Icing on the Cake

It has become a fashion of sorts to fire salvos at the Feel-Good movement, whether it crops up in movies, music, books or art. But even t...

It has become a fashion of sorts to fire salvos at the Feel-Good movement, whether it crops up in movies, music, books or art. But even though it is derided in harsh, unforgiving words by critics, it goes on un-selfconsciously, bindaas in its mass popularity. And an ongoing exhibition of sculptures by Raj Kumar Panwar and Pushpa Devi, specially the latter8217;s works, argues a great case for Feel-Goodism. And wins.

In the present show, Devi has taken vignettes of daily life, picked up from all parts of India, and cast them in bronze. A nubile Goan fisherwoman, a village folk dancer, rickshaw pullers, bullock carts they are all there. Calendar art stuff, but the sheer skill and the fluidity that these works possess make them worth the space they will take up in your living room because the temptation to buy them is immense. Devi, who is from Delhi and spent her childhood in rural Haryana, has a definite personal style which stands out in her sculptures of rural India. But a strong individual idiom which isevident in her manner of speech is barely visible in this show. A sculpture of two gymnasts with a hoop, a very Western image, is incongruous among the patently Indian images and reveals an attempt to cater to market tastes.

A pandering to that appears, in flashes, in her husband8217;s work too. Even though Panwar has a definite inspiration unlike Devi who seems to have drawn water from several wells. Aryan culture, shoved in the back-seat of history books, and seen as a collective past, is a collective present for him.

quot;There are traces of it everywhere. Our attitudes and lifestyles are still influenced by it,quot; he says. So the style of Aryan art, which doesn8217;t really exist anymore is what Panwar has chosen to resurrect. quot;Of course, the interpretation is mine. I don8217;t just copy,quot; he says. Panwar8217;s work is very good and you can see a highly creative mind working behind the mixed-media sculptures. But again, his ceramic dishes have nothing wildly original about them and bow down to the give the customerwhat he wants8217; philosophy. A group show, it also includes paintings by Madhukar Maithani, whose main inspiration has been the miniature tradition. Done mostly in primary colours, they don8217;t strike the eye immediately like the sculptures but have a narrative structure which will speak to you only if you give it time. And, they fall a few feet short from the tag of eye candy.

But then what8217;s wrong with candy. Even if you pooh-pooh the no-substance stuff8217; go see the show. You are bound to find something you like.At the Bajaj Art Gallery, Nariman Point. Till January 11. Time: 11.00 am to 7.00 pm.