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By S. Kalidas
As you stand in sheer amazement beneath the beehive attached
to the under-side of the staircase, the almost palpable
buzzing comes not from honey bees but hundreds of tiny ghungroos
(ankle bells). Across the hall, butterflies flit about with
their mirror-finish wings of steel and assassin dagger bodies |
In
another section stand patina-shaded heads of Bade Ghulam
Ali Khan and Siddheshwari Devi with mouths open as if engaged
in a passionate Jugal-Bandi (dute). On the landing is parked
a cycle-rickshaw Laden with a thousand lotas (vessel to
carry water). The ultimate hone utility object of Indiana
all over the North. And trapezing over |
FORMAL VISION: Ghalotra with her showstopper beehive
made of ghungroos; Female Torso by Raghav Kaneria (below
left)
a tall column reminiscent of Ashoka’s pillar is a
Lonely acrobat figure, now fast disappearing from our globalizing
urban landscape, the native nat or street acrobat.
These are just some of the tactile forms that arrest your
eyes and spur your imagination in an enchanting exhibition
showcasing the trajectory of Indian sculpture over the last
century. In the best spirit of private enterprise, it look
a private art Gallery to mount this major commemorative
show, titled Bronze, celebrating the century year of india’s
first modernist sculptor Ram Kinker Baij (1906 – 1980).
Commissioned by Renu Modi of Gallery Espace and curated
by noted sculptor Madan Lal of Varanasi, the exhibition
comprises works of 35 artists spread over two floors of
Delhi’s Lalit Kala Akademi galleries.
This landmark exhibition includes works of almost ever major
sculptor who made his or her mark on the Indian art scene
(the two notable exceptions being Dhruv Mistry and mrinali
Mukherjee) from the late Kinkarda and his Shantiniketan
colleagues |
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and students like Sankho Chaudhuri, Somenath Hore
and Sarbari Roy Chowdhury to those from the Baroda
school such as Himmat Shah, Nagji Patel and Raghav
Kaneria. There is also a representation of the southern
style with S.Nandagopal and S.parasivam, while tribal
traditions can be found in the works of Jaidev Baghel
(an internationally celebrated tribal craftsperson)
and Meera Mukherjee, who, thought an urban artist,
used the indigenous lost-wax process to make her
mammoth yet delicately detailed sculptures. In this
august company, the more brassy in –your-face
works that tease the mind and mock the eye have
emerged from the hands of the brave young postmodernists
who rule the virtual globe today and include artists
like Sunil Gawde, Subodh Gupta, Riyas Komu and Vibha
Galhotra.
It is true that post –modernism has freed
(to use a jargon) art practice from formal boundaries.
Painting , sculpture, performance, use of ubiquitous
objects, popular pastiche, social comment, historical
reading, text (often a lot of text), use of new
media like computers , television and video all
are grist to the post-modernists’ mill. And
their ultra-revolutionary rhetoric notwithstanding,
it is a bust mill in the global art marketplace
today.caught
up with pretentious intellectualism that the art
they produce is often very shoddy in
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its execution. It is as if having idea, the artist
can dispense with the fabrication of the work.A
case in point could be senior conceptualist Anita
Dube’s untitled ‘work - in - progress’.
The
work juxtaposes two sets of twigs and branches
of
dead |
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in that category who are so-be-working
red laser beam being projected from one set of twigs
to the other. Well, for one, with the laser beam not
working even on the second day of the show, perhaps
the piece should go back to the studio till its progress
is finished. Even if the laser beam did work, it would
take a lot of textual explaining on Dube’s part
and a lot more effort on the part of the uninitiated
and naïve viewer to get her moot, arcane point.
The empress’s new robes? You get the idea. |
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