Saturday, August 31, 2013

Exploring the evident urban disjuncture

Artists Arun Kumar HG, Avantika Bawa, Baiju Parthan, Chittrovanu Manzumdar, Gigi Scaria, Manjunath Kamath, Roshan Chhabria, Prajakta Palav, Sarnath Banerjee and Sudipta Das feature in a show, entitled ‘Diver-Cities II’ at New Delhi-based Latitude 28.

A press release based on an essay by theorist-writer-social scientist Sunil Khilnani (The Idea of India) states: “'India's cities are hinges between its vast population spread across the countryside and the hectic tides of global economy, with its ruthlessly shifting tastes and its ceaseless murmur of the pleasures and hazards of modernity. This three-cornered relationship decisively moulds India's future economic, cultura1 and political possibilities.

“The demographic drift across the world is unstoppably towards the urban.' 'Modern India's political and economic experiences have coincided most dramatically in its cities - symbols of the uneven, hectic and contradictory character of the nation's modem life. From the ancient sacred space of Benares to the decaying colonial pomp of Calcutta, from the high rationalism of Chandigarh to the software utopia of Bangalore, from Mumbai's uneasy blend of parochial politics and cosmopolitan to the thrusting new cities of the north.

“The evident urban disjuncture's have enlivened distinct political sentiments. The real and imagined experience of the city has individually and together reconstituted both the nature and the range of the selves, the ‘identities' that Indians can call their own.” The question is whether identity remain singular, multiple, dual or fused? Which intersections does it emphasize, which points of reference resonate? A globe called home, yet a search for imaginary homelands? A polyglot culture, where every being is in tumultuous transit between identities or composite identities...

In the context of the thematic group show, a curatorial write-up underlines how art today has become an exciting statement of the cultural diversity mapping diverse geographies. Homogeneity, which emerges as a by-product of globalization, leads to the growing importance of nudging the cultural producer to look for the celebration of difference.

The show, in keeping with the gallery’s motto of weaving a strand of artists spread across disciplines, to dig into the finer aesthetic grain and concerns of each works and puts them forth in a defined collation, continues until September 23, 2013. 

(Information courtesy: Latitude 28)

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