Common Ground

They8217;re the most popular second generation artists in India. At their first joint show, Manisha Parekh and Anjum Singh share much more, finds Sanjukta Sharma

GARBAGE heaps, plastic bags, disfigured Coca-Cola cans, construction trucks, cable networks8212;the images in artist Anjum Singh8217;s works point to a detached engagement with a city in transition. Manisha Parekh8217;s canvasses, although urban in sensibility, are abstract, reflective and suggest an emotive response to the urban situation. But both artists, disparate in their idioms, are significant in the Indian art world for what they share8212;precisely why their first joint show in Mumbai8217;s Sakshi Art Gallery is important.

Singh, 39, and Parekh, 40, have inherited illustrious artistic legacies. Daughter of Arpita and Paramjit Singh, Anjum discovered her own language after almost a decade of struggling with different ideas and sensibilities and is one of the most sought-after young artists of her generation. Manisha, daughter of Manu and Madhvi Parekh, has perfected a narrative style that was developed in the course of her training at Baroda8217;s MS University. Both are the only successful second-generation artists in the Indian art world. 8216;8216;We have always shared a camaraderie. Besides knowing each other since childhood as our parents are friends, I think we have understood each other8217;s struggle for identity,8217;8217; says Singh. Parekh adds, 8216;8216;Apart from the obvious comfort, we8217;ve been more fortunate than others because forging one8217;s own idiom after having lived your whole life with artist parents is difficult.8217;8217;

Singh8217;s involvement with her immediate environment is stripped of human presence. The eight works on display in this show a series called City in Progress, are on corrugated boards, mirrors and bubble paper, and their purpose is to carry the imprint of industrial waste and synthetic clutter in cities. In doing so, she comments on how annoying the present can be for the city dweller, for the sake of a comfortable tomorrow. 8216;8216;I8217;m a complete city animal. The city is my muse because although I hate it, I can8217;t live away from it,8217;8217; says Singh.

A couple of years ago, she started to look at her immediate surroundings seriously and started using mundane objects that one confronts while manoeuvring the city every day. 8216;8216;There is nothing extraordinary about any of these works except they can be sometimes funny or sometimes simply frustrating,8217;8217; she says.

Parekh8217;s take on the urban existence depends on a combination of memory and everyday life. Her works too are devoid of human presence, and are abstract representations of the experience of urbanity. 8216;8216;Her language is more quiet and meditative, an extension of her training in the Baroda school,8217;8217; says Singh. In this series, called Memory Membrane, Parekh uses rice paper instead of synthetic materials, but like Singh, she also uses repetition as a tool to represent urban realities.

In one of the exhibits, Longing, the canvas is populated by knotted cotton chords, similar to Singh8217;s generous use of plastic tubes in her works. 8216;8216;Over the years, I8217;ve tried to develop a layered texture in my works and that8217;s also what my message is8212;abstraction anchored in the reality of where I live. The city environment is a trigger to explore abstract forms,8217;8217; says Parekh.

The ordinary viewer is struck by the active, animated surfaces of the works of both artists, displayed on two floors of the garage-turned-gallery space of the Sakshi Art Gallery located in the heart of Mumbai8217;s mill district. 8216;8216;I couldn8217;t really imagine having a joint show with anyone but Manisha,8217;8217; says Singh. So when Sakshi8217;s owner and curator Geetha Mehra approached her for a joint show, Parekh was the obvious choice. Trained at Shantiniketan, the College of Arts, New Delhi, and the Corocran School of Art, Washington DC, Singh says she experimented with a lot of techniques before finally forging her own idiom through interactions with artists of Khoj, a Delhi-based artists8217; collective. For Parekh, her training at Baroda, coupled with a stint at the Royal College of Art, London, have shaped her.

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But finally, the two friends together represent a breed of young artists who are willing to experiment as individuals without the crutch of larger artistic influences. They also seem to tell us that there8217;s much more to Indian art than soaring prices and international attention. 8216;8216;Why would anybody want to buy an Anjum Singh when she8217;s still working? I don8217;t take this new euphoria seriously,8217;8217; says Singh. Parekh mirrors her cynicism.

Memory Membrane and City in Progress at Sakshi Art Gallery, Mumbai, till March 31