Identity Card

The canvases he paints follow the same abstraction, just with more defined colour use. ‘‘This is also me,’’ he says repeatedly. ‘‘I myself feel people make such an abstract identity of me.’’ In Delhi, they called him a Madrasi, in Chennai, a Malayalee, in Kerala, by his village, and, in his village, someone from the eastern most end. Of course, in Paris, he’s an Indian artist. This abstraction is linked with imposed identities that he stylistically addresses. His comes closer to his vision: to be himself.

On the other hand, sculptor Madan Lal is one of the most loved Indian artistes in Japan. Except that he lives in Varanasi, amidst skilled stone carvers and welders, part of the team that creates his extraordinary work. Madan should be credited for putting on show one of the most spectacular pieces of sculpture of the year: A tall, rusted iron well invites viewers to walk up a ladder and peer in. There, amidst a sheath of glimmering water and orange rust, vegetal matter peers back. In one moment, the fear of drowning and the sheer human intimacy with water flashes to the fore.

This is also Madan’s own ululation, recalling his own everyday ritual. ‘‘I depend on memory. I recall being a child—specific images and moments. That’s how I work out my ideas.’’ The well is where Madan might have bathed, washed and played. Another sculptural pond is similar to many water bodies of eastern UP.

Madan also sets his feet firmly in his immediate living: when he uses rust, he gestures towards old materials, ‘items’ that are stored, decaying, not sold off, seen as valuable. This is an everyday practice so commonplace, nobody ever notices it. But it is Madan’s source of ideas and his everyday life in an old town. Like the many moments and objects he re-visits with fierce but earthy intelligence, his workshop, too, extends outwards onto more public areas.

When the artiste presents his work, anywhere in the world, Madan offers us himself.