‘Material Witness’ pairs unconventional subject matter and medium choices

‘Material Witness’ is the title of a new joint show at Bose Pacia, New York. It denotes an individual containing real or alleged information, or ‘material’, which is important to criminal trial. As such they get bound to the event irrespective of intent or interest. The works in this exhibit explore this very concept related to the artist’s subject and medium choices.

The exhibition includes large scale ‘paintings’ made with a variety of non-traditional substances. Historically a painter, Bari Kumar started to experiment with fabric constructions around 2007. These can be considered to mimic the pixilation aesthetic seen in many of canvas paintings done by him. His work on view is largely comprised of fabric constructions. He depicts segments of nude bodies with the material used conventionally to cover bodies he emphasizes the shifting contexts of the human body and its covering as well as the miscommunications, which arise when such distinctions do not follow a set trajectory.
|
By using the fabric (sari lining fabric) intended for a sari’s inner lining he also brings to the fore a material frequently seen, albeit rarely adored. He lends a voice and position perhaps to an ‘unspoken variable from visual culture’. Other participant in ‘Material Witness’ is Buenos Aires-based collective, Mondongo. Both Bari Kumar and Mondongo in their works have explored theories of voice and deft representation of materials and subjects. A press release states:

“By using materials that are intrinsically linked to the message of the work the objects become complicit with their message. The works themselves become both the perpetrator and the perpetrated creating a vacuum of intense representation. By using a commonly acquired and viewed material to depict a related but far more contentious form, the artist emphasizes questions of voice, marginality, and inherent meaning. Mondongo's work has followed a similar path."

An insightful pairing of subject matter and medium in works by both Bari Kumar and Mondongo builds a sort of visual meditation on the agency of certain common materials and the moments of prescribed or purposeful meaning.