“Shoonya Ghar” (Empty is this house) is the latest offering from one of our major contemporary artist Sudarshan Shetty. The collection comprising film, sculptural installation and photographic images is displayed at one of the premier institutions of modern art in the country, NGMA. Poetry has for long been intrinsic to Shetty’s art practice. In this show as well, he turns to saint-poet Gorakhnath’s poem “Shunya Gadh Shahar Shahar Ghar Basti Kon Sota Kon Jage Hai”. The artist, who is also the artistic director of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016-17, elaborates on the process.
Shoonya Ghar is also inspired by poetry like your previous show “Who Must Write These Lines” at Galleryske in Bengaluru last year. Can you explain your interest in poetry and how it entered your art practice?
I grew up in a household with a lot of poetry and music. My father was a Yakshagana artiste and poetry and music has always been a big part of my life so far. Coming out of the art school I began to look at some of these aspects of my life which seemed to be outside of the expectations of the space for contemporary Art. I see my role as someone who must mediate between these two seemingly diverse spaces.
Do the contrasting materials at play create any tension like they always do in your work?
This is a new body of work. The show is based on poetry by the great Nirgun Poet Gorakhnath in the 12th Century AD. I began to think of this work about three years ago and took us about 18 months to produce. As you will see in the show in the first look there is nothing fragile and everything is as solid as the built architectural form can be. However once you have watched the hour long video you will see the structure differently. You will perhaps be aware of its imminent coming apart after the period of the show is over, and that it becomes something else as you will know that these four architectural pieces are made in components and can be dismantled. These were built in my studio in Mumbai and dismantled and carried to a location which is an abandoned stone quarry. It is a space which is like a cavity in a hill made by taking away the stone to build elsewhere. Rebuilding these four structures as a set for a film, became in someway symbolic - that these structures are rebuilt there only to be taken away to be shown at a gallery space, and will be dismantled again after the stipulated period of the show.
While the structure is being rebuilt we shot a video that also included musicians and actors playing a loosely knit narrative. This video appropriates the three essential components of storytelling in the making of a film — music, performance and the building of the set.
How is Kochi biennale shaping up?
Kochi Muziris Biennale is shaping up well with some of the concerns with my own work seem to be surfacing time and again. However at this moment we need to keep it as open ended as possible to be able to include as many diverse voices as possible. We started the process with declaring the first artist of the Biennale — the great Chilean poet Raul Zurita, who read his poetry in Kochi last month.
(“Shoonya Ghar” is on display at NGMA, Jaipur House, India Gate, till March 6.)
