The Thinking Mumbaikar's Museum

Jeejamata Udayan, Bombay's rundown, ramshackle zoo, is no place for a museum. But in a city that works in mysterious and baffling ways, the zoo is precisely what the Bhau Daji Lad Museum calls home. And if location weren't enough of a disadvantage, it is also commonly acknowledged that the Prince of Wales Museum (situated in the heart of Bombay's tourist district) houses a far more impressive collection, in a structure that's considerably larger and better taken care of.

So what, if anything, does the BDL have going for it? A sense of its place in history, and a vision for its role in the city's development.

Established by Lord Elphinstone, the museum was meant to be a storehouse for industrial products, arts and crafts. Ransacked during the 1857 Mutiny, it was resurrected by a committee of prominent citizens, given its present home, and refurbished with donations from the government and the public. With India being absorbed into the British Empire, in true colonial fashion, the museum was named after Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert.

Over the years, though, the V&A Bombay, fell into disrepair and was almost totally neglected. Its restoration was a protracted affair, requiring the combined efforts of an unusually enterprising director, an unprecedented public-private partnership, and several craftsmen and experts. Once restored, the museum was re-named after the founder who had most ardently championed its cause. Today, the modestly-sized BDL looks sumptuous, saturated as it is with color and intricate detail. Columns soar to the ceilings, tiles gleam, and light fills the building. 

The collection remains largely unchanged from the one seen by millions at the Crystal Palace in 1851. It consists of artifacts -  textiles, lac work, daggers, vases, brass platters and even carved coconut shells - from across the country, products traded by neighboring states, and dioramas constructed by students from the (then) Bombay School of Art. 

This was a collection designed to convey the diversity of India and the capabilities of its craftsmen. But it also pandered to the sensibilities of the average 19th century Briton. Indians were presented as curiosities, and the Indian village, as a harmonious but dangerously rustic idyll. The colonial government was also preoccupied with the classification of Indians into 'types,' which would explain the presence of numerous figurines representing meticulously delineated sub-communities such as 'Bhatias' 'Amdavadi Banias' 'Prabhus' and 'Surti Bohras.' Pay special attention to the maps - each one is unique, created to fulfill different purposes and answer to different interests - a telling comment on the contentiousness of boundary-making and the covetousness of ownership.

In and of itself, the collection merits one, or possibly two visits. But it is elevated by a spirit of inquiry. The collection is simultaneously two things - a celebration of craftsmanship and the city, and a deliberate, self-conscious investigation into the construction of history and the museum's own past. This self-consciousness is lent weight through collaborations with contemporary artists such as Chintan Upadhyay and Jitish Kallat.

Jitish Kallat's ongoing interventions at the BDL are thought-through and remarkably successful. Whether it's the true-to-scale scaffolding, intertwined with animal sculptures, or a massive wrought-iron stove representing destruction and sustenance, the works draw inspiration from Bombay's colonial-era architecture and its elaborate Gothic flourishes. 'Anger at the Speed of Fright' is a deceptively commonplace diorama. It's easy for a visitor's gaze to slide over the work - but if one is paying attention, one will notice dozens of figurines in two glass cabinets, poised to hurl, maim and hurt - an interesting contrast to the demure goddesses and peaceable citizens that form part of the permanent exhibit.

There are other interventions designed to question the linearity of time and the coherence of space - old-school Roman numerals illuminated by ghastly florescent light, and a single photograph composed using multiple shots taken over time. A particularly elegant intervention involves the projection of a You-Tube 'loading' symbol onto a relief map - an appropriate signifier for a city that is moving too fast to come to grips with itself. My personal favorite is a large waxy looking heart, which on closer examination reveals itself to be an inverted flyover congested with traffic - a tongue in cheek commentary on Bombay's clogged arteries.

Each work has its own integrity but retains a strong and, more importantly, valid link to the museum. The interventions 'belong' - which might be why they are so easy to miss. This kind of dialogue - between artist and museum, between an individual's concerns and an institution's history - allows the collection to transcend itself. I don't expect all the planned interventions to be equally effective, but each will likely have a perspective to offer, and will cast a different light on the objects and artifacts, drawing visitors back again and again.

Unlike the Prince of Wales, which is content with showcasing the past, the BDL seems intent on questioning and challenging itself. School students are invited to attend workshops, study-sessions and walkthroughs, and there are plans to create more educational content, design interactive kiosks and offer full-fledged diplomas. Few Indian museums question their legacy as part of their contribution to their communities. If this doesn't merit a visit to the zoo, I'm not sure what will.

