Sun is the Limit

Fifteen artists look at the black sun as a metaphor through an exhibition at Devi Art Foundation.

A room on the first floor of Sirpur House opens the window to an unknown world. Tree slices form stepping stones over a dark pool of water. Titled R.T./S.R./V.S.,this work echoes the opening scene from Satyajit Rays script The Alien,which was never realised into a film. It is rumoured that it inspired Steven Spielbergs E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. German artist Matti Brauns work brings both Bollywood and Hollywood together. The R.T. in the title stands for Rabindranath Tagore and the S.R. for Satyajit Ray, says Shezad Dawood,curator of the exhibition Black Sun at Devi Art Foundation.

The exhibition has works of 15 artists from across the globe. The show looks at metaphors of the black sun,which find references in Kali worship in India,the Renaissance in Europe and alchemy, says London-based Dawood. Four years ago when Devi Art Foundation asked me to hold an exhibition around the theme of diaspora,I did not want to concentrate only on this theme alone. So I moved away from the classical definition of colonialism. I wanted to show how artists are constantly inspired by ideas and influences when they live in different countries, he says.

The reason why Dawood chose Brauns work is because his depth of interest ranges from Tagore and Ray to Spielberg. The idea of diaspora to me is not going from a former colony to another. I have tried to show how artists move to other arts for influences through Brauns work, says Dawood.

Another work by artist Lisa Oppenheim gives a pictorial form to the black sun. The artist has used archival images of the sun from July 8,1876 to produce Heliograms 1876/2013. The photographs were exposed to sunlight at different intervals on different days in a month. Framed black-and-white photographs of the sun resemble the grids of a calendar where time almost collapses. Each frame on the wall tells when these photographs were exposed to the sun,from July 5,2013 to July 11,2013.

Artist Ayisha Abrahams 16-minute long video Through the Dark Mine,made from footage gathered by historian Janaki Nair,sheds light on what lies thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth,deep beyond the dark hole visible from above. The camera follows the mine workers as they extract ore for gold,revealing what lies beyond the black sun.

The exhibition is on display till April 27,2014 at Sirpur House,Sector 44,Gurgaon.

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Sun is the Limit

Fifteen artists look at the black sun as a metaphor through an exhibition at Devi Art Foundation.

Fifteen artists look at the black sun as a metaphor through an exhibition at Devi Art Foundation.