Authenticity in the age of technology

Exhibit 320’s latest show focuses on the figurative language employed by artists to represent a person(a) or action that conjures and manipulates our understanding of past and current history. The gallery presents the works of Dhaka based Firoz Mahmud and Jaipur based Nandan Ghiya in twin solo shows titled “Images Attacked”. 

Mahmud’s solo Ninki: History runs over the Yamuna draws its name from the project, Urgency of Proximate Drawing or Ninki: UoPD. It begun anonymously in 2008 featuring photographs of popular iconic figures engaged in a typical activity associated with their respective professions. Mahmud’s choice of celebrity ranges from those in sport and entertainment to politics, highlighting a certain physicality that he then contrasts with drawn lines that tidily compose the performance of their frozen gestures. His work is inspired by both the fluid politics of his country, and the universality of propaganda and controversy. In the tangle of such worldliness, he redefines what it means to be ‘popular’ or Ninki as is referenced in Japanese.

View fullsize

The lines drawn on each photograph act as frames that superficially keep the celebrity from falling or failing, successfully mocking the mechanisms that perpetuate that sense of celebrity in an image. Mahmud’s employment of satire is especially admirable considering the ever-growing monster of imposed censorship. 

A series of woodcarvings and mixed media drawings debate the ethics of the factual and fictional in the makings of history and in collective memory. Both Drawing Bengal History and Distance of the Past are the artist’s current preoccupations that explore different cultures through technique and material of places he has lived and experienced, predominantly Bangladesh & Japan.

Nandan Ghiya’s work is rooted in familial bearings- of growing up in a traditional Rajasthan, where ancestral portraits and photographs from family albums adorned the walls of homes. Cosmetically restructured, pixelated or painted over, Ghiya reinterprets ethnographic readings of these images through the device of digital technologies.

In his solo, he presents The Blue Screen Series comprising portraits violated by screens of monochromatic blue. A spatial construct that in my mind echoes opens seas and skies, traversed yet not fully known and that can in an instant overwhelm us. Compared to virtual gangrene that mutates history and chronologies therein, Ghiya explores ways in which our minds are screened from reality. His randomly assembled collections of imperialistic portraits of royals stripped of their power- anonymous as any other in the virtual space, sometimes unrecognizable but for textual labels, conveys the inarticulateness of contemporary communication. Ghiya ultimately questions the number and degree of honest associations amidst technologies that keep us perpetually connected.

Both Firoz Mahmud and Nandan Ghiya work within the lineage of art and history, exploring the blurred lines between real and imagined, information and propaganda, strength and fragility.

Images Attacked seems a rather ironic title when we think of how much we are attacked by images today!

A judicious mix of old and new

The 7th edition of the India Art Fair hosted at the NSIC Grounds in Okhla saw the premier selection of Indian galleries, but very scant participation of both international galleries and artists.

This year, representation of the Indian Modernists was at par with that of the Contemporaries, in both quantity and quality. Most international fairs have separate dedicated sections that make it easier to navigate the fair. An attempt at the same was perhaps the reason why Delhi Art Gallery’s mini-museum was positioned across from the main halls, a curated chronological display of works from Kalighat paintings to those of Shanti Niketan right up to the Indian Moderns of schools based in Baroda, Delhi and Mumbai. A Sculpture Gallery was conceived as an adjunct and a series of presentations including informal discussions with artists on topics of printmaking, collecting and activation of the visual arts through dance were organized within the gallery’s outreach program. At exit, was a bookshop stacked with DAG’s excellent publications on the various periods of art production in India.

In the main hall, of specific interest were some of the gallery supported solo projects that aligned with the spirit of an archive and book making: Sudarshan Shetty’s ‘I know nothing of the end’ presented an accordion styled book with images of film stills from a death ritual in an Indian home facing a blank page with a line of unpunctuated text. The work is a suggestion of the cinematic in our everyday, narrated through setting, lighting and placement of objects. ‘The Museum of Chance Objects’ by Dayannita Singh introduced the idea of the ‘book’ simultaneously being an art object, an exhibition and a catalogue. With 88 different covers, mounted in wooden frames on the wall, the book became more than a compilation of reproduced images. Shilpa Gupta’s research project with Asian Art Archive ‘That photo we never got’ comprises an assemblage of documents that explore the friendships and tensions within the art field in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Fragmented, suggested or starkly said- the letters, photographs and clippings made a rather ironic statement in its positioning within the fair. Similarly, Nandita Kumar’s ‘Emotive Sounds of the Electric Writer’ was a way to stimulate the tradition of letter writing anew. Performed by a typewriter, text from each letter received through an open call was blotted onto paper and then composed as sound, in part inspired by John Cage’s Chance Score. 

