Two Reviews, Too Late

Nine: Her Magic Square

The Viewing Room, Colaba

Nine: Her Magic Square brought together mixed media works by nine women artists, some better known than others. Their art reflected different vocabularies and registers – Anjum Singh’s works were quietly humorous, Debasree Das earnestly depicted the urban alienation from nature, Farida Batool’s holographic images were lush, Chila Kumari Burman’s bite-sized collages vehemently kitsch and Niyeti Chadha’s works spare and geometric. There was, however, an underlying unity of themes – urbanization, femininity (or perhaps female-ness), the banality and colorfulness of the everyday, and the evocation of a calmer liminal space.

I particularly liked Smriti Dixit’s sculptures, created almost entirely from the plastic extensions affixed to price tags. The intricacy and delicacy of these works belied their large size and the abrasive texture of the material. I was also interested in the way Chada’s planes and patterns managed to create a sense of movement and depth completely at odds with the severity of her straight lines. My favorite, though, was Das’ ‘Looking Again,’ a cabinet-like space filled with miniature paper bags onto which were painted a variety of images – transistor radios, gramophones, bicycles, old-school telephones, steel tiffins – the paraphernalia of a time past, anachronistic and perhaps imbued with a certain nostalgia. Burman’s psychedelia was a tad predictable, and I had mixed feelings about Jenny Bhatt’s deliberately irreverent take on contemporary art. It’s difficult to deny that some of the art we see today is pretentious, more about hype and less about substance. Even so, making an artistic and aesthetic statement by parodying other works or indeed, art itself, requires a certain amount of nuance, reflection and due process. Without this, such gestures will fail to withstand serious scrutiny.

The term ‘woman artist’ is contentious, and equal numbers of artists either wear the label as a badge of honor, or attempt to distance themselves from it.  But even as women artists (self proclaimed and otherwise) breach new bastions and break new ground, address varied concerns and engage with diverse forms and practices, it is possible to trace the shapes and patterns of certain similarities in their work – a responsiveness to the world and its minutiae, painstaking detail, and an experimentation with new media, material and spaces, often salvaged from the realm of the ‘domestic’ – found objects, bindis, embroidery.

This show has probably been dismantled by now. But it was interesting, eclectic and offered viewers the opportunity to acquaint themselves with artists who have not yet been granted their ‘fifteen minutes’ of superstardom under the arc lights of the Indian art firmament.

Splitting the Other by Nalini Malani

Chemould Art Gallery, Fort and Project 88, Colaba

1^st – 30^th November, 2010

As one of India’s leading and most influential artists, Nalini Malani needs no introduction – her reputation precedes her both within and outside the country. Splitting the Other was Malani’s response to the riots that ripped apart Gujarat in 2002, yet these were works that could equally mourn other tragedies in other places. There were two parts to the show – paintings and a single video installation at Chemould, and a number of mixed media works at Project 88. I visited Chemould, and came away feeling discomfited. Malani’s enormous, multi-paneled paintings were populated by a profusion of entrails, bodies, animals, machines, weapons, semi-human and semi-mythic creatures, either oddly static, squirming or engaged in acts of violence and destruction. The bright colors were juxtaposed uneasily with the content.

The video installation didn’t make for easy viewing – a deliberate and effective undermining of Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Galaxy of Musicians,’ an iconic painting that represents women arrayed in traditional community-specific finery and playing different instruments. This painting was first exhibited at the World Conference of Religions in 1910. It was intended to be a statement of India’s much vaunted plurality and diversity, and was received in that spirit. More lately, it has been interpreted not so much as a statement, but as a wishful, even naïve construction. Malani’s video overlaid Ravi Varma’s work with ghostly images of women flitting in and out of the frame, assuming the places and faces of the multiple musicians, while an audio track consisting of riot victims describing their experiences played on loop. A piercing scream rang through the gallery every few minutes.

This was a prickly show, impossible to like, and difficult to grapple with. It was a show with an explicit agenda, and in terms of actual artistic merit, I’m not sure how it ranks as compared to Malani’s other exhibitions. But I suppose that’s besides the point.