Friday, June 22, 2012

‘Imaging the Legend’

One of Mumbai's known galleries Tao Art presents an exhibition of photographs of late M F Husain. The show entitled, ‘Imaging the Legend’ includes several renowned photo artists like Amit Dhar, Anil Relia, Atul Dodiya, Atul Kasbekar, Apoorva Gupte, Ashesh Raje, Ashesh Shah, Bhaskar Paul, Farzana Contractor, Fawzan Husain, Gajanan Dudhalkar, Gautam Patole, and Kalpana Shah among others.

Other noteworthy names that form part of the show are Dadiba Pundole, Bose Krishnamachari, Habib Rahman, Jyoti Bhatt, Kedar Nene, Khurshed Poonawala, Mid-Day Archives, Mukesh Parpiani, Neeraj Priyadarshi, Parthiv Shah, Pradeep Chandra, Prakash Rao, Pritish Nandy, Nicholas Yarde, Nimesh Dave, Pablo Bartholomew, Ryan Lobo, Salil Bera, Sayyed Sameer Abedi, Raghu Rai, Ram Rahman, Riyas Komu, Suresh K K, Tribhuvan Tiwari, Shailesh Raval, Sooni Taraporewala, Vilas Kalgutkar, Vipul Patel and Umesh Goswami.

Curated by Niyatee Shinde and Fawzan Husain, Imaging the Legend includes fascinating portraits of Husain conceptualized to pay tribute to his celebrated and legendary presence that well and truly enriched the Indian art scene. Always dramatically poised, nattily dressed and invariably in contemplative mood, whether sketching for autograph hunters, merely sipping tea or reading a newspaper, Husain's imposing presence pervaded the scene. His impact was unquestionable.

Most of the portraits have ably captured his persona. The exhibition, in that sense, is a real tribute to his irreplaceable personality and gives an idea of his immense contribution to contemporary Indian art. The better part of the images on view, it needs to be noted, were not specifically made for such kind of an exhibition or curated gallery display.

While some of them were already published complementing news stories, many photos in this group exhibition were drawn from encounters with the late artist in locations spread not only in India but also all across the world at his different favorite abodes, many of them not seen before.

These indeed are portraits with a strong sense of intimacy. They capture a slice of the intriguing enigma that was M F Husain.

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