The primacy of drawing and explorations of space through interventions on paper resumed an important position within contemporary art language. Ayesha Sultana’s geometric graphite on paper works at Emperimenter, Kolkata investigated the materiality of both graphite and paper, cheating the viewer into perceiving metal instead. Sachin Takade’s architectures on paper at THE LOFT, Mumbai, Parul Gupta’s line drawings at Gallery Lakeeren, Mumbai, Gallery Espace’s ‘Wall of Drawings’ alongside the solo section of works by Nilima Sheikh, Dhruvi Acharya and Chitra Ganesh’s collaborative live drawing that was completed within the four days of the fair were some of the welcome sights.

Photography was represented by Tasveer, India who brought works of Chrispher Taylor and Sebastian Cortes. Photoink, Delhi brought works of Chandan Gomes, Dhruv Malhotra, Ketaki Sheth, Madan Mahatta Madhuban Mitra and Manas Bhattacharya and Raghu Rai. Wonderwall, Delhi presented works by Karan Khanna, Prarthna Modi and Prabuddha Dasgupta amongst others. Pablo Bartholomew’s series ‘A Tale of three cities’ along with a pair of photographs by Gauri Gill from the series ‘Balika Mela and Jannat’ hung at the Thomas Erben, New York booth. I found three absolutely stunning photographs from 1997 titled ‘Notes to the Body’ by Sheba Chhachhi hanging at Volte, Mumbai. Art Heritage, Delhi curated an interesting section on photography called Fictions that highlighted the interplay of performance and social commentary within each frame.

The Speaker’s Forum, although poorly attended threw up critical issues for discussion including Curating Civilizational Histories- a take on how contemporary artists and curators engaged with history, regional cultures and eco-politics.  The session included a brilliant presentation by British artist Jeremy Deller, moderated by Abhay Sardesai, editor of Art India magazine. Another session explored the discipline of Art Writing. Presented by the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and Art Forum International Magazine, the session’s presentations pointed to the increasing agenda of commercial enterprise with respect to art writing, and the overlaps between art history, curatorship, and criticism.

The seventh year of the Art Fair saw a focus specifically on ‘Indian Art’ with a host of works from the South Asian region. The layout was better designed, allowing for ease of movement. A number of collateral events and exhibitions in galleries, cultural centers and museums opened from the beginning of January creating a buzz around the fair and expanding the scope of what the art fair now represents. It is more than simply a fair, it is also a time that necessitates keeping a calendar for the selection of things of interest to see and engage with.

Atul Bhalla & the weight of water

“The river in front of her was black. She thought it contained many things.”

— Gisèle Prassinos

Atul Bhalla continues the artist's engagement with environmental issues, specifically those engaging with the eco-politics of water. Featured in his ongoing solo exhibition at Vadehra Art Gallery, "Ya Ki Kuchh Aur!", are three projects documented in three global locations — "Deliverance" in New Delhi, "Inundation" in Hamburg and "Contestation" in Johannesburg. Researched since 2012, the projects suggest the universality of environmental issues, while highlighting associated socio-cultural conventions that hinder or alleviate the problems thereof.

The show begins quite poignantly with the three-channel video titled Deliverance I, which opens with a wide-angle shot of calm open waters. An empty boat floats slowly into the frame of the second screen, and then into the third. There's a moment of blankness before the centre screen lights up again with a visual of the boat at sunset, the city in the background and birds squawking before nightfall. In the quietude, the lonely boat is suddenly ablaze and the video ends. The message is clear and most beautifully executed as one walks to an installation titled Looking for Dvaipayana (island-born), a reference to the Hindu scholar Vyasa and an entry point to Bhalla's research on the laborious boat-making craft of the Mallah community. A tank of water, a pillar standing tall, a table with remnants of rock with the words YA in Hindi laid on the ground presented in an archival manner suggest the inevitability of human usage of water resources. A series of 30 photographs documenting the making of a boat — wood, iron nails, workmen's hands, and the rituals that guide each step of the boat's making — are presented on an adjacent wall in The Wake.

The project is concluded in the last room of the gallery in a painting titled Deliverance, showing the wooden boat suspended in air in the moment before it touches the water, and from where it fulfills its function as a rite of passage. On looking longer, it could also be the moment the boat ends its journeying and is liberated from its function. The title is telling; the viewer is led from the object's inevitable destruction in the video through processes of its making to the moment of dilemma — the wooden boat mid-air, awaiting its release. So, what happens when the river touches the city?

