Case for Collage

While the latter’s exhibition “Cut & Paste: Popular mid 20th Century Art” showcases the earliest evidence of collage culture in India of the ’30s,Jhaveri Contemporary’s show titled “Considering Collage” highlights the art form in the larger narrative of post-independent India. “Collage as an art form has regularly been explored by artists. Yet,it has not been accorded the status that painting enjoys in India. We wanted to explore this medium through an exhibition featuring a wide range of artists,” says Amrita Jhaveri,Director of Jhaveri Contemporary. From featuring works of early masters such as Bose,Mukherjee and Souza to the ones by contemporary artists,the show — which is on till May 24 — also gives a ringside view of the various styles and approaches of collage practices over the years.

The show at Chatterjee and Lal,meanwhile,focuses on a curious offshoot of the art form — the Shekhawati collages. They were conceived more as status symbols of the erstwhile nouveau riche Marwari community than a serious practice of art. Employing the simple cut-and-paste technique,they placed Hindu mythological figures against European landscapes as backdrops,which were a result of the availability of cheap mass produced prints from Germany and England.

“For the Marwaris it was a means to show off the newly-acquired social status as they travelled from across the country making homes in the new urban centres such as Calcutta and Bombay. This kind of collage reflected their aspirations as they reassembled stories from the Hindu mythology with ‘sophisticated’ European locales,” says Mortimer Chatterjee,co-founder,Chatterjee and Lal. He calls it one of the “earliest forms of photoshop”.

Some of the earlier works of collage on display at Jhaveri are the classic paper ones. Produced by Bose,these were primarily made of the inexpensive brown paper. The later works see gradual experimentation with the medium. For instance,Bose’s student Benode Behari Mukherjee’s work plays with form,rhythm and space. Sculptor-designer Dashrath Patel’s collages have metal and glass added to the more traditional set up of paper on wood. Then there are Souza’s celebrated nudes from the year 1967 while Bhupen Khakhar’s works see the arrival of pop and kitsch in art with film posters and advertisements featuring in them. The show also displays the varied styles and approaches of collage-making in India: decoupage,wood collage,canvas collage and photo collage.

Apart from focussing on the post-Independence collage scene in India,the show also features works of contemporary artists linked to the South Asian diaspora. The works by Alexander Gorlizki,Anwar Jalal Shemza,Simryn Gill,Mahbub Shah and Muhanned Cader represent collage’s contemporary form,pushing the boundaries of the medium further.

With the multi-disciplinary style dominating most contemporary artists’ oeuvre,the scope of collage has increased. “It is also exposed to better appreciation,” says Chatterjee.