Nerves Of Steel

Pillars rise into the air like tentacles of an alien,and blue roadblock signs reading “Sorry for the inconvenience” dot the city that looks deserted of its people. These classically shot photographs by German artist Verena Jaekel,31,appear perfectly juxtaposed with the zany psychedelic images by Sandip Kuriakose,28,who has chosen to work in digital collage that layers images of machinery with the twisting bodies of wrestlers. Titled “Photographing the Metropolitan”,this ongoing exhibition,at Max Mueller Bhavan,Delhi,till April 8,turns the lens on the construction of the Delhi Metro. Delhi-based photographer Sunil Gupta has curated the exhibition.

“I had been randomly shooting construction equipment and architectural structures in Delhi and then I heard about an accident during the construction of the Metro in south Delhi. A bridge had collapsed,and the media covered it extensively,” says Kuriakose. “I was reading the news and watching TV and sentences and statements popped out at me. I began viewing these in a larger context as a power struggle,” he adds.

“I wanted to explore the fragility behind the strength and power of these seemingly solid structures and that is when the idea of capturing the struggle between wrestlers and combining them with the images of the city happened,” says Kuriakose,whose images capture the earthy wrestlers locked in combat alongside colourful and fractured images of the city’s construction work. Kuriakose worked on these images for four or five months,dissecting and playing with them,until he got what he was looking for.

“My photographs appear like a simple documentation,but I am hinting at small contradictions within these seemingly straight-laced images,” says Jaekle. “For example I’ve shot an image of a bridge that has come up near a small temple which had to relocate. I wanted the city without any people to emphasise how surreal these large phallic pillars with metal spirals sticking out like arms making them almost like beings,seemingly invading the city,” says Jaekle,who has been travelling to India since 2008. She is currently working on several projects including documenting Sikh youths in Amritsar.

Gupta has put the two works together,underlining the two different aesthetic approaches of these photographers while drawing out the contradictions of the metropolis.

Naturally,the homoerotic undertones of Kuriakose’s images are more pronounced than in the works of Jaekle,but they are both open to queer readings of their works since both have featured in the Nigah Queer Festival before this show.

“Currently I’m working on the text of the reading down of article 377 that criminalises homosexuality,and thinking how to develop images around it. It’s a work in progress that will directly look at the sexual and the political,” says Kuriakose.

“The phallic imagery is not incidental and if someone wants to read a queer subtext into my work I don’t mind,” says Jaekle,who has also documented the lives of queer families in Germany. “However,my primary concern is to tease out the contradictions of urbanism and the diverse quality of Indian cities,” says Jaekle,indicating her awareness of being an outsider.

Some of her images capture cows that look like phantoms on account of their barely perceptible moving images. Catch this exhibition and be stimulated by images of the city that gently critique.