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The Promise of the Believable
In his recently concluded solo at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, sculptor Gopinath presented a set of works that dealt with traditional sculpting methods and its conceptual use in the new sculptural productions. Shubhalakshmi Shukla catches up with the artist and works to reveal more about the show.
“In sculpture we see form...but here the ‘tools’ become important..
Naturally when one looks at a sculpture, we see that it distinguishes itself from space through its form, but for me, more than its formal aspects, the tools, become important. ‘Tools’ I regard them as the basic reason for a sculptures/ sculptor’s Formal existence.”- Gopinath
In sculpture there is no significance of tools without its materials. In the present body of works by Gopinath the most important created value is about the presence of a material like stone and its relationship with the tools that carve it. Eventually the casted out material displayed is fibre-glass, but the initial most stage of the composition was constructed in stone followed by clay.
What seems to be interesting about this exhibition is the collapse of artist’s freedom to practice art making. It is rather humorous to see a display so upfront about the jeopardized state of an institute like Jehangir Art Gallery which once promoted the artist’s freedom of expression. “Promise of the believable” creates a moving gap between first two fingers (suggesting scissors that may inaugurate!).
A gesture, that seems to get formulated in the distance between- the displayed “Temptation of an Illusionary space” and “Promise of the believable”. Here, there seems to be no segregation between a pair of tools that are displayed on each sculpture (a hammer and a chisel). Where the “Temptation of the illusionary Space” suggests the form of a fist as a rock holding a blank-canvas or a ‘concrete-flat-block’, the “Promise of the believable” is a male human-body suggesting a mythical gesture of Krishna. The blank canvas suggests a void, that needs to inscribe a chance-image or information or a perception; where as the lower half of the torso in the “Promise of the believable” raises a conflict (within the Hindu myth) placing nudity in context. A blank canvas is free to be inscribed with a new perception; where as the freedom for the same gets challenged in “Promise of the believable”.
To be able to make establish a contact between this work with that of the ‘Promise of the Believable”, the Krishna like crossed leg-posture brings along a context of right kind of information that nudity according to ‘fundamentalist’ choices of religion is a blasphemy and that is how a white cloth was tied around the waist of the sculpture! More over, the sculpture is not just about nudity but the iconic figure of Krishna that lifts-up the ‘govardhan giri’ on his right-little-finger. Gopinath probably has attempted to make a pun at this gesture of the iconic figure of Krishna in his work. The most interesting aspect about this cloth tied across the waist is that it is very skillfully tied to hide all that must have gone behind making this act. It also uncovers the fact that the upper part of the body (suggestive of Krishna may be) is quite insignificant to those who claim to be religious- by enforcing such an act.
In this sculpture, the tools are yet placed adjacent to the main work like in all other sculptures to suggest that the work is incomplete.
“There is a purposeful incompleteness at play in my works. The incompleteness as manifestations against any established of the ‘ideal’. The incompleteness doesn’t mask the reality but, it confronts the ‘Real’ as a form of protest. Using the ‘ideal’, ‘finished’ quality in my works, I’m actually talking about its opposite!”- Gopinath
Thus, this sculpture with a white-napkin tied around its waist seems to become a centre point for opening up a dialogue about how Hindu Myth eventually has to be addressed at an institution that tries to jeopardize the values of the same. This Kitsch element not just offers a humorous taste but also makes a narrative of a rock as emerging out of a human-body rather than its opposite, a dialectic of the “Flesh and the Stone’( as in Greek Mythology ).
‘Redemption Song’:
No other sculpture in the show is placed over a prominent pedestal as this. The portrait with half closed meditative eyes, the monk’s face refuses to disappear in the physical space that surrounds it. There seems to be a re-echo of the same portrait within the same spatial form, at the back of the head in an equally voluminous manner. The portrait replicates itself in a concaved manner and seems to be lit from within in an indistinguishable manner. This seems to come as a surprise as one needs a deeper sensitivity about the front and the back or the lateral divides of the human-form which may be a transgressive experience in day to day living.
This portrait gives an opportunity to once again feature the possibility of head for ‘Promise of the believable’, as this is the only sculpture which exemplifies a portrait in human-form amongst all the displayed works.
‘Utopian dreams’: gives an interesting angle to the entrance of the exhibition space where the door opens up before rock-surface holding a diagonal line of six chisels in a row where the hammer sleeps passively next to the established relationship between the rock and the chisel.
It is important to note that a recreated meaning in these sculptural forms gather more attention to speak about the contemporary cultural experiences rather than the truism about the material- surface.
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