Brush with Freedom
A group show in Mumbai illustrates the short trajectory of Indian abstract art
Black for me is the mother colour,” S.H. Raza once said. In his iconic ‘Bindu’ series, the late master flung a black acrylic dot on the canvas as a metaphor for Mother Earth “from which all life forms take birth”. Raza’s ‘Shanti Bindu’ (1993) is on display at Mumbai’s Akara Art gallery as part of an ongoing group show, Memories Arrested in Space (on till May 5). Its intentions are modest but engaging—to map the short trajectory of Indian abstract art from the 1960s to now.
Variously described as a seed of fertility, symbol of infinity and shunya (state of emptiness), the ‘Bindu’ first captured Raza’s imagination in the 1980s even though his art had long embraced abstraction, mostly renderings of French and Indian landscapes in thick impasto. Typically, a Raza black fleck is richly compensated by bursts of bold colours on the surrounding grids, an ode to the drama and diversity of Indian life as well as a reminder to himself that despite the hilltop hamlet in France he had made home, he was an Indian painter. Given Raza’s affinity for excess, that’s precisely what makes the minimalistic ‘Shanti Bindu’ a must-see. The exhibition also features works by Ram Kumar, Ganesh Haloi, Zarina Hashmi and J. Swaminathan—all representing the Indian abstract art canon. For Haloi, painting seems to be communion with the divine. On view at the show, the 85-yearold’s gouache work on paper oozes spontaneous eloquence. Turn to Hashmi and you get the familiar strains of exile and loss, themes that the Aligarh-born artist explored right till the end of her life last year. By contrast, it is well-known that Ram Kumar underwent a sharp shift from neo-realist figuration to pure abstraction. The holy city of Varanasi acted as a catalyst.
Kumar is India’s abstract superstar. His works fetch crores at auctions. He, V.S. Gaitonde, Swaminathan and Raza have together played a significant role in the genre’s ascent. Inspired by spirituality and nature, the Indian abstractionists pursued philosophical purity as opposed to their western counterparts. Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich and Jackson Pollock all insisted on “freeing art from reality”.
By its very nature, abstraction can alienate viewers raised to appreciate realistic representations. How can you have an opinion on something that doesn’t look like anything? Abstract art apologists urge us to look at it as an aesthetic and emotional experience. Either way, it remains open for interpretation. ■
—Shaikh Ayaz