Cold Comfort

“This exhibition is a reflection of the cultural agreement between the Canadian government and ours. The Prime Minster signed the agreement for cultural exchange this July but we wanted to have the exhibition here during the Commonwealth Games,” says Cultural Secretary Jawahar Sircar,who along with Jim Nickel,the Deputy Head of Mission,Canada,opened the exhibition last week.

Sircar believes that since the Inuit civilization,which stretches back to more than 4000 years,has been successful in keeping alive its traditions,there is much we can learn from it. “In India our traditional crafts are often repetitions of the past,but in the last five years with the right kind of exposure,traditional artists like the Warli painters and Bhil and Gond artists have come forward to create a contemporary expression of high art,” he says.

The well mounted exhibition points to a heightened sense of the modern and contemporary within traditional practices of art making. For instance,the sculpture Uni Tea is highly abstract and it combines the horn of the mythical unicorn and the love for herbal tea together in one work that is rendered out in silver and ebony. Associate curator of the National Gallery of Canada,Christine Lalonde agrees with Sircar’s assessment. “The materials,imagery and meanings of Inuit art have undergone numerous transformations. Wih the introduction of drawings,prints and textile art,a new modern art movement has come to fruition. It tells of cross cultural relations,” she says.

Another work,made from a single whale bone,depicts a shamanic mask. With unblinking fearsome eyes,and teeth bared,the face represents the entire shaman,even though the rest of him has not been depicted. There are also several endearing,though clichéd,images of women engaged in their daily tasks with their children perched upon their backs. There are also legends,like that of the grandmother who thwarted an attacking polar bear by stuffing her mitten in its mouth,or of the man who tried to capture a beautiful goose-spirit-woman by burning her feathered coat.

The exhibition is on till January 2011. For details call: 23018415