Intriguing works by Amitabh Kumar

Amitabh Kumar showed five works in different mediums at a recent show, which took place at Gallery Latitude28 in New Delhi.

The first, a triptych of three ultraviolet prints on raw aluminum sheet, titled ‘Revenge of the Non’, is about figures, objects and ideas of excess and obsolescence. In the first drawing, for instance, he makes a fly sit on an egg, the other is an inverted spinal cord with pelvic bone and the third is of a rat morphing into a formless mass.

“The work is based on the concept that the meek shall one day inherit the earth. It’s an ode to the powerless who are merely cogs in a so called functional system, and how their time has come to take revenge.” In that sense, he is questioning democratic systems where all are deemed equal and yet some are more equal than the others. The artist also created a limited edition comic book (black and white) of twenty pages called ‘Please Don’t Turn Septic’ distributed free.

His third work is a small cake made of dentures and coaltar was mounted on a jar of glycerine and as the coaltar melted over a period of time, all that remained is the denture. “Coaltar is symbolic of development and what I’m trying to say here is that in the process of ‘so called development’, one has to fall,” he explained.

The fourth work was a functioning doorbell with a post-it next to it that has loosely scribbled, "The contemporary has no future" with a standard issue ballpen. The doorbell is a time travelling device, transporting the user into the foreseeable future of a door opening, a space unveiling, an encounter. It has no door. There is only the trigger for an encounter, no possibilities.

Prayas Abhinav also worked in mixed media, with an installation work made up of Software, bluetooth keyboard, projector and paper. His second work was an interactive video, webcam, screen, glass with mechanical contraptions where the video changes its sequence of edit if the viewer smiles. The third work was about a world in which vision and sight is compulsory. It is necessary to always keep your eyes open and escape is not possible.