Ritual is often associated with religion, prayer and ceremony, but the ongoing group exhibition 'Performing Belief' views it as a form of memory and a way of making. Curated by Rahul Kumar at Kalakaar Art Salon in New Delhi, it opens on August 13 and runs until September 30.
The exhibition brings together works by 22 artists across modern, folk, tribal and contemporary practices. The show features artists including S. H. Raza, F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, Sohan Qadri, G. R. Santosh, Jamini Roy, Haku Shah, Shanti Dave, Bhuri Bai, Lado Bai, Jivya Soma Mashe, Manu Parekh, Madhvi Parekh, Thota Vaikuntam, Shobha Broota, Manisha Gera, Yudhishthir Maharjan, Sheetal Gattani, Satyanarayana Gavara, Savia Lopez, Himmat Gyari and Dibin Thilakan.
Beyond the sacred
For Kumar, the starting point was the desire to place modern Indian art alongside contemporary practices and see what emerges when artists from different periods respond to similar themes for very different reasons. “It was important to pick a theme and approach it through modern, folk as well as contemporary genres and I picked up ritual to be interpreted as a subject as well as a methodology of making,” Kumar says.
The selection of the 22 artists was guided by the theme, while ensuring that modern, folk, tribal and contemporary practices were represented, along with artists from different regions of India. “The desire was to make it as representational as possible of this theme,” Kumar says.
What connects the artists, he adds, is not necessarily their backgrounds or intentions, but the theme itself. “While the theme is the same, while even visually there may be certain overlaps, I think, and that's exactly the idea, to put these very different genres, very different generations right next to each other and then see what really, really emerges in terms of a conversation or a dialogue.”
The ritual of making
Ritual, he says, can also exist outside a particular religion. “Even if we look at this ritual as a subject, it is again to be seen both as sometimes spiritual approach and attitude, which is not a prescription of a particular religion or belief system,” he says. “Meditation, or it is the idea of music, or it is the idea of chanting. Some of those are not religious in nature, yet there is an act of a ritual.”
This idea extends to the artistic process itself. “The artistic making process of a work itself really brings in a maker to repeat an action over and over again, and that becomes a ritual in itself,” Kumar says. He points to Manisha Gera’s repetitive piercing of paper and Yudhishthir Maharjan’s meticulous cutting of pages from used books as examples.
He hopes visitors will notice these differences when seemingly similar works are placed together. “When you see the two together, do you feel that difference? Do you feel, just because it is the same similar looking image, but do you actually see what the objective of the artist was?” he asks. He cites Bhuri Bai’s ‘Tree of Life’, Shobha Broota’s meditative concentric circles, and Raza’s geometric circles as works that may appear visually connected but emerge from very different artistic concerns.
The exhibition also marks a new direction for Kalakaar Art Salon, which began with a focus on modern art and is now looking to engage more closely with contemporary practices and younger artists. A residency is also being planned as part of this longer-term vision. “This is our first curator-led show, which allows us to bring another scholarly and interpretive voice into the salon while staying true to the intimate, conversational way in which we’ve always wanted art to be experienced,” notes Saira Khanna, co-founder, Kalakaar Art Salon. “For us, it marks an important step in Kalakaar’s evolution: creating exhibitions that are not only about the individual works, but about the connections, conversations and new ways of seeing that can emerge between them.”