How do you approach ‘art’ that is shorn of figures and, at times, may very well resemble the everyday objects around you? What, for instance, makes a banana taped to a wall ‘art’? One must turn to the abstractionist, Agnes Martin, who tersely answered this question with the following piece of advice: “You go there and sit and look.” That such ‘looking’ can open up wonderful new ‘ways of seeing’, as John Berger put it, was evident at the ongoing exhibition at TRI Art & Culture.
Tellingly, two young content creators who had landed up at the exhibition, HOME?!, to uncover a ‘hidden gem’ in the city through their reel were forced to do a double-take — having shot the diaphanous drapes of Mithu Sen’s Burnt by the Sun from various angles, they suddenly realised that burnt onto those drapes that hung like the canopy of a four-poster bed were words that cast faint impressions on the walls around them. That discovery led them down a fascinating path of discussion on what the artist could have meant. Sen was just one of the artists whose pieces left a lasting impression. The most memorable installation was by Anoli Perera who set a table for six, covering it all up with intricately woven doilies that hung like cobwebs around the entire scene (picture): a perfect depiction of Miss Havisham’s dining room.
True to its title, the show was set up like a home with individual artists contributing to segments like the ‘bedroom’, the ‘dining room’, the ‘salon’ — with an detailed imitation of a Persian carpet made entirely of industrial scraps — the ‘foyer’ — with a large curtain of interlocking geometric shapes — a ‘study’ where a large table with seven wine glasses teetered from side to side in a fine balancing act (reminding one of tense family dinners) a ‘dressing room’ that reimagined everyday garbs that people put on to project an image of themselves to the world.
These are but a few of the eclectic works that make up this show. Anywhere else, they would have been at odds, but just like a home shelters personalities of all kinds, at this show (it ends tomorrow) these artworks are exactly where they should be.
