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Chak De India

Amrita Gupta Singh walks into the virtual football field created by Riyas Komu at the Guild Gallery, Mumbai as a part of his latest solo show ‘Mark Him’ and says that there are not only dribblings and headers but also trappings and fouls. A corner kick review from the author.

Every significant artistic coming to terms with the world, contributes toward expanding our sensitivity to the human condition and our own psychological and, ultimately, social awareness. Works of art not only invite critique, but are also critical acts in themselves. Riyas Komu, over the years has worked with the subjectivities of the working class, and also the complex realms of religion, identity and ideology, across various mediums of painting, photography, sculpture and multi-media installations, which act as semiotic resources, the mediums serving to produce multiple meanings in social space. The site and spaces of Mumbai, and sensitivity to its peripheral presences, has marked his art practice over the years, and his latest exhibition, “Mark Him”, presented by the Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, is yet another tribute to the traces and transformations of the multiple sub-cultures of Mumbai.

In this exhibition are low-relief sculptures and photographs, the theme being people who choose football as their profession, despite its many uncertainties. Unlike cricket, which was introduced by the British in India, and which enjoys ample patronage and media glamour, football remains on the lowest rung in the hierarchy of sports and sports institutions. Komu, who enjoys a good game of football himself, brings out the historical facets of this sport, placing it within the politics of sensationalism and spectacle that often marks other sports, while football matches such as the Durand Cup are often ignored, despite it being the oldest football tournament in India, and the third-oldest tournament in the world. In Kolkata, League football was played long before FIFA even existed, but when one looks at the economics of this game and its players, they often belong to the under-privileged classes, a game of the poor, with no element of any form of celebrity status. In popular cinema, Chak De was one of the recent films, which brought another relegated sport, hockey, to the public realm, but football has had no gestures of responsibility from any media, nor do parents encourage their children to join this professionally. In Kolkata,(this is from personal experience) one often hears of the age-old rivalry of Mohunbagan and East Bengal, the two football clubs of the city, but when one looks at the context of the players, one understands the existential angst and deprivation that is part of their everyday existence, but they continue to play with hope and fire in their hearts, despite being on the periphery of the public imagination, but when the FIFA World Cup takes place, Kolkata erupts into gangs/fans of Brazil or Argentina, wearing T-shirts that proclaim their loyalties to the game.

Komu, in this exhibition, traces the democratic nature of this game, where people, irrespective of their backgrounds can take part, and tells their stories of grit and determination amidst dire economic circumstances. They are heroes in their neighbourhood fields and in their localities, and pose with much pride and dignity for the artist, emerging as iconic figures in themselves. The low-relief sculptures are anatomic renderings of the musculature of legs, which acts as the vehicle in this sport, while the photographs are humane significations of life, laughter and hope, within the realm of documentary photography. “Mark Him” is playful and also critiques the erasures that mark the historical process, bringing out forgotten identities via the realm of Art.