The Delhi Contemporary Art Week, comprising seven galleries from the city hosting some 40-odd artists, will give collectors and art enthusiasts a chance to view eclectic works and get a deeper understanding of different genres
Contemporary art in South Asia is creating more buzz now than it ever had. Art is a product of history and culture; two forces that form the context of the artist’s identity and evolution. Some of the world’s most populated countries are in South Asia, home to transitional societies and their lore. The Delhi Contemporary Art Week (DCAW) is an effort to portray their diversity and uniqueness on a single vast canvas consisting of hundreds of other canvases that bear the imprints of the region’s creative gestalt. In its second edition, DCAW is generating discourse that befits the shifting lens of au courant trends. Seven galleries in the city—Blueprint 12, Gallery Espace, Exhibit 320, Latitude 28, Nature Morte, Shrine Empire and Vadehra Art Gallery—are spearheading the new wave.
Artists who are exhibiting at these galleries have created works that engage with the rapidly fluctuating infrastructure, economy, ecology, landscape and identity politics of our times. Also present are masters of Indian contemporary art, who paved the way for the rest. The Art Week also includes outreach initiatives for children, art professionals, collectors and others who are interested in art.
Mohsin Shafi
Memory Keeper
Lahore-based Mohsin Shafi’s creations play with the idea ofidentity and perception. He is a reductionist who says, “I draw my inspiration from life.” Exploring memory, longing for love, sexuality under the fist of censorship, lust, cruelty, nakedness, restlessness, depression, suicidal impulses, bloody sadism, unbridled aggression and fragmented identities form the mosiac of his art.Like most artists, his “work is an extension of myself. My drive is deep-rooted in the battleground of ‘I’. My quest for the kindling spark is an everyday struggle, to access the deepest emotions below superficial appearances, and to yank them out from behind the windowpane,” he says. The interplay between images, text, material, medium and milieu is how Shafi communicates multiple layers of meaning. “I’d rather pose more questions than provide answers and hope, in turn, to create a deeper dialogue,” he says.He believes living in a society that robs us of individual identity inevitably leads to constant struggle, if you refuse to conform. “Exploring various tangents to identify my work, I probe the issues of gender, ideology, sexuality, spirituality and the mechanics of violence in society. I investigate the blurred edges between identity and the intentions of identity, attempting to capture what I see and record their frail existence,” Shafi says, adding his epiphanies come from actual personal narratives, as well as the records and references that confront him during his quest.
Atul Dodiya
Bioscopewallah
Atul Dodiya has the habit of conversing with the great Pablo Picasso in his Ghatkopar apartment. “I often find myself talking to him whenever I am in a creative quandary. I don’t learn from nature or life, instead I learn from the masters. Just by watching a sunset, I can’t paint it. I draw inspiration by observing at how van Gogh captured sunlight. We should not be afraid of influences, they come and go.” Dodiya’s works are a canvas of stirring motifs—Bollywood, political icons, Hindu mythology; all that he attributes to his muse, Mumbai. “I was never one to stick to a single style. I realised early on that I can merge it all together. I believe artists should allow themselves to create freely rather than be bound by a particular style,” he says. Dodiya wanted to be a filmmaker once, and his love for cinema is evident in some of his works that are collages of celluloid images. Drawn to its visual and the narrative aspect, he started incorporating stills into his art to create another narrative. Does this creative catholicism disconcert viewers? “I believe a work of art should pose questions, only then it will endure,” he says.
Mahbubur Rahman and Begum Tayeba Lipi
Art Activists
Bangladeshi artists Mahbubur Rahman and Begum Tayeba Lipi are a social force to reckon with. The couple use their work to protest gender-specific violence and political turmoil. “In the beginning it was the challenge of interpreting social issues that drove me. Throughout my long years as an artist the spirit of my inquiry has dealt with these issues that continue to influence me,” says Rahman. His subject matter usually raise socio-political questions. “My work and my involvement in society makes me an art activist,” he says.His wife, an acclaimed artist in her own right, agrees, “Some of our work can be considered activism. Since we both share and interrogate our emotions, feelings and the forces of love and anger, we look for a common ground for creation. Since we are both strong personalities, we believe in individuality. Our ideas are intensely personal ideas are always reflected in the final products.”
Rahman loves to experiment with different materials while attempting to decode their essence, which find expression in his art. “Love, passion, intimacy and dialogue are portrayed using materials I prefer. I try to reflect what I see and feel through the material at hand, as if I’m engaged in a conversation with the objects I subsequently create,” he says.
Atul bhalla
Water Warrior
For the past decade, Delhi-based Atul Bhalla’s art has revolved around water and its importance in the urban environment. Given the times, it’s an extremely relevant theme. Concerned with the impact of urbanisation and the environmental issues plaguing the surroundings, water became his muse. Does he believe that artists have an obligation to protect the environment? “One is either obliged to one’s muse, or the muse is obliged to you. Today, the informed muse should be pointing at society’s obviously catastrophic decline,” he says. Bhalla’s oeuvre constitutes photography, sculpture, installation art and performances that capture the diverse roles played by water set in the context of his native city. But what if his muse slips away some day? “One has to hold on to it; nurture, feed and challenge it. Its response keeps me going as we hang onto each other,” he smiles. Since his works avoid the abstract the arcane, they succeed in focusing attention towards the plague of climate change, which a wide audience can relate to. “There are multiple layers of the physical, historical, political, and the mythological in my art—people connect to whatever is closer to them. All the conceptual layers may not be equally evident, but it helps with the audience,” says Bhalla.