“In India, so much of our life is lived in the past. But youth is the group which constitutes most of the country’s population; there is more youth than age, more future than past? I would say, more future than present, for the past surrounds it and is fighting to engulf it. This past is not of the Ajanta murals or Mughal miniatures, it is more cacophonous.In a way, the traditional–Modern would have us feel that heritage is in a rather precarious position and so gave rise to myth-history. It’s effectively ‘the mythologizing of history and vice versa – i.e. historicizing myth. The idea is to follow the evolving trajectory of modernism in contemporary Indian art. The context is well and truly set by the reproductions of masterpieces pioneers of modernist Indian art, such as Bhupen Khakhar, Jamini Roy, Abanindranath Tagore, MF Husain.
Art imitates life. To match the din, paintings have become pungent. The old order dress themselves in new and ornamental clothes. Hybrid becomes chic and kitsch classy. In the west,at a similar time in its art history, Fluxus, with their inter-media experiments and Pop Art made the mundane sublime & with a caustic wit, critiqued and commented on middle class conventions and prejudice.”
The images act as vital reference points to compare other works on view in order to grasp the parallels and paradoxes in ‘Yeh Image Mahaan: India Meets Bharat’. Among the other participating artists, as one takes in sublime meditation on plantains and coconut by Shreyasi Chatterjee, the orgiastic pulse of Incredible India tends to recede. The artist casts a panoramic look on a lavish landscape of unearthly beauty soaked in its own rituals of stillness. The work is matched by Sumitro Basak’s serpentine book of life.
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