Samit Dass lifetime study of Rabindranath Tagore takes on another hue He plays Rabindra sangeet in the car,loves fish and pork and cannot help thinking of Kolkata as the Mecca of art. Samit Das is the quintessential Bengali with a deep love for all things Bengali. No surprises then,that he spent the last 15 years of his life researching Rabindranath Tagores art,life,family history and its extensions in architecture. His solo exhibition,to be showcased in two parts at Lalit Kala Akademi and Nature Morte will take place in August. Titled In Search of Frozen Music,the exhibition at Nature Morte opens on August 6,and the exhibition Looking forward through looking back,at Lalit Kala Akademi,will open on August 9. The first half of the exhibition is based on my reactions to architecture,taking off from Jorasanko Thakurbari Tagores home and the ideals that gave birth to the Bengal School Art Movement and to Santiniketan, says Das,40,who has worked in a style that is a hybrid of painting,printmaking,drawing and collage. Working on the digital scans of pre-existing photographs,he has added soft and hard lines that belie a nervous energy rendered in earth shades. The works give a feel of architectural drawings,plans and old maps,and on some occasions,Das has superimposed the images with cutouts of architectural details,like a flowered cornice or an arch. The second half is pure research,one could call it an archive of photographs,letters,poems and simulated recreations of some of the spaces that Tagore inhabited, says Das,whose work has revolved around environment and architecture since he began working as an artist in 1996. In this section,black-and-white images of Jorasanko,Shyamali and Santiniketan,alongside simulations of Tagores work,try to create harmony between nature and architecture. While the artists passion for this project has extended into several academic papers,Das is now contemplating a book. I hope to bring into focus how globalisation has eaten into our indigenous thought and ideals, says Das. One cannot help but notice Dass wife,artist Mithu Sen,who takes photographs as he speaks. Samit as my partner is the best thing that could have happened to me. He never interferes in my work and gives me the space I need,without becoming distant, says Sen. Das adds,Our work is strikingly different in its visual manifestation,but our thoughts spring from the same fountainhead.