Deliverance, Archival pigment print back mounted on diamond, 42" x 77", 2012

Contestation - I, Archival pigment print, 36" x 54", 2013

The second project, "Inundation", focuses on the acts of immersion and self- meditation referenced through the presence or absence of the physical body near the river Elbe in Hamburg. Through bodily gestures, Bhalla activates the river as a site of memory just as rituals reinforce faith in the series What will be my defeat? On the other hand, the series of three photographs Inundation-I, II, III depicts vast expanses of water, leaving the viewer to meditate on his position — the act of viewing and acting itself.

The viewer is led from the object’s inevitable destruction in the video through processes of its making to the moment of dilemma. So, what happens when the river touches the city? 

The third and final project is "Contestation", researched and shot in Johannesburg, where Bhalla spent three months as part of a residency in 2012. A single white linen jacketed chair amidst the dry grassy landscape appears repeatedly itself in a series of large photographs accenting our role as spectators, while also punctuating racial and patriarchal prescriptions of South Africa through the symbolic use of the "white" high-backed chair. Politics concerning privatisation of land, gold mining and large open deposits of waste bear witness to a country still struggling with archaic laws and a hard-wired racial history.

Atul Bhalla's images of landscapes are poetic in their revelation of engagements and disengagements with urban development. Although his research and documentation cover a number of sites, predominantly rivers, his dialogue with nature is universal and often meditative. The show is but a glimpse into his many years of work but is well worth the visit and remains on view until 20 December 2014.

Balkrishna Doshi and the symphony of architecture

We never notice light, we just assume it, claims Balkrishna Doshi in a short film that is part of a retrospective of his work at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Scribbled along the margins of a sheet of paper that lies in a vitrine containing a scaled model of the exhibition, I read another quote — "This is not the exhibition of an architect but an artist who sees all the stages of a place, building at one glance."

The retrospective is conceived as an experiential exhibit, as a way of simulating our engagement with architecture. Doshi insisted on the spatial design being accessible — for everyone to be able to relate to what was presented and possibly inspire those who visited. The challenge was taken up and successfully addressed by the curator and architect Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, who is also his granddaughter. "Celebrating Habitat: The Real, the Virtual and the Imaginary" is a celebration of our experiences with built spaces witnessed through projects conceived and executed by Doshi over a career spanning six decades.

Doshi's work is, in fact, representative of modern art, but not in an insular way. It is transformative. In his own words, "It is a dialogue with nature, community and building; architecture is a symphony". Doshi also happens to be a great storyteller, and the poetics with which he conveys an organic symbiosis with nature in words and work is truly invigorating. 

“Design is not static and is related to time, place, function, occasions, reasons, concerns and belief of that time. It is also related to economy and sustainability.”

A part of the display (architectural drawings with photographs of Doshi at different sites

Another view of the exhibition/ IIM Bangalore

I enter the exhibition through four columns, representing the manner in which space is organised in any home and also the basis of all Doshi's residential constructions. Alongside are large colour photographs of how the pillars appear in the interior of his home. The four pillars also represent Le Corbusier, whom he trained under in Paris from 1952-1956; Louis Kahn, whom he invited to design IIM Bangalore with him; Rabindranath Tagore, for his conception of Shantiniketan; and Gandhi, whose teachings have guided his personal understanding of life and living. I wonder where to walk next — to my left is a gallery of paintings, to my right I see scaled models of buildings, more photographs and some furniture, right in front is a vaulted space which I then learn is representative of Doshi's office, Sangath Studio in Ahmedabad. Space is designed so as to not be leading, but interconnected. There is no chronology, and I agree that in this case, the non-linearity of spatial design is more effective in discovering and learning as one goes from a project to another. It is true to Doshi's vision of the exhibition being a laboratory. When asked how he imagined the 60 years of his architecture as being reflective of changes in society, he replies, "Design is not static and is related to time, place, function, occasions, reasons, concerns and belief of that time. It is also related to economy and sustainability."

The exhibition recreates not only the spaces he has envisioned and built, but also the impulse to each context and the inhabitants they have been built to house. It is a montage of experiences, in real time and space constructed through scaled models, sketches, interactive pieces, film and fragmented mock-ups. LIC Housing in Ahmedabad, National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi, Sawai Gandharva in Pune, City Hall in Toronto, Kanoria Centre for the Arts, as well as the famous Amdavad ni Gufa built in collaboration with M.F. Husain as an exhibition hall in Ahmedabad, are presented as overlapped and evolving into each other, yet they all are complete projects in their own right. Each resonates a certain timelessness.

The skillful play of scales and proportions is an imagined nuance of real space, that make this retrospective highly stimulating. It is a must-see. So, if you haven't already visited, today is the last day!