CONSTRUCTS CONSTRUCTIONS

Dayanita Singh's 'Museum of Vitrines', consist of five teak-wood structures bearing an arrangement of photographs that can be reconfigured, allowing a new narrative to emerge.

The work explores the many interpretations of
the term, ‘conquest’ at a microcosmic and macrocosmic level. Tallur tell us how the
reference to the roof-tiles, comes from a tile factory set up 200 years ago by
a Christian missionary group. The factory while providing employment, also
stood for the prevailing of one religion over another.  

There seems to be a sustained tie between religion and economics from the past up until now. After WWII, the tile factory came under British supervision adding yet another layer to the history of conquest.

But conquest can also mean the surmounting of odds. Hatha Yoga, implied here by the sculptural forms, professes to teach the overcoming of diseases, bodily urges, the aging process, and natural life-spans, in a way defeating the most powerful advisory, Time itself.

Maquettes of houses made from aluminium sheets, car scraps, enamel paint, tarpaulins, pieces of metal, and found objects cover every inch of the inner walls and ceiling. The physicality of the installation and the strange co-existence of interiority and exteriority is violent and disorientating.

As the viewer hesitantly adjusts to this discomfiting arrangement,they begin to pick out carefully constructed details. Temples and mosques, few high-rise towers amid a swarm of small dwellings, a wired meshwork of street lamps, and TV antennas inhabit this space, lending a sober beauty to the squalor.

Pooja Iranna’s fascination with architectural forms, grids, and labyrinths of man-made structures is reflected in her paintings and sculptures.

By using stapler pins as her primary material and undergoing the tedious process of pasting individual pins together, Iranna meditatively creates imaginary architectural forms that resemble models of futuristic buildings.

Simryn Gill’s personal experience of displacement and forging relationships with new cultural environments greatly informs her artistic practice. She is sensitive to metaphors and the realities of grafting of plants, people, objects and, ideas.

'Eyes and Storms' are a set of panoramic aerial photographs celebrating the beauty of mines across Australia. Closer inspection reveals its socio-political connotations: over consumption of natural resources and humankind’s ever-growing demands adversely affecting the earth’s biodiversity.

Viswanadhan's paintings
and drawings are informed by the close observation of kalamezhuthu (an artistic practice of
ritualistic floor diagrams in Kerela) mandalas and, early Malayalam calligraphy on palm leaf manuscripts. 

These set of drawings are among the first that Viswanadhan did after moving to Paris in 1968. A prismatic relay of images register iconic structures from all over the world, caught as if in passing. The Eiffel Tower, the Egyptian Pyramids, the filtering of light through the Rose Window, and other architectural fragments of the Notre-Dame are presented like fleeting glimpses of things seen on a highway as they rush past.

The breaking of ceramics in the video is accompanied by an installation; Every Broken Moment Piece by Piece, made of shelves of broken blue china sourced from Chor Bazaar in Bombay.

These vases and plates are reconstructed with a patchwork of wood.

Tushar Joag positions himself as an interventionist and activist,
working mostly in the public sphere. His works are often absurdist situations
that draw attention to incongruities  in socio-political realms. 

'The Enlightening Army of the Empire' is an installation of robotic creatures, made of electric bulbs, stop lights, rib-cages of LED lights, and armed with florescent tube lights reminiscent of 'lightsabers' from the Star Wars franchise.

He has summoned together faqirs, zen masters, holy men, historical, and mythical figures (such as Gandhi, Kabir, the Bhakti poet, tthe warrior Rahim, Shoriken) and vagrants (like Majnu and the sweeper) from different pasts, histories, geographies, cultures, and social hierarchies.

Cityscapes and maps form an important part of his artistic vocabulary, wherein the angels and guardians from mythical stories are seen overlooking the city.

The installation 'Constructs' consists of two iron towers occupying the museum space from floor to ceiling.

The repetition, patterned grills, staircases, balconies, and the texture of exposed brick walls, dwarf the viewer and make one reflect on the colossus that is urbanity and the trail of troubles it brings.

In his early phase, Ram Kumar focused on everyday subjects in the city. He invited into his works, the poor and destitute, the frustrated lower-middle class, workers, and unemployed graduates who all seem to be trying to fathom the alienating depths of urbanity.

"The sacred river Ganga in Varanasi is unique in the world. The city emerging at its back has an overwhelming physiological impact onpeople.” (Ram Kumar, Art Heritage Journal, Season 1984-85)