Punk Art

Recent exhibitions like Mint Condition,featuring Ashim Ahluwalia,Dale Cannedy Azim,Farhad Bomanjee and Shumona Goel,Godown curated by Gitanjali Dang that featured some outrageous photographs from Cory Walia’s home album,archival films and online works have been leading us to think so. Pavlov’s God saw Narendra Yadav revive an old car from the dump,while Peiter Buggenhout was the artist behind the dust sculptures at Abhay Maskara’s Warehouse. Currently,an ongoing exhibition at the Kitab Mahal titled,A Brief Hisory of Tomorrow II,that features artists from the Common Room,an artists’ collective.

“The Suspects are working with found images and footage that are arguably old. However they are reprinting the works on archival paper,so the show they’ve put up is anti-art on a conceptual level,” says Mortimer Chatterjee of Chatterjee & Lal whose next solo artist,Kiran Subhaiah showing at the gallery,is also someone who believes in pushing the boundaries.

“There is a larger reaction though to the old-school,mainstream approach to art. I would widen that scope to all the younger artists working at this moment. Someone like Nikhil Chopra only has a performance to offer. It is an important counter cultural movement and I would say that the crowds are larger at such gatherings,” reasons Chatterjee.

Himanshu S,one of the founder members in the Common Room,a collective that produced the A Brief History of Tomorrow II show,believes that art should be more about people and less about galleries and prices. “For me painting and so-called ‘proper art’ is secondary. I’m more interested in deconstructing the process of making art and asking in fact,what is art?” says the lanky 24-year-old who was also part of the Lazy Rebels,a group that had the same philosophy as the Common Room.

Shalini Shawney is of the opinion that such anti-art is very important. “A gallery should host experimental work even if does not generate a profit. Galleries must nurture creative experimental projects like Godown and what the Common Room does,” she says. “Besides it allows an artist to be creative,not taking the commercial aspect into consideration all the time,” adds the gallery owner whose two Guilds often host a variety of experimental shows.

Can an artist have a foot in both worlds (arguably some even finance their edgier projects by doing the odd canvas)? Chatterjee says it’stotally possible,“as long as the work isn’t at cross purposes”.

Curated For You

India Women vs Sri Lanka Women 3rd T20I: Shafali Verma’s superb 79* powers India to 3-0 series lead

Jana Nayagan Movie Audio Launch Live Updates: Vijay’s event causes massive traffic jam in Malaysia; organisers issue warnings against fan videos

Archaeologists uncover a 2,200-year-old highway that once connected China’s first empire