As you enter gallery Art Konsult in Hauz Khas Village, you notice that the generally sterile, white-cube space of the gallery has been transformed with striking blue and brown walls, offset by the usual egg-white walls. The next surprise comes in the form of text that encourages viewers to ‘Touch Everything’. Artists Aditi Angiras and Murari Jha invite visitors to touch and fondle objects that are naughtily shaped to remind one of the vital organs that are so off limits for discussion in society. In another corner of the gallery, there’s a beautifully rendered bovine that is much in discussion all over India. Artists Gargi Chandola and Yaman Navalakha have provided taps alongside the animal so that she might be milked by society in more ways than one.
Welcome to ‘Contrabanned: Provocations of Our Times’, curated by Myna Mukherjee and hosted by Art Konsult. The exhibition opened last week (today is its last day) and foregrounds the power of visual incitement in the public environment. Twenty contemporary artists have showcased new and especially created works,
Baaraan Ijlal’s ‘Birdbox Project’.
spanning multiple mediums, from painting, photography and sculpture, to new media, sound and video installations.
The other artists featured are Anindita Bhattachrya, Balbir Krishan, Baran Ijlal, Chintan Upadhyay, Gopa Trivedi, Jimmy Chishi, Mujtaba Syed, Puneet Kaushik, Raghava K. K., Sharmila Samant, Samit Das, the Shashwatsound Collective, Sumontro Sengupto and Valay Gada, Veer Munshi and Ahmer Khan.
“The exhibition is about intersectionality, which I believe is the only way forward on the debate about human rights, marginalisation and the censure around cultural expression that is a reality of our times... It questions contested terrains, where notions of the quotidian have been radicalised,” says Myna Mukherjee, the curator.
Miniature, but extravagant
Bhattachrya’s subtle yet provocative ‘Neo-miniatures’ references Mughal and Persian miniatures but contemporises them. The artist has left the centre empty while painting around its borders. The Mughals and Persian miniaturists were known for elaborate border decoration techniques.
Anindita Bhattachrya’s Untitled mixed media on paper
However, Bhattachrya’s intention is not mere decoration. “My work speaks of the marginalised in our society, and by leaving the centre empty and moving the painting to the margins I am making a statement about redefining those spaces,” she says. The imagery of ‘Neo-miniatures’ is deeply carnal, with monkeys frolicking in gay abandon, a man with a lotus for a head appearing in the nude while other figures engage in subtle coitus.
Her work forms an interesting dialogue with artist Chintan Upadhyay’s small format drawings. Titled
Display of the show ‘Contrabanned’ with Balbir Krishan’s work ‘All the Flowers Have Turned Red’ (right in the pic) and Valay Gada’s sculpture ‘Hybrid’ (to the left)
‘Gandi Baat’, Upadhyay’s work references Manga figures but localises issues around censorship and expressions of desire in his inimitable style. The speech bubbles attributed to his quirky characters are all about censorship, pornography, child sexuality and the colourful abusive language that the people of Delhi often use.
The fact that these works are being shown as the artist remains incarcerated adds a poignant edge.
Another work that forms an interesting dialogue is Balbir Krishan’s lyrical painting, ‘All the Flowers have Turned Red’. It expresses, covertly and overtly, same-sex desire through celebratory figures engaged in affectionate embraces and lone contemplation.
Gargi Chandola and Yaman Navlakha’s work titled ‘Milking it’
In a shade of robust red, it also hints at danger since the eyes of the government are constantly upon the figures.
Alongside is Valay Gada’s fibreglass lush sculpture of a chrysanthemum loaded with metaphors of desire, vulnerability, fragility and the temporal. Gada also has on display another work titled ‘Taste of Victory of Love Over Hate’, featuring a copper and brass tongue pierced with nails — a reference to censure and freedom of speech. Raghava K. K.’s works delineating body dysmorphia and the politics of untouchable bodies complete this dialogue on body politics.
Evocative and functional
Naga artist Jimmy Chishi’s work is playful and evocative. While his acrylic paintings on canvas bring together multiple cultural references, with the Naga bull-head motif and mass-culture Mickey Mouse head, his Andhra Tolubommalata and Ravana Chhaya puppets are larger than life, yet totally functional.
His work in essence is about assimilating imagery from various cultures, which poses critical questions about how indigenous Naga culture is ‘consumed’.
Mujtaba Syed also explores the idea of hybrid identity through his triptych, ‘In the Name of God, In the Name of Development and In the Name of Gandhi’, which refers to Michael Craig-Martin, an Irish-British contemporary conceptual artist and painter who taught Syed when the latter studied at Goldsmiths. “My work was looking into my Kashmiri identity, but it took a shift after the 100-day lockdown on the city of Srinagar. I had a lot of time to contemplate my work and I decided to allow my time spent at Goldsmiths to come through,” says Syed.
The first canvas in the triptych depicts the religious through the motif of the bell, the second uses the builder’s set square and scale to indicate building and development, while the third uses Gandhi’s round glasses topped by a punk image of a skinhead with a crown.
Baran Ijlal’s multi-media work, the ‘Birdbox Project’, takes off from old cinema bioscopes and presents the narratives of anonymous girls who talk about their adventures through cinema characters. It interrogates gender while talking of bodies and intimacies.
Gopa Trivedi’s photographs picture her inside a refrigerator, the photo montages questioning why women need to be preserved as pure and virtuous. Puneet Kaushik’s video performance uses traditional masks to explore the popular radio show ‘Mann Ki Baat’, capturing the flipflopping of the present government.
One can end the tour by looking at our past and history as manipulated truths. Samit Das’s mixed-media works examine the obfuscation of facts during the creation of history and its mythicisation. Sumontro Sengupto’s work addresses the issue by contextualising archival material related to Indian participation in the Great War on the one hand and muslin, a traditional Indian fabric, on the other.
The exhibition is designed to provoke, shock and shake you out of your Sunday reverie. And it lives up to the promise of its title.
The writer is a critic-curator by day, and a creative writer and visual artist by night. When in the mood, she likes to serenade life with a guitar and a plate of Khao Suey.
