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OF ALL THAT IS NEW
The Summer Show at the CIMA Art Gallery, Kolkata brought a whiff of fresh air to the otherwise choking climate. However, Oindrilla Maity feels that the organizers failed to explain the logic of the show through an adequate curatorial note. She feels happy for the youngsters who with their fresh works overshadowed the established artists
The Summer Show has marked its on set at the CIMA Art Gallery in Kolkata. What is particularly noticeable about exhibitions in CIMA is the gallery’s careful selection of fresh, new works that largely distinguishes it from the other galleries sprawled all over the city.
One also notices a gradual shift in the works and experiments of the artists featured almost regularly in this particular gallery for a span of about three years, with out a pause – such as Kingshuk Sarkar, Sumitro Basak, Shreyasi Chatterjee and Shipra Bhattacharya. All of who have been grouped with senior artists such as Lalu Prasad Shaw, Jogen Chowdhury, Uma Siddhant and Shuvaprasanna this time, along with new works by those namely Yogesh Rawal, Mona Rai, Mohan Singhane, Madhuri Kathe, Siraj Saxena, and others from outside Bengal.
Experiments with a wide range of materials and spectacular treatments are what the show has seemingly stressed on. Yogesh Rawal’s untitled monochromatic panel striated with bands of black and white of varying width has been created using paper collage, cellulose and synthetic (paint?) pertaining to it a nearly photographic finish.
Mohan Singhane’s work Rikt includes two vertically placed framed works each of which comprises of about sixteen equal postcard-sized acid free mount board covered with dark brown dry pastel. The occasionally left out white pieces amongst these metaphorically hint at a void in space.
In her work Breaking it Up – II, Shreyasi Chatterjee employs silk threads, acrylic paint, pen and thread embroidery on canvas. She builds up an intricately detailed garden with myriad foliages and the tiniest creatures that thrive on them – a co-habitation of flora and fauna – rendered in a certain subtle, jesting tone.
Nakshatra II, Mona Rai’s signature painting includes a wide range of media – mirrors, gauze, golden paint, braid made of cloth, sequins and dripping paint. A chequered mesh of the gleaming glittering Milky Way is what her canvas reflects.
For Sumitro Basak, a highly minimalist canvas is enough to make a statement. A solid green mass – a leaping figure – against a red canvas creates an obvious contrast between the foreground and the background.
The two sticking works by Kingshuk Sarkar draw attention not only for their gigantic scales, but also for their thematic choice and medium. The massive diptych titled A Dress depicts a baggy-like, wobbly male torso hanging on a hanger. Rendered in the Japanese technique iwa-enogu (Kingshuk had a five years training in Japanese pigment making techniques) – stone pigments (which he himself prepares manually) mixed with animal glue over cotton on panel – intrigues in the onlooker: is it the body that wears it or is it the dress that wears the body? The other canvas by him, once again a colossal one bears the title Others Simply Seek a Better Life. Comprising of equally spaced square areas, each of this is filled ether with a woman’s crying face with her mouth wide open or sometimes a lower jaw fills them up with irregular, eroded teeth jutting out into the space above, secured at their base by the pink lower lip, catch the eye at once. Precise linear drawing is Kingshuk’s ace up his sleeve. Also, his glittering, rich and thick paint married with his rapidly changing styles deserves appraisal.
Arpita Singh’s masterly handled water colour – completely segregated from the traditional transparency that ideally lingers with the medium; so much so that she brings about a thick crayon like treatment appears stunning in her only piece of in the show two Men, Two Women?
Expanse of Depth by Siraj Saxena is a landscape that apparently appears to be a minimalist one, but on the contrary is treated with tiny dashes of colour. Vertically marked directional lines create illusion of monumentality on his canvas. It bears a significant change brought about by the post-colonial times.
Among the other works Yusuf’s untitled and yet powerfully handled canvas despite being another of a grand scale is intricately and painstakingly filled with running stitches rendered in brush. Madhuri Kathe’s two untitled works with ripped gauzes pasted on coloured canvases bringing about a mystified effects of the Far Eastern landscapes. Shakila’s latest collage The Beggars is an impressive one in which she has created a labyrinth of space. Manu Parekh’s Benaras Landscape deals with bouys, mastheads, ships and the water. A rich black contours the objects against a dimly lit evening background. There were other paintings by Veer Munshi, Shipra Bhattacharya, Jogen Chowdhury, Suvaprasanna, Prabha Kolte, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Jaya Ganguly, Pampa Panwar, Jatin Das and Santanu Maity and two sculptures in round by Bimal Kundu and Uma Siddhant.
However the young artists have out shadowed their senior counter parts with their fresh ideas put forth. There is a dearth of spirit in the latter, as it appears. Is it because there is an orientation towards the viability of their works commercially? Certain predictability circumscribes their work. The new answers between the generations are therefore not subtle, but conspicuous.
Lastly, the exhibition notes accompanying each work appear to the rather inadequate compared to the ones that CIMA had done during its Annual Show earlier this year. The absence of a chit of paper relating to the artists’ works could have explained the key idea - which on the contrary, seemed a little too disappointing especially to the lay public. |
