Collateral gains

National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi

Many facets of an artist: Collections from the Bhupen Khakhar estate

Till March 30, 11 am – 5.30 pm

The works of artist Bhupen Khakhar have recently been revisited and re-evaluated as an important piece in the larger puzzle of India’s history of Modern painting. His works were previously neglected as their homoerotic content often drew the ire of right-wing conservatives. At most exhibitions of the artist’s works, organisers made sure that his explicit paintings never saw the light of day. This collection is not very different either. It showcases many of Khakhar’s paintings that speak of the issues of the proletariat and the common man, while discreetly skirting around Khakhar’s sexuality. Be that as it may, the collection showcases a vibrant section of the late Baroda School painter, who fused elements of everyday kitsch with a unique approach to modern painting. His very first exhibition, held in the 1970s, utilised cutouts of gods and goddesses from calendars, street graffiti and other elements of popular culture. In this exhibition we see some of his watercolours and a few canvases. These remarkable works showcase his brand of gentle humour, which pokes fun at the predicament of middle-class society.

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, 145, DLF South Court Mall, Saket, Delhi

Dayanita Singh

Conservation Chambers: Museum Bhavan

Till June 30, 11 am – 6 pm

Dayanita Singh describes her medium as photography and the book as her primary form. She ‘has been preoccupied for some years now with conceiving alternatives to the presentation of a static print on the wall’, and with ‘evolving a portable architectural form that can function both as a site for display, and a repository for her photographs’. In her latest offering, presented at KNMA, she may have just found the ideal hybrid between exhibition, book and museum piece.

The exhibition at KNMA brings to life Singh’s work in a manner that is dynamic, editable and can take on more than one narrative at any given time. In the exhibition, the artist presents selfsufficient structures — what are referred to as mobile museums — which function as sites of display, preservation, circulation and storage. Bringing together photographs spanning decades of her artistic oeuvre, these structures function as repositories that also provide a performative space in which her images come together in infinite permutations to allow for unexpected poetic and narrative possibilities. Says Singh, “The design and architecture of the museums are integral to the images shown and kept within them. Each large, wooden, handmade structure can be placed and opened in different ways. It holds around a hundred framed images, of which some are in view, whilst others wait for their turn in the reserve, stored inside the structures.” Visit the site-specific work to experience how the world created by Singh is not one of static nostalgia, but an evolving experiment of thoughts and visuals.

Gallery Espace, 16 Community Centre

New Friends Colony, Delhi

is that | that is by Mekhala Bahl

Till March 24, 11 am – 7 pm

Premiering after the successful group exhibition Diary Entries is the playful solo show by artist Mekhala Bahl, which befuddles and delights, creating words and images that lead the viewer to engage with her internal dialogue — one that does not deal with facts or clear affirmation.

These are an unusual part of Mekhala’s oeuvre, in that the visual content creates meaning, in the manner of anonymous letters composed using alphabetical letters cut out from newspapers and magazines.

Each image is more than the sum of its parts. Lines, dots, seemingly arbitrary marks and scratches, tonal variations, patterns, dots, dribbles of paint, the texture of the surface of the matrix, the uneven edges of the paper — all work together to evoke a visceral response. Mekhala’s early prints and paintings have been described as diaries containing notes in a secret language.

Apparao Galleries, 7 Wallace Gardens, Nungambakkam,

Chennai

Art on the Body

Till March 15

Wearable art is not an entirely new concept, given that shringara is part of the rasa theory and ornaments are seen as artworks in the context of Indian tradition. However, within the parameters of modern art, it has been relegated to the niche of craft. This exhibition is an attempt to change that view. It displays one-off wearable art pieces created by cutting-edge contemporary artists, making the appreciation and contact with art an everyday experience.

The artists featured in this exhibition include Smriti Dixit, who is known to create installations that revolve around femininity using everyday materials like sacred threads, clothes tags and tea-cup handles. For this exhibition she has created floral wreaths to adorn the neck, finger or shoulder.

Pallavi Gandhi, on the other hand, picks a composite narrative technique: each piece tells a story using many techniques and ideas at the same time.

Senior artist Masooma Syed is a sculptor and painter who works with the idea of identity and the self. Here she has worked with materials that evoke the pace at which the creative process happens. Priya Sundervalli is a ceramist by profession and she refers to natural forms to create delicate flowers that adorn fingers and wrists.

Birgitta Volz works with fused glass using gold and silver to suggest celestial bodies. The simple forms evoke great lyricism and beauty.

Chemould Prescott Road, Queens Mansion, Mumbai

Desmond Lazaro

The In-Coming Passengers

Till April 16

Desmond Lazaro’s solo exhibition focuses on his mixed ancestry and his personal experiences that have been a result of negotiating various spaces of identity and lineage. He was born into an Anglo-Indian family in Leeds, England. His parents had migrated from Burma in 1957 and Lazaro’s great-grandfather hailed from Madras in the 1800s. Having travelled across the globe, moving from Leeds to Baroda (where he did his MFA at the Faculty of Fine Arts), he never returned to England, and now lives with his family in Pondicherry.

In a true coming together of East and West, Lazaro combines contemporary concerns and narratives with the historic painting traditions of Rajasthan, especially Pichvai paintings, and mimics the techniques of Polaroid photography in his paintings. Having mastered miniature painting techniques by studying for 12 years under Jaipur master Banu Ved Pal Sharma, one of the few living experts on this ancient tradition, Lazaro creates a world of family images that resemble both the present and the past, where migration and settlement are recurring themes.

Arts And Aesthetics (AAA), Lado Sarai, Delhi

Kalpana’s Warriors: Shahidul Alam

Till June 17, 11 am – 7 pm

In a perfect example of art meeting activism, Bangladeshi artist Shahidul Alam’s exhibition, curated by Ina Puri, is an evocative, multisensory installation; a tribute to activist Kalpana Chakma. Drawing from research by social scientist Saydia Gulrukh, Alam creates works that stand as pennons to the activists who, like Chakma, have either disappeared or faced severe losses because of their political views. Using a technique known as laser photo etching, Alam has created portraits printed on straw mats that are hung from the gallery ceiling. The mood is meditative and the presence of these personalities is accentuated by the smell of the mats and the glow of large candles, which are the only source of light in which the work is to be viewed. The intention is to recreate the sparseness and thrift of the surroundings in which Chakma lived. “Making the works on the mat surface were challenging as one had to calibrate the exact amount of ink and burn that was required to create the portraits,” says Alam. While the works are technically challenging, importantly, they evoke the right emotions.

Georgina Maddoxis a Delhi-based art writer

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