Breaking free from PATRIARCHY
Art will never be the same again- India International Centre (IIC) has come up with an alluring presentation of installations and sculptures. The exhibition will seamlessly occupy India International Centre’s Gandhi Plaza with art works free from the constraints of a patriarchal/ commercial art history.
An aristocratic Gandhi Plaza with natural trees and a dramatic natural skylight will behold installations as well as magical yet thoughtful free standing pieces like Neeraj Gupta’s Divine Love, Arun Pandit’s Mask Seller, Sanjay Bhattacharyya’s 12 foot bronze Krishna, Vineet Kacker’s Buddhist Pillar, Tapas Biswas’ Innocence and Mukesh Sharma’s magnificent Shesh Nag.
“iSculpt is a revolution in the making of public exhibitions and public art that expresses fidelity to the idea of a ‘sculpture of one’s own’– in this case, a series of literal and metaphorical works dedicated to material experimentation and innovation- and in doing so provides a plethora of works for the history of ingenuity among sculptors to take root,” says curator Uma Nair.
The exhibition will be an evolution in the making which will adopt a generous stance that exults form, materiality, and process alongside the history of art discourse, which allows for a breadth of new readings and understandings to occur, both between artists and generations of artists. Neeraj Gupta’s Divine Love is a testimony to the warmth of human relationships and the eternal quest for a civilization to live and procreate for posterity.
Madhab Das’ National Award winning work An Inconvenient Truth of a deer with iron, bricks and tall iron rods is a statement on the loss of habitat for the beautiful animal whose world is threatened because of large scale deforestation. Sanjay Bhattacharyya’s tall and stately Krishna as a flute player will be the cynosure of all eyes as will be Arun Pandit’s powerful bronze Mask Seller, a work that looks at the many faces of the human predicament. From Kolkata is the gifted Tapas Biswas, whose works Innocence I and III are a network of leaves and twigs created in metal –while one work looks like an intricate network of leaves and twigs with a resonance of nature the second work with the face of a little girl- it has many suggestions of the attention needed for the girl child. Mukesh Sharma’s Shesh Nag was part of the Venice Biennale and is a testimony to the uselessness of waste and the degree of conspicuous consumption. Created out of computer boards and styrofoam packaging materials this is a head turner. Puneet Kaushik’s wire spiral of a metaphoric spider, talks to us at different levels about the beauty of nature, the fragile eco system. Vineet Kacker’s Buddha Pillar is a statement of charismatic contours and the felicity of weaving spiritual fervour into the textural terrain of ceramic ware. Atul Sinha’s wooden carved work with sleek textural contours sets him apart as a sculptor of deep reverberations.
The show will be a mélange of installations and sculptures that create their own rhythms in the beauty and setting of the Gandhi Plaza which Nair believes is the best in the capital city to garner as a sculpture court.
The show will be inaugurated by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on December 6 at 5PM at India International Centre and will be put on public view from December 7 – 21.