Cross-cultural vision

The visual quartet by two young Indian painters, currently presented at the Birla Academy of Art with the participation of two like-minded Danish painters, captures the essence of the human and natural ambience of an undefined terrain. The confluence of Babita and Tinku Das, on one hand, and Lars Ahlstrand and Peter B. Franceschi, on the other, signifies a rare commonality of cross-cultural aesthetic visions which, arguably, can show up only in subtle abstract terms. While Ahlstrand’s configurations are synthetically conceived, with colours given a free play, the essays of his compatriot seem to project an analytically designed space of abstract physical gestures. Babita’s excursions in the realm of shapes and forms are emotionally charged and instantaneous while Tinku Das is given to creative introspection touching the heights of a universal language and thus builds bridges across disparate cultures and idioms.

Samir Dasgupta

Knowledge of ballet

Suman Mukherjee is probably the most prolific mime in town. Every few months, Howrah Kalamanjari presents a new show by him. The latest highlighted his knowledge of ballet, which individualises him stylistically from his peers. Socially-conscious items like My Dream and Imagination relied on ballet techniques, though some of the pas de deux looked rusty. After the intermission, he led his group in more conventional compositions, mostly derived from funny mime standards, as with the Modern Valentine who feeds off her boyfriend, then departs with a mobike rider, and the Chaplinesque tailor who stitches trousers too tight for a customer. Mukherjee himself has a mobile visage.

Ananda Lal

Deep social involvement

Heartscape, a charity art exhibition sponsored by Sahara India Pariwar in aid of New Light, an NGO which works with children growing up in the red light areas who are potential victims of HIV-AIDS, has mounted works of a dozen talented young painters. The money raised through sales of these paintings will be utilised to facilitate its ongoing programme for the education and self-motivational schemes aimed at the victims of circumstance. The prices of the art objects have, accordingly, been kept within affordable limits. The works of Arindam Chatterjee, Diptish Ghosh Dastidar, Rajni Jhunjhunwala, Samit Dey, Samindranath Majumdar, Samir Roy, Siddhartha Sengupta and Tapas Ghosal bear ample evidence of the Kolkata artists’ deep involvement in social causes

SDG