Getting their hands dirty
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on May 25, 2008
Abstract art makes me nervous. And it makes me feel stupid. I’m more of a fan of the Athar Jamal water colour. My mother has some incredibly ugly but expensive abstract art the colour of goat turd in the hallway, which she once quipped would be worth a fortune one day; she was saving them for my trousseau. I muttered that a Naiza Khan ‘chastity belt’ from her recent collection would be of more use.
Then there are the artists who straddle a middle ground with half-abstract, half symbolic art. Their work is perhaps easier to wrap your head around. This is what I felt was at work at Clay Clan II curated by Kaif Ghaznavi at the VM Art Gallery.
After the success of Clay Clan I, according to Ghaznavi, this time international artists from Sweden, Japan, India etc also wrote wishing to take part in the event. It also attracted the interest of galleries such as Green Cardamom in the UK as well. “They approached me with a three-year plan of holding a series of exhibitions all around the world and suggested that Clay Clan become part of their program which was called Lines of Control,†he wrote in a statement.
“Lines of Control deals with the issues of Partition, not only relating to our sub continent, but also on a global scale. How we perceive demarcations and what legacy we are leaving for our future generations?†Clay Clan II involves five artists from India, six from Pakistan and one from Sweden.
Luckily, I managed to meet up with one of the artists, Shazieh Gorji, at the gallery and she graciously explained what ‘it all meant’. Gorji’s exhibit consisted of wheel-thrown and altered clay figures with vase-like bodies and slender necks. They are actually ‘cooked’ at 1,305 degrees Centigrade in a kiln which takes a long while to reach that temperature.
The kiln needs to be constantly fed with wood to be fired for 20 hours, she said, adding that friends helped her at the Indus Valley School’s facilities. She uses scrap wood and keekar amongst others and told me that she has to listen to what the kiln ‘wants’ when feeding it.
In the context of ‘Lines of Control’ it was easy to see how Gorji’s clay figures fit in. Their slender necks crane forward as if they are listening to each other. The mouths could almost be ears. The more I stared at them, the more I started to believe they would start emitting R2D2-like clicks and bubbles to communicate with each other.
Akber Moeen’s ‘interactive’ installation was perhaps the most fun. You approach a big white box with a tantalizing curtain that says ‘Pardah uthain’ [Lift the curtain]. With some encouragement from Gorji, I gingerly lifted it up to peer into the window. On the opposite wall was a mirror that much to my shock reflected my own face.
Gorji then pointed out that it was hooked up with a TV at the other end of the gallery where the image appeared. I recoiled and hastily retracted. But despite being caught off guard, I felt Moeen had successfully deconstructed curiosity, the mechanism of the media and turned the tables on voyeurism.
Tags: abstract art, athar, becom, cardamom, chastity belt, clay figures, curated, curta, curtain, future generations, global scale, goat, indus valley school, international artists, kiln, scrap wood, slender necks, symbolic art, trousseau, turd, vase, water colourRelated posts
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