour, where “artwork so vibrantly alive in hues of yellow, red,
carmine, electric blue, green and gold was tamed, cooled and recombined through
some strange alchemy such that a flaming red soothed the eyes, a glaring yellow
could alleviate a migraine headache and the startling blues suggested a cool
draught of water.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
book may not represent an exhaustive research and analysis of the artist’s
work, but it is the kind of book that makes Manjit Bawa and his art accessible
to a large section of people. We become acquainted with the man behind the
images on his canvas, from whom readers will draw hope, solace and inspiration
at many levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mix of analytical
essays with reminisces, interviews, exhibition reviews and writings by the
artist himself, give this book a unique place: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>useful to the student of art, to artists, to
the lay public and also the scholar. It is the first book in the series called
‘Readings’ of writings on artists and sculptors introduced by Lalit Kala
Akademi, New Delhi.</span></div>
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<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
Manjit Bawa <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pg 65<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
Shantiniketan 1998<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8908921616403324397#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
Manjit Bawa <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pg 95<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8908921616403324397.post-17804115234270589772011-05-28T22:21:00.000+05:302013-04-24T21:03:06.540+05:30WhatAsana Was It All About? [Jenny Bhatt review, Gallery Seven Art]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a2_cpHfUMHk/UXf6wLxsgpI/AAAAAAAAByI/ovQxSQdLt9M/s1600/Jenny+Bhatt+-+MokshaBuy+Mandala,+Year,+Acrylic+on+Canvas,+121.92+x+121.92+cm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a2_cpHfUMHk/UXf6wLxsgpI/AAAAAAAAByI/ovQxSQdLt9M/s320/Jenny+Bhatt+-+MokshaBuy+Mandala,+Year,+Acrylic+on+Canvas,+121.92+x+121.92+cm.jpg" width="320" /></a>‘MokshaShots’ by Jenny Bhatt at Gallery
Seven Art, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>,
10<sup>th</sup> March to 3<sup>rd</sup> April 2011, was a colourful
presentation bordering on the psychedelic. The idea that spiritual liberation may
take many life-times, but you could get a taste of the sublime through Bhatt’s
tongue-in-cheek exploration had the promise of a fun-filled experience. However,
the interplay between liberation through consumerism and the spiritual aspects
of moksha was confused. Bhatt’s attempt to paint a satirical <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">view of urban Indian consumer culture, focusing
on how art, spirituality, media and emotion</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">have been
packaged as commodities </span>was also not really witty nor was her critique objective.
The concept itself lacked clarity and depth of exploration.</div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bhatt employed an inventive visual vocabulary,
creating deities called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaPets’</i> such
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBuy’</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Mokshasura,’</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBum’
‘Kundalini’, ‘Reverence’ and ‘Irreverence’</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Third eye, Eye Ball</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ThoughtPill</i>.
