Cultural theorist and art critic Nancy Adajania’s exhibition at Serendipity was a culmination of her research and writings for “almost 20 years”. “Normally, what we are addressing are the dominant accounts of art history but in this exhibition what you’re looking at are the alternative accounts,” explained Nancy, when we caught up with her. Therefore it is no surprise that she has delved into “the wrong places” like the stories behind the Osaka Expo of 1970, nightclubs, the activist collectives, youth sub-cultures and interdisciplinary workshops and have woven the narrative with behind-the-scenes stories of what was and what could have been, taking into account even failed or still-born experimentations.
Housed at the Old Goa Institute of Management, this exhibition tries to encapsulate the alternative art and new-media histories of India between the 40s and 80s. The exhibition began with P.C. Sorcar’s use of stagecraft and his knowledge of new-media and both Indian and western practices of his profession, and referred to his spectacular debut on BBC in 1956, when he left his Panorama live audience in suspense by seeming to be unable to saw his assistant back as a part of his magic trick, before his air-time ended — a wonderful coup for his times! Uday Shankar’s take on the classical forms of dance with his own cosmopolitan style and his progressive seminal film Kalpana showcased the brilliance of a man otherwise untrained in the arts. My personal favourites were the references to Delhi’s first discotheque, The Cellar, with regard to lensman Ram Rahman’s Flashbacks (left), wherein he used the psychedelic Cellar logo to create a photo collage; and India’s first psychedelic rock band (circa 60s) Atomic Forest’s inception and the story behind its nomenclature through lead guitarist Neel Chattopadhyaya’s old sketches and drawings (right).
The Telegraph