Note: Wanted to rectify a couple of  factual errors:  the museum was renamed in 1975, and has interacted with Sudarshan Shetty, Nikhil Chopra and Jitish Kallat (not Chintan Upadhyay). Many thanks to Varsha R. for the corrections.

Nature and the Cosmos - Observations from a Lapsed Art Lover

Is it just me, or are there more shows on in Bombay right now than one can possibly hope to keep up with? The last few weekends seem to have slipped right past me, taking with them a host of shows that I was very keen to see - Manjunath Kamath at Sakshi, young curators at Art Loft, Iranian art at the Guild, Zuleikha Chaudhari at Project 88 and Maya Burman at Art Musings. 

There's probably a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe what the art lover needs is an iron will, the ability to resist the temptation to eat, nap, shop and watch movies in a quest to see every exhibition in town. It is safe to say that I lack this strength of character, and that I remain undecided about whether it must be cultivated. 

Nostalgia, Pride and Fear

Gallery BMB, Fort

9th March - 9th April 2011

I remember visiting 'Nostalgia, Pride and Fear,' at the BMB early last month. An exploration of humanity's relationship with nature and science, the gallery brought together a diverse group of artists working with different media, but addressing similar concerns. Alison Kundla's petri-dishes and oxygen cultivating devices highlighted the somewhat hazy distinctions between what we define as 'natural' and 'artificial.' What happens to these definitions when natural processes are replicated and re-enacted in laboratories? Is the end product   - pure oxygen, in this case - natural? Tatiana Musi, from Mexico, questioned our common definition of a 'garden.'  Is it something we co-create with nature or is it an imposition and intervention of sorts? Is a garden necessarily beautiful and orderly? Can paintings of nature and scenery constitute an attempt to create a garden? 

The other works - Ratna Gupta's latex moulds of tree barks, Teresa Gruber's tree portraits, and Soazic Guezzenec's insect/human collages - didn't strike me as being particularly compelling. It probably didn't help that the works seemed to have been exhibited without much thought or effort. I had to 'find' some of the smaller pieces for myself, and the nook right at the back of the gallery had been clumsily closed off. 

BMB makes a habit of hosting a number of exhibitions- most of which run for a month or 3 weeks. I like the fact that there is something new and fresh to look at whenever I visit. But I've said it before, and I will say it again - their shows are uneven, and it wouldn't hurt for them to be put together with a little more finesse. 

Jitish Kallat - Stations of a Pause

Chemould Prescott Road

March 22nd - May 21st, 2011

Everyone's been talking about this show - particularly a massive, 750 part work entitled 'Epilogue.' In Epilogue, Kallat charts the course of his late father's life by depicting all the moons he witnessed during his 63 years. The moons, and their waxing and waning, are represented by photos of partially eaten (or intact) rotis - the essential component of an everyday Indian meal. It's easy to speculate on the significance of the rotis as moons - do they represent fullness, emptiness, cycles of life, the unvarying nature of basic human needs? Kallat himself has articulated the conjunction of the cosmic and the microscopic in this work - we can use the moons to locate ourselves and our chronologies, and the rotis, unsurprisingly, symbolize a pan-Indian mode of sustenance. 

As I walked through Epilogue, however, I was reminded of nothing so much as filing cabinets of the old-school Godrej variety that one still sees in government offices. Much like a mottled file in a cardboard folder, Epilogue records the details of a single human life using a handy metric. It's a little disconcerting to think that no matter how unique and rich our personal histories seem to be, the minutiae of human existence remain universal and even banal and can be boiled down to an average of three meals a day, a new moon and a full moon every month. 

There are also a number of paintings depicting men at Bombay's train stations - looking  expectant, patient, resigned; their belongings packed into small duffel bags; their hair tousled into strange shapes that on closer examination reveal themselves to be parts of the city's landscape. These men are waiting, always waiting, and it looks like the city - including its paan stains and socio-economic fault-lines - has infiltrated their beings, if not their dreams. I particularly like the gilded gargoyle heads that crown each painting - a nice, gothic, Bombay University inspired touch. 

The video 'Universal Trail of a Grand Banquet' ostensibly depicts galaxies, universes, large cosmic bodies. What we are really looking at, however, are microscopic x-rays of everyday food items - another juxtaposition of the cosmic and the microscopic. I must confess, though, that I watched this video (also described as an immersive experience) 3 times over, and failed to grasp its significance. Sometimes what the viewer really needs is just an explanation. 

Kallat's interviews reveal that he has taken on large themes with this show - the cosmic, the microscopic, birth, death, life, time. He is a quality artist, and his works are, without a doubt, competent and interesting. I wasn't moved by anything I saw, but that may be a function of the concerns he has chosen to address - it's not easy to translate the cosmic into something personal and felt. Epilogue does it best.