On a Spiral

It is uncommon to hear of an art exhibition inspired by an artwork,but then Peter Nagy,owner of Nature Morte and curator of an ongoing show “Spiral Jetty”,thinks differently. The exhibition is inspired by the famous work of the same name by American sculptor Robert Smithson (1938-1973) who created a huge spiral by arranging hundreds of boulders and rocks in the shape of a spiral in Salt Lake in Utah,US,in the 1970s. “Spiral Jetty” refers to the form of the spiral,which turns inward,reflecting upon itself. “It addresses the subject of derivation in contemporary art; given that derivation is usually seen as a bad thing but don’t all aspects of culture build on what has come before?” says Nagy.

So,all the artwork on display derive their elements from a pre-existing artwork. While Abhishek Hazra and Mithu Sen directly appropriate images from the works of artists Yves Klein and Egon Schiele,respectively,Anita Dube and Jeffrey Schiff evoke entire art movements or schools referring specifically to the Arte Povera movement—art made of discarded objects. The exhibition also features Pushpamala N,Josh PS and Seher Shah. Pushpamala,Shah and Josh react to pop culture,photography and other media.

Pushpamala,who says that most of her work is anyway a reaction to (or a derivation of) something that has gone before it,has chosen a series of images from her travelogue project. “Whenever I go out of the country,I get myself photographed at a local photo-studio dressed in the local costume,” says the artist. Among the displays is a photograph taken in Tehran where she shot with a well-known photographer Shadi Ghadirian using the latter’s backdrop and costumes. “Her work talks of the beginning of modernisation and it is used by a lot of Iranian artists to address the way Iran is viewed,” says Pushpamala.

Dube’s two site-specific works titled Ah and Oh have created collages using material found in newspapers,with lit candles around them. “The work has an element of chance to it because the way the wax melts and forms patterns on the paper is totally accidental,” says Dube. she points out that the word Ah when written in English conveys a sense of joy whereas in Hindi it conveys a sense of pain.

At Nature Morte,Niti Bagh,till September 4.
Contact: 4174-0215