They clearly inhabited a world of their own and the viewing experience would
have been more inclusive had the gallery space been used to present dimensions
of this unique, not-seen-before world. The spartan presentation of a few painted
canvassed on white walls with vinyl stickers sprinkled across the floor and
ceiling did not quite evoke the necessary atmosphere to enable <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>viewers to participate in and engage more
actively with characters that most people in Delhi encountered for the first
time. </div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7jtUBuFwCZc/UXf67lZZm7I/AAAAAAAAByQ/z6KOtYY3uM4/s1600/Jenny+Bhatt+-+Yellow+Delirium+copy+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7jtUBuFwCZc/UXf67lZZm7I/AAAAAAAAByQ/z6KOtYY3uM4/s320/Jenny+Bhatt+-+Yellow+Delirium+copy+low+res.jpg" width="320" /></a><o:p> </o:p>The artist’s involvement with her
unique characters was visible. Her sense of humour too was evident through
titles devised for the different postures in which each character was depicted.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘Gulpasana’</i> was a portrait of ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MokshaBuy</i>’, gulping it all down. There
was ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oopsasana’, ‘Champagnepopasana’,
‘Thoughtpillasana’</i> and other such works that allowed the viewer a glimpse
of Bhatt’s enjoyment in the process of creating them. You wanted to share in
the laughter but were never quite sure whether you should, for it often seemed
that Bhatt was laughing at you and the stories about the icons seemed more alive
in her own mind than on the canvasses hung on the gallery walls.</div>
<br />
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In the ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MokshaBuy Mandla’</i> painted with acrylic on canvas
[191.92x191.92cms], a many-armed creature modelled perhaps on goddess Durga of
the Hindu pantheon was seen with shopping bags, credit cards, currency notes,
an extraordinarily long shopping-list, ice-cream, a blood-stained sickle and
more. This creature with eight arms stood atop the philosopher ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">MokshaBum’</i>, surrounded by other
characters invented by Bhatt. She conjured up imagery depicting the life of
this goddess of retail therapy who had drawn blood too. Cloud and fire forms
found in traditional Tibetan Thangka paintings were also incorporated in the
picture. The ugly, purple deity with three eyes, evil red lips and a tongue that
extended below her feet, also held a ‘jap mala’. On the one hand the artist
purports to critique consumerism and its excesses, yet she calls it
‘MokshaShots’ or “taste of the sublime”. At the same time she also uses items such
as the ‘mala’ associated with spiritual seekers which have ascetic
connotations, confusing the issue. If consumerism is her path, of what
significance is the ‘jap mala’? Is it about the insincerity of the seeker? Is
it about the general confusion around the idea of moksha? Or is it about
experiencing the sublime through consumerism? </div>
<br />
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In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBum’ Mandala</i> [2009, 121.92x121.92 cms] a cute, all blue
creature with arms folded in a lazy, thinking posture, with a pink halo which
could have been the cushion he was seated on, looked starry-eyed into space.
His eyes didn’t confront you; he was clearly in his own world. Through this,
the artist intended to exemplify <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">the thinker and armchair philosopher, who never got up and moved,
achieved little but expounded a lot; but the visual did not convey this. </span>Bhatt
used the concept of over-indulgence to denote fulfilment where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBuy’</i> supposedly attained moksha
through excessive buying. She then presented <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBum’</i> as the philosopher and an escapist, doing nothing but
thinking, turning the idea of indulgences around, to represent now, the
futility of a single dimensional approach, thus contradicting herself.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SJ_hDOGCmVA/UXf6igj0jKI/AAAAAAAAByA/2Y98HMX523U/s1600/Jenny+Bhatt+-+MokshaBum+Mandala,+2009,+Acrylic+on+Canvas,+121+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SJ_hDOGCmVA/UXf6igj0jKI/AAAAAAAAByA/2Y98HMX523U/s320/Jenny+Bhatt+-+MokshaBum+Mandala,+2009,+Acrylic+on+Canvas,+121+copy.jpg" width="319" /></a>Bhatt had imagined an elaborate
life for these characters. The artist statement suggested that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘MokshaBum’</i> may even have a girlfriend,
lending credence to the idea that the visual alone was inadequate to present
the fullest extent of her ideas and philosophy. Much greater intellectual
investment and involvement as well as creative thinking was needed to bring alive
this world successfully. An animation film or video could have been a
possibility. <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In fact her digital
interactive video created a much more authentic world, where you could participate.
As an application on social networking sites such as Facebook, it may succeed
in providing the kind of experience Bhatt possibly envisaged. Her concept is
individualistic and the characters quite original but they lacked depth of
exploration and thus appeared too cartoon-like and superficial. In addition, </span>Bhatt
appears to take the spiritual idea of moksha or liberation on the one hand
quite literally and then interprets it via consumerism using a rather ‘liberal’
interpretation, complicating the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She is therefore unable to able to exemplify her point of view.<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
</div>
Gopika Nathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05045583005627540260noreply@blogger.com0